Title: The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part A. - From the Britons of Early Times to King John
Author: Hume, David
Language: English
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[Illustration: frontispiece.jpg  PORTRAIT OF HUME.]

[Illustration: titlepage.jpg BOADICEA HARANGUING THE BRITONS]



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND

FROM THE INVASION OF JULIUS CÆSAR

TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF JAMES THE SECOND,


BY DAVID HUME, ESQ.

1688



London: James S. Virtue, City Road and Ivy Lane
New York: 26 John Street
1860

And

Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott & Co.
March 17, 1901



In Three Volumes:

VOLUME ONE: The History Of England From The Invasion Of Julius Cæsar To
The End Of The Reign Of James The Second............ By David Hume, Esq.

VOLUME TWO: Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of
George II........................................... by Tobias Smollett.

VOLUME THREE: From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year
of the Reign of Queen Victoria............... by E. Farr and E.H. Nolan.



VOLUME ONE

Part A.

THE EARLY BRITONS TO KING JOHN



TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.



THE LIFE OF DAVID HUME, ESQ.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.


MY OWN LIFE.

It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity;
therefore I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity
that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall contain
little more than the history of my writings; as, indeed, almost all
my life has been spent in literary pursuits and occupations. The first
success of most of my writings was not such as to be an object of
vanity.

I was born the twenty-sixth of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh. I
was of a good family, both by father and mother: my father’s family is
a branch of the earl of Home’s, or Hume’s; and my ancestors had been
proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses, for several
generations. My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, president of
the college of justice; the title of Lord Halkerton came by succession
to her brother.

My family, however, was not rich; and being myself a younger brother,
my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very
slender. My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an
infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the
care of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and
handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of
her children. I passed through the ordinary course of education with
success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature, which
has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my
enjoyments. My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave
my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me; but
I found an insurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits of
philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was poring
upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was
secretly devouring.

My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of life,
and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I was
tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for entering
into a more active scene of life. In 1734, I went to Bristol, with some
recommendations to several eminent merchants; but in a few months found
that scene totally unsuitable to me. I went over to France, with a view
of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat; and I there laid that
plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved
to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to
maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as
contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in literature.

During my retreat in France, first at Rheims, but chiefly at La Fleche,
in Anjou, I composed my Treatise of Human Nature. After passing three
years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in 1737. In
the end of 1738, I published my Treatise, and immediately went down
to my mother and my brother, who lived at his country house, and was
employing himself very judiciously and successfully in the improvement
of his fortune.

Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of
Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such
distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being
naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the
blow, and prosecuted with great ardor my studies in the country. In
1742, I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays. The work
was favorably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former
disappointment. I continued with my mother and brother in the country,
and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek language, which I
had too much neglected in my early youth.

In 1745, I received a letter from the marquis of Annandale, inviting me
to come and live with him in England; I found also that the friends and
family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under my care
and direction, for the state of his mind and health required it. I
lived with him a twelve-month. My appointments during that time made
a considerable accession to my small fortune. I then received an
invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a secretary to his
expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an
incursion on the coast of France. Next year, to wit, 1747, I received
an invitation from the general to attend him in the same station in
his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin. I then wore the
uniform of an officer, and was introduced at these courts as aid-de-camp
to the general, along with Sir Harry Erskine and Captain Grant, now
General Grant. These two years were almost the only interruptions which
my studies have received during the course of my life: I passed them
agreeably, and in good company; and my appointments, with my frugality,
had made me reach a fortune which I called independent, though most of
my friends were inclined to smile when I said so: in short, I was now
master of near a thousand pounds.

I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in publishing
the Treatise of Human Nature had proceeded more from the manner than
the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in
going to the press too early. I, therefore, cast the first part of
that work anew in the Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, which was
published while I was at Turin. But this piece was at first little more
successful than the Treatise on Human Nature. On my return from Italy,
I had the mortification to find all England in a ferment, on account
of Dr. Middleton’s Free Inquiry, while my performance was entirely
overlooked and neglected, A new edition, which had been published at
London, of my Essays, moral and political, met not with a much better
reception.

Such is the force of natural temper, that these disappointments made
little or no impression on me. I went down, in 1749, and lived two years
with my brother at his country house, for my mother was now dead. I
there composed the second part of my Essay, which I called Political
Discourses, and also my Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,
which is another part of my Treatise that I cast anew. Meanwhile, my
bookseller, A. Millar, informed me, that my former publications (all
but the unfortunate Treatise) were beginning to be the subject of
conversation; that the sale of them was gradually increasing, and that
new editions were demanded. Answers by reverends and right reverends
came out two or three in a year; and I found, by Dr. Warburton’s
railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed in good company.
However, I had fixed a resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never
to reply to any body; and not being very irascible in my temper, I have
easily kept myself clear of all literary squabbles. These symptoms of a
rising reputation gave me encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to
see the favorable than unfavorable side of things; a turn of mind
which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten
thousand a year.

In 1751, I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a
man of letters. In 1752 were published at Edinburgh, where I then lived,
my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was successful on
the first publication. It was well received at home and abroad. In the
same year was published, at London, my Inquiry concerning the Principles
of Morals; which, in my own opinion, (who ought not to judge on
that subject,) is, of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or
literary, incomparably the best, It came unnoticed and unobserved into
the world.

In 1752, the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian, an office
from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the
command of a large library, I then formed the plan of writing the
History of England; but being frightened with the notion of continuing a
narrative through a period of seventeen hundred years, I commenced with
the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when, I thought, the
misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take place. I was, I own,
sanguine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought
that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power,
interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the
subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause.
But miserable was my disappointment; I was assailed by one cry of
reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch,
and Irish, whig and tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and
religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man
who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and
the earl of Stratford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury
were over, what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink
into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me that in a twelvemonth he sold only
forty-five copies of it. I scarcely, indeed head of one man in the three
kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book.
I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the primate
of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These dignified
prelates separately sent me messages not to be discouraged.

I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war been at that
time breaking out between France and England, I had certainly retired
to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and
never more have returned to my native country. But as this scheme
was not now practicable, and the subsequent volume was considerably
advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.

In this interval, I published, at London, my Natural History of
Religion, along with some other small pieces. Its public entry was
rather obscure, except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against
it, with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility,
which distinguish the Warburtonian school. This pamphlet gave me some
consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.

In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published
the second volume of my history, containing the period from the death of
Charles I. till the revolution. This performance happened to give less
displeasure to the whigs, and was better received. It not only rose
itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.

But though I had been taught by experience that the whig party were in
possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in Literature,
I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless clamor, that in
above a hundred alterations, which further study, reading, or reflection
engaged me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made
all of them invariably to the tory side. It is ridiculous to consider
the English constitution before that period as a regular plan of
liberty.

In 1759, I published my history of the house of Tudor. The clamor
against this performance was almost equal to that against the history
of the two first Stuarts. The reign of Elizabeth was particularly
obnoxious. But I was now callous against the impressions of public
folly, and continued very peaceably and contentedly, in my retreat at
Edinburgh, to finish, in two volumes, the more early part of the English
history, which I gave to the public in 1761, with tolerable, and but
tolerable, success.

But, notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons, to which my
writings had been exposed, they had still been making such advances,
that the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded any
thing formerly known in England; I was become not only independent, but
opulent. I retired to my native country of Scotland, determined never
more to set my foot out of it; and retaining the satisfaction of never
having preferred a request to one great man, or even making advances of
friendship to any of them. As I was now turned of fifty, I thought of
passing all the rest of my life in this philosophical manner: when I
received, in 1763, an invitation from the earl of Hertford, with whom I
was not in the least acquainted, to attend him on his embassy to Paris,
with a near prospect of being appointed secretary to the embassy; and,
in the mean while, of performing the functions of that office. This
offer, however inviting, I at first declined; both because I was
reluctant to begin connections with the great, and because I was afraid
that the civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable
to a person of my age and humor; but on his lordship’s repeating the
invitation, I accepted of it. I have every reason, both of pleasure and
interest; to think myself happy in my connections with that nobleman, as
well as afterwards with his brother, General Conway.

Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes, will never imagine
the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all ranks and
stations. The more I resiled from their excessive civilities, the more
I was loaded with them. There is, however, a real satisfaction in living
at Paris, from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite company
with which that city abounds above all places in the universe. I thought
once of settling there for life.

I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in summer, 1765, Lord
Hertford left me, being appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. I was
chargé d’affaires till the arrival of the duke of Richmond, towards the
end of the year. In the beginning of 1766, I left Paris, and next summer
went to Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly, of burying myself in
a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place, not richer, but with
much more money, and a much larger income, by means of Lord Hertford’s
friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of trying what
superfluity could produce, as I had formerly made an experiment of a
competency. But in 1767, I received from Mr. Conway an invitation to be
under-secretary; and this invitation, both the character of the person,
and my connections with Lord Hertford, prevented me from declining. I
returned to Edinburgh in 1769, very opulent, (for I possessed a revenue
of one thousand pounds a year,) healthy, and though somewhat stricken
in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the
increase of my reputation.

In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at
first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal
and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered
very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have,
notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a
moment’s abatement of my spirits; insomuch, that were I to name a period
of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be
tempted to point to this later period. I possess the same ardor as ever
in study, and the same gayety in company. I consider, besides, that a
man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities;
and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation’s breaking out
at last with additional lustre, I know that I could have but few years
to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at
present.

To conclude historically with my own character: I am, or rather was,
(for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which
imboldens me the more to speak my sentiments;) I was, I say, a man of
mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful
humor, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of
great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame,
my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent
disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and
careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a
particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to
be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though
most men, anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of Calumny, I
never was touched, or even attacked, by her baleful tooth; and though
I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious
factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury.
My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my
character and conduct; not but that the zealots, we may well
suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my
disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would
wear the face of probability. I cannot say there is no vanity in making
this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a misplaced one;
and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and ascertained.



April 18, 1776.

LETTER FROM ADAM SMITH, LL. D. TO WILLLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ.

Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, Nov. 9, 1778.[**]

DEAR SIR,

It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down to
give you some account of the behavior of our late excellent friend, Mr.
Hume, during his last illness.

Though, in his own judgment, his disease was mortal and incurable, yet
he allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his friends,
to try what might be the effects of a long journey. A few days before he
set out, he wrote that account of his own life, which, together with
his other papers, he has left to your care. My account, therefore, shall
begin where his ends.

He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met with
Mr. John Home and myself, who had both come down from London on purpose
to see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh. Mr. Home returned
with him, and attended him during the whole of his stay in England,
with that care and attention which might be expected from a temper so
perfectly friendly and affectionate. As I had written to my mother that
she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the necessity of continuing
my journey. His disease seemed to yield to exercise and change of air;
and when he arrived in London, he was apparently in much better health
than when he left Edinburgh. He was advised to go to Bath to drink the
waters, which appeared for some time to have so good an effect upon him,
that even he himself began to entertain, what he was not apt to do, a
better opinion of his own health. His symptoms, however, soon returned
with their usual violence; and from that moment he gave up all thoughts
of recovery, but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most
perfect complacency and resignation. Upon his return to Edinburgh,
though he found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated,
and he continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own
works for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the
conversation of his friends; and, sometimes in the evening, with a party
at his favorite game of whist. His cheerfulness was so great, and his
conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain, that,
notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe he was
dying. “I shall tell your friend, Colonel Edmonstone,” said Dr. Dundas,
to him one day, “that I left you much better, and in a fair way of
recovery.” “Doctor,” said he, “as I believe you would not choose to tell
any thing but the truth, you had better tell him that I am dying as fast
as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully
as my best friends could desire.” Colonel Edmonstone soon afterwards
came to see him, and take leave of him; and on his way home he could not
forbear writing him a letter, bidding him once more an eternal adieu,
and applying to him, as to a dying man, the beautiful French verses in
which the abbé Chaulieu in expectation of his own death, laments his
approaching separation from his friend the marquis de la Fare. Mr.
Hume’s magnanimity and firmness were such, that his most affectionate
friends knew that they hazarded nothing in talking or writing to him as
to a dying man, and that so far from being hurt by this frankness, he
was rather pleased and flattered by it. I happened to come into his room
while he was reading this letter, which he had just received, and which
he immediately showed me. I told him, that though I was sensible how
very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in many respects
very bad, yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the spirit of
life seemed still to be so very strong in him, that I could not help
entertaining some faint hopes. He answered, “Your hopes are groundless.
An habitual diarrhoea of more than a year’s standing, would be a very
bad disease at any age; at my age it is a mortal one. When I lie down in
the evening, I feel myself weaker than when I rose in the morning; and
when I rise in the morning, weaker than when I lay down in the evening.
I am sensible besides, that some of my vital parts are affected, so that
I must soon die.” “Well,” said I, “if it must be so, you have at least
the satisfaction of leaving all your friends, your brother’s family in
particular, in great prosperity.” He said that he felt that satisfaction
so sensibly, that when he was reading, a few days before, Lucian’s
Dialogues of the Dead, among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon
for not entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that
fitted him: he had no house to finish, he had no daughter to provide for
he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself. “I could not
well imagine,” said he, “what excuse I could make to Charon in order to
obtain a little delay. I have done every thing of consequence which I
ever meant to do; and I could at no time expect to leave my relations
and friends in a better situation than that in which I am now likely
to leave them: I, therefore, have all reason to die contented.” He
then diverted himself with inventing several jocular excuses, which
he supposed he might make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly
answers which it might suit the character of Charon to return to them.
“Upon further consideration,” said he, “I thought I might say to him,
‘Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition.
Allow me a little time, that I may see how the public receives the
alterations.’ But Charon would answer, ‘When you have seen the effect of
these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end of
such excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.’ But I
might still urge, ‘Have a little patience, good Charon: I have been
endeavoring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years
longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of
the prevailing systems of superstition.’ But Charon would then lose all
temper and decency. ‘You loitering rogue, that will not happen these
many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a
term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering rogue.’”

But, though Mr. Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution
with great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his
magnanimity. He never mentioned the subject but when the conversation
naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than the course
of the conversation happened to require; it was a subject indeed which
occurred pretty frequently, in consequence of the inquiries which his
friends, who came to see him, naturally made concerning the state of his
health. The conversation which I mentioned above, and which passed on
Thursday the eighth of August, was the last, except one, that I ever had
with him. He had now become so very weak, that the company of his most
intimate friends fatigued him; for his cheerfulness was still so great,
his complaisance and social disposition were still so entire, that
when any friend was with him, he could not help talking more, and with
greater exertion, than suited the weakness of his body. At his own
desire, therefore, I agreed to leave Edinburgh, where I was staying
partly upon his account and returned to my mother’s house here at
Kirkaldy, upon condition that he would send for me whenever he wished
to see me; the physician who saw him most frequently, Dr. Black,
undertaking, in the mean time, to write me occasionally an account of
the state of his health.

On the twenty-second of August, the doctor wrote me the following
letter;--

“Since my last, Mr. Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is much
weaker. He sits up, goes down stairs once a day, and amuses himself with
reading, but seldom sees any body. He finds that even the conversation
of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him; and it is happy
that he does not need it, for he is quite free from anxiety, impatience,
or low spirits, and passes his time very well with the assistance of
amusing books.”


I received, the day after, a letter from Mr. Hume himself, of which the
following is an extract:--

     “Edinburgh, 23d August, 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, etc.”

Three days after, I received the following letter from Dr. Black:--

     “Edinburgh, Monday, 26th August, 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 humor, tempered with delicacy and
modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so
frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men.
It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify; and therefore, far
from offending, it seldom failed to please and delight, even those who
were the objects of it. To his friends who were frequently the objects
of it, there was not perhaps any one of all his great and amiable
qualities which contributed more to endear his conversation. And
that gayety of temper, so agreeable in society, but which is so often
accompanied with frivolous and superficial qualities, was in him
certainly attended with the most severe application, the most extensive
learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every respect
the most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have always considered him,
both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to
the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of
human frailty will permit.

I ever am, dear sir,

Most affectionately yours,

ADAM SMITH.



HISTORY OF ENGLAND.



CHAPTER I.



THE BRITONS.

The curiosity entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into
the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a
regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much involved
in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men, possessed
of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the period in which
literary monuments are framed or preserved; without reflecting, that the
history of past events is immediately lost or disfigured when intrusted
to memory and oral tradition, and that the adventures of barbarous
nations, even if they were recorded, could afford little or no
entertainment to men born in a more cultivated age. The convulsions of
a civilized state usually compose the most instructive and most
interesting part of its history; but the sudden, violent, and unprepared
revolutions incident to barbarians, are so much guided by caprice, and
terminate so often in cruelty, that they disgust us by the uniformity of
their appearance; and it is rather fortunate for letters that they are
buried in silence and oblivion. The only certain means by which nations
can indulge their curiosity in researches concerning their remote
origin, is to consider the language, manners, and customs of their
ancestors, and to compare them with those of the neighboring nations.
The fables, which are commonly employed to supply the place of true
history, ought entirely to be disregarded; or if any exception be
admitted to this general rule, it can only be in favor of the ancient
Grecian fictions, which are so celebrated and so agreeable, that they
will ever be the objects of the attention of mankind. Neglecting,
therefore, all traditions, or rather tales, concerning the more early
history of Britain, we shall only consider the state of the inhabitants
as it appeared to the Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall
briefly run over the events which attended the conquest made by that
empire, as belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten
through the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals; and shall
reserve a more full narration for those times, when the truth is both
so well ascertained, and so complete, as to promise entertainment and
instruction to the reader.

All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of
Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtæ, who peopled that island from
the neighboring continent. Their language was the same, their manners,
their government, their superstition; varied only by those small
differences which time or a communication with the bordering nations
must necessarily introduce. The inhabitants of Gaul, especially in those
parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired, from a commerce with
their southern neighbors, some refinement in the arts, which gradually
diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a very faint light over
this island. The Greek and Roman navigators or merchants (for there
were scarcely any other travellers in those ages) brought back the most
shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people, which they magnified,
as usual, in order to excite the admiration of their countrymen. The
south-east parts, however, of Britain had already, before the age
of Cæsar, made the first and most requisite step towards a civil
settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and agriculture, had there
increased to a great multitude.[*]

     [* Cæsar, lib. iv.]

The other inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by
pasture: they were clothed with skins of beasts: they dwelt in huts,
which they reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was
covered: they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by
the hopes of plunder or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding
their cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats and
as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants and
their possessions were equally scanty and limited.

The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes and being a
military people, whose sole property was then arms and their cattle, It
was impossible, after they had acquired a relish of liberty for their
princes or chieftains to establish any despotic authority over them.
Their governments, though monarchical,[*] were free, as well as those of
all the Celtic nations; and the common people seem even to have enjoyed
more liberty among them,[**] than among the nations of Gaul,[***] from
whom they were descended. Each state was divided into factions within
itself:[****] it was agitated with jealousy or animosity against the
neighboring states: and while the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars
were the chief occupation, and formed the chief object of ambition,
among the people.

     [* Diod. Sic. lib. iv. Mela, lib. iii. cap. 6.
     Strabo, lib. iv.]

     [** Dion Cassius, lib. lxxv.]

     [*** Cæsar, lib. vi.]

     [**** 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:[*] 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.

     [* Cæsar, lib. vi. Strabo, lib. iv.]

No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the
druids. Besides the severe penalties, which it was in the power of the
ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal
transmigration of souls; and thereby extended their authority as far as
the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in
dark groves or other secret recesses;[*] and in order to throw a greater
mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to
the initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing,
lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the
profane vulgar.

     [* Plin. lib. xii. cap. 1.]

Human sacrifices were practised among them: the spoils of war were
often devoted to their divinities; and they punished with the severest
tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the consecrated offering:
these treasures they kept in woods and forests, secured by no other
guard than the terrors of their religion;[*] and this steady conquest
over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting
men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous
worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the
ancient Gauls and Britons; and the Romans, after their conquest, finding
it impossible to reconcile those nations to the laws and institutions of
their masters, while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged
to abolish it by penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any
other instance, been practised by those tolerating conquerors.[**]

     [* Cæsar, lib. vi.]

     [* Sueton. in vita Claudii.]



THE ROMANS.

The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when
Cæsar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye on
their island. He was not allured either by its riches or its renown; but
being ambitious of carrying the Roman arms into a new world, then mostly
unknown, he took advantage of a short interval in his Gaulic wars, and
made an invasion on Britain. The natives, informed of his intention,
were sensible of the unequal contest, and endeavored to appease him by
submissions, which, however, retarded not the execution of his design.
After some resistance, he landed, as is supposed, at Deal, [Anno ante,
C. 55;] and having obtained several advantages over the Britons, and
obliged them to promise hostages for their future obedience, he was
constrained, by the necessity of his affairs, and the approach of
winter, to withdraw his forces into Gaul. The Britons relieved, from the
terror of his arms, neglected the performance of their stipulations; and
that haughty conqueror resolved next summer to chastise them for this
breach of treaty. He landed with a greater force; and though he found
a more regular resistance from the Britons, who had united under
Cassivelaunus, one of their petty princes, he discomfited them in every
action. He advanced into the country; passed the Thames in the face of
the enemy; took and burned the capital of Cassivelaunus; established his
ally, Mandubratius, in the sovereignty of the Trinobantes; and having
obliged the inhabitants to make him new submissions, he again returned
with his army into Gaul, and left the authority of the Romans more
nominal than real in this island.

The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the
establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke
which was ready to be imposed upon them. Augustus, the successor of
Cæsar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his own
country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars; and
being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion, which had
subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he recommended
it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of the Romans.
Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by his generals,
made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his inactivity.[*]

     [* Tacit. Agr.]

The mad sallies of Caligula, in which he menaced Britain with an
invasion, served only to expose himself and the empire to ridicule;
and the Britons had now, during almost a century, enjoyed their liberty
unmolested, when the Romans, in the reign of Claudius, began to think
seriously of reducing them under their dominion. Without seeking any
more justifiable reasons of hostility than were employed by the late
Europeans in subjecting the Africans and Americans, they sent over an
army, [A. D. 43,] under the command of Plautius, an able general, who
gained some victories, and made a considerable progress in subduing the
inhabitants. Claudius himself, finding matters sufficiently prepared for
his reception, made a journey into Britain, and received the
submission of several British states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and
Trinobantes, who inhabited the south-east parts of the island, and whom
their possessions and more cultivated manner of life rendered willing to
purchase peace at the expense of their liberty. The other Britons, under
the command of Caractacus, still maintained an obstinate resistance, and
the Romans made little progress against them; till Ostorius Scapula was
sent over to command their armies. [A. D. 50.] This general advanced
the Roman conquests over the Britons; pierced into the country of
the Silures, a warlike nation, who inhabited the banks of the Severn;
defeated Caractacus in a great battle; took him prisoner, and sent him
to Rome, where his magnanimous behavior procured him better treatment
than those conquerors usually bestowed on captive princes.[*]

     [* Tacit. Ann lib. xii.]

Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued; and
this island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in which
military honor might still be acquired. [A. D. 59.] Under the reign of
Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command, and prepared to
signalize his name by victories over those barbarians. Finding that
the island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of the druids, he
resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was the centre of
their superstition, and which afforded protection to all their baffled
forces. The Britons endeavored to obstruct his landing on this sacred
island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors of their
religion. The women and priests were intermingled with the soldiers upon
the shore; and running about with flaming torches in their hands, and
tossing their dishevelled hair, they struck greater terror into the
astonished Romans by their bowlings, cries, and execrations, than the
real danger from the armed forces was able to inspire. But Suetonius,
exhorting his troops to despise the menaces of a superstition which they
despised, impelled them to the attack, drove the Britons off the field,
burned the druids in the same fires which those priests had prepared for
their captive enemies, destroyed all the consecrated groves and altars;
and having thus triumphed over the religion of the Britons, he thought
his future progress would be easy in reducing the people to subjection.
But he was disappointed in his expectations. The Britons, taking
advantage of his absence, were all in arms; and headed by Boadicea,
queen of the Iceni, who had been treated in the most ignominious manner
by the Roman tribunes, had already attacked, with success, several
settlements of their insulting conquerors. Suetonius hastened to the
protection of London, which was already a flourishing Roman colony;
but found, on his arrival, that it would be requisite for the general
safety, to abandon that place to the merciless fury of the enemy. London
was reduced to ashes; such of the inhabitants as remained in it were
cruelly massacred; the Romans and all strangers, to the number of
seventy thousand, were every where put to the sword without distinction;
and the Britons, by rendering the war thus bloody, seemed determined
to cut off all hopes of peace or composition with the enemy. But this
cruelty was revenged by Suetonius in a great and decisive battle, where
eighty thousand of the Britons are said to have perished, and Boadicea
herself, rather than fall into the hands of the enraged victor, put an
end to her own life by poison.[*] Nero soon after recalled Suetonius
from a government, where, by suffering and inflicting so many
severities, he was judged improper for composing the angry and alarmed
minds of the inhabitants. After some interval, Cerealis received the
command from Vespasian, and by his bravery propagated the terror of the
Roman arms, Julius Frontinus succeeded Cerealis both in authority and in
reputation: but the general who finally established the dominion of
the Romans in this island, was Julius Agricola, who governed it in the
reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself in
that scene of action.

This great commander formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and
rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors. He carried his
victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter,
pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia,
reduced every state to subjection in the southern parts of the island,
and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable
spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than servitude
under the victors. He even defeated them in a decisive action, which
they fought under Galgacus, their leader; and having fixed a chain of
garrisons between the Friths of Clyde and Forth, he thereby cut off
the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and secured the Roman
province from the incursions of the barbarous inhabitants.[*]

     [* Tacit Ann. lib. xiv.]

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.[*]

     [* Tacit. Agr.]

The inhabitants, having experienced how unequal their own force was to
resist that of the Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters,
and were gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire.

This was the last durable conquest made by the Romans, and Britain,
once subdued, gave no further inquietude to the victor. Caledonia alone,
defended by its barren mountains, and by the contempt which the Romans
entertained for it, sometimes infested the more cultivated parts of the
island by the incursions of its inhabitants. The better to secure
the frontiers of the empire, Adrian, who visited this island, built a
rampart between the River Tyne and the Frith of Solway; Lollius Urbicus,
under Antoninus Pius, erected one in the place where Agricola had
formerly established his garrisons, Severus, who made an expedition
into Britain, and carried his arms to the most northern extremity of it,
added new fortifications to the wall of Adrian; and during the reigns
of all the Roman emperors, such a profound tranquillity prevailed in
Britain, that little mention is made of the affairs of that island by
any historian. The only incidents which occur, are some seditions or
rebellions of the Roman legions quartered there, and some usurpations
of the imperial dignity by the Roman governors. The natives, disarmed,
dispirited, and submissive, had lost all desire and even idea of their
former liberty and independence.


But the period was now come, when that enormous fabric of the Roman
empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace
and civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was approaching
towards its final dissolution. Italy, and the centre of the empire,
removed during so many ages from all concern in the wars, had entirely
lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an enervated race, equally
disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to the tyranny of their own
rulers. The emperors found themselves obliged to recruit their
legions from the frontier provinces, where the genius of war, though
languishing, was not totally extinct; and these mercenary forces,
careless of laws and civil institutions, established a military
government no less dangerous to the sovereign than to the people.
The further progress of the same disorders introduced the bordering
barbarians into the service of the Romans; and those fierce nations,
having now added discipline to their native bravery, could no longer be
restrained by the impotent policy of the emperors, who were accustomed
to employ one in the destruction of the others. Sensible of their own
force, and allured by the prospect of so rich a prize, the northern
barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and Honorius, assailed at once
all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and having first satiated their
avidity by plunder, began to think of fixing a settlement in the wasted
provinces. The more distant barbarians, who occupied the deserted
habitations of the former, advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed
with their incumbent weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load
which it sustained. Instead of arming the people in their own defence,
the emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they
could repose confidence; and collected the whole military force for
the defence of the capital and centre of the empire. The necessity of
self-preservation had superseded the ambition of power; and the ancient
point of honor, never to contract the limits of the empire, could no
longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.

Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous
incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by
the Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the
protection of Italy and Gaul. But that province, though secured by
the sea against the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found
enemies on its frontiers, who took advantage of its present defenceless
situation. The Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern parts,
beyond the wall of Antoninus, made incursions upon their peaceable and
effeminate neighbors; and besides the temporary depredations which they
committed, these combined nations threatened the whole province with
subjection, or, what the inhabitants more dreaded, with plunder and
devastation, The Picts seem to have been a tribe of the native British
race, who, having been chased into the northern parts by the conquests
of Agricola, had there intermingled with the ancient inhabitants:
the Scots were derived from the same Celtic origin, had first been
established in Ireland, had migrated to the north-west coasts of this
island, and had long been accustomed, as well from their old as their
new seats, to infest the Roman province by piracy and rapine. [1]

     [* See note A, at the end of the volume.]

These tribes finding their more opulent neighbors exposed to invasion,
soon broke over the Roman wall, no longer defended by the Roman arms;
and, though a contemptible enemy in themselves, met with no resistance
from the unwarlike inhabitants. The Britons, accustomed to have recourse
to the emperors for defence as well as government, made supplications to
Rome: and one legion was sent over for their protection. This force was
an overmatch for the barbarians, repelled their invasion, touted them
in every engagement, and having chased them into their ancient limits,
returned in triumph to the defence of the southern provinces of the
empire.[*]

     [* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 12.]

Their retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy. The Britons made
again an application to Rome, and again obtained the assistance of a
legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans, reduced
to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant expeditions,
informed the Britons that they must no longer look to them for succor,
exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged, that, as they were
now their own masters, it became them to protect by their valor that
independence which their ancient lords had conferred upon them.[*] That
they might leave the island with the better grace, the Romans assisted
them in erecting anew the wall of Severus, which was built entirely of
stone, and which the Britons had not at that time artificers skilful
enough to repair.[*]

     [* Paul. Diacon. p. 43.]

And having done this last good office to the inhabitants, they bade a
final adieu to Britain, about the year 448, after being masters of the
more considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.



THE BRITONS.

The abject Britons regarded this present of liberty as fatal to them;
and were in no condition to put in practice the prudent counsel given
them by the Romans, to arm in their own defence. Unaccustomed both
to the perils of war and to the cares of civil government, they found
themselves incapable of forming or executing any measures for resisting
the incursions of the barbarians. Gratian also and Constantine, two
Romans who had a little before assumed the purple in Britain, had
carried over to the continent the flower of the British youth; and
having perished in their unsuccessful attempts on the imperial throne,
had despoiled the island of those who, in this desperate extremity, were
best able to defend it. The Picts and Scots, finding that the Romans had
finally relinquished Britain, now regarded the whole as their prey, and
attacked the northern wall with redoubled forces. The Britons, already
subdued by their own fears, found the ramparts but a weak defence for
them; and deserting their station, left the country entirely open to
the inroads of the barbarous enemy. The invaders carried devastation and
ruin along with them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity,
which was not mitigated by the helpless condition and submissive
behavior of the inhabitants.[*]

     [* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. Allured. Beverl. p. 45.]

The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to Rome, which had
declared its resolution forever to abandon them. Ætius, the patrician,
sustained at that time, by his valor and magnanimity, the tottering
ruins of the empire, and revived for a moment among the degenerate
Romans the spirit, as well as discipline, of their ancestors. The
British ambassadors carried to him the letter of their countrymen, which
was inscribed, “The groans of the Britons.” The tenor of the epistle was
suitable to its superscription. “The barbarians,” say they, “on the one
hand, chase us into the sea; the sea, on the other, throws us back upon
the barbarians; and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by
the sword or by the waves.”[*]

     [* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 13. William of
     Malmesbury, lib. i. cap. 1 Alured. Beverl. p. 45.]

But Ætius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy that
ever assailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the complaints of
allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to assist.[*]

     [* Saxon Chron. p. 11, edit. 1692.]

The Britons, thus rejected, were reduced to despair, deserted their
habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the forests
and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the enemy. The
barbarians themselves began to feel the pressures of famine in a country
which they had ravaged; and being harassed by the dispersed Britons, who
had not dared to resist them in a body, they retreated with their spoils
into their own country.[*]

     [* Alured. Beverl, p. 45.]

The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their usual
occupations; and the favorable seasons which succeeded, seconding their
industry, made them soon forget their past miseries, and restored
to them great plenty of all the necessaries of life. No more can be
imagined to have been possessed by a people so rude, who had not,
without the assistance of the Romans, art of masonry sufficient to raise
a stone rampart for their own defence; yet the monkish historians,[*]
who treat of those events, complain of the luxury of the Britons
during this period, and ascribe to that vice, not to their cowardice or
improvident counsels, all their subsequent calamities.

     [* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. 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 behavior, soon threatened them with a new invasion.
We are not exactly informed what species of civil government the Romans,
on their departure, had left among the Britons, but it appears probable
that the great men in the different districts assumed a kind of regal,
though precarious authority, and lived in a great measure independent of
each other.[*]

     [* Gildas, Usher, Ant. Brit. p. 248, 347.]

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.[*]

     [* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 17. Constant, in Vita Germ.]

Laboring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a foreign
invasion, the Britons attended only to the suggestions of their present
fears, and following the counsels of Vortigern, prince of Dumnonium,
who, though stained with every vice, possessed the chief authority among
them,[*] they sent into Germany a deputation to invite over the Saxons
for their protection and assistance.

     [* Gildas, W. Malms. p. 8.]



THE SAXONS.

Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times,
the Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their
manners and political institutions, and to have carried to the highest
pitch the virtues of valor and love of liberty; the only virtues which
can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and humanity
are commonly neglected. Kingly government, even when established among
the Germans, (for it was not universal,) possessed a very limited
authority; and though the sovereign was usually chosen from among the
royal family, he was directed in every measure by the common consent
of the nation over whom he presided. When any important affairs were
transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the men of greatest authority
employed persuasion to engage their consent; the people expressed their
approbation by rattling their armor, or their dissent by murmurs; there
was no necessity for a nice scrutiny of votes among a multitude, who
were usually carried with a strong current to one side or the other;
and the measure, thus suddenly chosen by general agreement, was executed
with alacrity, and prosecuted with vigor. Even in war, the princes
governed more by example than by authority, but in peace, the civil
union was in a great measure dissolved, and the inferior leaders
administered justice, after an independent manner, each in his
particular district. These were elected by the votes of the people in
their great councils; and though regard was paid to nobility in the
choice, their personal qualities, chiefly their valor, procured
them, from the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, that honorable but
dangerous distinction. The warriors of each tribe attached themselves
to the[**possibly this word is their] leader, with the most devoted
affection and most unshaken constancy. They attended him as his ornament
in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the administration of
justice. Their constant emulation in military renown dissolved not that
inviolable friendship which they professed to their chieftain and to
each other. To die for the honor of their band was their chief ambition;
to survive its disgrace, or the death of their leader, was infamous.
They even carried into the field their women and children, who adopted
all the martial sentiments of the men: and being thus impelled by every
human motive, they were invincible; where they were no[**possibly the
word is not] opposed, either by the similar manners and institutions
of the neighboring Germans, or by the superior discipline, arms, and
numbers of the Romans.[*]

     [* Caesar, lib. vi.]

The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the labor
of their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part of the
community whom they defended. The contributions which they levied went
not beyond a bare subsistence; and the honors, acquired by a superior
rank, were the only reward of their superior dangers and fatigues. All
the refined arts of life were unknown among the Germans: tillage itself
was almost wholly neglected; they even seem to have been anxious to
prevent any improvements of that nature; and the leaders, by annually
distributing anew all the land among the inhabitants of each village,
kept them from attaching themselves to particular possessions, or
making such progress in agriculture as might divert their attention from
military expeditions, the chief occupation of the community.[*]

     [* 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
neighboring nations.[*]

     [* Amm. Marcell. lib. xxviii. Orosius.]

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.[*]

     [* Amm. Marcell. lib. xxvii. cap. 7. lib. xxviii. cap. 7]

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.[*]

     [* W. Malms, p. 8.]

Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the
Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valor and nobility. They
were reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be sprung from Woden, who
was worshipped as a god among those nations, and they are said to be his
great grandsons;[*] a circumstance which added much to their authority.

     [* Bede, lib. i. cap. 15. Chron. Sax. p. 13. Nennius, cap.
     28.]

We shall not attempt to trace any higher the origin of those princes
and nations. It is evident what fruitless labor it must be to search,
in those barbarous and illiterate ages, for the annals of a people, when
their first leaders, known in any true history, were believed by them to
be the fourth in descent from a fabulous deity, or from a man exalted by
ignorance into that character. The dark industry of antiquaries, led by
imaginary analogies of names, or by uncertain traditions, would in
vain attempt to pierce into that deep obscurity which covers the remote
history of those nations.

These two brothers, observing the other provinces of Germany to be
occupied by a warlike and necessitous people, and the rich provinces of
Gaul already conquered or overrun by other German tribes, found it
easy to persuade their countrymen to embrace the sole enterprise
which promised a favorable opportunity of displaying their valor and
gratifying their avidity. They embarked their troops in three vessels
and about the year 449 or 450,[*] earned over one thousand six hundred
men, who landed in the Isle of Thanet, and immediately marched to the
defence of the Britons against the northern invaders. The Scots and
Picts were unable to resist the valor of these auxiliaries; and the
Britons, applauding their own wisdom in calling over the Saxons, hoped
thenceforth to enjoy peace and security under the powerful protection of
that warlike people.

But Hengist and Horsa, perceiving, from their easy victory over the
Scots and Picts, with what facility they might subdue tae Britons
themselves, who had not been able to resist those feeble invaders, were
determined to conquer and fight for their own grandeur, not for the
defence of their degenerate allies. They sent intelligence to Saxony
of the fertility and riches of Britain, and represented as certain the
subjection of a people so long disused to arms, who, being now cut off
from the Roman empire, of which they had been a province during so
many ages, had not yet acquired any union among themselves, and were
destitute of all affection to their new liberties, and of all national
attachments and regards.[**] The vices, and pusillanimity of Vortigern,
the British leader, were a new ground of hope; and the Saxons in
Germany, following such agreeable prospects, soon reënforced Hengist and
Horsa with five thousand men, who came over in seventeen vessels. The
Britons now began to entertain apprehensions of their allies, whose
numbers they found continually augmenting; but thought of no remedy,
except a passive submission and connivance. This weak expedient soon
failed them. The Saxons sought a quarrel, by complaining that their
subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions withdrawn;[***] and
immediately taking off the mask, they formed an alliance with the Picts
and Scots, and proceeded to open hostility against the Britons.

The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, ana roused to
indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated to
take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from his
vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put themselves
under the Command of his son, Vortimer. They fought many battles with
their enemies; and though the victories in these actions be disputed
between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress still made by the
Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on their side.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 12. W. Malms, p. 11. Hunting,
     lib. U. p. 309. Ethelwerd, Brompton, p. 728.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 12. Alured. Beverl. p. 49.]

     [*** Bede, lib. i cap. 15. Nennius, cap. 35. Gildas,
     sect 2d.]

In one battle, however, fought at Faglesford, now Ailsford, Horsa, the
Saxon general, was slain and left the sole command over his countrymen
in the hands of Hengist. This active general, continually reënforced
oy fresh numbers from Germany, carried devastation into the most remote
corners of Britain; and being chiefly anxious to spread the terror of
his arms, he spared neither age, nor sex, nor condition, wherever he
marched with his victorious forces. The private and public edifices of
the Britons were reduced to ashes; the priests were slaughtered on the
altars by those idolatrous ravagers; the bishops and nobility shared
the fate of the vulgar; the people, flying to the mountains and deserts,
were intercepted and butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of
life and servitude under their victors: others, deserting their
native country, took shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being
charitably received by a people of the same language and manners, they
settled in great numbers, and gave the country the name of Brittany.[*]

The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of
the Saxons into this island--the love with which Vortigern was at
first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that artful
warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch.[**]
The same historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern,
being restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at
Stonehenge, where three hundred of his nobility were treacherously
slaughtered, and himself detained captive.[***] But these stories seem
to have been invented by the Welsh authors, in order to palliate the
weak resistance made at first by their countrymen, and to account for
the rapid progress and licentious devastations of the Saxons.[****]

After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman
descent, was invested with the command over his countrymen, and
endeavored, not without success, to unite them in their resistance
against the Saxons. Those contests increased the animosity between the
two rations, and roused the military spirit of the ancient inhabitants,
which had before been sunk into a fatal lethargy.

     [* Bede, lib. i. cap. 15. Usher, p. 226. Gildas,
     sect. 24.]


     [** Nennius, Galfr. lib. vi. cap. 12.]


     [*** Nennius, cap. 47. Galfr.]


     [**** Stillingfleet’s Orig. Britt. p. 324,325.]

Hengist, however, notwithstanding their opposition, still maintained his
ground in Britain and in order to divide the forces and attention of the
natives he called over a new tribe of Saxons, under the command of his
brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa; and he settled them in
Northumberland. He himself remained in the southern parts of the island,
and laid the foundation of their kingdom of Kent, comprehending the
county of that name Middlesex, Essex, and part of Surrey. He fixed his
royal seat at Canterbury, where he governed about forty years, and he
died in or near the year 488, leaving his new-acquired dominions to his
posterity.

The success of Hengist excited the avidity of the other northern
Germans; and at different times, and under different leaders, they
flocked over in multitudes to the invasion of mis island. These
conquerors were chiefly composed of three tribes, the Saxons, Angles,
and Jutes,[*] who all passed under the common appellation, sometimes,
of _Saxons_, sometimes of _Angles_; and speaking the same
language, and being governed by the same institutions, they were
naturally led, from these causes, as well as from their common interest,
to unite themselves against the ancient inhabitants. The resistance,
however, though unequal, was still maintained by the Britons; but became
every day more feeble; and their calamities admitted of few intervals,
till they were driven into Cornwall and Wales, and received protection
from the remote situation or inaccessible mountains of those countries.

The first Saxon state, after that of Kent, which was established in
Britain, was the kingdom of South Saxony. In the year 477,[**] Ælla,
a Saxon chief, brought over an army from Germany; and, landing on
the southern coast, proceeded to take possession of the neighboring
territory. The Britons, now armed, did not tamely abandon their
possessions; nor were they expelled till defeated in many battles
by their war-like invaders. The most memorable action, mentioned by
historians, is that of Mearcredes Burn;[***] where, though the Saxons
seem to have obtained the victory, they suffered so considerable a loss,
as somewhat retarded the progress of their conquests.

     [* Bede, lib. i. cap. 15. Ethelwerd, p. 833, edit.
     Camdeni. Chron. Sax. p. 12. Alured. 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: Mercis mud other parts of
     the kingdom were inhabited by Angles.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p.14. Alured Beverl. p. 81.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. A. D. 485. Flor. Wigron]

But Ælla, reénforced by fresh numbers of his countrymen, again took the
field against the Britons; and laid siege to Ancired Ceaster, which was
defended by the garrison and inhabitants with desperate valor.[*] The
Saxons, enraged by this resistance, and by the fatigues and dangers
which they had sustained, redoubled their efforts against the place;
and, when masters of it, put all their enemies to the sword without
distinction. This decisive advantage secured the conquests of Ælla, who
assumed the name of king, and extended his dominion over Sussex and a
great part of Surrey He was stopped in his progress to the east by the
kingdom of Kent; in that to the west by another tribe of Saxons, who had
taken possession of that territory.

These Saxons, from the situation of the country in which they settled,
were called the _West Saxons_, and landed in the year 495, under
the command of Cerdic, and of his son Kenric.[**] The Britons were, by
past experience, so much on their guard, and so well prepared to receive
the enemy, that they gave battle to Cerdic the very day of his landing;
and, though vanquished, still defended, for some time, their liberties
against the invaders. None of the other tribes of Saxons met with such
vigorous resistance, or exerted such valor and perseverance in pushing
their conquests. Cerdic was even obliged to call for the assistance of
his countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex, as well as from
Germany, and he was thence joined by a fresh army under the command
of Porte, and of his sons Bleda and Megla.[***] Strengthened by these
succors, he fought, in the year 508, a desperate battle with the
Britons, commanded by Nazan Leod, who was victorious in the beginning of
the action, and routed the wing in which Cerdic himself commanded. But
Kenric, who had prevailed in the other wing, brought timely assistance
to his father, and restored the battle, which ended in a complete
victory gained by the Saxons.[****] Nazan Leod perished, with
five thousand of his army; but left the Britons more weakened than
discouraged by his death. The war still continued, though the success
was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short swords and manner
of fighting gave them great advantage over the missile weapons of the
Britons.

     [* H. Hunting, lib. ii.]

     [** W. Malms, lib. i. cap. I, p. 12. Chron. Sax. p.
     15.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 17.]

     [**** H. Hunting, lib ii. Ethelwerd, lib. i. Chron.
     Sax. p. 17.]

Cerdic was not wanting to in good fortune; and in order to extend
his conquests, he laid siege to Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath,
whither the most obstinate of the discomfited Britons had retired. The
southern Britons, in this extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur,
prince of the Silures, whose heroic valor now sustained the declining
fate of his country.[*] This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the
songs of Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military
achievements have been blended with so many fables, as even to give
occasion for entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets,
though they disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, ana
use strange liberties with truth where they are the sole historians, as
among the Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest
exaggerations. Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by the
Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in a
great battle.[**] This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic; but
was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had already
made. He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established the kingdom
of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of Hants, Dorset,
Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their new-acquired
dominions to their posterity. Cerdic died in 534, Kenric in 560.


While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen were
not less active in other quarters. In the year 527, a great tribe of
adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast of Britain;
and after fighting many battles, of which history has preserved no
particular account, they established three new kingdoms in this island.
Uffa assumed the title of king of the East Angles in 575; Crida, that of
Mercia in 585;[***] and Erkenwin, that of East Saxony, or Essex, nearly
about the same time; but the year is uncertain. This latter kingdom was
dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended Essex, Middlesex,
and part of Hertfordshire; that of the East Angles, the counties of
Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk: Mercia was extended over all the middle
counties from the banks of the Severn to the frontiers of these two
kingdoms.

     [* H. Hunting, lib. ii.]

     [** Gildas, Chron. Sax. H. Hunting, lib. ii.]

     [*** M. West. H. Hunting, lib. ii.]

The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in
Northumberland; but as they met with an obstinate resistance, and made
but small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs were in
so unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a long time
assumed the appellation of king. At last, in 547,[*] Ida, a Saxon prince
of great valor,[**] who claimed a descent, as did all the other princes
of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reénforcement from Germany,
and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their conquests over the
Britons. He entirely subdued the county now called Northumberland,
the bishopric of Durham, as well as some of the south-east counties of
Scotland; and he assumed the crown under the title of king of Bernicia.
Nearly about the same time, Ælla, another Saxon prince, having conquered
Lancashire and the greater part of Yorkshire, received the appellation
of king of Deïri.[***] These two kingdoms were united in the person of
Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida, who married Acca, the daughter of Ælla; and
expelling her brother Edwin, established one of the most powerful of the
Saxon kingdoms, by the title of Northumberland. How far his dominions
extended into the country now called Scotland is uncertain: but it
cannot be doubted, that all the lowlands, especially the east coast of
that country, were peopled in a great measure from Germany; though the
expeditions, made by the several Saxon adventurers, have escaped the
records of history. The language spoken in those countries, which is
purely Saxon, is a stronger proof of this event than can be opposed by
the imperfect, or rather fabulous annals, which are obtruded on us by
the Scottish historians.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 19.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 19.]

     [*** Alured, Beverl. p. 78].



THE HEPTARCHY

Thus was established, after a violent contest of near a hundred and
fifty years, the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms, in Britain; and
the whole southern part of the island, except Wales and Cornwall,
had totally changed its inhabitants, language, customs, and political
institutions. The Britons, under the Roman dominion, had made
such advances towards arts and civil manners, that they had built
twenty-eight considerable cities within their province, besides a great
number of villages and country seats; [*] but the fierce conquerors,
by whom they were now subdued, threw every thing back into ancient
barbarity; and those few natives, who were not either massacred or
expelled their habitations, were reduced to the most abject slavery.

     [* Gildas, Sede, lib, i.]

None of the other northern conquerors, the Franks, Goths, Vandals, or
Burgundians, though they overran the southern provinces of the
empire like a mighty torrent, made such devastations in the conquered
territories, or were inflamed into so violent an animosity against the
ancient inhabitants. As the Saxons came over at intervals in separate
bodies, the Britons, however at first unwarlike, were tempted to make
resistance; and hostilities, being thereby prolonged, proved more
destructive to both parties, especially to the vanquished. The first
invaders from Germany, instead of excluding other adventurers, who must
share with them the spoils of the ancient inhabitants, were obliged to
solicit fresh supplies from their own country; and a total extermination
of the Britons became the sole expedient for providing a settlement and
subsistence to the new planters. Hence there have been found in history
few conquests more ruinous than that of the Saxons, and few revolutions
more violent than that which they introduced.


So long as the contest was maintained with the natives, the several
Saxon princes preserved a union of counsels and interests; but after the
Britons were shut up in the barren countries of Cornwall and Wales, and
gave no further disturbance to the conquerors, the band of alliance was
in a great measure dissolved among the princes of the Heptarchy. Though
one prince seems still to have been allowed, or to have assumed, an
ascendant over the whole, his authority, if it ought ever to be deemed
regular or legal, was extremely limited; and each state acted as if it
had been independent, and wholly separate from the rest Wars, therefore,
and revolutions and dissensions, were unavoidable among a turbulent and
military people; and these events, however intricate or confused, ought
now to become the objects of our attention But, added to the difficulty
of carrying on at once the history of seven independent kingdoms, there
is great discouragement to a writer, arising from the uncertainty, at
least barrenness, of the accounts transmitted to us. The monks, who were
the only annalists during those ages, lived remote from public
affairs, considered the civil transactions as entirely subordinate the
ecclesiastical, and, besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity
which were then universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with
the love of wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost
inseparable from their profession and manner of life. The history of
that period abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events; or the
events are related so much without circumstances and causes, that the
most profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them
either instructive or entertaining to the reader. Even the great
learning and vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight; and
this author scruples not to declare, that the skirmishes of kites
or crows as much merited a particular narrative, as the confused
transactions and battles of the Saxon Heptarchy.[*] In order, however,
to connect the events in some tolerable measure, we shall give a
succinct account of the successions of kings, and of the more remarkable
revolutions in each particular kingdom; beginning with that of Kent,
which was the first established.

     [* Milton in Kennet, p. 50]



THE KINGDOM OF KENT

Escus succeeded his father, Hengist, in the kingdom of Kent; but seems
not to have possessed the military genius of that conqueror, who first
made way for the entrance of the Saxon arms into Britain. All the
Saxons, who sought either the fame of valor, or new establishments by
arms, flocked to the standard of Ælla, king of Sussex, who was carrying
on successful war against the Britons, and laying the foundations of a
new kingdom. Escus was content to possess in tranquillity the kingdom
of Kent, which he left in 512 to his son Octet, in whose time the East
Saxons established their monarchy, and dismembered the provinces of
Essex and Middlesex from that of Kent. His death, after a reign of
twenty two years, made room for his son Hermenric in 534, who performed
nothing memorable during a reign of thirty-two years; excepting
associating with him his son Ethelbert in the government, that he might
secure the succession hi his family, and prevent such revolutions as are
incident to a turbulent and barbarous monarchy.

Ethelbert revived the reputation of his family, which had languished for
some generations. The inactivity of his predecessors, and the situation
of his country, secured from all hostility with the Britons, seem
to have much enfeebled the warlike genius of the Kentish Saxons;
and Ethelbert, in his first attempt to aggrandize his country, and
distinguish his own name, was unsuccessful.[*] He was twice discomfited
in battle by Ceaulin, king of Wessex, and obliged to yield the
superiority in the Heptarchy to that ambitious monarch, who preserved
no moderation in his victory, and by reducing the kingdom of Sussex to
subjection, excited jealousy in all the other princes. An association
was formed against him; and Ethelbeit, intrusted with the command of the
allies, gave him battle, and obtained a decisive victory.[**] Ceaulin
died soon after; and Ethelbert succeeded as well to his ascendant among
the Saxon states, as to his other ambitious projects. He reduced all the
princes, except the king of Northumberland, to a strict dependence upon
him; and even established himself by force on the throne of Mercia,
the most extensive of the Saxon kingdoms. Apprehensive, however, of a
dangerous league against him, like that by which he himself had been
enabled to overthrow Ceaulin, he had the prudence to resign the kingdom
of Mercia to Webba, the rightful heir, the son of Crida, who had first
founded that monarchy. But governed still by ambition more than by
justice, he gave Webba possession of the crown on such conditions, as
rendered him little better than a tributary prince under his artful
benefactor.

But the most memorable event which distinguished the reign of this great
prince, was the introduction of the Christian religion among the English
Saxons. The superstition of the Germans, particularly that of the
Saxons, was of the grossest and most barbarous kind; and being founded
on traditional tales, received from their ancestors, not reduced to
any system, not supported by political institutions, like that of the
druids, it seems to have made little impression on its votaries, and to
have easily resigned its place to the new doctrine promulgated to them.
Woden, whom they deemed the ancestor of all their princes, was regarded
as the god of war, and, by a natural consequence, became their supreme
deity, and the chief object of their religious worship. They believed
that, if they obtained the favor of this divinity by their valor, (for
they made less account of the other virtues,) they should be admitted
after their death into his hall; and reposing on couches, should satiate
themselves with ale from the skulls of their enemies, whom they had
slain in battle. Incited by this idea of paradise, which gratified
at once the passion of revenge and that of intemperance, the ruling
inclinations of barbarians, they despised the dangers of war, and
increased their native ferocity against the vanquished by their
religious prejudices.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 21.]

     [** H. Hunting, lib ii.]

We know little of the other theological tenets of the Saxons; we only
learn that they were polytheists; that they worshipped the sun and moon;
that they adored the god of thunder, under the name of Thor; that they
had images in their temples; that they practised sacrifices; believed
firmly in spells and enchantments; and admitted in general a system
of doctrines which they held as sacred, but which, like all other
superstition must carry the air of the wildest extravagance, if
propounded to those who are not familiarized to it from their earliest
infancy.

The constant hostilities which the Saxons maintained against the
Britons, would naturally indispose them for receiving the Christian
faith, when preached to them by such inveterate enemies; and perhaps the
Britons, as is objected to them by Gildas and Bede, were not over-fond
of communicating to their cruel invaders the doctrine of eternal life
and salvation. But as a civilized people, however subdued by arms, still
maintain a sensible superiority over barbarous and ignorant nations,
all the other northern conquerors of Europe had been already induced to
embrace the Christian faith, which they found established in the empire;
and it was impossible but the Saxons, informed of this event, must have
regarded with some degree of veneration a doctrine which had acquired
the ascendant over all their brethren. However limited in their news,
they could not but have perceived a degree of cultivation in the
southern countries beyond what they themselves possessed; and it was
natural for them to yield to that superior knowledge, as well as zeal,
by which the inhabitants of the Christian kingdoms were even at that
time distinguished.

But these causes might long have failed of producing any considerable
effect, had not a favorable incident prepared the means of introducing
Christianity into Kent. Ethelbert, in his father’s lifetime, had married
Bertha, the only daughter of Cariben, king of Paris,[*] one of the
descendants of Clovis, the conqueror of Gaul.

     [* Greg, of Tours, lib, ix. cap. 26. H. Hunting,
     lib. ii.]

But before he was admitted to this alliance, he was obliged to
stipulate, that the princess should enjoy the free exercise of her
religion; a concession not difficult to be obtained from the idolatrous
Saxons.[*] Bertha brought over a French bishop to the court of
Canterbury; and being zealous for the propagation of her religion, she
had been very assiduous in her devotional exercises, had supported the
credit of her faith by an irreproachable conduct, and had employed every
an of insinuation and address to reconcile her husband to her religious
principles. Her popularity in the court, and her influence over
Ethelbert, had so well paved the way for the reception of the Christian
doctrine, that Gregory, surnamed the Great, then Roman pontiff, began
to entertain hopes of effecting a project which lie himself, before he
mounted the papal throne, had once embraced, of converting the British
Saxons.

It happened that this prelate, at that time in a private station, had
observed in the market place of Rome some Saxon youth exposed to sale,
whom the Roman merchants, in their trading voyages to Britain, had
bought of their mercenary parents. Struck with the beauty of their fair
complexions and blooming countenances, Gregory asked to what country
they belonged; and being told they were “Angles,” he replied that they
ought more properly to be denominated “angels.” it were a pity that the
prince of darkness should enjoy so fair a prey, and that so beautiful
a frontispiece should cover a mind destitute of internal grace and
righteousness. Inquiring further concerning the name of their province,
he was Informed, that it was “Deïri,” a district of Northumberland.
“Deïri!” replied he, “that is good! They are called to the mercy of God
from his anger--_de ira_. But what is the name of the king of that
province?” He was told it was “Ælla,” or “Alia.” “Alleluiah;” cried he,
“we must endeavor that the praises of God be sung in their country.”
 Moved by these allusions, which appeared to him so happy, he deter mined
to undertake himself a mission into Britain; and having obtained the
pope’s approbation, he prepared for that perilous journey; but his
popularity at home was so great, that the Romans, unwilling to expose
him to such dangers, opposed his design, and he was obliged for the
present to lay aside all further thoughts of executing that pious
purpose.[**]

     [* Bede, lib. i. cap. 25. Brompton, p. 729.]

     [** Bede, lib. ii. cap. 1. Spell. Concil. 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 exorted them
to persevere in their purpose, advised them to choose some interpreters
from among the Franks, who still spoke the same language with the
Saxons,[*] and recommended them to the good offices of Queen Brunehaut,
who had at this time usurped the sovereign power in France. This
princess, though stained with every vice of treachery and cruelty,
either possessed or pretended great zeal for the cause; and Gregory
acknowledged, that to her friendly assistance was, in a great measure,
owing the success of that undertaking.[**]

Augustine, on his arrival in Kent in the year 597,[***] found the danger
much less than he had apprehended. Ethelbert, already well disposed
towards the Christian faith, assigned him a habitation in the Isle
of Thanet, and soon after admitted him to a conference. Apprehensive,
however, lest spells or enchantments might be employed against him by
priests, who brought an unknown worship from a distant country, he had
the precaution to receive them in the open air, where, he believed,
the force of their magic would be more easily dissipated,[****] Here
Augustine, by means of his interpreters, delivered to him the tenets of
the Christian faith, and promised him eternal joys above, and a kingdom
in heaven without end, if he would be persuaded to receive that salutary
doctrine.

     [* Bede, lib. i. cap. 23.]

     [** Greg. Epist. lib. ix. epist. 56. Spell. Concil.
     p. 82.]

     [*** Higden Polychron. lib. v. Chron. Sax. p. 23.]

     [**** Bede, lib. i. cap. 25. H. Hunting, lib. iii.
     Brompton, p. 729 Parker, Antiq. Brit. Eccel. p 61.]

“Our words and promises,”[*] replied Ethelbert, “are fair; but because
they are new and uncertain, I cannot entirely yield to them, and
relinquish the principles which I and my ancestors have so long
maintained. You are welcome, however, to remain here in peace; and as
you have undertaken so long a journey, solely, as it appears, for
what you believe to be for our advantage, I will supply you with
all necessaries, and permit you to deliver your doctrine to my
subjects.”[**]

Augustine, encouraged by this favorable reception, and seeing now a
prospect of success, proceeded with redoubled zeal to preach the gospel
to the Kentish Saxons. He attracted their attention by the austerity of
his manners, by the severe penances to which he subjected himself, by
the abstinence find self-denial which he practised; and having excited
then wonder by a course of life which appeared so contrary to nature, he
procured more easily their belief of miracles, which, it was pretended,
he wrought for their conversion. Influenced by these motives, and
by the declared favor of the court, numbers of the Kentish men were
baptized; and the king himself was persuaded to submit to that rite of
Christianity. His example had great influence with his subjects; but
he employed no force to bring them over to the new doctrine. Augustine
thought proper, in the commencement of his mission, to assume the
appearance of the greatest lenity; he told Ethelbert, that the service
of Christ must be entirely voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to
be used in propagating so salutary a doctrine.[****]

The intelligence received of these spiritual conquests afforded great
joy to the Romans, who now exulted as much in those peaceful trophies as
their ancestors had ever done in their most sanguinary triumphs and most
splendid victories. Gregory wrote a letter to Ethelbert, in which, after
informing him that the end of the world was approaching, he exhorted him
to display his zeal in the conversion of his subjects, to exert rigor
against the worship of idols, and to build up the good work of
holiness by every expedient of exhortation, terror, blandishment, or
correction;[*****] a doctrine more suitable to that age, and to the
usual papal maxims, than the tolerating principles which Augustine had
thought it prudent to inculcate.

     [* Bede, lib. i. cap. 25. Chron. W. Thorn, p.
     1759.]

     [** Bede, lib. i. cap. 25. H. Hunting, lib. iii.
     Brompton, p. 729]

     [*** Bede, lib. i. cap. 26.]

     [**** Bede, cap 26. H. Hunting, lib. iii.]

     [***** Bede, lib. i. cap. 32. Brompton, p. 732 Spell.
     Concil, 785]

The pontiff also answered some questions, which the missionary had
put concerning the government of the new church of Kent. Besides other
queries, which it is not material here to relate, Augustine asked,
“Whether cousins-german might be allowed to marry.” Gregory answered,
that that liberty had indeed been formerly granted by the Roman law;
but that experience had shown that no issue could ever come from such
marriages; and he therefore prohibited them. Augustine asked, “Whether
a woman pregnant might be baptized.” Gregory answered, that he saw no
objection. “How soon after the birth the child might receive baptism.”
 It was answered, immediately, if necessary. “How soon a husband might
have commerce with his wife after her delivery.” Not till she had given
suck to her child; a practice to which Gregory exhorts all women. “How;
soon a man might enter the church, or receive the sacrament, after
having had commerce with his wife.” It was replied, that, unless he had
approached her without desire, merely for the sake of propagating his
species, he was not without sin; but in all cases it was requisite for
him, before he entered the church, or communicated, to purge himself
by prayer and ablution; and he ought not, even after using these
precautions, to participate immediately of the sacred duties.[*] There
are some other questions and replies still more indecent and more
ridiculous.[**] And on the whole it appears that Gregory and his
missionary, if sympathy of manners have any influence, were better
calculated than men of more refined understandings, for making a
progress with the ignorant and barbarous Saxons.

The more to facilitate the reception of Christianity, Gregory enjoined
Augustine to remove the idols from the heathen altars, but not to
destroy the altars themselves; because the people, he said, would be
allured to frequent the Christian worship, when they found it celebrated
in a place which they were accustomed to revere.

     [* Bede, lib. i. cap. 27. Spell. Concil. p. 97,
     98, 99, &c.]

     [** Augustine asks, “Si mulier menstrua
     consuetudine tenetur, an ecclesiam intrare et licet, aut
     sacræ communionis sacramenta percipere?” Gregory answers,
     “Santæ communionis mysterium in eisdem diebus percipere non
     debet prohiberi. Si autem ex veneratione magna percipere non
     præsumitur, laudanda est.” Augustine asks, “Si post
     illusionem, quae par somnum solet accidere, vel corpus
     Domini quilibet accipere valeat; vel, si sacerdos sit, sacra
     mysteria celebrare?” Gregory answers this learned question
     by many learned distinctions.]

And as the pagans practised sacrifices, and feasted with the priests on
their offerings, he also exhorted the missionary to persuade them, on
Christian festivals, to kill their cattle in the neighborhood of the
church, and to indulge themselves in those cheerful entertainments to
which they had been habituated.[*] These political compliances
show that, notwithstanding his ignorance and prejudices, he was
not unacquainted with the arts of governing mankind. Augustine was
consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with
authority over all the British churches, and received the pall, a badge
of ecclesiastical honor, from Rome.[**] Gregory also advised him not
to be too much elated with his gift of working miracles;[***] and as
Augustine, proud of the success of his mission, seemed to think himself
entitled to extend his authority over the bishops of Gaul, the
pope informed him that they lay entirely without the bounds of his
jurisdiction.[****]

The marriage of Ethelbert with Bertha, and, much more his embracing
Christianity, begat a connection of his subjects with the French,
Italians, and other nations on the continent, and tended to reclaim them
from that gross ignorance and barbarity, in which all the Saxon tribes
had been hitherto involved.[*****] Ethelbert also enacted,[******] with
the consent of the states of his kingdom, a body of laws, the first
written laws promulgated by any of the northern conquerors; and his
reign was in every respect glorious to himself and beneficial to his
people. He governed the kingdom of Kent fifty years; and dying in 616,
left the succession to his son, Eadbald. This prince, seduced by a
passion for his mother-in-law, deserted, for some time, the Christian
faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole people
immediately returned with him to idolatry. Laurentius, the successor of
Augustine found the Christian worship wholly abandoned, and was prepared
to return to France, in order to escape the mortification of preaching
the gospel without fruit to the infidels.

     [* Bede lib. i. cap. 30. Spell. Concil. p. 89.
     Greg. Epist. lib. ix. epist. 71.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 23,24.]

     [*** H. Hunting, lib. iii. Spell. Concil. p. 83.
     Bede, lib. i. Greg Epist. lib. ix. epist. 60.]

     [**** Bede, lib. i. cap. 27.]

     [***** W. Malms, p. 10.]

     [****** Wilkins, Leges Sax. p. 13.]

Mellitus and Justus, who had been consecrated bishops of London and
Rochester, had already departed the kingdom,[*] when Laurentius, before
he should entirely abandon his dignity, made one effort to reclaim the
king. He appeared before that prince, and, throwing off his vestments,
showed his body all torn with bruises and stripes which he had received.
Eadbald, wondering that any man should have dared to treat in that
manner a person of his rank, was told by Laurentius, that he had
received this chastisement from St. Peter, the prince of the apostles,
who had appeared to him in a vision, and severely reproving him for his
intention to desert his charge, had inflicted on him these visible marks
of his displeasure.[**] Whether Eadbald was struck with the miracle,
or influenced by some other motive, he divorced himself from his
mother-in-law, and returned to the profession of Christianity:[***]
his whole people returned with him. Eadbald reached not the fame or
authority of his father, and died in 640, after a reign of twenty-five
years, leaving two sons, Erminfrid and Ercombert.

     [* Bede, lib. ii. cap 5.]

     [** Bede, lib. ii cap. 2. Chron. Sax. p. 26.
     Higden, lib. v]

     [*** 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 cousins-german, sons
of Erminfrid, his uncle. The ecclesiastical writers praise him for his
bestowing on his sister, Domnona, some lands in the Isle of Thanet,
where she founded a monastery.


The bloody precaution of Egbert could not fix the crown on the head of
his son Edric. Lothaire, brother of the deceased prince, took possession
of the kingdom; and in order to secure the power in his family, he
associated with him Richard, his son, in the administration of the
government. Edric, the dispossessed prince, had recourse to Edilwach,
king of Sussex, for assistance; and being supported by that prince,
fought a battle with his uncle, who was defeated and slain. Richard fled
into Germany, and afterwards died in Lucca, a city of Tuscany. William
of Malmsbury ascribes Lothaire’s bad fortune to two crimes--his
concurrence in the murder of his cousins, and his contempt for
relics.[*]

Lothaire reigned eleven years; Edric, his successor, only two. Upon the
death of the latter, which happened in 686 Widred, his brother, obtained
possession of the crown. But as the succession had been of late so much
disjointed by revolutions and usurpations, faction began to prevail
among the nobility; which invited Cedwalla, king of Wessex, with his
brother Mollo, to attack the kingdom. These invaders committed great
devastations in Kent; but the death of Mollo, who was slain in a
skirmish,[**] gave a short breathing time to that kingdom. Widred
restored the affairs of Kent, and, after a reign of thirty-two
years,[***] left the crown to his posterity. Eadbert, Ethelbert, and
Alric, his descendants, successively mounted the throne. After the
death of the last, which happened in 794, the royal family of Kent was
extinguished; and every factious leader, who could entertain hopes of
ascending the throne, threw the state into confusion.[****] Egbert, who
first succeeded, reigned but two years; Cuthred, brother to the king of
Mercia, six years; Baldred, an illegitimate branch of the royal family,
eighteen; and after a troublesome and precarious reign, he was, in the
year 823, expelled by Egbert, king of Wessex, who dissolved the Saxon
Heptarchy, and united the several kingdoms under his dominion.

     [* W. Malms, p. 11.]

     [** Higden, lib. v.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 52.]

     [**** W. Malms, lib. i. cap. 1, p.11.]



THE KINGDOM OF NORTHUMBERLAND

Adelfrid, king of Bernicia, having married Acca, the daughter of Ælla,
king of Deïri, and expelled her infant brother, Edwin, had united all
the counties north of Humber into one monarchy, and acquired a great
ascendant in the Heptarchy. He also spread the terror of the Saxon
arms to the neighboring people; and by his victories over the Scots
and Picts, as well as Welsh, extended on all sides the bounds of his
dominions. Having laid siege to Chester, the Britons marched out with
all their forces to engage him; and they were attended by a body of
twelve hundred and fifty monks from the monastery of Bangor, who stood
at a small distance from the field of battle, in order to encourage the
combatants by their presence and exhortations. Adelfrid, inquiring into
the purpose of this unusual appearance, was told that these priests had
come to pray against him: “Then are they as much our enemies,” said he,
“as those who intend to fight against us;”[*] and he immediately sent a
detachment, who fell upon them, and did such execution, that only fifty
escaped with their lives.[**] The Britons, astonished at this event,
received a total defeat: Chester was obliged to surrender; and Adelfrid,
pursuing his victory, made himself master of Bangor, and entirely
demolished the monastery, a building so extensive, that there was a
mile’s distance from one gate of it to another; and it contained two
thousand one hundred monks, who are said to have been there maintained
by their own labor.[***] Notwithstanding Adelfrid’s success in war,
he lived in inquietude on account of young Edwin, whom he had unjustly
dispossessed of the crown of Deïri. This prince, now grown to man’s
estate, wandered from place to place, in continual danger from the
attempts of Adelfrid; and received at last protection in the court
of Redwald, king of the East Angles; where his engaging and gallant
deportment procured him general esteem and affection. Redwald, however,
was strongly solicited, by the king of Northumberland, to kill or
deliver up his guest: rich presents were promised him if he would
comply, and war denounced against him in case of his refusal. After
rejecting several messages of this kind, his generosity began to yield
to the motives of interest; and he retained the last ambassador, till
he should come to a resolution in a case of such importance. Edwin,
informed of his friend’s perplexity, was yet determined at all hazards
to remain in East Anglia; and thought, that if the protection of that
court failed him, it were better to die than prolong a life so much
exposed to the persecutions of his powerful rival. This confidence in
Redwald’s honor and friendship, with his other accomplishments, engaged
the queen on his side; and she effectually represented to her husband
the infamy of delivering up to certain destruction their royal guest,
who had fled to them for protection against his cruel and jealous
enemies.[****] Redwald, embracing more generous resolutions, thought
it safest to prevent Adelfrid, before that prince was aware of his
intention, and to attack him while he was yet unprepared for defence.

     [* Brompton, p. 779.]

     [** Trivet, apud Spell. Concil. p. 111.]

     [*** Bede, lib. ii. cap. 2. W. Malms, lib. i. cap.
     3.]

     [**** W. Malms, lib. i. cap. 3. H. Hunting, lib.
     iii. Bede.]


He marched suddenly with an army into the kingdom of Northumberland, and
fought a battle with Adelfrid; in which that monarch was defeated
and killed, after revenging himself by the death of Regner, son of
Redwald.[*] His own sons, Eanfrid. Oswald, and Oswy, yet infants, were
carried into Scotland; and Edwin obtained possession of the crown of
Northumberland.

Edwin was the greatest prince of the Heptarchy in that age,
and distinguished himself, both by his influence over the other
kingdoms,[**] and by the strict execution of justice in his own
dominions. He reclaimed his subjects from the licentious life to which
they had been accustomed; and it was a common saying, that during his
reign a woman or child might openly carry every where a purse of
gold, without any danger of violence or robbery. There is a remarkable
instance, transmitted to us, of the affection borne him by his servants.
Cuichelme, king of Wessex, was his enemy; but finding himself unable
to maintain open war against so gallant and powerful a prince, he
determined to use treachery against him, and he employed one Eumer for
that criminal purpose, The assassin, having obtained admittance, by
pretending to deliver a message from Cuichelme, drew his dagger, and
rushed upon the king. Lilla, an officer of his army, seeing his master’s
danger, and having no other means of defence, interposed with his own
body between the king and Burner’s dagger, which was pushed with such
violence, that, after piercing Lilla, it even wounded Edwin; but before
the assassin could renew his blow, he was despatched by the king’s
attendants.


The East Angles conspired against Redwald, their king; and having put
him to death, they offered their crown to Edwin, of whose valor and
capacity they had had experience, while he resided among them. But
Edwin, from a sense o£ gratitude towards his benefactor, obliged them
to submit to Earpwold, the son of Redwald; and that prince preserved his
authority, though on a precarious footing, under the protection of the
Northumbrian monarch.[***]

     [* Bede, lib. ii. cap. 12. Bromton, p. 781.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 27.]

     [*** W. Malms, lib. i. 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;[*] and besides stipulating a toleration for the
exercise of her own religion, which was readily granted her, she used
every reason to persuade the king to embrace it. Edwin, like a
prudent prince, hesitated on the proposal, but promised to examine
the foundations of that doctrine, and declared that, if he found them
satisfactory, he was willing to be converted.[**] Accordingly he held
several conferences with Paullinus; canvassed the arguments propounded
with the wisest of his counsellors; retired frequently from company, in
order to revolve alone that important question; and, after a serious
and long inquiry, declared in favor of the Christian religion;[***]
the people soon after imitated his example. Besides the authority and
influence of the king, they were moved by another striking example.
Coifi, the high priest, being converted after a public conference with
Paullinus, led the way in destroying the images, which he had so long
worshipped, and was forward in making this atonement for his past
idolatry.[****]

This able prince perished with his son Osfrid, in a great battle which
he fought against Penda, king of Mercia, and Caedwalla, king of the
Britons.[*****] That event, which happened in the forty-eighth year of
Edwin’s age and seventeenth of his reign,[******] divided the monarchy
of Northumberland, which that prince had united in his person. Eanfrid,
the son of Adelfrid, returned with his brothers, Oswald and Oswy, from
Scotland, and took possession of Bernicia, his paternal kingdom; Osric,
Edwin’s cousin-german, established himself in Deïri, the inheritance
of his family, but to which the sons of Edwin had a preferable title.
Eanfrid, the elder surviving son, fled to Penda, by whom he was
treacherously slain. The younger son, Vuscfraea, with Yffi, the
grandson of Edwin, by Osfrid, sought protection in Kent, and not finding
themselves in safety there, retired into France to King Dagobert, where
they died.[*******]

     [* H. Hunting, lib. iii.]

     [** Bede, lib. ii. cap. 9.]

     [*** Bede, lib. ii. cap. 9. W. Malms, lib. i. cap.
     3.]

     [**** Bede, lib. ii. cap. 13. Brompton, Higden,
     lib. v.]

     [***** M. West. p. 114. Chron. Sax. p. 29.]

     [****** W. Malms, lib. i. cap. 3.]

     [******* Bede, lib. ii, cap. 29.]

Osric, king of Deïri and Eanfrid of Bernicia, returned to paganism; and
the whole people seem to have returned with them; since Paullinus, who
was the first archbishop of York; and who had converted them, thought
proper to retire with Ethelburga, the queen dowager, into Kent. Both
these Northumbrian kings perished soon after, the first in battle
against Caedwalla, the Briton; the second by the treachery of that
prince. Oswald, the brother of Eanfrid, of the race of Bernicia, united
again the kingdom of Northumberland in the year 634, and restored
the Christian religion in his dominions. He gained a bloody and
well-disputed battle against Caedwalla; the last vigorous effort which
the Britons made against the Saxons. Oswald is much celebrated for his
sanctity and charity by the monkish historians; and they pretend that
his relics wrought miracles, particularly the curing of a sick horse,
which had approached the place of his interment.[*]

     [* Bede, lib. iii. 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 Deïri. His son Egfrid succeeded him; who
perishing in battle against the Picts, without leaving any children,
because Adelthrid, his wife, refused to violate her vow of chastity,
Alfred, his natural brother, acquired possession of the kingdom, which
he governed for nineteen years; and he left it to Osred, his son, a boy
of eight years of age. This prince, after a reign of eleven years, was
murdered by Kenred, his kinsman, who, after enjoying the crown only a
year, perished by a like fate. Osric, and after him Celwulph, the son
of Kenred, next mounted the throne, which the latter relinquished in
the year 738, in favor of Eadbert, his cousin-german, who, imitating
his predecessor, abdicated the crown, and retired into a monastery.
Oswolf, son of Eadbert, was slain in a sedition, a year after his
accession to the crown; and Mollo, who was not of the royal family,
seized the crown. He perished by the treachery of Ailred, a prince of
the blood; and Ailred, having succeeded in his design upon the throne,
was soon after expelled by his subjects. Ethelred, his successor, the
son of Mollo, underwent a like fate. Celwold, the next king, the brother
of Ailred, was deposed and slain by the people; and his place was filled
by Osred, his nephew, who, after a short reign of a year, made way for
Ethelbert, another son of Mollo whose death was equally tragical
with that of almost all his predecessors. After Ethelbert’s death, a
universal anarchy prevailed in Northumberland; and the people having, by
so many fatal revolutions, lost all attachment to their government and
princes, were well prepared for subjection to a foreign yoke; which
Egbert, king of Wessex, finally imposed upon them.



THE KINGDOM OF EAST ANGLIA

The history of this kingdom contains nothing memorable except the
conversion of Earpwold, the fourth king, and great-grandson of Una, the
founder of the monarchy. The authority of Edwin, king of Northumberland,
on whom that prince entirety depended, engaged him to take this step;
but soon after, his wife, who was an idolatress, brought him back to her
religion; and he was found unable to resist those allurements which have
seduced the wisest of mankind. After his death, which was violent,
like that of most of the Saxon princes that did not early retire into
monasteries, Sigebert, his successor and half-brother, who had been
educated in France, restored Christianity, and introduced learning
among the East Angles. Some pretend that he founded the university
of Cambridge, or rather some schools in that place. It is almost
impossible, and quite needless, to be more particular in relating the
transactions of the East Angles. What instruction or entertainment can
it give the reader, to hear a long bead-roll of barbarous names,
Egric, Annas, Ethelbert, Ethelwald, Aldulf, Elfwald, Beorne, Ethelred,
Ethelbert, who successively murdered, expelled, or inherited from each
other, and obscurely filled the throne of that kingdom? Ethelbert,
the last of these princes, was treacherously murdered by Offa, king of
Mercia, in the year 792, and his state was thenceforth [*mited] with
that of Offa, as we shall relate presently.



THE KINGDOM OF MERCIA

Mercia, the largest, if not the most powerful, kingdom of the Heptarchy,
comprehended all the middle counties of England; and as its frontiers
extended to those of all the other kingdoms, as well as to Wales,
it received its name from that circumstance. Wibba, the son of Crida,
founder of the monarchy, being placed on the throne by Ethelbert, king
of Kent, governed his paternal dominions by a precarious authority;
and after his death, Ceorl, his kinsman, was, by the influence of the
Kentish monarch, preferred to his son Penda, whose turbulent character
appeared dangerous to that prince. Penda was thus fifty years of age
before he mounted the throne; and his temerity and restless disposition
were found nowise abated by time, experience, or reflection. He engaged
in continual hostilities against all the neighboring states; and, by
his injustice and violence, rendered himself equally odious to his own
subjects and to strangers. Sigebert, Egric, and Annas, three kings of
East Anglia, perished successively in battle against him; as did
also Edwin and Oswald, the two greatest princes that had reigned over
Northumberland. At last Oswy, brother to Oswald, having defeated and
slain him in a decisive battle, freed the world from this sanguinary
tyrant. Peada, his son, mounted the throne of Mercia in 655, and lived
under the protection of Oswy, whose daughter he had espoused. This
princess was educated in the Christian faith, and she employed her
influence, with success, in converting her husband and his subjects to
that religion. Thus the fair sex have had the merit of introducing the
Christian doctrine into all the most considerable kingdoms of the Saxon
Heptarchy. Peada died a violent death.[*] His son Wolfhere succeeded to
the government; and, after having reduced to dependence the kingdoms of
Essex and East Anglia, he left the crown to his brother Ethelred,
who, though a lover of peace, showed himself not unfit for military
enterprises. Besides making a successful expedition into Kent, he
repulsed Egfrid, king of Northumberland, who had invaded his dominions;
and he slew in battle Elswin, the brother of that prince. Desirous,
however, of composing all animosities with Egfrid, he paid him a sum of
money as a compensation for the loss of his brother. After a prosperous
reign of thirty years, he resigned the crown to Kendred, son of
Wolfhere, and retired into the monastery of Bardney.[**]

     [* Hugo Candidas (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.]

     [** Bede, lib. v.]
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.

This prince, who mounted the throne in 755,[*] had some great qualities,
and was successful in his warlike enterprises against Lothaire, king of
Kent, and Kenwulph, king of Wessex, He defeated the former in a bloody
battle, at Otford upon the Darent, and reduced his kingdom to a state
of dependence; he gained a victory over the latter at Bensington, in
Oxfordshire; and conquering that county, together with that of
Glocester, annexed both to his dominions. But all these successes were
stained by his treacherous murder of Ethelbert, king of the East Angles,
and his violent seizing of that kingdom. This young prince, who is said
to have possessed great merit, had paid his addresses to Elfrida, the
daughter of Offa, and was invited with all his retinue to Hereford, in
order to solemnize the nuptials: amidst the joy and festivity of these
entertainments, he was seized by Offa, and secretly beheaded; and though
Elfrida, who abhorred her father’s treachery, had time to give warning
to the East Anglian nobility, who escaped into their own country,
Offa, having extinguished the royal family, succeeded in his design
of subduing that kingdom.[**] The perfidious prince, desirous of
reestablishing his character in the world, and perhaps of appeasing
the remorses of his own conscience, paid great court to the clergy, and
practised all the monkish devotion so much esteemed in that ignorant and
superstitious age. He gave the tenth of his goods to the church;[***]
bestowed rich donations on the cathedral of Hereford, and even made a
pilgrimage to Rome, where his great power and riches could not fail of
procuring him the papal absolution. The better to ingratiate himself
with the sovereign pontiff, he engaged to pay him a yearly donation for
the support of an English college at Rome,[****] and in order to raise
the sum, he imposed a tax of a penny on each house possessed of thirty
pence a year. This imposition, being afterwards levied on all England,
was commonly denominated _Peter’s pence_;[*****] and though
conferred at first as a gift, was afterwards claimed as a tribute by the
Roman pontiff.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 59.]

     [** Brompton, p. 750, 751, 752.]

     [*** Spell. Concil. p 308. Brompton, p. 776.]

     [**** Spell. Concil. p. 230, 310, 312.]

     [***** Higden, lib. v.]

Carrying his hypocrisy still further, Offa, feigning to be directed by
a vision from heaven, discovered at Verulam the relics of St Alban, the
martyr, and endowed a magnificent monastery in that place.[*] Moved by
al these acts of piety, Malmsbury, one of the best of the old English
historians, declares himself at a loss to determine[**] whether the
merits or crimes of this prince preponderated. Offa died, after a reign
of thirty-nine years, in 794.[***]

This prince was become so considerable in the Heptarchy, that the
emperor Charlemagne entered into an alliance and friendship with him;
a circumstance which did honor to Offa; as distant princes at that time
had usually little communication with each other. That emperor being a
great lover of learning and learned men, in an age very barren of that
ornament, Offa, at his desire, sent him over Alcuin, a clergyman
much celebrated for his knowledge, who received great honors from
Charlemagne, and even became his preceptor in the sciences. The chief
reason why he had at first desired the company of Alcuin, was that he
might oppose his learning to the heresy of Felix, bishop of Urgel, in
Catalonia; who maintained that Jesus Christ, considered in his human
nature, could more properly be denominated the adoptive than the natural
son of God.[****] This heresy was condemned in the council of Francfort,
held in 794, and consisting of three hundred bishops. Such were the
questions which were agitated in that age, and which employed the
attention not only of cloistered scholars, but of the wisest and
greatest princes.[*****]

Egfrith succeeded to his father Offa, but survived him only five
months;[******] when he made way for Kenulph, a descendant of the royal
family. This prince waged war against Kent, and taking Egbert, the king,
prisoner, he cut off his hands, and put out his eyes; leaving Cuthred,
his own brother, in possession of the crown of that kingdom. Kenulph
was killed in an insurrection of the East Anglians, whose crown his
predecessor, Offa, had usurped. He left his son Kenelm, a minor; who was
murdered the same year by his sister Quendrade, who had entertained the
ambitious views of assuming the government.[*******]

     [* Ingulph. p. 5. W. Malms, lib. i. cap. 4.]

     [** Lib. i. cap. 4.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 65.]

     [**** Dupin, cent. viii. chap. 4].

     [***** 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.]

     [****** Ingulph. p. 6]

     [******* Ingulph, p. 7. Brompton, p. 776.]

But she was supplanted by her uncle Ceolulf; who, two years after, was
dethroned by Beornulf The reign of this usurper, who was not of the
royal family, was short and unfortunate; he was defeated by the West
Saxons, and killed by his own subjects, the East Angles.[*] Ludican, his
successor, underwent the same fate;[**] and Wiglaff, who mounted this
unstable throne, and found everything in the utmost confusion, could not
withstand the fortune of Egbert, who united all the Saxon kingdoms into
one great monarchy.

     [* Ingulph. p. 7.]

     [** Alured. Beverl. p. 87.]



THE KINGDOM OF ESSEX.

This kingdom made no great figure in the Heptarchy; and the history
of it is very imperfect. Sleda succeeded to his father, Erkinwin, the
founder of the monarchy; and made way for his son Sebert, who, being
nephew to Ethelbert, king of Kent, was persuaded by that prince to
embrace the Christian faith.[***] His sons and conjunct successors,
Sexted and Seward, relapsed into idolatry, and were soon after slain in
a battle against the West Saxons. To show the rude manner of living
in that age, Bede tells us,[****] that these two kings expressed great
desire to eat the white bread, distributed by Mellitus, the bishop, at
the communion.[*****] But on his refusing them, unless they would submit
to be baptized, they expelled him their dominions. The names of the
other princes, who reigned successively in Essex, are Sigebert the
little, Sigebert the good, who restored Christianity, Swithelm, Sigheri,
Offa. This last prince, having made a vow of chastity, notwithstanding
his marriage with Keneswitha, a Mercian princess, daughter to Penda,
went in pilgrimage to Rome, and shut himself up during the rest of his
life in a cloister. Selred, his successor, reigned thirty-eight years;
and was the last of the royal line; the failure of which threw the
kingdom into great confusion, and reduced it to dependence under
Mercia.[******] Switherd first acquired the crown, by the concession of
the Mercian princes; and his death made way for Sigeric, who ended his
life in a pilgrimage to Rome. His successor. Sigered, unable to defend
his kingdom, submitted to the victorious arms of Egbert.

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 24].

     [**** Lib. ii. cap. 5.]

     [***** H. Hunting, lib. iii. Brompton, p. 738,
     743. Bede.]

     [****** W Malms, lib. i. cap. 6.]



THE KINGDOM OF SUSSEX.

The history of this kingdom, the smallest in the Heptarchy, is still more
imperfect than that of Essex. Ælla, the founder of the monarchy, left
the crown to his son Cissa, who is chiefly remarkable for his long reign
of seventy-six years. During his time, the South Saxons fell almost into
a total dependence on the kingdom of Wessex; and we scarcely know the
names of the princes who were possessed of this titular sovereignty.
Adelwalch, the last of them, was subdued in battle by Ceadwalla, king
of Wessex, and was slain in the action; leaving two infant sons, who,
falling into the hand of the conqueror, were murdered by him. The abbot
of Bedford opposed the order for this execution; but could only prevail
on Ceadwalla to suspend it till they should be baptized. Bercthun and
Audhum, two noblemen of character, resisted some time the violence
of the West Saxons; but their opposition served only to prolong the
miseries of their country; and the subduing of this kingdom was the
first step which the West Saxons made towards acquiring the sole
monarchy of England.[*]

     [* Brompton, p. 800.]



THE KINGDOM OF WESSEX.

The kingdom of Wessex, which finally swallowed up all the other Saxon
states, met with great resistance on its first establishment; and
the Britons, who were now inured to arms, yielded not tamely their
possessions to those invaders. Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, and
his son Kenric, fought many successful, and some unsuccessful battles,
against the natives; and the martial spirit, common to all the Saxons,
was, by means of these hostilities, carried to the greatest height among
this tribe. Ceaulin, who was the son and successor of Kenric, and who
began his reign in 560, was still, more ambitious and enterprising than
his predecessors; and by waging continual war against the Britons, he
added a great part of the counties of Devon and Somerset to his other
dominions. Carried along by the tide of success, he invaded the other
Saxon states in his neighborhood, and becoming terrible to all, he
provoked a general confederacy against him. This alliance proved
successful under the conduct of Ethelbert, king of Kent; and Ceaulin,
who had lost the affections of his own subjects by his violent
disposition, and had now fallen into contempt from his misfortunes, was
expelled the throne,[**]and died in exile and misery. Cuichelme, and
Cuthwin, his sons, governed jointly the kingdom, till the expulsion
of the latter in 591, and the death of the former in 593, made way
for Cealric, to whom succeeded Ceobaîd in 593, by whose death, which
happened in 611, Kynegils inherited the crown.

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 22.]

This prince embraced Christianity,[*] through the persuasion of Oswald,
king of Northumberland, who had married his daughter, and who had
Attained a great ascendant in the Heptarchy. Kenwalch next succeeded to
the monarchy, and dying in 672, left the succession so much disputed,
that Sexburga, his widow, a woman of spirit,[**] kept possession of the
government till her death, which happened two years after. Escwin then
peaceably acquired the crown; and, after a short reign of two years,
made way for Kentwin, who governed nine years. Ceodwalla, his successor,
mounted not the throne without opposition; but proved a great prince,
according to the ideas of those times; that is, he was enterprising,
warlike, and successful. He entirely subdued the kingdom of Sussex, and
annexed it to his own dominions He made inroads into Kent; but met with
resistance from Widred, the king, who proved successful against Mollo,
brother to Ceodwalla, and slew him in a skirmish. Ceodwalla at last,
tired with wars and bloodshed, was seized with a fit of devotion;
bestowed several endowments on the church; and made a pilgrimage to
Rome, where he received baptism, and died in 689. Ina, his successor,
inherited the military virtues of Ceodwalla, and added to them the more
valuable ones of justice, policy, and prudence. He made war upon the
Britons in Somerset; and, having finally subdued that province, he
treated the vanquished with a humanity hitherto unknown to the Saxon
conquerors. He allowed the proprietors to retain possession of their
lands, encouraged marriages and alliances between them and his ancient
subjects, and gave them the privilege of being governed by the same
laws. These laws he augmented and ascertained; and though he was
disturbed by some insurrections at home, his long reign of thirty-seven
years may be regarded as one of the most glorious and most prosperous of
the Heptarchy. In the decline of his age he made a pilgrimage to Rome;
and after his return, shut himself up in a cloister, where he died.

     [* Higden, lib. v. Chron. Sax. p. 15. Alured
     Beverl p. 94.]

     [** Bede, lib. iv. 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 further disputed; and in the year 741,
he was succeeded by his cousin Cudred. The reign of this prince was
distinguished by a great victory, which he obtained by means of Edelhun,
his general, over Ethelbald, king of Mercia. His death made way for
Sigebert, his kinsman, who governed so ill, that his people rose in
an insurrection, and dethroned him, crowning Cenulph in his stead. The
exiled prince found a refuge with Duke Cumbran, governor of Hampshire;
who, that he might add new obligations to Sigebert, gave him many
salutary counsels for his future conduct, accompanied with some
reprehensions for the past. But these were so much resented by the
ungrateful prince, that he conspired against the life of his protector,
and treacherously murdered him. After this infamous action, he was
forsaken by all the world; and skulking about in the wilds and forests,
was at last discovered by a servant of Cumbran’s, who instantly took
revenge upon him for the murder of his master.[*]


Cenulph, who had obtained the crown on the expulsion of Sigebert, was
fortunate in many expeditions against the Britons of Cornwall; but
afterwards lost some reputation by his ill success against Offa, king
of Mercia.[**] Kynehard also, brother to the deposed Sigebert, gave
him disturbance; and though expelled the kingdom, he hovered on the
frontiers, and watched an opportunity for attacking his rival. The king
had an intrigue with a young woman, who lived at Merton, in Surrey,
whither having secretly retired, he was on a sudden environed, in the
night time, by Kynehard and his followers, and after making a vigorous
resistance, was murdered, with all his attendants. The nobility and
people of the neighborhood, rising next day in arms, took revenge on
Kynehard for the slaughter of their king, and put every one to the sword
who had been engaged in that criminal enterprise. This event happened in
784.

     [* Higden, lib. v. W. Malms, lib. i. cap. 2.]

     [** W. Malms, lib. i. cap. 2.]

Brthric next obtained possession of the government, though remotely
descended from the royal family; but he enjoyed not that dignity without
inquietude. Eoppa, nephew to King Ina, by his brother Ingild, who died
before that prince, had begot Eata, father to Alchmond, from whom sprung
Egbert,[*] a young man of the most promising hopes, who gave great
jealousy to Brithric, the reigning prince, both because he seemed by his
birth better entitled to the crown, and because he had acquired, to an
eminent degree, the affections of the people. Egbert, sensible of
his danger from the suspicions of Brithric, secretly withdrew into
France;[**] where he was well received by Charlemagne. By living in the
court, and serving in the armies of that prince, the most able and most
generous that had appeared in Europe during several ages, he acquired
those accomplishments which afterwards enabled him to make such a
shining figure on the throne. And familiarizing himself to the manners
of the French, who, as Malmsbury observes,[***] were eminent both for
valor and civility above all the western nations, he learned to polish
the rudeness and barbarity of the Saxon character: his early misfortunes
thus proved of singular advantage to him.


It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural
and acquired talents. Brithric, king of Wessex, had married Eadburga,
natural daughter of Offa, king of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally
infamous for cruelty and for incontinence. Having great influence over
her husband, she often instigated him to destroy such of the nobility as
were obnoxious to her; and where this expedient failed, she scrupled not
being herself active in traitorous attempts against them. She had mixed
a cup of poison for a young nobleman, who had acquired her husband’s
friendship, and had on that account become the object of her jealousy;
but unfortunately the king drank of the fatal cup along with his
favorite, and soon after expired.[****] This tragical incident, joined
to her other crimes, rendered Eadburga so odious, that she was obliged
to fly into France; whence Egbert was at the same time recalled by the
nobility, in order to ascend the throne of his ancestors.[*****] He
attained that dignity in the last year of the eighth century.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 16.]

     [** H. Hunting. lib. iv.]

     [*** Lib. ii. cap. 11.]

     [**** Higden, lib. v. M West. p. 152. Asser. in
     vita Alfiredi, p, 3. ex edit, Camdeni.]

     [***** 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 favorable circumstance to make attempts on the neighboring Saxons,
gave them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to turn his
arms against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in several
battles.[*] He was recalled from the conquest of that country by an
invasion made upon his dominions by Bernulf, king of Mercia.

The Mercians, before the accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained
the absolute sovereignty in the Heptarchy: they had reduced the East
Angles under subjection, and established tributary princes in the
kingdoms of Kent and Essex. Northumberland was involved in anarchy; and
no state of any consequence remained but that of Wessex, which,
much inferior in extent to Mercia, was supported solely by the great
qualities of its sovereign. Egbert led his army against the invaders;
and encountering them at Ellandun, in Wiltshire, obtained a complete
victory, and by the great slaughter which he made of them in their
flight, gave a mortal blow to the power of the Mercians. Whilst he
himself, In prosecution of his victory, entered their country on the
side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart of their dominions, he
sent an army into Kent, commanded by Ethelwolph, his eldest son,[**]
and, expelling Baldred. The tributary king, soon made himself master of
that county.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 69.]

     [** Ethelwerd, lib iii. cap. 2.]

The kingdom of Essex was conquered with equal facility; and the East
Angles, from their hatred to the Mercian gov ernment, which had been
established over them by treachery and violence, and probably exercised
with tyranny, immediately rose in arms, and craved the protection of
Egbert.[*] Bernulf, the Mercian king, who marched against them, was
feated and siain; and two years after, Ludican, his successor, met
with the same fate. These insurrections and calamities facilitated
the enterprises of Egbert, who advanced into the centre of the Mercian
territories, and made easy conquests over a dispirited and divided
people. In order to engage them more easily to submission, he allowed
Wiglef, their countryman, to retain the title of king, whilst he
himself exercised the real powers of sovereignty.[**] The anarchy which
prevailed in Northumberland tempted him to carry still farther his
victorious arms; and the inhabitants, unable to resist his power,
and desirous of possessing some established form of government, were
forward, on his first appearance, to send deputies, who submitted to
his authority, and swore allegiance to him as their sovereign. Egbert,
however, still allowed to Northumberland, as he had done to Mercia, and
East Anglia, the power of electing a king, who paid him tribute, and was
dependent on him.

Thus were united all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy in one great state,
near four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in
Britain; and the fortunate arms and prudent policy of Egbert at
last effected what had been so often attempted in vain by so many
princes.[***] Kent, Northumberland, and Mercia, which had successively
aspired to general dominion, were now incorporated in his empire; and
the other subordinate kingdoms seemed willingly to share the same fate.
His territories were nearly of the same extent with what is now
properly called England; and a favorable prospect was afforded to
the Anglo-Saxons of establishing a civilized monarchy, possessed of
tranquillity within itself, and secure against foreign invasion. This
great event happened in the year 827.[****]

     [* Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap. 2.]

     [** Ingulph. p. 7, 8, 19.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 71.]

     [**** Chron. Sax. p. 71.]

The Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem not
as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors, either
hi arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience to the
laws. Even Christianity, though it opened the way to connections between
their and the more polished states of Europe, had not hitherto been very
effectual in banishing their ignorance, or softening their barbarous
manners. As they received that doctrine through the corrupted channels
of Rome, it carried along with it a great mixture of credulity and
superstition, equally destructive to the understanding and to morals.
The reverence towards saints and relics seems to have almost supplanted
the idoration of the Supreme Being; monastic observances were esteemed
more meritorious than the active virtues; the knowledge of natural
causes was neglected, from the universal belief of miraculous
interpositions and judgments; bounty to the church atoned for every
violence against society; and the remorses for cruelty, murder,
treachery, assassination, and the more robust vices, were appeased, not
by amendment of life, but by penances, servility to the monks, and an
abject and illiberal devotion.[*] The reverence for the clergy had
been carried to such a height, that, wherever a person appeared in a
sacerdotal habit, though on the highway, the people flocked around him,
and, showing him all marks of profound respect, received every word he
uttered as the most sacred oracle.[**] Even the military virtues,
so inherent in all the Saxon tribes, began to be neglected; and the
nobility, preferring the security and sloth of the cloister to the
tumults and glory of war, valued themselves chiefly on endowing
monasteries, of which they assumed the government.[***] The several
kings too, being extremely impoverished by continual benefactions to the
church, to which the states of their kingdoms had weakly assented, could
bestow no rewards on valor or military services, and retained not even
sufficient influence to support their government.[****]

     [* 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 no improvement of society in knowledge
     or the arts.]

     [** Bede, lib. iii. cap. 26.]

     [*** Bede, lib. v. cap. 23. Bedae Epist. ad
     Egbert.]

     [**** Bedse 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;[*]
but the Saxons, receiving their religion from Roman monks, were taught
at the same time a profound reverence for that see, and were naturally
led to regard it as the capital of their religion. Pilgrimages to Rome
were represented as the most meritorious acts of devotion. Not only
noblemen and ladies of rank undertook this tedious journey,[**] but
kings themselves, abdicating their crowns, sought for a secure passport
to heaven at the feet of the Roman pontiff. New relics, perpetually sent
from that endless mint of superstition, and magnified by lying miracles,
invented in convents, operated on the astonished minds of the multitude.
And every prince has attained the eulogies of the monks, the only
historians of those ages, not in proportion to his civil and military
virtues, but to his devoted attachment towards their order, and his
superstitious reverence for Rome.

The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive
disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments
on the independence of the English churches. Wilfrid, bishop of
Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased
this subjection in the eighth century, by his making an appeal to
Rome against the decisions of an English synod, which had abridged his
diocese by the erection of some new bishoprics.[***] Agatho, the pope,
readily embraced this precedent of an appeal to his court; and Wilfrid,
though the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age,[****]
having obtained with the people the character of sanctity, was thus able
to lay the foundation of this papal pretension.

     [* Append, to Bede, numb. 10, ex edit. 1722.
     Spehn. Concil p.108, 109.]

     [** Bede. lib. v. cap. 7.]

     [*** See Appendix to Bede, numb. 19. Higden, lib.
     v.]

     [**** Eddius, vita Vilfr. sect. 24, 60]

The great topic by which Wilfrid confounded the imaginations of men,
was, that St. Peter, to whos custody the keys of heaven were intrusted,
would certainly refuse admittance to every one who should be wanting
in respect to his successor, This conceit, well suited to vulgar
conceptions, made great impression on the people during several
ages, and has act even at present lost all influence in the Catholic
countries. Had this abject superstition produced general peace and
tranquillity, it had made some atonement for the ills attending it;
but besides the usual avidity of men for power and riches, frivolous
controversies in theology were engendered by it, which were so much
the more fatal, as they admitted not, like the others, of any final
determination from established possession. The disputes, excited in
Britain, were of the most ridiculous kind, and entirely worthy of those
ignorant and barbarous ages. There were some intricacies, observed by
all the Christian churches, in adjusting the day of keeping Easter;
which depended on a complicated consideration of the course of the sun
and moon; and it happened that the missionaries, who had converted the
Scots and Britons, had followed a different calendar from that which was
observed at Rome, in the age when Augustine converted the Saxons. The
priests also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to shave part
of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was different in the
former from what was practised in the latter. The Scots and Britons
pleaded the antiquity of _their_ usages; the Romans and their
disciples, the Saxons, insisted on the universality of _theirs_.
That Easter must necessarily be kept by a rule, which comprehended both
the day of the year and age of the moon, was agreed by all; that the
tonsure of a priest could not be omitted without the utmost impiety, was
a point undisputed; but the Romans and Saxons called their antagonists
schismatics, because they celebrated Easter on the very day of the full
moon in March, if that day fell on a Sunday, instead of waiting till the
Sunday following; and because they shaved the fore part of their head
from ear to ear, instead of making that tonsure on the crown of the
head, and in a circular form. In order to render their antagonists
odious, they affirmed that, once in seven years, they concurred with the
Jews in the time of celebrating that festival;[*] and that they might
recommend their own form of tonsure, they maintained, that it imitated
symbolically the crown of thorns worn by Christ in his passion; whereas
the other form was invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that
representation.[**]

     [* Bede, lib. ii. cap. 19.]

     [** Bede, lib. v. cap. 21. Eddius, sect. 24]

These controversies had, from the beginning, excited such animosity
between the British and Romish priests that, instead of concurring
in their endeavors to convert the idolatrous Saxons, they refused all
communion together, and each regarded his opponent as no better than
a pagan.[*] The dispute lasted more than a century; and was at last
finished, not by men’s discovering the folly of it, which would have
been too great an effort for human reason to accomplish, but by the
entire prevalence of the Romish ritual over the Scotch and British.[**]
Wilfrid, bishop of Lindisferne, acquired great merit, both with the
court of Rome and with all the southern Saxons, by expelling the
quartodeciman schism, as it was called, from the Northumbrian kingdom,
into which the neighborhood of the Scots had formerly introduced
it.[***]

Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, called, in the year 680, a synod
at Hatfield, consisting of all the bishops in Britain,[****] where was
accepted and ratified the decree of the Lateran council, summoned by
Martin, against the heresy of the Monothelites. The council and synod
maintained, in opposition to these heretics, that, though the divine
and human nature in Christ made but one person, yet had they different
inclinations, wills, acts, and sentiments, and that the unity of the
person implied not any unity in the consciousness.[*****] This opinion
it seems somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with
the ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of
zeal and violence with which it was then inculcated. The decree of
the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked,
abominable, and even diabolical; and curses and anathematizes them to
all eternity.[******]

     [* Bede, lib. ii. cap. 2, 4, 20. Eddius, sect.
     12.]

     [** Bede, lib. v. cap. 16, 22.]

     [*** Bede, lib. iii. cap. 25. Eddius, sect. 12.]

     [**** Spell. Concil. vol. i. p. 168.]

     [***** Spell. Concil. vol. i. p. 171.]

     [****** Spell. Concil. vol. i. p. 172, 173, 174.]



CHAPTER II.

The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them, had
admitted the use of images; and perhaps that religion, without some of
those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress with these
idolaters; but they had not paid any species of worship or address
to images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians, till it
received the sanction of the second council of Nice.



EGBERT.

[Sidenote: 827.] The kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though united by a
recent conquest, seemed to be firmly cemented into one state under
Egbert; and the inhabitants of the several provinces had lost all desire
of revolting from that monarch, or of restoring their former independent
governments. Their language was every where nearly the same, their
customs, laws, institutions, civil and religious; and as the race of
the ancient kings was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the
people readily transferred their allegiance to a prince who seemed
to merit it by the splendor of his victories, the vigor of hia
administration, and the superior nobility of his birth. A union also in
government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future tranquillity;
and it appeared more probable that they would thenceforth become
formidable to their neighbors, than be exposed to their inroads and
devastations. But these flattering views were soon overcast by
the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries, kept the
Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most barbarous
ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to grievous servitude.

The emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had been
induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan Saxons in
Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their country with
fire and sword, he had, in cool blood, decimated all the inhabitants
for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most rigorous edicts,
to make a seeming compliance with the Christian doctrine. That religion,
which had easily made its way among the British Saxons by insinuation
and address, appeared shocking to their German brethren, when imposed on
them by the violence of Charlemagne; and the more generous and warlike
of these pagans had fled northward into Jutland, in order to escape
the fury of his persecutions. Meeting there with a people of similar
manners, they were readily received among them; and they soon stimulated
the natives to concur in enterprises which both promised revenge on
the haughty conqueror, and afforded subsistence to those numerous
inhabitants with which the northern countries were now overburdened.[*]
They invaded the provinces of France, which were exposed by the
degeneracy and dissensions of Charlemagne’s posterity; and being there
known under the general name of Normans, which they received from their
northern situation, they became the terror of all the maritime and even
of the inland countries. They were also tempted to visit England in
their frequent excursions; and being able, by sudden inroads, to make
great progress over a people who were not defended by any naval force,
who had relaxed their military institutions, and who were sunk into a
superstition which had become odious to the Danes and ancient Saxons,
they made no distinction in their hostilities between the French and
English kingdoms. Their first appearance in this island was in the year
787,[**] when Brithric reigned in Wessex. A small body of them landed in
that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the country; and when
the magistrate of the place questioned them concerning their enterprise,
and summoned them to appear before the king, and account for their
intentions, they killed him, and, flying to, their ships, escaped into
their own country. The next alarm was given to Northumberland in the
year 794,[***] when a body of these pirates pillaged a monastery; but
their ships being much damaged by a storm, and their leader slain in
a skirmish, they were at last defeated by the inhabitants, and the
remainder of them put to the sword. [Sidenote: 832] Five years after
Egbert had established his monarchy over England, the Danes landed in
the Isle of Shepey, and having pillaged it, escaped with impunity.[****]
They were not so fortunate in their next year’s enterprise, when they
disembarked from thirty-five ships, and were encountered by Egbert, at
Charmouth, in Dorsetshire. The battle was bloody; but though the Danes
lost great numbers, they maintained the post which they had taken, and
thence made good their retreat to their ships.[*****]

     [* Ypod. Neust. p. 414.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 64.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 66. Alured. Beveri. p. 108.]

     [**** Chron. Sax. p. 72]

     [***** Chiron. Sax. p. 72. Ethelwerd,lib. iii.
     cap. 2.]

Having learned, by experience, that they must expect a vigorous
resistance from this warlike prince, they entered into an alliance with
the Britons of Cornwall; and, landing two years after in that country,
made an inroad with their confederates into the county of Devon, but
were met at Hengesdown by Egbert, and totally defeated.[*] While England
remained in this state of anxiety, and defended itself more by temporary
expedients than by any regular plan of administration, Egbert, who alone
was able to provide effectually against this new evil, unfortunately
died, and left the government to his son Ethelwolf.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 72.]



ETHELWOLF.

This prince had neither the abilities nor the vigor of his father, and
was better qualified for governing a convent than a kingdom.[*] He began
his reign with making a partition of his dominions, and delivering over
to his eldest son, Athelstan, the new-conquered provinces of Essex,
Kent, and Sussex. But no inconveniences seem to have arisen from this
partition as the continual terror of the Danish invasions prevented
all domestic dissension. A fleet of these ravagers, consisting of
thirty-three sail, appeared at Southampton, but were repulsed with loss
by Wolfhere, governor of the neighboring country.[**] The same year,
Æthelhelm, governor of Dorsetshire, routed another band, which had
disembarked at Portsmouth; but he obtained the victory after a furious
engagement, and he bought it with the loss of his life.[***]

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap 2.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 73. Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap.
     3.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 73. H. Hunting, lib. v.]

Next year, the Danes made several inroads into England, and fought
battles, or rather skirmishes, in East Anglia and Lindesey and Kent;
where, though they were sometimes repulsed and defeated, they always
obtained their end, of committing spoil upon the country, and carrying
off their booty. They avoided coming to a general engagement, which was
not suited to their plan of operations. Their vessels were small, and
ran easily up the creeks and rivers, where they drew them ashore, and,
having formed an intrenchment round them, which they guarded with part
of their number, the remainder scattered themselves every where, and
carrying off the inhabitants, and cattle, and goods, they hastened
to their ships, and quickly disappeared. If the military force of the
county were assembled, (for there was no time for troops to march from
a distance,) the Danes either were able to repulse them, and to continue
their ravages with impunity, or they betook themselves to their vessels,
and, setting sail, suddenly invaded some distant quarter, which was not
prepared for their reception.

Every part of England was held in continual alarm; and the inhabitants
of one county durst not give assistance to those of another, lest their
own families and property should in the mean time be exposed by their
absence to the fury of these barbarous ravagers.[*]

[* Alured. Beverl. p. 108.]

All orders of men were involved in this calamity; and the priests and
monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic quarrels of
the Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish idolaters
exercised their rage and animosity. Every season of the year was
dangerous, and the absence of the enemy was no reason why any man could
esteem himself a moment in safety.

These incursions had now become almost annual; when the Danes,
encouraged by their successes against France as well as England, (for
both kingdoms were alike exposed to this dreadful calamity,) invaded
the last in so numerous a body as seemed to threaten it with universal
subjection. But the English, more military than the Britons, whom a few
centuries before they had treated with like violence, roused themselves
with a vigor proportioned to the exigency. Ceorle, governor of
Devonshire, fought a battle with one body of the Danes at Wiganburgh,[*]
and put them to rout with great slaughter.

     [* H. Hunting, lib. v. Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap 3.
     Sim. Dunelm. p. 120.]

King Athelstan attacked another at sea, near Sandwich, sunk nine of
their ships, and put the rest to flight.[*]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 74. Asser. p. 2.]

A body of them, however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter
quarters in England; and receiving in the spring a strong reënforcement
of their countrymen, in three hundred and fifty vessels, they advanced
from the Isle of Thanet, where they had stationed themselves, burnt the
cities of London and Canterbury, and having put to flight Brichtric, who
now governed Mercia under the title of king, they marched into the heart
of Surrey, and laid every place waste around them. Ethelwolf, impelled
by the urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the
West Saxons; and, carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them
battle at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them. This advantage
procured but a short respite to the English. The Danes still maintained
their settlement in the Isle of Thanet; and, being attacked by Ealher
and Huda, governors of Kent and Surrey, though defeated in the beginning
of the action, they finally repulsed the assailants, and killed both
the governors, removed thence to the Isle of Shepey, where they took up
their winter quarters, that they might farther extend their devastation
and ravages.


This unsettled state of England hindered not Ethelwolf from making a
pilgrimage to Rome, whither he carried his fourth and favorite son,
Alfred, then only six years of age.[*] He passed there a twelvemonth
in exercises of devotion; and failed not in that most essential part of
devotion, liberality to the church of Rome. Besides giving presents to
the more distinguished ecclesiastics, he made a perpetual grant of three
hundred mancuses[**] a year to that see; one third to support the
lamps of St. Peter’s, another those of St. Paul’s, a third to the pope
himself.[***] In his return home, he married Judith, daughter of the
emperor Charles the Bald; but, on his landing in England, he met with an
opposition which he little looked for.


His eldest son, Athelstan, being dead, Ethelbald, his second, who had
assumed the government, formed, in concert with many of the nobles, the
project of excluding his father from a throne which his weakness and
superstition seem to have rendered him so ill qualified to fill. The
people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil war,
joined to all the other calamities under which the English labored,
appeared inevitable, when Ethelwolf had the facility to yield to the
greater part of his son’s pretensions. He made with him a partition of
the kingdom; and, taking to himself the eastern part, which was always,
at that time, esteemed the least considerable, as well as the most
exposed,[****] he delivered over to Ethelbald the sovereignty of the
western. Immediately after, he summoned the states of the whole kingdom,
and with the same facility conferred a perpetual and important donation
on the church.

     [* Asser. p. 2. Chron. Sax. 76. H. Hunting, lib.
     v.]

     [** A mancus was about the weight of our present
     half crown. See Spelman’s Glossary, in verbo Mancus.]

     [*** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 2.]

     [**** Asser. p. 3. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 2. M.
     West. p. 7, 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.[*] Encouraged by their
success in inculcating these doctrines, they ventured farther than they
were warranted even by the Levitical law, and pretended to draw the
tenth of all industry, merchandise, wages of laborers, and pay of
soldiers;[**] nay, some canonists went so far as to affirm that the
clergy were entitled to the tithe of the profits made by courtesans
in the exercise of their profession.[***] Though parishes had been
instituted in England by Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, near two
centuries before,[****] the ecclesiastics had never yet been able to get
possession of the tithes; they therefore seized the present favorable
opportunity of making that acquisition; when a weak, superstitious
prince filled the throne, and when the people, discouraged by their
losses from the Danes, and terrified with the fear of future invasions,
were susceptible of any impression which bore the appearance of
religion.[*****] So meritorious was this concession deemed by the
English, that, trusting entirely to supernatural assistance, they
neglected the ordinary means of safety; and agreed, even in the present
desperate extremity, that the revenues of the church should be
exempted from all burdens, though imposed for national defence and
security.[******]

     [* Padre Paolo, sopra beneficii ecclesiastici, p.
     51, 52, edit. Colon. 1675.]

     [** Spell. Concil. vol. i. p. 268.]

     [*** Padre Paolo, p. 132.]

     [**** Parker, p. 77.]

     [***** Ingulph. p. 862. Selden’s Hist. of Tithes,
     c. 8.]

     [****** Asser. p. 2. Chron. Sax. p. 76. W. Malms,
     lib. ii. cap. 2. Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap. 3. M. West. p.
     158. Ingulph. p. 17. Alured. Beverl. p. 95.]



ETHELBALD AND ETHELBERT.

Ethelwolf lived only two years after making this grant; and by his will
he shared England between his two eldest sons, Ethelbald and Ethelbert;
the west being assigned to the former, the east to the latter. Ethelbald
was a profligate prince; and marrying Judith, his mother-in-law, gave
great offence to the people; but moved by the remonstrances of Swithun,
bishop of Winchester, he was at last prevailed on to divorce her.
His reign was short; and Ethelbert, his brother, succeeding to the
government, behaved himself, during a reign of five years, in a manner
more worthy of his birth and station. The kingdom, however, was still
infested by the Danes, who made an inroad and sacked Winchester, but
were there defeated. A body also of these pirates, who were quartered
in the Isle of Thanet, having deceived the English by a treaty,
unexpectedly broke into Kent, and committed great outrages.



ETHERED

Ethelbert was succeeded by his brother Ethered, who, though he defended
himself with bravery, enjoyed, during his whole reign, no tranquillity
from those Danish irruptions. His younger brother, Alfred, seconded him
in all his enterprises, and generously sacrificed to the public good all
resentment, which he might entertain on account of his being excluded by
Ethered from a large patrimony which had been left him by his father.

The first landing of the Danes, in the reign of Ethered, was among the
East Angles, who, more anxious for their present safety than for the
common interest, entered into a separate treaty with the enemy, and
furnished them with horses, which enabled them to make an irruption by
land into the kingdom of Northumberland. They there seized the city
of York, and defended it against Osbricht and Ælia, two Northumbrian
princes, who perished in the assault.[*] Encouraged by these successes,
and by the superiority which they had acquired in arms, they now
ventured, under the command of Hinguar and Hubba, to leave the
sea-coast, and penetrating into Mercia, they took up their winter
quarters at Nottingham, where they threatened the kingdom with a final
subjection.

     [* Asser, p. 6. Chron. Sax. p. 79.]

The Mercians, in this extremity, applied to Ethered for succor; and that
prince, with his brother Alfred, conducting a great army to Nottingham,
obliged the enemy to dislodge, and to retreat into Northumberland.
{870.} Their restless disposition, and their avidity for plunder,
allowed them not to remain long in those quarters; they broke into East
Anglia, defeated and took prisoner Edmund, the king of that country,
whom they afterwards murdered in cool blood; and, committing the most
barbarous ravages on the people, particularly on the monasteries, they
gave the East Angles cause to regret the temporary relief which they had
obtained, by assisting the common enemy.

The next station of the Danes was at Reading; whence they infested
the neighboring country by their incursions. The Mercians, desirous of
shaking off their dependence on Ethered, refused to join him with
their forces; and that prince, attended by Alfred, was obliged to march
against the enemy with the West Saxons alone, his hereditary subjects.
The Danes, being defeated in an action, shut themselves up in their
garrison; but quickly making thence an irruption, they routed the West
Saxons, and obliged them to raise the siege. An action soon after ensued
at Aston, in Berkshire, where the English, in the beginning of the day,
were in danger of a total defeat. Alfred, advancing with one division
of the army, was surrounded by the enemy in disadvantageous ground;
and Ethered, who was at that time hearing mass, refused to march to his
assistance till prayers should be finished;[*] but, as he afterwards
obtained the victory, this success, not the danger of Alfred, was
ascribed by the monks to the piety of that monarch.

     [* Asser. p. 7. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 3 Sim.
     Dunelm. p. 125. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 205.]

[Illustration: 035.jpg ALFRED BEFORE THE DANISH GENERAL]



ALFRED.

This battle of Aston did not terminate the war; another battle was a
little after fought at Basing, where the Danes were more successful; and
being reënforced by a new army from their own country, they became every
day more terrible to the English. Amidst these confusions, Ethered died
of a wound which he had received in an action with the Danes; and
left the inheritance of his cares and misfortunes, rather than of his
grandeur, to his brother Alfred, who was now twenty-two years of age.

This prince gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining
talents, by which, during the most difficult times, he saved his country
from utter ruin and subversion. Ethelwolf, his father, the year after
his return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young prince
thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of the king’s
death, the Pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction;[*] whether
prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances of his
pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to the right
of conferring kingdoms. Alfred, on his return home, became every day
more the object of his father’s affections; but being indulged in all
youthful pleasures, he was much neglected in his education; and he had
already reached his twelfth year, when he was yet totally ignorant of
the lowest elements of literature. His genius was first roused by
the recital of Saxon poems, in which the queen took delight; and this
species of erudition, which is sometimes able to make a considerable
progress even among barbarians, expanded those noble and elevated
sentiments which he had received from nature.[**] Encouraged by the
queen, and stimulated by his own ardent inclination, he soon learned to
read those compositions; and proceeded thence to acquire the knowledge
of the Latin tongue, in which he met with authors that better prompted
his heroic spirit, and directed his generous views. Absorbed in these
elegant pursuits, he regarded his accession to royalty rather as an
object of regret than of triumph;[***] but being called to the throne,
in preference to his brother’s children, as well by the will of
his father,--a circumstance which had great authority with the
Anglo-Saxons[****]--as by the vows of the whole nation, and the urgency
of public affairs, he shook off his literary indolence, and exerted
himself in the defence of his people. He had scarcely buried his
brother, when he was obliged to take the field, in order to oppose the
Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising their usual ravages on
the countries around.

     [* Asser. p. 2. W. Malms, lib. ii. chap. 2.
     Ingulph. p. 869. Sim. Dunelm. p. 120, 139.]

     [** Asser. p. 5. M. West, p. 167.]

     [*** Asser. p. 7.]

     [**** Asser. p. 22. Sim. Dunelm. p. 121.]

He marched against them with the few troops which he could assemble on
a sudden, and, giving them battle, gained at first an advantage;
but, by his pursuing the victory too far, the superiority of the enemy’s
numbers prevailed, and recovered them the day. Their loss, however,
in the action, was so considerable, that, fearing Alfred would receive
daily reënforcements from his subjects, they were content to stipulate
for a safe retreat, and promised to depart the kingdom. For that
purpose, they were conducted to London, and allowed to take up winter
quarters there; but, careless of their engagements, they immediately
set themselves to the committing of spoil on the neighboring country.
Burrhed, king of Mercia, in whose territories London was situated, made
a new stipulation with them, and engaged them, by presents of money, to
remove to Lindesey, in Lincolnshire, a country which they had already
reduced to ruin and desolation. Finding, therefore, no object in that
place, either for their rapine or violence, they suddenly turned
back upon Mercia, in a quarter where they expected to find it without
defence; and fixing their station at Repton, in Derbyshire, they laid
the whole country desolate with fire and sword. Burrhed, despairing of
success against an enemy whom no force could resist, and no treaties
bind, abandoned his kingdom, and, flying to Rome, took shelter in a
cloister.[*] He was brother-in-law to Alfred, and the last who bore the
title of king in Mercia.

The West Saxons were now the only remaining power in England; and though
supported by the vigor and abilities of Alfred, they were unable to
sustain the efforts of those ravagers, who from all quarters invaded
them. A new swarm of Danes came over this year under three princes,
Guthrum, Oscitel, and Amund; and having first joined their countrymen at
Repton, they soon found the necessity of separating, in order to provide
for their subsistence. Part of them, under the command of Haldene,
their chieftain,[**] marched into Northumberland, where they fixed
their residence; part of them took quarters at Cambridge, whence they
dislodged in the ensuing summer and seized Wereham, in the county of
Dorset, the very centre of Alfred’s dominions. That prince so straitened
them in these quarters, that they were content to come to a treaty with
him, and stipulated to depart his country. Alfred, well acquainted with
their usual perfidy, obliged them to swear upon the holy relics to the
observance of the treaty;[***] not that he expected they would pay any
veneration to the relics; but he hoped that, if they now violated this
oath, their impiety would infallibly draw down upon them the vengeance
of Heaven.

     [* Asser. p. 8. Chron. Sax. p. 82. Ethelwerd, lib.
     iv. cap. 4.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 83.]

     [*** Asser. p 8.]

But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger suddenly, without
seeking any pretence, fell upon Alfred’s army; and having put it to
rout, marched westward, and took possession of Exeter. The prince
collected new forces, and exerted such vigor, that he fought in one
year eight battles with the enemy,[*] and reduced them to the utmost
extremity. He hearkened, however, to new proposals of peace, and was
satisfied to stipulate with them, that they would settle somewhere in
England,[**] and would not permit the entrance of more ravagers into the
kingdom. But while he was expecting the execution of this treaty, which
it seemed the interest of the Danes themselves to fulfil, he heard that
another body had landed, and, having collected all the scattered troops
of their country men, had surprised Chippenham, then a considerable
town, and were exercising their usual ravages all around them.


This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced
them to despair. Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which they
had undergone in their persons and in their property, after all the
vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence, a new
band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among
them, they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and
delivered over to those swarms of robbers which the fertile north thus
incessantly poured forth against them. Some left their country and
retired into Wales, or fled beyond sea; others submitted to
the conquerors, in hopes of appeasing their fury by a servile
obedience.[***] And every man’s attention being now engrossed in concern
for his own preservation, no one would hearken to the exhortations of
the king, who summoned them to make, under his conduct, one effort more
in defence of their prince, their country, and their liberties. Alfred
himself was obliged to relinquish the ensigns of his dignity, to dismiss
his servants, and to seek shelter in the meanest disguises from the
pursuit and fury of his enemies. He concealed himself under a peasant’s
habit, and lived some time in the house of a neat-herd, who had been
intrusted with the care of some of his cows.[****]

     [* Asser. p. 8. The Saxon Chronicle, p. 82, says
     nine battles.]

     [** Asser. p. 9. Alured. Beverl. p. 104.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 84. Alured. Beverl. p. 105.]

     [**** Asser. p. 9.]

There passed here an incident, which has been recorded by all the
historians, and was long preserved by popular tradition, though
it contains nothing memorable in itself, except so far as every
circumstance is interesting which attends so much virtue and dignity
reduced to such distress. The wife of the neat-herd was ignorant of the
condition of her royal guest; and observing him one day busy, by the
fireside, in trimming his bow and arrows, she desired him to take care
of some cakes which were toasting, while she was employed elsewhere
in other domestic affairs. But Alfred, whose thoughts were otherwise
engaged, neglected this injunction; and the good woman, on her return,
finding her cakes all burnt, rated the king very severely, and upbraided
him, that he always seemed very well pleased to eat her warm cakes
though he was thus negligent in toasting them.[*]


By degrees, Alfred, as he found the search of the enemy become more
remiss, collected some of his retainers, and retired into the centre
of a bog, formed by the stagnating waters of the Thone and Parret, in
Somersetshire. He here found two acres of firm ground; and building a
habitation on them, rendered himself secure by its fortifications, and
still more by the unknown and inaccessible roads which led to it, and
by the forests and morasses with which it was every way environed. This
place he called Æthelingay, or the Isle of Nobles;[**] and it now bears
the name of Athelney. He thence made frequent and unexpected sallies
upon the Danes, who often felt the vigor of his arm, but knew not from
what quarter the blow came. He subsisted himself and his followers by
the plunder which he acquired; he procured them consolation by
revenge; and from small successes, he opened their minds to hope that,
notwithstanding his present low condition, more important victories
might at length attend his valor.

    [* Asser. p. 9. M. West. p. 170.]

    [** Chron. Sax. p. 85. W Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4. Ethelwerd,
     lib iv. 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 Kinwith, a place situated near the mouth of the
small river Tau. Oddune, earl of Devonshire, with his followers, had
taken shelter there; and being ill supplied with provisions, and
even with water, he determined, by some vigorous blow, to prevent the
necessity of submitting to the barbarous enemy. He made a sudden sally
on the Danes before sun-rising; and taking them unprepared, he put them
to rout, pursued them with great slaughter, killed Hubba himself, and
got possession of the famous Reafen, or enchanted standard, in which the
Danes put great confidence.[*] It contained the figure of a raven, which
had been inwoven by the three sisters of Hinguar and Hubba, with
many magical incantations, and which, by its different movements,
prognosticated, as the Danes believed, the good or bad success of any
enterprise.[**]


When Alfred observed this symptom of successful resistance in his
subjects, he left his retreat; but before he would assemble them in
arms, or urge them to any attempt, which, if unfortunate, might, in
their present despondency, prove fatal, he resolved to inspect himself
the situation of the enemy, and to judge of the probability of success.
For this purpose he entered their camp under the disguise of a harper,
and passed unsuspected through every quarter. He so entertained
them with his music and facetious humors, that he met with a welcome
reception, and was even introduced to the tent of Guthrum, their prince,
where he remained some days.[***] He remarked the supine security of the
Danes, their contempt of the English, their negligence in foraging and
plundering, and their dissolute wasting of what they gained by rapine
and violence. Encouraged by these favorable appearances, he secretly
sent emissaries to the most considerable of his subjects, and summoned
them to a rendezvous, attended by their warlike followers, at Brixton,
on the borders of Selwood Forest.[****] The English, who had hoped to
put an end to their calamities by servile submission, now found the
insolence and rapine of the conqueror more intolerable than all past
fatigues and dangers; and at the appointed day, they joyfully resorted
to their prince. On his appearance, they received him with shouts of
applause,[*****] and could not satiate their eyes with the sight of this
beloved monarch, whom they had long regarded as dead, and who now, with
voice and looks expressing his confidence of success, called them to
liberty and to vengeance.

    [* Asser. p. 10. Chron. Sax. p. 84. Abbas Rieval. p. 395.
     Alured. Beverl. p. 105.]

    [** Asser. p. 10.]

    [*** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4.]

    [**** Chron Sax. p. 85.]

    [***** Asser. p. 10. Chron. Sax. p. 85. Sim. Dunelm. p. 128.
     Alured. Beverl. p. 105. Abbas Rieval. p. 354.]

He instantly conducted them to Eddington, where the Danes were encamped;
and taking advantage of his previous knowledge of the place, he directed
his attack against the most unguarded quarter of the enemy. The Danes,
surprised to see an army of English, whom they considered as totally
subdued, and still more astonished to hear that Alfred was at their
head, made but a faint resistance, notwithstanding their superiority of
number, and were soon put to flight with great slaughter. The remainder
of the routed army, with their prince, was besieged by Alfred in a
fortified camp to which they fled; but being reduced to extremity by
want and hunger, they had recourse to the clemency of the victor, and
offered to submit on any conditions. The king, no less generous than
brave, gave them their lives, and even formed a scheme for converting
them from mortal enemies into faithful subjects and confederates. He
knew that the kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumberland were totally
desolated by the frequent inroads of the Danes, and he now proposed to
repeople them, by settling there Guthrum and his followers. He hoped
that the new planters would at last betake themselves to industry, when,
by reason of his resistance, and the exhausted condition of the country,
they could no longer subsist by plunder; and that they might serve him
as a rampart against any future incursions of their countrymen. But
before he ratified these mild conditions with the Danes, he required
that they should give him one pledge of their submission, and of
their inclination to incorporate with the English, by declaring their
conversion to Christianity.[*] Guthrum and his army had no aversion to
the proposal; and, without much instruction, or argument, or conference,
they were all admitted to baptism. The king answered for Guthrum at the
font, gave him the name of Athelstan, and received him as his adopted
son.[**]

    [* Chron. Sax. p. 85.]

    [** Asser. p. 10. Chron. Sax. p. 90.]

The success of this expedient seemed to correspond to Alfred’s hopes:
the greater part of the Danes settled peaceably in their new quarters:
some smaller bodies of the same nation, which were dispersed in Mercia,
were distributed into the five cities of Derby, Leicester, Stamford,
Lincoln, and Nottingham, and were thence called the Fif or Five-burgers.
The more turbulent and unquiet made an expedition into France, under the
command of Hastings;[*] and except by a short incursion of Danes, who
sailed up the Thames, and landed at Fulham, but suddenly retreated to
their ships, on finding the country in a posture of defence, Alfred was
not for some years infested by the inroads of those barbarians.[**]

    [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4. Ingulph. p. 26.]

    [** 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,[*]
which had been destroyed by the Danes in the reign of Ethelwolf,
established a regular militia for the defence of the kingdom. He
ordained that all his people should be armed and registered; he assigned
them a regular rotation of duty; he distributed part into the castles
and fortresses, which he built at proper places;[**] he required another
part to take the field on any alarm, and to assemble at stated places of
rendezvous; and he left a sufficient number at home, who were employed
in the cultivation of the land, and who afterwards took their turn in
military service.[***]

    [* Asser. p. 15. Chron. Sax. p. 88. M. West. p. 171. Sim.
     Dunelm. p. 131. Brompton, p. 812. Alured. Beverl. ex edit.
     Hearns, p. 106.]

    [** Asser. p 18. Ingulph. p. 27.]

    [*** Chron. Sax. p. 92, 93.]

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.[*]

    [* Spelman’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,[*] 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.

    [* 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 those smaller bands, with which England
had so often been infested.[*]

    [* Asser. p. 11. Chiron Sax p. 86, 87. M. West. p. 176.]

But at last Hastings, the famous Danish chief, having ravaged all the
provinces of France, both along the sea-coast and the Loire and Seine,
and being obliged to quit that country, more by the desolation which
he himself had occasioned, than by the resistance of the inhabitants,
appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of three hundred and thirty
sail. The greater part of the enemy disembarked in the Rother and seized
the fort of Apuldore. Hastings himself, commanding a fleet of eighty
sail, entered the Thames, and fortifying Milton, in Kent, began to
spread his forces over the country, and to commit the most destructive
ravages. But Alfred, on the first alarm of this descent, flew to the
defence of his people, at the head of a select band of soldiers, whom he
always kept about his person,[*] and, gathering to him the armed militia
from all quarters, appeared in the field with a force superior to the
enemy. All straggling parties, whom necessity, or love of plunder, had
drawn to a distance from their chief encampment, were cut off by the
English;[**] and these pirates, instead of increasing their spoil, found
themselves cooped up in their fortifications, and obliged to subsist by
the plunder which they had brought from France. Tired of this situation,
which must in the end prove ruinous to them, the Danes at Apuldore rose
suddenly from their encampment, with an intention of marching towards
the Thames, and passing over into Essex: but they escaped not the
vigilance of Alfred, who encountered them at Farnham, put them to
rout,[***] seized all their horses and baggage, and chased the runaways
on board their ships, which carried them up the Colne to Mersey, in
Essex, where they intrenched themselves. Hastings, at the same time, and
probably by concert, made a like movement; and deserting Milton,
took possession of Bamflete, near the Isle of Canvey, in the same
county,[****] where he hastily threw up fortifications for his defence
against the power of Alfred.

    [* Asser. p. 19.]

    [** Chron. Sax. p. 92.]

    [*** Chron. Sax. p. 93. Flor. Wigorn. p. 595.]

    [**** 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,[*] embarked on board two
hundred and forty vessels, and appeared before Exeter, in the west of
England. Alfred lost not a moment in opposing this new enemy. Having
left some forces at London to make head against Hastings and the other
Danes, he marched suddenly to the west,[**] and, falling on the
rebels before they were aware, pursued them to their ships with great
slaughter.

    [* Chron. Sax. p. 92.]

    [** Chron. Sax. p. 93.]

These ravagers, sailing next to Sussex, began to plunder the country
near Chichester; but the order which Alfred had everywhere established,
sufficed here, without his presence, for the defence of the place,
and the rebels, meeting with a new repulse, in which many of them were
killed, and some of their ships taken,[*] were obliged to put again to
sea, and were discouraged from attempting any other enterprise.

    [* 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.[*] Alfred generously spared these
captives, and even restored them to Hastings,[**] on condition that he
should depart the kingdom.

    [* Chron. Sax. p. 94. M. West. w 178.]

    [** M. West, p. 179.]

But though the king had thus honorably rid himself of this dangerous
enemy, he had not entirely subdued or expelled the invaders. The
piratical Danes willingly followed in an excursion any prosperous
leader who gave them hopes of booty, but were not so easily induced to
relinquish their enterprise, or submit to return, baffled and without
plunder, into their native country. Great numbers of them, after the
departure of Hastings, seized and fortified Shobury, at the mouth of the
Thames; and having left a garrison there, they marched along the river,
till they came to Boddington, in the county of Glocester; where, being
reënforced by some Welsh, they threw up intrenchments, and prepared for
their defence. The king here surrounded them with the whole force of
his dominions; [*] and as he had now a certain prospect of victory, he
resolved to trust nothing to chance, but rather to master his enemies by
famine than assault. They were reduced to such extremities, that
having eaten their own horses, and having many of them perished with
hunger,[**] they made a desperate sally upon the English; and though
the greater number fell in the action, a considerable body made their
escape.[***]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 94.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 94. M. West. p. 179. Flor.
     Wigorn. p. 596.]

     [*** Chron. Sax p. 96.]

These roved about for some time in England, still pursued by the
vigilance of Alfred; they attacked Leicester with success, defended
themselves in Hartford, and then fled to Quatford, where they were
finally broken and subdued. The small remains of them either dispersed
themselves among their countrymen in Northumberland and East Anglia,[*]
or had recourse again to the sea, where they exercised piracy, under the
command of Sigefert, a Northumbrian.

    [* Chron. Sax. p. 97.]

This freebooter, well acquainted with Alfred’s naval preparations, had
framed vessels of a new construction, higher, and longer, and swifter
than those of the English; but the king soon discovered his superior
skill, by building vessels still higher, and longer, and swifter than
those of the Northumbrians; and falling upon them, while they were
exercising their ravages in the west, he took twenty of their ships; and
having tried all the prisoners at Winchester, he hanged them as pirates,
the common enemies of mankind.


The well-timed severity of this execution, together with the excellent
posture of defence established every where, restored full tranquillity
in England, and provided for the future security of the government. The
East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, on the first appearance of Alfred
upon their frontiers, made anew the most humble submissions to him;
and he thought it prudent to take them under his immediate government,
without establishing over them a viceroy of their own nation.[*] The
Welsh also acknowledged his authority; and this great prince had now, by
prudence, and justice, and valor, established his sovereignty over
all the southern parts of the island, from the English Channel to the
frontiers of Scotland; when he died, {901.} in the vigor of his age
and the full strength of his faculties, after a glorious reign of
twenty-nine years and a half,[**] in which he deservedly attained the
appellation of Alfred the Great, and the title of founder of the English
monarchy.

    [* Flor. Wigorn. p. 598.]

    [** Asser. p. 21. Chron. Sax. p. 95.]

The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with
advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch, or citizen,
which the annals of any age, or any nation, can present to us. He seems,
indeed, to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the
denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of
delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes of
ever seeing it really existing; so happily were all his virtues tempered
together, so justly were they blended, and so powerfully did each
prevent the other from exceeding its proper boundaries. He knew how to
reconcile the most enterprising spirit with the coolest moderation;
the most obstinate perseverance with the easiest flexibility: the
most severe justice with the gentlest lenity; the greatest vigor in
commanding with the most perfect affability of deportment;[*] the
highest capacity and inclination for science with the most shining
talents for action.

    [* Asser. p. 13.]

His civil and his military virtues are almost equally the objects of
our admiration; excepting only that the former, being more rare among
princes, as well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause.
Nature, also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill
should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily
accomplishment--vigor of limbs, dignity of shape and air, with a
pleasing, engaging, and open countenance. Fortune alone, by throwing him
into that barbarous age, deprived him of historians worthy to transmit
his fame to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively
colors, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least perceive
some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a man, it is
impossible he could be entirely exempted.

But we should give but an imperfect idea of Alfred’s merit, were we
to confine our narration to his military exploits, and were not more
particular in our account of his institutions for the execution of
justice, and of his zeal for the encouragement of arts and sciences.

After Alfred had subdued, and had settled or expelled the Danes, he
found the kingdom in the most wretched condition; desolated by the
ravages of those barbarians, and thrown into disorders which were
calculated to perpetuate its misery. Though the great armies of the
Danes were broken, the country was full of straggling troops of that
nation, who, being accustomed to live by plunder, were become incapable
of industry; and who, from the natural ferocity of their manners,
indulged themselves in committing violence, even beyond what was
requisite to supply their necessities. The English themselves, reduced
to the most extreme indigence by those continued depredations, had
shaken off all bands of government; and those who had been plundered
to-day, betook themselves next day to a like disorderly life, and,
from despair, joined the robbers in pillaging and ruining their
fellow-citizens. These were the evils for which it was necessary that
the vigilance and activity of Alfred should provide a remedy.

That he might render the execution of justice strict and regular, he
divided all England into counties: these counties he subdivided
into hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings. Every householder was
answerable for the behavior of his family and slaves, and even of his
guests, if they lived above three days in his house. Ten neighboring
householders were formed into one corporation, who, under the name of
a tithing, decennary, or fribourg, were answerable for each other’s
conduct, and over whom, one person, called a tithing-man, headbourg,
or borsholder, was appointed to preside. Every man was punished as an
outlaw who did not register himself in some tithing. And no man
could change his habitation without a warrant or certificate from the
borsholder of the tithing to which he formerly belonged.

When any person, in any tithing or decennary, was guilty of a crime, the
borsholder was summoned to answer for him; and if he were not willing to
be surety for his appearance, and his clearing himself, the criminal
was committed to prison, and there detained till his trial. If he fled,
either before or after finding sureties, the borsholder and decennary
became liable to inquiry, and were exposed to the penalties of law.
Thirty-one days were allowed them for producing the criminal; and if
that time elapsed without their being able to find him, the borsholder,
with two other members of the decennary, was obliged to appear, and,
together with three chief members of the three neighboring decennaries,
(making twelve in all,) to swear that his decennary was free from all
privity, both of the crime committed, and of the escape of the criminal.
If the borsholder could not find such a number to answer for their
innocence, the decennary was compelled by fine to make satisfaction to
the king, according to the degree of the offence.[*]

    [* Leges St. Edw. cap. 20, apud Wilkins, p. 202.]

By this institution, every man was obliged, from his own interest, to
keep a watchful eye over the conduct of his neighbors; and was in
a manner surety for the behavior of those who were placed under the
division to which he belonged; whence these decennaries received the
name of frank-pledges.

Such a regular distribution of the people, with such a strict
confinement in their habitation, may not be necessary in times when
men are more inured to obedience and justice; and it might, perhaps, be
regarded as destructive of liberty and commerce in a polished state; but
it was well calculated to reduce that fierce and licentious people under
the salutary restraint of law and government. But Alfred took care to
temper these rigors by other institutions favorable to the freedom of
the citizens; and nothing could be more popular and liberal than his
plan for the administration of justice. The borsholder summoned together
his whole decennary to assist him in deciding any lesser differences
which occurred among the members of this small community. In affairs
of greater moment, in appeals from the decennary, or in controversies
arising between members of different decennaries, the cause was brought
before the hundred, which consisted of ten decennaries, or a hundred
families of freemen, and which was regularly assembled once in four
weeks, for the deciding of causes.[*] Their method of decision deserves
to be noted, as being the origin of juries; an institution admirable in
itself, and the best calculated for the preservation of liberty and
the administration of justice that ever was devised by the wit of man.
Twelve freeholders were chosen, who, having sworn, together with the
hundreder, or presiding magistrate of that division, to administer
impartial justice,[**] proceeded to the examination of that cause which
was submitted to their jurisdiction. And beside these monthly meetings
of the hundred, there was an annual meeting, appointed for a more
general inspection of the police of the district; for the inquiry into
crimes, the correction of abuses in magistrates, and the obliging of
every person to show the decennary in which he was registered. The
people, in imitation of their ancestors, the ancient Germans, assembled
there in arms; whence a hundred was sometimes called a wapentake, and
its courts served both for the support of military discipline and for
the administration of civil justice.[***]

    [* Leges St. Edw. cap. 2.]

    [** Foedus Alfred. et Gothurn. apud Wilkins, cap. 3, p. 47.
     Leg. Ethelstani cap. 2, apud Wilkins, p. 58. LL. Ethelr.
     sect. 4. Wilkins, p. 117.]

    [*** Spelman, 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 coördinate authority with the former in the judicial function.[*]
His office also impowered him to guard the rights of the crown in the
county, and to levy the fines imposed, which in that age formed no
contemptible part of the public revenue.

     [* 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;[*] but finding that his
time must be entirely engrossed by this branch of duty, he resolved to
obviate the inconvenience, by correcting the ignorance or corruption of
the inferior magistrates, from which it arose.[**] He took care to have
his nobility instructed in letters and the laws; [***] he chose the
earls and sheriffs from among the men most celebrated for probity and
knowledge; he punished severely all malversation in office;[****] and
he removed all the earls whom he found unequal to the trust;[*****]
allowing only some of the more elderly to serve by a deputy, till their
death should make room for more worthy successors.

     [* Asser. p. 20.]

     [** Asser. p. 18, 21. Flor. Wigorn. p. 594. Abbas
     Rieval. p. 355.]

     [*** Flor. Wigorn. p. 594. Brompton, p. 814.]

     [**** Le Miroir de Justice, chap. 2.]

     [***** 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,[*] a city which he himself
had repaired and beautified, and which he thus rendered the capital of
the kingdom.

     [* Le Miroir de Justice.]

The similarity of these institutions to the customs of the ancient
Germans, to the practice of the other northern conquerors, and to the
Saxon laws during the Heptarchy, prevents us from regarding Alfred
as the sole author of this plan of government, and leads us rather
to think, that, like a wise-man, he contented himself with reforming,
extending, and executing the institutions which he found previously
established. But, on the whole, such success attended his legislation,
that everything bore suddenly a new face in England. Robberies and
iniquities of all kinds were repressed by the punishment or reformation
of the criminals;[*] and so exact was the general police, that Alfred,
it is said, hung up, by way of bravado, golden bracelets near the
highways, and no man dared to touch them.[**] Yet, amidst these rigors
of justice, this great prince preserved the most sacred regard to the
liberty of his people; and it is a memorable sentiment preserved in
his will, that it was just the English should forever remain as free as
their own thoughts.[***]

    [* Ingulph. p. 27.]

    [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4.]

    [* Asset, 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[*] 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.

    [* A hide contained land sufficient to employ one plough. See
     H. Hunting, lib. vi. in A. D. 1008. Annal. Waverl. in A. D.
     1083. Gervase of Tilbury says, it commonly contained about
     one hundred 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,[*] an expedient suited to that
rude age, when the geometry of dialling, and the mechanism of clocks and
watches, were totally unknown. And by such a regular distribution of his
time though he often labored under great bodily infirmities,[**]
this martial hero, who fought in person fifty-six battles by sea and
land,[***] was able, during a life of no extraordinary length, to
acquire more knowledge, and even to compose more books, than most
studious men, though blessed with the greatest leisure and application,
have, in more fortunate ages, made the object of their uninterrupted
industry.

    [* Asser. p. 20. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4. Ingulph. p. 870.]

    [** Asser. p.4, 12, 13, 17, J W. Malms, lib. iv. cap. 4.]

    [*** Asser. p. 13.]

Sensible that the people, at all times, especially when their
understandings are obstructed by ignorance and bad education, are not
much susceptible of speculative instruction, Alfred endeavored to convey
his morality by apologues, parables, stories, apothegms, couched in
poetry; and besides propagating among his subjects former compositions
of that kind, which he found in the Saxon tongue,[*] he exercised
his genius in inventing works of a like nature,[**] as well as in
translating from the Greek the elegant Fables of Æsop. He also gave
Saxon translations of Orosius’s and Bede’s histories; and of Boethius
concerning the consolation of philosophy.[***] And he deemed it nowise
derogatory from his other great characters of sovereign, legislator,
warrior, and politician, thus to lead the way to his people in the
pursuits of literature.

    [* Spelruan, p. 124.]

    [** Abbas Rieval. p. 355.]

    [*** W. Malms, lib. ii. 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
connection with the interests of society. He invited, from all quarters,
industrious foreigners to re-people his country, which had been
desolated by the ravages of the Danes.[*] He introduced and encouraged
manufactures of all kinds, and no inventor or improver of any ingenious
art did he suffer to go unrewarded.[**] He prompted men of activity to
betake themselves to navigation, to push commerce into the most remote
countries, and to acquire riches by propagating industry among their
fellow-citizens. He set apart a seventh portion of his own revenue
for maintaining a number of workmen, whom he constantly employed in
rebuilding the ruined cities, castles, palaces, and monasteries.[***]
Even the elegances of life were brought to him from the Mediterranean
and the Indies;[****] and his subjects, by seeing those productions of
the peaceful arts, were taught to respect the virtues of justice and
industry, from which alone they could arise. Both living and dead,
Alfred was regarded by foreigners, no less than by his own subjects,
as the greatest prince, after Charlemagne, that had appeared in Europe
during several ages, and as one of the wisest and best that had ever
adorned the annals of any nation.

     [* Asser. p. 13. Flor. Wigorn. p. 588.]

     [** Asser. p. 20.]

     [*** Asser. p. 20. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4.]

     [**** W. Malms, lib. ii. 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.



EDWARD THE ELDER.


This prince, who equalled his father in military talents, though
inferior to him in knowledge and erudition,[*] found immediately on his
accession, a specimen of that turbulent life to which all princes, and
even all individuals, were exposed, in an age when men, less restrained
by law or justice, and less occupied by industry, had no aliment for
their inquietude out wars, insurrections, convulsions, rapine, and
depredation.

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii cap. 4, Hoveden, p. 421.]

Ethelwald, his cousin-german, son of King Ethelbert, the elder
brother of Alfred, insisted on his preferable title;[*] and arming his
partisans, took possession of Winburne, where he seemed determined to
defend himself to the last extremity, and to await the issue of his
pretensions.[**] But when the king approached the town with a great
army, Ethelwald, having the prospect of certain destruction, made his
escape, and fled first into Normandy, thence into Northumberland, where
he hoped that the people, who had been recently subdued by Alfred, and
who were impatient of peace, would, on the intelligence of that great
prince’s death, seize the first pretence or opportunity of rebellion.
The event did not disappoint his expectations: the Northumbrians
declared for him,[***] and Ethelwald, having thus connected his
interests with the Danish tribes, went beyond sea, and collecting a body
of these freebooters, he excited the hopes of all those who had been
accustomed to subsist by rapine and violence.[****]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 99, 100.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 100. H. Hunting, lib. v. p.
     352.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 100. H. Hunting, lib. v. p.
     352.]

     [**** Chron. Sax. p. 100. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de
     Burgo, p. 24.]

The East Anglian Danes joined his party; the Five-burgers, who were
seated in the heart of Mercia, began to put themselves in motion; and
the English found that they were again menaced with those convulsions
from which the valor and policy of Alfred had so lately rescued them.
The rebels, headed by Ethelwald, made an incursion into the counties
of Glocester, Oxford, and Wilts; and having exercised their ravages in
these places, they retired with their booty, before the king, who had
assembled an army, was able to approach them. Edward, however, who was
determined that his preparations should not be fruitless, conducted
his forces into East Anglia, and retaliated the injuries which the
inhabitants had committed, by spreading the like devastation among them.
Satiated with revenge, and loaded with booty, he gave orders to retire;
but the authority of those ancient kings, which was feeble in peace, was
not much better established in the field; and the Kentish men, greedy of
more spoil, ventured, contrary to repeated orders, to stay behind him,
and to take up their quarters in Bury. This disobedience proved, in the
issue, fortunate to Edward. The Danes assaulted the Kentish men, but
met with so vigorous a resistance, that, though they gained the field of
battle, they bought that advantage by the loss of their bravest
leaders, and, among the rest, by that of Ethelwald, who perished in the
action.[*] The king, freed from the fear of so dangerous a competitor,
made peace on advantageous terms with the East Angles.[**]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 101. Brompton, p. 832.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 102. Brompton, p. 832. M 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 favorable, and entered Edward’s territories with all
their forces. The king, who was prepared against this event, attacked
them, on their return, at Tetenhall in the county of Stafford, put them
to rout, recovered all the booty, and pursued them with great slaughter
into their own country.

All the rest of Edward’s reign was a scene of continued and successful
action against the Northumbrians, the East Angles, the Five-burgers, and
the foreign Danes, who invaded him from Normandy and Brittany. Nor was
he less provident in putting his kingdom in a posture of defence, than
vigorous in assaulting the enemy. He fortified the towns of Chester,
Eddesbury, Warwick, Cherbury, Buckingham, Towcester, Maldon, Huntingdon,
and Colchester. He fought two signal battles at Temsford and Maldon.[*]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 10, Flor. Wigorn. p. 6.]

He vanquished Thurketill, a great Danish chief, and obliged him to
retire with his followers into France, in quest of spoil and adventures.
He subdued the East Angles, and forced them to swear allegiance to
him: he expelled the two rival princes of Northumberland, Reginald and
Sidroc, and acquired, for the present, the dominion of that province:
several tribes of the Britons were subjected by him; and even the Scots,
who, during the reign of Egbert, had, under the conduct of Kenneth,
their king, increased their power by the final subjection of the Picts,
were nevertheless obliged to give him marks of submission.[*] In all
these fortunate achievements, he was assisted by the activity and
prudence of his sister Ethelfleda, who was widow of Ethelbert, earl of
Mercia, and who after her husband’s death, retained the government
of that province. This princess, who had been reduced to extremity in
childbed, refused afterwards all commerce with her husband; not from any
weak superstition, as was common in that age, but because she deemed all
domestic occupations unworthy of her masculine and ambitious spirit.[**]
She died before her brother; and Edward, during the remainder of his
reign, took upon himself the immediate government of Mercia, which
before had been intrusted to the authority of a governor.[***] The Saxon
Chronicle fixes the death of this prince in 925 his kingdom devolved to
Athelstan, his natural son.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 110. Hoveden, p. 421.]

     [** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 5. M. West. p. 182.
     Ingulph. p. 28. Higgen p. 261.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 110. Brompton, p. 831.]



ATHELSTAN.

{925.} The stain in this prince’s birth was not, in those times, deemed
so considerable as to exclude him from the throne; and Athelstan, being
of an age, as well as of a capacity, fitted for government, obtained the
preference to Edward’s younger children, who, though legitimate, were
of too tender years to rule a nation so much exposed both to foreign
invasion and to domestic convulsions. Some discontents, however,
prevailed on his accession; and Alfred, a nobleman of considerable
power, was thence encouraged to enter into a conspiracy against him.
This incident is related by historians, with circumstances which the
reader, according to the degree of credit he is disposed to give them,
may impute either to the invention of monks, who forged them, or to
their artifice, who found means of making them real. Alfred, it is said,
being seized upon strong suspicions, but without any certain proof,
firmly denied the conspiracy imputed to him; and, in order to justify
himself, he offered to swear to his innocence before the pope, whose
person, it was supposed, contained such superior sanctity, that no one
could presume to give a false oath in his presence, and yet hope to
escape the immediate vengeance of Heaven. The king accepted of the
condition, and Alfred was conducted to Rome, where, either conscious of
his innocence, or neglecting the superstition to which he appealed, he
ventured to make the oath required of him, before John, who then filled
the papal chair; but no sooner had he pronounced the fatal words, than
he fell into convulsions, of which, three days after, he expired. The
king, as if the guilt, of the conspirator were now fully ascertained,
confiscated his estate, and made a present of it to the monastery
of Malmesbury,[*] secure that no doubts would ever thenceforth be
entertained concerning the justice of his proceedings.

     [* W. Malms. lib. ii. cap. 6. Spel. Concil. p. 407.]

The dominion of Athelstan was no sooner established over his English
subjects, than he endeavored to give security to the government, by
providing against the insurrections of the Danes, which had created so
much disturbance to his predecessors. He marched into Northumberland;
and, finding that the inhabitants bore with impatience the English yoke,
he thought it prudent to confer on Sithric, a Danish nobleman, the title
of king, and to attach him to his interests by giving him his sister
Editha in marriage. But this policy proved by accident the source of
dangerous consequences. Sithric died in a twelvemonth after; and his two
sons by a former marriage, Anlaf and Godfrid, founding pretensions on
their father’s elevation, assumed the sovereignty, without waiting
for Athelstan’s consent. They were soon expelled by the power of that
monarch; and the former took shelter in Ireland, as the latter did
in Scotland, where he received, during some time, protection from
Constantine, who then enjoyed the crown of that kingdom. The Scottish
prince, however, continually solicited, and even menaced by Athelstan,
at last promised to deliver up his guest; but secretly detesting this
treachery, he gave Godfrid warning to make his escape;[*] and that
fugitive, after subsisting by piracy for some years, freed the king, by
his death, from any further anxiety. Athelstan, resenting Constantine’s
behavior, entered Scotland with an army, and ravaging the country with
impunity,[**] he reduced the Scots to such distress, that their king was
content to preserve his crown by making submissions to the enemy. The
English historians assert,[***] that Constantine did homage to Athelstan
for his kingdom; and they add, that the latter prince, being urged by
his courtiers to push the present favorable opportunity, and entirely
subdue Scotland, replied, that it was more glorious to confer than
conquer kingdoms.[****]

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 6.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 111. Hoveden, p. 422. H. Hunting, lib. v.
     p. 354.]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 422.]

     [**** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 6. Anglia Sacra,
     vol. i. p. 212.]

But those annals, so uncertain and imperfect in themselves, lose all
credit when national prepossessions and animosities have place; and,
on that account, the Scotch historians, who, without having any more
knowledge of the matter, strenuously deny the fact, seem more worthy of
belief.

Constantine, whether he owed the retaining of his crown to the
moderation of Athelstan, who was unwilling to employ all his advantages
against him, or to the policy of that prince who esteemed the
humiliation of an enemy a greater acquisition than the subjection of
a discontented and mutinous people thought the behavior of the English
monarch more an object of resentment than of gratitude. He entered
into a confederacy with Anlaf, who had collected a great body of Danish
pirates, whom he found hovering in the Irish seas, and with some Welsh
princes, who were terrified at the growing power of Athelstan; and
all these allies made by concert an irruption with a great army into
England. Athelstan, collecting his forces, met the enemy hear Brunsbury,
in Northumberland, and defeated them in a general engagement. This
victory was chiefly ascribed to the valor of Turketul, the English
chancellor; for, in those turbulent ages, no one was so much occupied in
civil employments as wholly to lay aside the military character.[*]

     [* The office of chancellor, among the Anglo-
     Saxons, resembled more that of a secretary of state than
     that of our present chancellor See Spelman in voce
     Cancellarius.]

There is a circumstance, not unworthy of notice, which historians
relate, with regard to the transactions of this war. Anlaf, on the
approach of the English army, thought that he could not venture too
much to insure a fortunate event, and employing the artifice formerly
practised by Alfred against the Danes, he entered the enemy’s camp, in
the habit of a minstrel. The stratagem was, for the present, attended
with like success. He gave such satisfaction to the soldiers, who
flocked about him, that they introduced him to the king’s tent; and
Anlaf, having played before that prince and his nobles during their
repast, was dismissed with a handsome reward. His prudence kept him from
refusing the present; Dut his pride determined him, on his departure,
to bury it while he fancied that he was unespied by all the world. But
a soldier in Athelstan’s camp, who had formerly served under Anlaf, had
been struck with some suspicion on the first appearance of the minstrel,
and was engaged by curiosity to observe all his motions. He regarded
this last action as a full proof of Anlaf’s disguise; and he immediately
carried the intelligence to Athelstan, who blamed him for not sooner
giving him information, that he might have seized his enemy. But the
soldier told him, that, as he had formerly sworn fealty to Anlaf, he
could never have pardoned himself the treachery of betraying and ruining
his ancient master; and that Athelstan himself, after such an instance
of his criminal conduct, would have had equal reason to distrust his
allegiance. Athelstan, having praised the generosity of the soldier’s
principles, reflected on the incident, which he foresaw might be
attended with important consequences. He removed his station in the
camp; and as a bishop arrived that evening with a reënforcement of
troops, (for the ecclesiastics were then no less warlike than the civil
magistrates,) he occupied with his train that very place which had been
left vacant by the king’s removal. The precaution of Athelstan was found
prudent; for no sooner had darkness fallen, than Anlaf broke into the
camp, and hastening directly to the place where he had left the king’s
tent, put the bishop to death, before he had time to prepare for his
defence.[*]


There fell several Danish and Welsh princes in the action of
Brunsbury;[**] and Constantine and Anlaf made their escape with
difficulty, leaving the greater part of their army on the field of
battle. After this success, Athelstan enjoyed his crown in tranquillity;
and he is regarded as one of the ablest and most active of those ancient
princes. He passed a remarkable law, which was calculated for the
encouragement of commerce, and which it required some liberality of mind
in that age to have devised--that a merchant, who had made three long
sea voyages on his own account, should be admitted to the rank of a
thane or gentleman. This prince died at Glocester, in the year 94l,[***]
after a reign of sixteen years, and was succeeded by Edmund, his
legitimate brother.

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 6. Higden, p. 263.]

     [** Brompton, p. 839 Ingulph. p. 29.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 114]



EDMUND.

{941.} Edmund, on his accession, met with disturbance from the restless
Northumbrians, who lay in wait for every opportunity of breaking into
rebellion. But marching suddenly with his forces into their country, he
so overawed the rebels that they endeavored to appease him by the most
humble submissions.[*]

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 7. Brompton, p 857.]

In order to give him the surer pledge of their obedience, they offered to
embrace Christianity; a religion which the English Danes had frequently
professed, when reduced to difficulties, but which, for that very
reason, they regarded as a badge of servitude, and shook off as soon
as a favorable opportunity offered. Edmund, trusting little to their
sincerity in this forced submission, used the precaution of removing the
Five-burgers from the towns of Mercia, in which they had been allowed
to settle; because it was always found that they took advantage of every
commotion, and introduced the rebellious or foreign Danes into the
heart of the kingdom. He also conquered Cumberland from the Britons; and
conferred that territory on Malcolm, king of Scotland, on condition that
he should do him homage for it, and protect the north from all future
incursions of the Danes.

Edmund was young when he came to the crown; yet was his reign short, as
his death was violent. One day, as he was solemnizing a festival in the
county of Glocester, he remarked that Leolf, a notorious robber, whom
he had sentenced to banishment, had yet the boldness to enter the hall
where he himself dined, and to sit at table with his attendants. Enraged
at this insolence, he ordered him to leave the room; but on his refusing
to obey, the king, whose temper, naturally choleric, was inflamed by
this additional insult, leaped on him himself, and seized him by the
hair; but the ruffian, pushed to extremity, drew his dagger, and gave
Edmund a wound of which he immediately expired. This event happened in
the year 946, and in the sixth year of the king’s reign. Edmund left
male issue, but so young, that they were incapable of governing the
kingdom; and his brother, Edred, was promoted to the throne.



EDRED

{946.} The reign of this prince, as those of his predecessors, was
disturbed by the rebellions and incursions of the Northumbrian Danes,
who, though frequently quelled, were never entirely subdued, nor had
ever paid a sincere allegiance to the crown of England. The accession
of a new king seemed to them a favorable opportunity for shaking off the
yoke; but on Edred’s appearance with an army, they made him their wonted
submissions; and the king, having wasted the country with fire and
sword, as a punishment of their rebellion, obliged them to renew their
oaths of allegiance; and he straight retired with his forces. The
obedience of the Danes lasted no longer than the present terror.
Provoked at the devastations of Edred, and even reduced by necessity
to subsist on plunder, they broke into a new rebellion, and were again
subdued; but the king, now instructed by experience, took greater
precautions against their future revolt. He fixed English garrisons in
their most considerable towns, and placed over them an English governor,
who might watch all their motions, and suppress any insurrection on its
first appearance. He obliged also Malcolm, king of Scotland, to renew
his homage for the lands which he held in England.

Edred, though not unwarlike, nor unfit for active life, lay under the
influence of the lowest superstition, and had blindly delivered over
his conscience to the guidance of Dunstan commonly called _St.
Dunstan_, abbot of Glastonbury, whom he advanced to the highest
offices, and who covered, under the appearance of sanctity, the most
violent and most insolent ambition. Taking advantage of the implicit
confidence reposed in him by the king, this churchman imported
into England a new order of monks, who much changed the state of
ecclesiastical affairs, and excited, on their first establishment, the
most violent commotions.

From the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, there had
been monasteries in England; and these establishments had extremely
multiplied by the donations of the princes and nobles, whose
superstition, derived from their ignorance and precarious life, and
increased by remorses for the crimes into which they were so frequently
betrayed, knew no other expedient for appeasing the Deity, than a
profuse liberality towards the ecclesiastics. But the monks had hitherto
been a species of secular priests, who lived after the manner of the
present canons or prebendaries, and were both intermingled, in some
degree, with the world, and endeavored to render themselves useful
to it. They were employed in the education of youth;[*] they had the
disposal of their own time and industry; they were not subjected to
the rigid rules of an order; they had made no vows of implicit to their
superiors;[*] and they still retained the choice, without quitting the
convent, either of a married or a single life.[**]

     [* Osberne in Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 91.]

     [** See Wharton’s notes to Anglia Sacra, tom. ii.
     p. 91. Gervase, p 1645. Chron. Wint. MS. apud Spel. Concil.
     p. 434.] 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 favorable opportunity offered itself, (and
     it was greedily seized,) arising from the weak superstition
     of Edred, and the violent, impetuous character of Dunstan.
     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 a mistaken piety had produced in Italy a new species of monks,
called Benedictines; who, carrying farther the plan sible principles of
mortification, secluded themselves entirely from the world, renounced
all claim to liberty, and made a merit of the most inviolable chastity.
These practices and principles, which superstition at first engendered,
were greedily embraced and promoted by the policy of the court of Rome.
The Roman pontiff, who was making every day great advances towards an
absolute sovereignty over the ecclesiastics, perceived that the celibacy
of the clergy alone could break off entirely their connection with the
civil power, and, depriving them of every other object of ambition,
engage them to promote, with unceasing industry, the grandeur of their
own order. He was sensible that so long as the monks were indulged
in marriage, and were permitted to rear families, they never could be
subjected to strict discipline, or reduced to that slavery, under their
superiors, which was requisite to procure to the mandates, issued from
Rome, a ready and zealous obedience. Celibacy, therefore, began to be
extolled as the indispensable duty of priests; and the pope undertook to
make all the clergy, throughout the western world, renounce at once
the privilege of marriage; a fortunate policy, but at the same time
an undertaking the most difficult of any, since he had the strongest
propensities of human nature to encounter, and found that the same
connections with the female sex, which generally encourage devotion,
were here unfavorable to the success of his project. It is no wonder,
therefore, that this master-stroke of art should have met with violent
contradiction, and that the interests of the hierarchy, and the
inclinations of the priests, being now placed in this singular
opposition, should, notwithstanding the continued efforts of Rome have
retarded the execution of that bold scheme during the course of near
three centuries.

Dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of England; and being
educated under his uncle Aldhelm, then archbishop of Canterbury, had
betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life, and had acquired some
character in the court of Edmund. He was, however, represented to
that prince as a man of licentious manners;[*] and finding his fortune
blasted by these suspicions, his ardent ambition prompted him to repair
his indiscretions, by running into an opposite extreme. He secluded
himself entirely from the world; he framed a cell so small, that he
could neither stand erect in it, nor stretch out his limbs during his
repose; and he here employed himself perpetually either in devotion
or in manual labor.[**] It is probable that his brain became gradually
crazed by these solitary occupations, and that his head was filled with
chimeras, which, being believed by himself and his stupid votaries,
procured him the general character of sanctity among the people. He
fancied that the devil, among the frequent visits which he paid him,
was one day more earnest than usual in his temptations, till Dunstan,
provoked at his importunity, seized him by the nose with a pair of
red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the cell; and he held him there
till that malignant spirit made the whole neighborhood resound with his
bellowings. This notable exploit was seriously credited and extolled by
the public; it is transmitted to posterity by one, who, considering the
age in which he lived, may pass for a writer of some elegance;[***]
and it insured to Dunstan a reputation which no real piety, much less
virtue, could, even in the most enlightened period, have ever procured
him with the people.

     [* Osberne, p. 95. M. West, p. 187.]

     [** Osberne, p. 96.]

     [*** Osberne, p. 97.]

Supported by the character obtained in his retreat, Dunstan appeared
again in the world; and gained such an ascendent over Edred who had
succeeded to the crown, as made him not only the director of that
prince’s conscience, but his counsellor in the most momentous affairs of
government. He was placed at the head of the treasury,[*] and being thus
possessed both of power at court, and of credit with the populace,
he was enabled to attempt with success the most arduous enterprises.
Finding that his advancement had been owing to the opinion of his
austerity, he professed himself a partisan of the rigid monastic
rules; and after introducing that reformation into the convents of
Glastonbury and Abingdon, he endeavored to render it universal in the
kingdom.

The minds of men were already well prepared for this innovation. The
praises of an inviolable chastity had been carried to the highest
extravagance by some of the first preachers of Christianity among the
Saxons: the pleasures of love had been represented as incompatible with
Christian perfection; and a total abstinence from all commerce with the
sex was deemed such a meritorious penance, as was sufficient to atone
for the greatest enormities. The consequence seemed natural, that
those, at least, who officiated at the altar, should be clear of this
pollution; and when the doctrine of transubstantiation, which was now
creeping in,[**] was once fully established, the reverence to the real
body of Christ in the eucharist bestowed on this argument an additional
force and influence.

     [* Osberne, p. 102. “Wallingford,” p. 541,]

     [** Spel. Concil. vol. i. p. 452.]

The monks knew how to avail themselves of all these popular topics, and
to set off their own character to the best advantage. They affected the
greatest austerity of life and manners; they indulged themselves in the
highest strains of devotion; they inveighed bitterly against the vices
and pretended luxury of the age; they were particularly vehement against
the dissolute lives of the secular clergy, their rivals; every instance
of libertinism in any individual of that order was represented as a
general corruption; and where other topics of defamation were wanting,
their marriage became a sure subject of invective, and their wives
received the name of concubine, or other more opprobrious appellation.
The secular clergy, on the other hand, who were numerous and rich, and
possessed of the ecclesiastical dignities, defended themselves with
vigor and endeavored to retaliate upon their adversaries. The people
were thrown into agitation; and few instances occur of more violent
dissensions, excited by the most material differences in religion; or
rather by the most frivolous; since it is a just remark, that the more
affinity there is between theological parties, the greater commonly is
their animosity.

The progress of the monks, which was become considerable, was somewhat
retarded by the death of Edred, their partisan, who expired after a
reign of nine years. He left children; but as they were infants, his
nephew Edwy, son of Edmund, was placed on the throne.



EDWY

{955.} Edwy, at the time of his accession, was not above sixteen or
seventeen years of age, was possessed of the most amiable figure,
and was even endowed, according to authentic accounts, with the most
promising virtues.[*] He would have been the favorite of his people, had
he not unhappily, at the commencement of his reign, been engaged in a
controversy with the monks, whose rage neither the graces of the body
nor virtues of the mind could mitigate, and who have pursued his memory
with the same unrelenting vengeance, which they exercised against his
person and dignity during his short and unfortunate reign. There was
a beautiful princess of the royal blood, called Elgiva, who had made
impression on the tender heart of Edwy; and as he was of an age when the
force of the passions first begins to be felt, he had ventured, contrary
to the advice of his gravest counsellors, and the remonstrances of the
more dignified ecclesiastics,[**] to espouse her; though she was within
the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon law.[***]

     [* Chron. Sax. p, 115.]

     [** H. Hunting, lib. v. p. 356.]

     [*** W. Malms. lib. ii. cap. 7.]

As the austerity affected by the monks made them particularly violent on
this occasion, Edwy entertained a strong prepossession against them;
and seemed, on that account, determined not to second their project
of expelling the seculars from all the convents, and of possessing
themselves of those rich establishments. War was therefore declared
between the king and the monks; and the former soon found reason
to repent his provoking such dangerous enemies. On the day of his
coronation, his nobility were assembled in a great hall, and were
indulging themselves in that riot and disorder, which, from the example
of their German ancestors, had become habitual to the English;[*] when
Edwy, attracted by softer pleasures, retired into the queen’s apartment,
and in that privacy gave reins to his fondness towards his wife, which
was only moderately checked by the presence of her mother. Dunstan
conjectured the reason of the king’s retreat; and, carrying along with
him Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, over whom he had gained an absolute
ascendant, he burst into the apartment, upbraided Edwy with his
lasciviousness, probably bestowed on the queen the most opprobrious
epithet that can be applied to her sex, and tearing him from her arms,
pushed him back, in a disgraceful manner, into the banquet of the
nobles.[**] Edwy, though young, and opposed by the prejudices of the
people, found an opportunity of taking revenge for this public insult.
He questioned Dunstan concerning the administration of the treasury
during the reign of his predecessor;[***] and when that minister refused
to give any account of money expended, as he affirmed, by orders of the
late king, he accused him of malversation in his office, and banished
him the kingdom. But Dunstan’s cabal was not inactive during his
absence: they filled the public with high panegyrics on his sanctity:
they exclaimed against the impiety of the king and queen; and having
poisoned the minds of the people by these declamations, they proceeded
to still more outrageous acts of violence against the royal authority.
Archbishop Odo sent into the palace a party of soldiers, who seized
the queen; and having burned her face with a rod-hot iron, in order to
destroy that fatal beauty which had seduced Edwy, they carried her by
force into Ireland, there to remain in perpetual exile.[****] Edwy,
finding it in vain to resist, was obliged to consent to his divorce,
which was pronounced by Odo;[*****] and a catastrophe still more dismal
awaited the unhappy Elgiva. That amiable princess being cured of her
wounds, and having even obliterated the scars with which Odo had hoped
to deface her beauty, returned into England, and was flying to the
embraces of the king, whom she still regarded as her husband; when she
fell into the hands of a party whom the primate had sent to intercept
her. Nothing but her death could now give security to Odo and the monks,
and the most cruel death was requisite to satiate their vengeance. She
was hamstringed; and expired a few days after at Glocester in the most
acute torments.[******]

     [* Wallingford, p. 542.]

     [** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 7. Osberne, p. 83, 105. M. West.
     p. 195, 196.]

     [*** Wallingford, p. 542. Alured. Beverl. p. 112.]

     [**** Osberne, p. 84. Gervase, p. 1644.]

     [***** Hoveden, p. 425.]

     [****** 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,[**] and, on Odo’s death, and
the violent expulsion of Brithelm, his successor, in that of
Canterbury;[***] of all which he long kept possession. Odo is
transmitted to us by the monks under the character of a man of piety:
Dunstan was even canonized; and is one of those numerous saints of the
same stamp, who disgrace the Romish calendar. Meanwhile the unhappy Edwy
was excommunicated,[****] and pursued with unrelenting vengeance; but
his death, which happened soon after, freed his enemies from all
further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the
government.[*****] [2]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 117. Flor. Wigorn. p. 605.
     Wallingford, p. 544]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 425. Osberne, p. 109.]

     [**** Brompton, p. 863.]

     [***** See note B, at the end of the volume.]



EDGAR

{959.} This prince, who mounted the throne in such early youth, soon
discovered an excellent capacity in the administration of affairs, and
his reign is one of the most fortunate that we meet with in the ancient
English history. He showed no aversion to war; he made the wisest
preparations against invaders; and, by this vigor and foresight, he
was enabled without any danger of suffering insults, to indulge his
inclination towards peace, and to employ himself in supporting and
improving the internal government of his kingdom. He maintained a body
of disciplined troops; which he quartered in the north, in order to keep
the mutinous Northumbrians in subjection, and to repel the inroads of
the Scots. He built an supported a powerful navy;[*] and that
he might retain the seamen in the practice of their duty, and always
present a formidable armament to his enemies, he stationed three
squadrons off the coast, and ordered them to make, from time to time,
the circuit of his dominions.[**] [3] The foreign Danes dared not to
approach a country which appeared in such a posture of defence: the
domestic Danes saw inevitable destruction to be the consequence of
their tumults and insurrections: the neighboring sovereigns, the king of
Scotland, the princes of Wales, of the Isle of Man, of the Orkneys, and
even of Ireland,[***] were reduced to pay submission to so formidable
a monarch. He carried his superiority to a great height, and might have
excited a universal combination against him, had not his power been so
well established, as to deprive his enemies of hopes of shaking it It is
said, that residing once at Chester, and having purposed to go by water
to the abbey of St. John the Baptist, he obliged eight of his tributary
princes to row him in a barge upon the Dee.[****] The English historians
are fond of mentioning the name of Kenneth III., king of Scots, among
the number: the Scottish historians either deny the fact, or assert that
their king, if ever he acknowledged himself a vassal to Edgar, did
him homage, not for his crown, but for the dominions which he held in
England.


But the chief means by which Edgar maintained his authority, and
preserved public peace, was the paying of court to Dunstan and the
monks, who had at first placed him on the throne, and who, by their
pretensions to superior sanctity and purity of manners, had acquired an
ascendant over the people. He favored their scheme for dispossessing the
secular canons of all the monasteries;[*****] he bestowed preferment
on none but their partisans; he allowed Dunstan to resign the see of
Worcester into the hands of Oswald, one of his creatures; [******] and
to place Ethelwold, another of them, in that of Winchester;[*******] he
consulted these prelates in the administration of all ecclesiastical
and even in that of many civil affairs; and though the vigor of his own
genius prevented him from being implicitly guided by them, the king and
the bishops found such advantages in their mutual agreement, that they
always acted in concert, and united their influence in preserving the
peace and tranquillity of the kingdom.

     [* Higden, p. 265.]

     [** See note C, at the end of the volume]

     [*** Spel. Concil. p. 432.]

     [**** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 8. Hoveden, p. 406.
     H. Hunting, lib. v.p. 356].

     [***** Chron. Sax. p. 117, 118. W, Malms, lib. ii.
     cap. 8. Hoveden, p. 425, 426. Osberne, p. 112.]

     [****** W. Malms. lib. ii. cap. 8. Hoveden, p.
     425.]

     [******* Gervase, p. 1646. Brompton, p. 864, Flor.
     Wigorn. p. 606. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 27, 28.]

In order to complete the great work of placing the new order of monks in
all the convents, Edgar summoned a general council of the prelates,
and the heads of the religious orders. He here inveighed against the
dissolute lives of the secular clergy; the smallness of their tonsure,
which, it is probable, maintained no longer any resemblance to the crown
of thorns; their negligence in attending the exercise of their function;
their mixing with the laity in the pleasures of gaming, hunting,
dancing, and singing; and their openly living with concubines, by which
it is commonly supposed he meant their wives. He then turned himself to
Dunstan, the primate; and in the name of King Edred, whom he supposed to
look down from heaven with indignation against all those enormities,
he thus addressed him: “It is you, Dunstan, by whose advice I founded
monasteries, built churches, and expended my treasure in the support of
religion and religious houses. You were my counsellor and assistant in
all my schemes: you were the director of my conscience: to you I was
obedient in all things. When did you call for supplies, which I refused
you? Was my assistance ever wanting to the poor? Did I deny support and
establishments to the clergy and the convents? Did I not hearken to your
instructions, who told me that these charities were, of all others, the
most grateful to my Maker, and fixed a perpetual fund for the support
of religion? And are all our pious endeavors now frustrated by the
dissolute lives of the priests? Not that I throw any blame on you: you
have reasoned, besought, inculcated, inveighed; but it now behoves you
to use sharper and more vigorous remedies; and conjoining your spiritual
authority with the civil power, to purge effectually the temple of God
from thieves and intruders.”[*]

     [* Abbas Rieval. p. 360, 361. Spel. Concil. p.
     476, 477, 478.]

It is easy to imagine that this harangue had the desired effect; and
that, when the king and prelates thus concurred with popular prejudices,
it was not long before the monks prevailed, and established their new
discipline in almost all the convents.

We may remark, that the declamations against the secular clergy are,
both here and in all the historians, conveyed in general terms; and
as that order of men are commonly restrained by the decency of their
character, it is difficult to believe that the complaints against their
dissolute manners could be so universally just as is pretended. It is
more probable that the monks paid court to the populace by an affected
austerity of life; and representing the most innocent liberties taken by
the other clergy as great and unpardonable enormities, thereby prepared
the way for the increase of their own power and influence. Edgar,
however, like a true politician, concurred with the prevailing party;
and he even indulged them in pretensions, which, though they might, when
complied with, engage the monks to support royal authority during his
own reign, proved afterwards dangerous to his successors, and gave
disturbance to the whole civil power. He seconded the policy of the
court of Rome, in granting to some monasteries an exemption from
episcopal jurisdiction; he allowed the convents, even those of royal
foundation, to usurp the election of their own abbot; and he admitted
their forgeries of ancient charters, by which, from the pretended grant
of former kings, they assumed many privileges and immunities.[*]


These merits of Edgar have procured him the highest panegyrics from the
monks; and he is transmitted to us, not only under the character of a
consummate statesman and an active prince,--praises to which beseems to
have been justly entitled,--but under that of a great saint and a man of
virtue. But nothing could more betray both his hypocrisy in inveighing
against the licentiousness of the secular clergy, and the interested
spirit of his partisans in bestowing such eulogies on his piety, than
the usual tenor of his conduct, which was licentious to the highest
degree, and violated every law, human and divine. Yet those very monks,
who, as we are told by Ingulf, a very ancient historian, had no idea of
any moral or religious merit, except chastity and obedience, not only
connived at his enormities, but loaded him with the greatest praises.
History, however, has preserved some instances of his amours, from
which, as from a specimen, we may form a conjecture of the rest.

Edgar broke into a convent, carried off Editha, a nun, by force, and
even committed violence on her person.[**]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 118. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 8.
     Seldom Spicileg, ad Eadm. p. 149, 157.]

     [** W. Malms, lib. ii cap. 8. Osberne, p. 3.
     Diceto, p. 457. Higden, p. 265, 267, 268. Spel. Concil. p.
     481.]

For this act of sacrilege he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he
might reconcile himself to the church, he was obliged, not to separate
from his mistress, but to abstain from wearing his crown during seven
years, and to deprive himself so long of that vain ornament;[*]
a punishment very unequal to that which had been inflicted on the
unfortunate Edwy, who, for a marriage, which in the strictest sense
could only deserve the name of irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw
his queen treated with singular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies,
and has been represented to us under the most odious colors. Such is the
ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.

     [* Osberne, p. 111.]

There was another mistress of Edgar’s, with whom he first formed a
connection by a kind of accident. Passing one day by Andover, he lodged
in the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with all the
graces of person and behavior, inflamed him at first sight with the
highest desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify it. As
he had not leisure to employ courtship or address for attaining his
purpose, he went directly to her mother, declared the violence of his
passion, and desired that the young lady might be allowed to pass that
very night with him. The mother was a woman of virtue, and determined
not to dishonor her daughter and her family by compliance; but being
well acquainted with the impetuosity of the king’s temper, she thought
it would be easier, as well as safer, to deceive than refuse him. She
feigned therefore a submission to his will; but secretly ordered a
waiting maid, of no disagreeable figure, to steal into the king’s bed,
after all the company should be retired to rest. In the morning, before
daybreak, the damsel, agreeably to the injunctions of her mistress,
offered to retire; but Edgar, who had no reserve in his pleasures, and
whose love to his bed-fallow was rather inflamed by enjoyment, refused
his consent, and employed force and entreaties to detain her. Elfleda
(for that was the name of the maid) trusting to her own charms, and
to the love with which, she hoped, she had now inspired the king, made
probably but a faint resistance; and the return of light discovered the
deceit to Edgar. He had passed a night so much to his satisfaction, that
he expressed no displeasure with the old lady on account of her fraud;
his love was transferred to Elfleda; she became his favorite mistress,
and maintained her ascendant over him, till his marriage with
Elfrida.[*]

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii. 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 honorable terms. He communicated his intention to Earl Athelwold, his
favorite, but used the precaution, before he made any advances to her
parents, to order that nobleman, on some pretence, to pay them a visit,
and to bring him a certain account of the beauty of their daughter.
Athelwold, when introduced to the young lady, found general report to
have fallen short of the truth; and being actuated by the most vehement
love, he determined to sacrifice to this new passion his fidelity to his
master, and to the trust reposed in him. He returned to Edgar, and told
him, that the riches alone, and high quality of Elfrida, had been the
ground of the admiration paid her, and that her charms, far from being
any wise extraordinary would have been overlooked in a woman of inferior
station. When he had, by this deceit, diverted the king from his purpose
he took an opportunity, after some interval, of turning again the
conversation on Elfrida; he remarked, that though the parentage and
fortune of the lady had not produced on him, as on others, any illusion
with regard to her beauty, he could not forbear reflecting, that she
would, on the whole, be an advantageous match for him, and might, by her
birth and riches, make him sufficient compensation for the homeliness of
her person. If the king, therefore, gave his approbation he was
determined to make proposals in his own behalf to the earl of
Devonshire, and doubted not to obtain his, as well as the young lady’s,
consent to the marriage. Edgar, pleased with an expedient for
establishing his favorite’s fortune, not only exhorted him to execute
his purpose but forwarded his success by his recommendations to the
parents of Elfrida; and Athelwold was soon made happy in the possession
of his mistress. Dreading, however, the detection of the artifice, he
employed every pretence for detaining Elfrida in the country, and for
keeping her at a distance from Edgar.

The violent passion of Athelwold had rendered him blind to the necessary
consequences which must attend his conduct, and the advantages which
the numerous enemies, that always pursue a royal favorite, would, by
its means, be able to make against him. Edgar was soon informed of the
truth; but before he would execute vengeance on Athelwold’s treachery,
he resolved to satisfy himself, with his own eyes, of the certainty
and full extent of his guilt. He told him that he intended to pay him
a visit in his castle, and be introduced to the acquaintance of his
new-married wife; and Athelwold, as he could not refuse the honor, only
craved leave to go before him a few hours, that he might the better
prepare every thing for his reception. He then discovered the whole
matter to Elfrida; and begged her, if she had any regard either to her
own honor or his life, to conceal from Edgar, by every circumstance
of dress and behavior, that fatal beauty which had seduced him from
fidelity to his friend, and had betrayed him into so many falsehoods.
Elfrida promised compliance, though nothing was farther from her
intentions. She deemed herself little beholden to Athelwold for a
passion which had deprived her of a crown; and knowing the force of her
own charms, she did not despair, even yet, of reaching that dignity, of
which her husband’s artifice had bereaved her. She appeared before the
king with all the advantages which the richest attire, and the most
engaging airs, could bestow upon her, and she excited at once in his
bosom the highest love towards herself, and the most furious desire of
revenge against her husband. He knew, however, how to dissemble these
passions; and seducing Athelwold into a wood, on pretence of hunting,
he stabbed him with his own hand, and soon after publicly espoused
Elfrida.[*]

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 8. Hoveden, p. 426. Brompton, p.
     865, 866. Flor. Wigorn. p. 606. Higden, 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.[*]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 116. H. Hunting, lib. v. p. 356. Brompton,
     p. 865.]

We are told that they imported all the vices of their respective
countries, and contributed to corrupt the simple manners of the
natives;[*] but as this simplicity of manners so highly and often
so injudiciously extolled, did not preserve them from barbarity and
treachery, the greatest of all vices, and the most incident to a rude,
uncultivated people, we ought perhaps to deem their acquaintance with
foreigners rather an advantage; as it tended to enlarge their views, and
to cure them of those illiberal prejudices and rustic manners to which
islanders are often subject.

Another remarkable incident of this reign was the extirpation of wolves
from England. This advantage was attained by the industrious policy
of Edgar. He took great pains in hunting and pursuing those ravenous
animals; and when he found that all that escaped him had taken shelter
in the mountains and forests of Wales, he changed the tribute of money
imposed on the Welsh princes of Athelstan, his predecessor,[**] into
an annual tribute of three hundred heads of wolves; which produced such
diligence in hunting them, that the animal has been no more seen in this
island.

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 8.]

     [** W. Malms, lib. ii. 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.



EDWARD THE MARTYR

{957.} The succession of this prince, who was only fifteen years of age
at his father’s death, did not take place without much difficulty and
opposition. Elfrida, his step-mother, had a son, Ethelred, seven years
old, whom she attempted to raise to the throne: she affirmed that
Edgar’s marriage with the mother of Edward was exposed to insuperable
objections; and as she had possessed great credit with her husband, she
had found means to acquire partisans, who seconded all her pretensions.
But the title of Edward was supported by many advantages. He was
appointed successor by the will of his father;[*] he was approaching
to man’s estate, and might soon be able to take into his own hands the
reins of government; the principal nobility, dreading the imperious
temper of Clirida, were averse to her son’s government, which must
enlarge her authority, and probably put her in possession of the
regency; above all, Dunstan, whose character of sanctity had given him
the highest credit with the people, hud espoused the cause of Edward,
over whom he had already acquired a great ascendant;[**] and he was
determined to execute the will of Edgar in his favor. To cut off all
opposite pretensions, Dunstan resolutely anointed and crowned the young
prince at Kingston; and the whole kingdom, without further dispute,
submitted to him.[***]

     [* Hoveden, p. 427. Eadmer p. 3.]

     [** Eadmer, p. 3.]

     [*** W. Malms, lib. ii 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 favorable to their cause; the secular clergy had still
partisans in England, who wished to support them in the possession
of the convents, and of the ecclesiastical authority. On the first
intelligence of Edgar’s death, Alfere, duke of Mercia, expelled the
new orders of monks from all the monasteries which lay within his
jurisdiction;[***] but Elfwin, duke of East Anglia, and Brithnot,
duke of the East Saxons, protected them within their territories, and
insisted upon the execution of the late laws enacted in their favor. In
order to settle this controversy, there were summoned several synods,
which, according to the practice of those times, consisted partly of
ecclesiastical members, partly of the lay nobility. The monks were able
to prevail in these assemblies; though, as it appears, contrary to the
secret wishes, if not the declared inclination, of the leading men in
he nation.[****] They had more invention in forging miracles to
support their cause; or having been so fortunate as to obtain, by their
pretended austerities, the character of piety, their miracles were more
credited by the populace.

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 123. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap.
     9. Hoveden, p. 427 Brompton, p. 870. Flor. Wigorn. p, 307.]

     [**** W. Malms. lib. ii. 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.[*] But the miracle
performed in the third synod was still more alarming: the floor of the
hall in which the assembly met, sunk of a sudden, and a great number of
the members were either bruised or killed by the fall. It was remarked,
that Dunstan had that day prevented the king from attending the synod,
and that the beam on which his own chair stood was the only one that did
not sink under the weight of the assembly;[**] but these circumstances,
instead of begetting any suspicion of contrivance, were regarded as the
surest proof of the immediate interposition of Providence in behalf of
those favorites of Heaven.

     [* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 9. Osberne, p. 112.
     Gervase, p. 1647, Brompton, p. 870. Higden, p. 269.]


     [** Chron. Sax. p. 124. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 9.
     Hoveden, p. 427. H. Hunting, lib. v. 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.[*]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 124.]

This young prince was endowed with the most amiable innocence of
manners; and as his own intentions were always pure, he was incapable
of entertaining any suspicion against others. Though his step-mother had
opposed his succession, and had raised a party in favor of her own
son, he always showed her marks of regard, and even expressed, on all
occasions, the most tender affection towards his brother. He was hunting
one day in Dorsetshire, and being led by the chase near Corfe Castle,
where Elfrida resided, he took the opportunity of paying her visit,
unattended by any of his retinue, and he thereby presented her with
the opportunity which she had long wished for. After he had mounted his
horse, he desired some liquor to be brought him: while he was holding
the cup to his head, a servant of Elfrida approached him, and gave him
a stab behind. The prince, finding himself wounded, put spurs to his
horse; but becoming faint by loss of blood, he fell from the saddle, his
foot stuck in the stirrup, and he was dragged along by his unruly horse
till he expired. Being tracked by the blood, his body was found, and was
privately interred at Wereham by his servants.

The youth and innocence of this prince, with his tragical death, begat
such compassion among the people, that they believed miracles to be
wrought at his tomb; and they gave him the appellation of _martyr_,
though his murder had no connection with any religious principle or
opinion. Elfrida built monasteries, and performed many penances, in
order to atone for her guilt; but could never, by all her hypocrisy
or remorses, recover the good opinion of the public, though so easily
deluded in those ignorant ages.



CHAPTER III.



ETHELRED

{978} THE freedom which England had so long enjoyed from the
depredations of the Danes, seems to have proceeded, partly from the
establishments which that piratical nation had obtained in the north
of France, and which employed all then superfluous hands to people and
maintain them; partly from the vigor and warlike spirit of a long race
of English princes, who preserved the kingdom in a posture of defence,
by sea and land, and either prevented or repelled every attempt of
the invaders. But a new generation of men being now sprung up in the
northern regions, who could no longer disburden themselves on Normandy,
the English had reason to dread that the Danes would again visit an
island to which they were invited, both by the memory of their past
successes, and by the expectation of assistance from their countrymen,
who, though long established in the kingdom, were not yet thoroughly
incorporated with the natives, nor had entirely forgotten their
inveterate habits of war and depredation. And as the reigning prince
was a minor, and even when he attained to man’s estate, never discovered
either courage or capacity sufficient to govern his own subjects, much
less to repel a formidable enemy, the people might justly apprehend the
worst calamities from so dangerous a crisis.


{981.} The Danes, before they durst attempt any important enterprise
against England, made an inconsiderable descent by way of trial; and
having landed from seven vessels near Southamptom, they ravaged the
country, enriched themselves by spoil, and departed with impunity. Six
years after, they made a like attempt in the west, and met with like
success. The invaders, having now found affairs in a very different
situation from that in which they formerly appeared, encouraged
their countrymen to assemble a greater force, and to hope for more
considerable advantages.


{991} They landed in Essex, under the command of two leaders; and
having defeated and slain, at Maldon, Brithnot, duke of that county,
who ventured with a small body to attack them, they spread their
devastations over all the neighboring provinces. In this extremity,
Ethelred, to whom historians give the epithet of the _Unready_,
instead of rousing his people to defend with courage their honor and
their property, hearkened to the advice of Siricius, archbishop of
Canterbury, which was seconded by many of the degenerate nobility;
and paying the enemy the sum of ten thousand pounds, he bribed them
to depart the kingdom. This shameful expedient was attended with the
success which might be expected. The Danes next year appeared off the
eastern coast, in hopes of subduing a people who defended themselves
by their money, which invited assailants, instead of their arms, which
repelled them. But the English, sensible of their folly, had in the
interval assembled in a great council, and had determined to collect
at London a fleet able to give battle to the enemy;[*] though that
judicious measure failed of success, from the treachery of Alfric, duke
of Mercia, whose name is infamous in the annals of that age, by the
calamities which his repeated perfidy brought upon his country. This
nobleman had, in 983, succeeded to his father, Alfere, in that extensive
command; but, being deprived of it two years after, and banished the
kingdom, he was obliged to employ all his intrigue, and all his power,
which was too great for a subject, to be restored to his country, and
reinstated in his authority. Having had experience of the credit and
malevolence of his enemies, he thenceforth trusted for security, not to
his services, or to the affections of his fellow-citizens, but to the
influence which he had obtained over his vassals, and to the public
calamities, which he thought must, in every revolution, render his
assistance necessary. Having fixed this resolution, he determined to
prevent all such successes as might establish the royal authority, or
render his own situation dependent or precarious. As the English had
formed the plan of surrounding and destroying the Danish fleet in
harbor, he privately informed the enemy of their danger; and when they
put to sea, in consequence of this intelligence, he deserted to them,
with the squadron under his command, the night before the engagement,
and thereby disappointed all the efforts of his countrymen.[**]
Ethelred, enraged at his perfidy, seized his son Alfgar, and ordered his
eyes to be put out.[***]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 126.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 127. W. Malms, p. 62. Higden,
     p. 270.]

     [*** Chror. Sax. p. 128. W. Malms, p. 62.]

But such was the power of Alfric, that he again forced himself into
authority; and though he had given this specimen of his character, and
received this grievous provocation, it was found necessary to intrust
him anew with the government of Mercia. This conduct of the court,
which, in all its circumstances, is so barbarous, weak, and imprudent
both merited and prognosticated the most grievous calamities.

{993.} The northern invaders, now well acquainted with the defenceless
condition of England, made a powerful descent under the command of
Sweyn, king of Denmark, and Olave king of Norway; and sailing up the
Humber, spread on all sides their destructive ravages. Lindesey was laid
waste; Banbury was destroyed; and all the Northumbrians, though mostly
of Danish descent, were constrained either to join the invaders, or to
suffer under their depredations. A powerful army was assembled to oppose
the Danes, and a general action ensued; but the English were deserted in
the battle, from the cowardice or treachery of their three leaders, all
of them men of Danish race, Frena, Frithegist, and Godwin, who gave the
example of a shameful flight to the troops under their command.

Encouraged by this success, and still more by the contempt which it
inspired for their enemy, the pirates ventured to attack the centre of
the kingdom; and entering the Thames in ninety-four vessels, laid siege
to London, and threatened it with total destruction. But the citizens,
alarmed at the danger, and firmly united among themselves, made a bolder
defence than the cowardice of the nobility and gentry gave the invaders
reason to apprehend; and the besiegers, after suffering the greatest
hardships, were finally frustrated in their attempt. In order to revenge
themselves, they laid waste Essex, Sussex, and Hampshire; and having
there procured horses, they were thereby enabled to spread through the
more inland counties the fury of their depredations. In this extremity,
Ethelred and his nobles had recourse to the former expedient; and
sending ambassadors to the two northern kings, they promised them
subsistence and tribute, on condition they would, for the present, put
an end to their ravages, and soon after depart the kingdom. Sweyn and
Olave agreed to the terms, and peaceably took up their quarters at
Southampton, where the sum of sixteen thousand pounds was paid to them.
Olave even made a journey to Andover, where Ethelred resided; and he
received the rite of confirmation from the English bishops, as well as
many rich presents from the king. He here promised that he would never
more infest the English territories; and he faithfully fulfilled the
engagement. This prince receives the appellation of St. Olave from the
church of Rome; and, notwithstanding the general presumption, which lies
either against the understanding or morals of every one who in those
ignorant ages was dignified with that title, he seems to have been a man
of merit and of virtue, Sweyn, though less scrupulous than Olave, was
constrained, upon the departure of the Norwegian prince, to evacuate
also the kingdom, with all his followers.

{997.} This composition brought only a short interval to the miseries of
the English. The Danish pirates appeared soon after in the Severn; and
having committed spoil in Wales, as well as in Cornwall and Devonshire,
they sailed round to the south coast, and entering the Tamar, completed
the devastation of these two counties. They then returned to the Bristol
Channel; and penetrating into the country by the Avon, spread themselves
over all that neighborhood, and carried fire and sword even into
Dorsetshire. They next changed the seat of war; and after ravaging the
Isle of Wight, they entered the Thames and Medway, and laid siege to
Rochester, where they defeated the Kentish men in a pitched battle.
After this victory, the whole province of Kent was made a scene of
slaughter, fire, and devastation. The extremity of these miseries forced
the English into counsels for common defence, both by sea and land;
but the weakness of the king, the divisions among the nobility, the
treachery of some, the cowardice of others, the want of concert in all,
frustrated every endeavor; their fleets and armies either came too late
to attack the enemy, or were repulsed with dishonor; and the people
were thus equally ruined by resistance or by submission. The English,
therefore, destitute both of prudence and unanimity in council,
of courage and conduct in the field, had recourse to the same weak
expedient which, by experience, they had already found so ineffectual:
they offered the Danes to buy peace, by paying them a large sum of
money, These ravagers rose continually in their demands; and now
required the payment of twenty-four thousand pounds, to which the
English were so mean and imprudent as to submit.[*]

     [* Hoveden, p. 429. Chron. Malm. p. 153.]

The departure of the Danes procured them another short interval of
repose, which they enjoyed as if it were to be perpetual without making
any effectual preparations for a more vigorous resistance upon the next
return of the enemy.

Besides receiving this sum, the Danes were engaged by another motive to
depart a kingdom which appeared so little in a situation to resist their
efforts. They were invited over by their countrymen in Normandy, who at
this time were hard pressed by the arms of Robert, king of France, and
who found it difficult to defend the settlement, which, with so much
advantage to themselves, and glory to their nation, they had made in
that country. It is probable, also, that Ethelred, observing the close
connections thus maintained among all the Danes, however divided in
government or situation, was desirous of forming an alliance with that
formidable people. For this purpose, being now a widower, he made his
addresses to Emma, sister to Richard II., duke of Normandy, and he soon
succeeded in his negotiation. The princess came over this year {1001.}
to England, and was married to Ethelred.[*]

     [* H, Hunting, p. 359. Higden, p. 271.]

In the end of the ninth and beginning of the tenth century--when the
north, not yet exhausted by that multitude of people, or rather nations,
which she had successively emitted, sent forth a new race, not of
conquerors, as before, but of pirates and ravagers, who infested the
countries possessed by her once warlike sons--lived Rollo, a petty
prince or chieftain in Denmark, whose valor and abilities soon en gaged,
the attention of his countrymen. He was exposed in his youth to the
jealousy of the king of Denmark, who attacked his small but independent
principality, and who, being foiled in every assault, had recourse at
last to perfidy for effecting his purpose, which he had often attempted
in vain by force of arms.[**]

     [** Dudo, ex edit. Duchesne, p. 70, 71. Gul.
     Gemeticenia, lib. ii, cap. 2, 3.]

He lulled Rollo into security by an insidious peace and falling suddenly
upon him, murdered his brother and his bravest officers, and forced him
to fly for safety into Scandinavia. Here many of his ancient subjects,
induced partly by affection to their prince, partly by the oppressions
of the Danish monarch, ranged themselves under his standard, and offered
to follow him in every enterprise. Rollo, instead of attempting
to recover his paternal dominions, where he must expect a vigorous
resistance from the Danes, determined to pursue an easier but more
important undertaking, and to make rus fortune, in imitation of his
countrymen, by pillaging the richer and more southern coasts of Europe.
He collected a body of troops, which, like that of all those ravagers,
was composed of Norwegians, Swedes, Frisians, Danes, and adventurers
of all nations, who being accustomed to a roving, unsettled life, took
delight in nothing but war and plunder. His reputation brought him
associates from all quarters; and a vision, which he pretended to have
appeared to him in his sleep, and which, according to his interpretation
of it, prognosticated the greatest successes, proved also a powerful
incentive with those ignorant and superstitious people.[*]

     [* Dudo, p. 71. Gul. Gemet. 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 Guthrum and his followers
in East Anglia, and others of those freebooters in Northumberland, and
having restored peace to his harassed country, had established the most
excellent military, as well as civil, institutions among the English.
The prudent Dane, finding that no advantages could be gained over such
a people, governed by such a prince, soon turned his enterprises against
France, which he found more exposed to his inroads;[**] and during the
reigns of Eudes, a usurper, and of Charles the Simple, a weak prince, he
committed the most destructive ravages, both on the inland and maritime
provinces of that kingdom. The French, having no means of defence
against a leader who united all the valor of his countrymen with
the policy of more civilized nations, were obliged to submit to the
expedient practised by Alfred, and to offer the invaders a settlement in
some of those provinces which they had depopulated by their arms.[***]

     [** Gul Gemet lib. ii. cap 6.]

     [*** 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 the booty to
their families, whom they could not conveniently carry along with them
in those hazardous enterprises. But when they increased their armaments,
made incursions into the inland countries, and found it safe to remain
longer in the midst of the enfeebled enemy, they had been accustomed to
crowd their vessels with their wives and children, and having no longer
any temptation to return to their own country, they willingly embraced
an opportunity of settling in the warm climates and cultivated fields of
the south.

Affairs were in this situation with Rollo and his followers, when
Charles proposed to relinquish to them part of the province formerly
called Neustria, and to purchase peace on these hard conditions. After
all the terms were fully settled, there appeared only one circumstance
shocking to the haughty Dane: he was required to do homage to Charles
for this province, and to put himself in that humiliating posture
imposed on vassals by the rites of the feudal law. He long refused to
submit to this indignity; but, being unwilling to lose such important
advantages for a mere ceremony, he made a sacrifice of his pride to his
interest, and acknowledged himself, in form, the vassal of the French
monarch.[*] Charles gave him his daughter Gisla in marriage; and, that
he might bind him faster to his interests, made him a donation of a
considerable territory, besides that which he was obliged to surrender
to him by his stipulation.

     [* Ypod. Neust. p. 417.]

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.[*]

     [* Gul. Gemet. lib. ii. 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 new-acquired territory, which was thenceforth called Normandy; and
he parcelled it out among his captains and followers. He followed,
in this partition, the customs of the feudal law, which was then
universally established in the southern countries of Europe, and which
suited the peculiar circumstances of that age. He treated the French
subjects, who submitted to him, with mildness and justice; he reclaimed
his ancient followers from their ferocious violence; he established law
and order throughout his state; and after a life spent in tumults and
ravages, he died peaceably in a good old age, and left his dominions to
his posterity.[**]

     [** Gul. Gemet. lib. ii. cap. 19, 20, 21.]

William I., who succeeded him, governed the duchy twenty-five years;
and, during that time, the Normans, who were thoroughly intermingled
with the French, had acquired their language, had imitated their
manners, and had made such progress towards cultivation, that, on the
death of William, his son Richard, though a minor,[***] inherited his
dominions; a sure proof that the Normans were already somewhat advanced
in civility, and that their government could now rest secure on its laws
and civil institutions, and was not wholly sustained by the abilities
of the sovereign. Richard, after a long reign of fifty-four years, was
succeeded by his son, of the same name, in the year 996,[****] which
was eighty-five years after the first establishment of the Normans
in France. This was the duke who gave his sister Emma in marriage to
Ethelred, king of England, and who thereby formed connections with a
country which his posterity was so soon after destined to subdue.

     [*** Order. Vitalis, p. 459. Grl. Geinet, lib. iv.
     cup. 1.]

     [**** 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,[*] that they combed their hair once a day, bathed
themselves once a week, changed their clothes frequently; and by all
these arts of effeminacy, as well as by their military character, had
rendered themselves so agreeable to the fair sex, that they debauched
the wives and daughters of the English, and dishonored many families.
But what most provoked the inhabitants was, that instead of defending
them against invaders, they were ever ready to betray them to the
foreign Danes, and to associate themselves with all straggling parties
of that nation.

The animosity between the inhabitants of English and Danish race, had,
from these repeated injuries, risen to a great height, when Ethelred,
from a policy incident to weak princes embraced the cruel resolution of
massacring the latter throughout all his dominions.[**] [4]

     [* Wallingford, p. 547.]

     [** See note D, at the end of the volume.]

{1002.}Secret orders were despatched to commence the execution every
where on the same day, and the festival of St. Brice, which fell on
a Sunday, [November 13,] the day on which the Danes usually bathed
themselves, was chosen for that purpose. It is needless to repeat the
accounts transmitted concerning the barbarity of this massacre: the rage
of the populace, excited by so many injuries, sanctioned by authority,
and stimulated by example, distinguished not between innocence and
guilt, spared neither sex nor age, and was not satiated without the
tortures as well as death of the unhappy victims. Even Gunilda, sister
to the king of Denmark, who had married Earl Paling, and had embraced
Christianity, was, by the advice of Edric, earl of Wilts, seized and
condemned to death by Ethelred, after seeing her husband and children
butchered before her face. This unhappy princess foretold, in the
agonies of despair, that her murder would soon be avenged by the total
ruin of the English nation.

{1003.} Never was prophecy better fulfilled; and never did barbarous
policy prove more fatal to the authors. Sweyn and his Danes, who wanted
but a pretence for invading the English, appeared off the western
coast, and threatened to take full revenge for the slaughter of their
countrymen. Exeter fell first into their hands, from the negligence
or treachery of Earl Hugh, a Norman, who had been made governor by the
interest of Queen Emma. They began to spread their devastations over the
country, when the English, sensible what outrages they must now expect
from their barbarous and offended enemy, assembled more early, and
in greater numbers than usual, and made an appearance of vigorous
resistance. But all these preparations were frustrated by the treachery
of Duke Alfric, who was intrusted with the command, and who, feigning
sickness, refused to lead the army against the Danes, till it was
dispirited, and at last dissipated, by his fatal misconduct. Alfric soon
after died, and Edric, a greater traitor than he, who had married the
king’s daughter, and had acquired a total ascendant over him, succeeded
Alfric in the government of Mercia, and in the command of the English
armies. A great famine, proceeding partly from the bad seasons, partly
from the decay of agriculture, added to all the other miseries of the
inhabitants.

{1007} The country, wasted by the Danes, harassed by the fruitless
expeditions of its own forces, was reduced to the utmost desolation, and
at last submitted to the infamy of purchasing a precarious peace from
the enemy, by the payment of thirty thousand pounds.

The English endeavored to employ this interval in making preparations
against the return of the Danes, which they had reason soon to expect. A
law was made, ordering the proprietors of eight hides of land to provide
each a horseman and a complete suit of armor, and those of three hundred
and ten hides to equip a ship for the defence of the coast. When this
navy was assembled, which must have consisted of near eight hundred
vessels,[*] all hopes of its success were disappointed by the factions,
animosities, and dissensions of the nobility. Edric had impelled his
brother Brightric to prefer an accusation of treason against Wolfnoth,
governor of Sussex, the father of the famous Earl Godwin; and that
nobleman, well acquainted with the malevolence as well as power of his
enemy, found no means of safety Dut in deserting with twenty ships to
the Danes.

     [* There were two hundred and forty-three thousand
     six hundred hides in England. Consequently, the ships
     equipped must be seven hundred and eighty-five. The cavalry
     was thirty thousand four hundred and fifty men.]

Brightric pursued him with a fleet of eighty sail; but his ships being
shattered in a tempest, and stranded on the coast, he was suddenly
attacked by Wolfnoth, and all his vessels burnt and destroyed. The
imbecility of the king was little capable of repairing this misfortune.
The treachery of Edric frustrated every plan for future defence; and
the English navy, disconcerted, discouraged, and divided, was at last
scattered into its several harbors.

It is almost impossible, or would be tedious, to relate particularly all
the miseries to which the English were henceforth exposed. We hear of
nothing but the sacking and burning of towns; the devastation of the
open country; the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of the
kingdom; their cruel diligence in discovering any corner which had
not been ransacked by their former violence. The broken and disjointed
narration of the ancient historians is here well adapted to the nature
of the war, which was conducted by such sudden inroads, as would have
been dangerous even to a united and well-governed kingdom, but proved
fatal where nothing but a general consternation and mutual diffidence
and dissension prevailed. The governors of one province refused to march
to the assistance of another, and were at last terrified from assembling
their forces for the defence of their own province. General councils
were summoned; but either no resolution was taken, or none was carried
into execution. And the only expedient in which the English agreed, was
the base and imprudent one of buying a new peace from the Danes, by the
payment of forty-eight thousand pounds.


{1011.} This measure did not bring them even that short interval of
repose which they had expected from it. The Danes, disregarding all
engagements, continued their devastations and hostilities; levied a new
contribution of eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent alone;
murdered the archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to countenance
this exaction; and the English nobility found no other resource than
that of submitting everywhere to the Danish monarch, swearing allegiance
to him, and delivering him hostages for their fidelity. Ethelred equally
afraid of the violence of the enemy, and the treachery of his own
subjects, fled into Normandy, {1013} whither he had sent before him
Queen Emma, and her two sons, Alfred and Edward. Richard received his
unhappy guests with a generosity that does honor to his memory.

{1014} The king had not been above six weeks in Normandy, when he heard
of the death of Sweyn, who expired at Gainsborough, before he had time
to establish himself in his new-acquired dominions. The English prelates
and nobility, taking advantage of this event, sent over a deputation to
Normandy, inviting Ethelred to return to them, expressing a desire of
being again governed by their native prince, and intimating their hopes
that, being now tutored by experience, he would avoid all those errors
which had been attended with such misfortunes to himself and to his
people. But the misconduct of Ethelred was incurable; and on his
resuming the government, he discovered the same incapacity, indolence,
cowardice, and credulity, which had so often exposed him to the insults
of his enemies. His son-in-law Edric, notwithstanding his repeated
treasons, retained such influence at court, as to instil into the king
jealousies of Sigefert and Morcar, two of the chief nobles of Mercia.
Edric allured them into his house, where he murdered them; while
Ethelred participated in the infamy of the action, by confiscating their
estates, and thrusting into a convent the widow of Sigefert. She was a
woman of singular beauty and merit; and in a visit which was paid her,
during her confinement, by Prince Edmond, the king’s eldest son, she
inspired him with so violent an affection, that he released her from the
convent, and soon after married her, without the consent of his father.

Meanwhile the English found in Canute, the son and successor of Sweyn,
an enemy no less terrible than the prince from whom death had so lately
delivered them. He ravaged the eastern coast with merciless fury, and
put ashore all the English hostages at Sandwich, after having cut off
their hands and noses. He was obliged, by the necessity of his affairs,
to make a voyage to Denmark; but, returning soon after, he continued his
depredations along the southern coast He even broke into the counties
of Dorset, Wilts, and Somerset where an army was assembled against him,
under the command of Prince Edmond and Duke Edric. The latter still
continued his perfidious machinations, and after endeavoring in vain to
got the prince into his power, he found means to disperse the army, and
he then openly deserted to Canute with forty vessels. {1015.}

Notwithstanding this misfortune, Edmond was not disconcerted; but
assembling all the force of England, was in a condition to give battle
to the enemy. The king had had such frequent experience of perfidy among
his subjects, that he had lost all confidence in them: he remained at
London, pretending sickness, but really from apprehensions that they
intended to buy their peace, by delivering him into the hands of his
enemies. The army called aloud for their sovereign to march at their
head against the Danes; and, on his refusal to take the field, they were
so discouraged, that those vast preparations became ineffectual for
the defence of the kingdom. Edmond, deprived of all regular supplies to
maintain his soldiers, was obliged to commit equal ravages with those
which were practised by the Danes; and, after making some fruitless
expeditions into the north, which had submitted entirely to Canute’s
power, he retired to London, determined there to maintain to the last
extremity the small remains of English liberty. He here found every
thing in confusion by the death of the king, who expired after an
unhappy and inglorious reign of thirty-five years. {1016.} He left two
sons by his first marriage, Edmond, who succeeded him, and Edwy, whom
Canute afterwards murdered. His two sons by the second marriage, Anred
and Edward, were, immediately upon Ethelred’s death, conveyed into
Normandy by Queen Emma.



EDMOND IRONSIDE

This prince, who received the name of _Ironside_ from his hardy
valor, possessed courage and abilities sufficient to have prevented his
country from sinking into those calamities, but not to raise it from
that abyss of misery into which it had already fallen. Among the other
misfortunes of the English, treachery and disaffection had crept in
among the nobility and prelates; and Edmond found no better expedient
for stopping the further progress of these fatal evils, than to lead
his army instantly into the field, and to employ them against the
common enemy. After meeting with some success at Gillingnam, he prepared
himself to decide, in one general engagement, the fate of his crown:
and at Scoerston, in the county of Glocester, he offered battle to the
enemy, who were commanded by Canute and Edric. Fortune, in the beginning
of the day, declared for him; but Edric, having cut off the head of one
Osmer, whose countenance resembled that of Edmond fixed it on a spear,
carried it through the ranks in triumph, and called aloud to the
English, that it was time to fly; for, behold! the head of their
sovereign. And though Edmond, observing the consternation of the troops,
took off his helmet, and showed himself to them, the utmost he could
gain by his activity and valor was to leave the victory undecided. Edric
now took a surer method to ruin him, by pretending to desert to him; and
as Edmond was well acquainted with his power, and probably knew no other
of the chief nobility in whom he could repose more confidence, he was
obliged, notwithstanding the repeated perfidy of the man, to give him
a considerable command in the army. A battle soon after ensued at
Assington, in Essex; where Edric, flying in the beginning of the
day, occasioned the total defeat of the English, followed by a great
slaughter of the nobility. The indefatigable Edmond, however, had still
resources. Assembling a new army at Glocester, he was again in condition
to dispute the field; when the Danish and English nobility, equally
harassed with those convulsions obliged their kings to come to a
compromise, and to divide the kingdom between them by treaty. Canute
reserved to himself the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East
Anglia, and Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued. The southern
parts were left to Edmond. The prince survived the treaty about a month.
He was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, accomplices of
Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to the
crown of England.



CANUTE

{1017.} The English, who had been unable to defend their country, and
maintain their independency, under so active and brave a prince as
Edmond, could after his death expect nothing but total subjection from
Canute, who, active and brave himself, and at the head of a great force,
was ready to take advantage of the minority of Edwin and Edward, the
two sons of Edmond. Yet this conqueror, who was commonly so little
scrupulous, showed himself anxious to cover his injustice under
plausible pretences. Before he seized the dominions of the English
princes, he summoned a general assembly of the states, in order to fix
the succession of the kingdom. He here suborned some nobles to depose
that, in the treaty of Glocester it had been verbally agreed, either to
name Canute, in case of Edmond’s death, successor to his dominions, or
tutor to hit children, (for historians vary in this particular;) and
that evidence, supported by the great power of Canute, determined
the states immediately to put the Danish monarch in possession of the
government. Canute, jealous of the two princes, but sensible that
he should render himself extremely odious if he ordered them to be
despatched in England, sent them abroad to his ally, the king of Sweden,
whom he desired, as soon as they arrived at his court, to free him,
by their death, from a& farther anxiety. The Swedish monarch was too
generous to comply with the request; but being afraid of drawing on
himself a quarrel with Canute, by protecting the young princes, he
sent them to Solomon, king of Hungary, to be educated in his court.
The elder, Edwin, was afterwards married to the sister of the king of
Hungary; but the English prince dying without issue, Solomon gave his
sister-in-law, Agatha, daughter of the emperor Henry the Second,
in marriage to Edward, the younger brother; and she bore him Edgar,
Atheling, Margaret, afterwards queen of Scotland, and Christina, who
retired into a convent.

Canute, though he had reached the great point of his ambition in
obtaining possession of the English crown, was obliged at first to make
great sacrifices to it; and to gratify the chief of the nobility, by
bestowing on them the most extensive governments and jurisdictions. He
created Thurkill earl or duke of East Anglia, (for these titles were
then nearly of the same import,) Yric of Northumberland, and Edric of
Mercia; reserving only to himself the administration of Wessex. But
seizing afterwards a favorable opportunity, he expelled Thurkill and
Yric from their governments, and banished them the kingdom; he put to
death many of the English nobility, on whose fidelity he could not rely,
and whom he hated on account of their disloyalty to their native prince.
And even the traitor Edric, having had the assurance to reproach him
with his services, was condemned to be executed, and his body to be
thrown into the Thames; a suitable reward for his multiplied acts of
perfidy and rebellion.

Canute also found himself obliged, in the beginning of his reign,
to load the people with heavy taxes, in order to reward his Danish
followers: he exacted from them at one time the sum of seventy-two
thousand pounds; besides eleven thousand pounds which he levied on
London alone. He was probably willing, from political motives, to mulct
severely that city, on account of the affection which it had borne to
Edmond, and the resistance which it had made to the Danish power in two
obstinate sieges.[*] But these rigors were imputed to necessity,
and Canute, like a wise prince, was determined that the English, now
deprived of all their dangerous leaders, should be reconciled to the
Danish yoke, by the justice and impartiality of his administration. He
sent back to Denmark as many of his followers as he could safely spare;
he restored the Saxon customs in a general assembly of the states; he
made no distinction between Danes and English in the distribution of
justice; and he took care, by a strict execution of law, to protect
the lives and properties of all his people. The Danes were gradually
incorporated with his new objects; and both were glad to obtain a little
respite from those multiplied calamities, from which the one, no less
than the other, had, in their fierce contest for power, experienced such
fatal consequences.

The removal of Edmond’s children into so distant a country as Hungary,
was, next to their death, regarded by Canute as the greatest security to
his government: he had no further anxiety, except with regard to Alfred
and Edward, who were protected and supported by their uncle Richard,
duke of Normandy. Richard even fitted out a great armament, in order to
restore the English princes to the throne of their ancestors; and though
the navy was dispersed by a storm, Canute saw the danger to which he was
exposed, from the enmity of so warlike a people as the Normans. In order
to acquire the friendship of the duke, he paid his addresses to Queen
Emma, sister of that prince; and promised that he would leave the
children, whom he should have by that marriage, in possession of the
crown of England. Richard complied with his demand, and sent over Emma
to England, where she was soon after married to Canute.[**] The English,
though they disapproved of her espousing the mortal enemy of her former
husband and his family, were pleased to find at court a sovereign to
whom they were accustomed, and who had already formed connections with
them; and thus Canute besides securing, by this marriage, the alliance
of Normandy gradually acquired, by the same means, the confidence of his
own subjects.[***] The Norman prince did not long survive the marriage
of Emma; and he left the inheritance of the duchy to his eldest son
of the same name; who, dying a year after him without children, was
succeeded by his brother Robert, a man of valor and abilities.

     [* W. Malms, p. 72. In one of these sieges, Canute
     diverted the coarse of the Thames, and by that means brought
     his ships above London bridge.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 151. W. Malms, p. 73.]

     [*** W. Malms, 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 favorable opportunity, which he was obliged suddenly
to seize, he Attacked the enemy in the night, drove them from their
trenches, threw them into disorder, pursued his advantage, and obtained
a decisive victory over them. Next morning, Canute, seeing the English
camp entirely abandoned, imagined that those disaffected troops had
deserted to the enemy: he was agreeably surprised to find that they were
at that time engaged in pursuit of the discomfited Swedes. He was so
pleased with this success, and with the manner of obtaining it that
he bestowed his daughter in marriage upon Godwin, and treated him ever
after with entire confidence and regard.


{1028.} In another voyage, which he made afterwards to Denmark, Canute
attacked Norway, and expelling the just but unwarlike Olaus, kept
possession of his kingdom till the death of that prince. He had now by
his conquests and valor attained the utmost height of grandeur: having
leisure from wars and intrigues, he felt the unsatisfactory nature of
all human enjoyments; and equally weary of the glories and turmoils
of this life, he began to cast his view towards that future existence,
which it is so natural for the human mind, whether satiated by
prosperity or disgusted with adversity, to make the object of its
attention. Unfortunately, the spirit which prevailed in that age gave a
wrong direction to his devotion: instead of making compensation to those
whom he had injured by his former acts of violence, he employed himself
entirely in those exercises of piety which the monks represented as the
most meritorious. He built churches, he endowed monasteries, he enriched
the ecclesiastics, and he bestowed revenues for the support of chantries
at Assington and other places; where he appointed prayers to be said for
the souls of those who had there fallen in battle against him. He even
undertook a pilgrimage to Rome, where he resided a considerable time:
besides obtaining from the pope some privileges for the English school
erected there, he engaged all the princes, through whose dominions he
was obliged to pass, to desist from those heavy impositions and tolls
which they were accustomed to exact from the English pilgrims. By
this spirit of devotion no less than by his equitable and politic
administration, he gained, in a good measure, the affections of his
subjects.

Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign
of Denmark and Norway, as well as of England, could not fail of meeting
with adulation from his courtiers; a tribute which is liberally paid
even to the meanest and weakest princes. Some of his flatterers breaking
out one day in admiration of his grandeur, exclaimed that every thing
was possible for him; upon which the monarch, it is said, ordered his
chair to be set on the sea-shore, while the tide was rising; and as the
waters approached, he commanded them to retire, and to obey the voice
of him who was lord of the ocean. He feigned to sit some time in
expectation of their submission; but when the sea still advanced towards
him, and began to wash him with its billows, he turned to his courtiers,
and remarked to them, that every creature in the universe was feeble and
impotent, and that power resided with one being alone, in whose hands
were all the elements of nature; who could say to the ocean, “Thus far
shalt thou go, and no farther;” and who could level with his nod the
most towering piles of human pride and ambition.

{1031.} The only memorable action which Canute performed after his
return from Rome, was an expedition against Malcolm, king of Scotland.
During the reign of Ethelred, a tax of a shilling a hide had been imposed
on all the lands of England. It was commonly called ‘danegelt;’ because
the revenue bar been employed either in buying peace with the Danes, or
in making preparations against the inroads of that hostile nation. That
monarch had required that the same tax should be paid by Cumberland,
which was held by the Scots; but Malcolm a warlike prince, told him,
that as he was always able to repulse the Danes by his own power, he
would neither submit to buy peace of his enemies, nor pay others for
resisting them. Ethelred, offended at this reply, which contained a
secret reproach on his own conduct, undertook an expedition against
Cumberland; but though he committed ravages upon the country, he could
never bring Malcolm to a temper more humble or submissive. Canute,
after his accession, summoned the Scottish king to acknowledge himself
a vassal for Cumberland to the crown of England; but Malcolm refused
compliance, on pretence that he owed homage to those princes only who
inherited that kingdom by right of blood. Canute was not of a temper to
bear this insult; and the king of Scotland soon found, that the sceptre
was in very different hands from those of the feeble and irresolute
Ethelred. Upon Canute’s appearing on the frontiers with a formidable
army Malcolm agreed that his grandson and heir, Duncan, whom he put in
possession of Cumberland, should make the submissions required, and that
the heirs of Scotland should always acknowledge themselves vassals to
England for that province.[*] Canute passed four years in peace after
this enterprise, and he died at Shaftesbury;[**] leaving three sons,
Sweyn, Harold, and Hardicanute. Sweyn, whom he had by his first marriage
with Alfwen, daughter of the earl of Hampshire, was crowned in Norway:
Hardicanute, whom Emma had borne him, was in possession of Denmark:
Harold, who was of the same marriage with Sweyn, was at that time in
England.

     [* W. Malms, p. 74.]

     [** Chron Sax p. 154. W. Malms, p. 76]



HAROLD HAREFOOT

{1035.} Though Canute, in his treaty with Richard, duke of Normandy,
had stipulated that his children by Emma should succeed to the crown
of England, he had either considered himself as released from that
engagement by the death of Richard, or esteemed it dangerous to leave an
unsettled and newly-conquered kingdom in the hands of so young a prince
as Hardicanute: he therefore appointed, by his will, Harold successor
to the crown. This prince was besides present, to maintain his claim; he
was favored by all the Danes; and he got immediately possession of his
father’s treasures, which might be equally useful, whether he found it
necessary to proceed by force or intrigue, in insuring his succession.
On the other hand, Hardicanute had the suffrages of the English, who,
on account of his being from among them of Queen Emma, regarded him as
their countryman; he was favored by the articles of treaty with the duke
of Normandy; and above all, his party was espoused by Earl Godwin, the
most powerful nobleman in the kingdom, especially in the province of
Wessex, the chief seat of the ancient English. Affairs were likely to
terminate in a civil war; when, by the interposition of the nobility
of both parties, a compromise was made; and it was agreed that Harold
should enjoy, together with London, all the provinces north of the
Thames, while the possession of the south should remain to Hardicanute:
and till that prince should appear and take possession of his dominions,
Emma fixed her residence at Winchester, and established her authority
over her son’s share of the partition.

Meanwhile Robert, duke of Normandy, died in a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land, and being succeeded by a son, yet a minor, the two English
princes, Alfred and Edward, who found no longer any countenance or
protection in that country, gladly embraced the opportunity of paying a
visit, with a numerous retinue, to their mother, Emma, who seemed to be
placed in a state of so much power and splendor at Winchester. But the
face of affairs soon wore a melancholy aspect. Earl Godwin had been
gained by the arts of Harold, who promised to espouse the daughter of
that nobleman; and while the treaty was yet a secret, these two tyrants
laid a plan for the destruction of the English princes. Alfred was
invited to London by Harold with many professions of friendship; but
when he had reached Guilford, he was set upon by Godwin’s vassals, about
six hundred of his train were murdered in the most cruel manner, he
himself was taken prisoner, his eyes were put out, and he was conducted
to the monastery of Ely, where he died soon after.[*] Edward and Emma,
apprised of the fate which was awaiting them, fled beyond sea, the
former into Normandy, the latter into Flanders; while Harold, triumphing
in his bloody policy, took possession, without resistance, of all the
dominions assigned to his brother.

     [* H. Hunting, p. 365. Ypod. Neust. p. 434.
     Hoveden, p. 438. Chron. Mailr. p. 156. Higden, p. 277.
     Chron. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 39. Sim. Dunelm. p. 179. Abbas
     Rieval. p. 366, 374. Brompton, p. 935. Gul. Gemet. lib. vii.
     cap. 11. M. West. p. 209 Flor. Wigorn, p. 622. Alured.
     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.



HARDICANUTE

{1039.} Hardicanute, or Canute the hardy, that is, the robust, (for
he top is chiefly known by his bodily accomplishments,) though, by
remaining so long in Denmark, he had been deprived of his share in the
partition of the kingdom, had not abandoned his pretensions; and he had
determined, before Harold’s death, to recover by arms what he had lost,
either by his own negligence or by the necessity of his affairs. On
pretence of paying a visit to the queen dowager in Flanders, ne had
assembled a fleet of sixty sail, and was preparing to make a descent on
England, when intelligence of his brother’s death induced him to
sail immediately to London, where he was received in triumph, and
acknowledged king without opposition.

The first act of Hardicanute’s government afforded his subjects a
bad prognostic of his future conduct. He was so enraged at Harold for
depriving him of his share of the kingdom, and for the cruel treatment
of his brother Alfred, that in an impotent desire of revenge against
the dead, he ordered his body to be dug up, and to be thrown into the
Thames; and when it was found by some fishermen, and buried in London,
he ordered it again to be dug up, and to be thrown again into the
river; but it was fished up a second time, and then interred with great
secrecy. Godwin, equally servile and insolent, submitted to be his
instrument in this unnatural and brutal action.

That nobleman knew that he was universally believed to have been an
accomplice in the barbarity exercised on Alfred, and that he was on that
account obnoxious to Hardicanute; and perhaps he hoped, by displaying
this rage against Harold’s memory, to justify himself from having had
any participation in his counsels. But Prince Edward, being invited
over by the king, immediately on his appearance preferred an accusation
against Godwin for the murder of Alfred, and demanded justice for that
crime. Godwin, in order to appease the king; made him a magnificent
present of a galley with a gilt stern, rowed by fourscore men, who wore
each of them a gold bracelet on his arm, weighing sixteen ounces,
and were armed and clothed in the most sumptuous manner. Hardicanute,
pleased with the splendor of this spectacle, quickly forgot his
brother’s murder; and on Godwin’s swearing that he was innocent of the
crime, he allowed him to be acquitted.

Though Hardicanute before his accession had been called over by the
vows of the English, he soon lost the affections of the nation by his
misconduct; but nothing appeared more grievous to them than his renewing
the imposition of danegelt, and obliging the nation to pay a great sum
of money to the fleet which brought him from Denmark. The discontents
ran high in many places: in Worcester the populace rose, and put to
death two of the collectors. The king, enraged at this opposition, swore
vengeance against the city, and ordered three noblemen, Godwin, duke of
Wessex, Siward, duke of Northumberland, and Leofric, duke of Mercia, to
execute his menaces with the utmost rigor. They were obliged to set fire
to the city, and deliver it up to be plundered by their soldiers; but
they saved the lives of the inhabitants, whom they confined in a small
island of the Severn, called Beverey, till, by their intercession, they
were able to appease the king, and obtain the pardon of the supplicants.

This violent government was of short duration. Hardicanute died in two
years after his accession, at the nuptials of a Danish lord, which he
had honored with his presence. His usual habits of intemperance were so
well known, that, notwithstanding his robust constitution, his sudden
death gave as little surprise as it did sorrow to his subjects.



EDWARD THE CONFESSOR

{1041.} The English, on the death of Hardicanute, saw a favorable
opportunity for recovering their liberty, and for shaking off the Danish
yoke, under which they had so long labored. Sweyn, king of Norway, the
eldest son of Canute, was absent; and as the two last kings had died
without issue, none of that race presented himself, nor any whom the
Danes could support as successor to the throne. Prince Edward was
fortunately at court on his brother’s demise; and though the descendants
of Edmond Ironside were the true heirs of the Saxon family, yet their
absence in so remote a country as Hungary, appeared a sufficient reason
for their exclusion to a people, like the English, so little accustomed
to observe a regular order in the succession of their monarchs. All
delays might be dangerous, and the present occasion must hastily be
embraced, while the Danes, without concert, without a leader, astonished
at the present incident, and anxious only for their personal safety,
durst not oppose the united voice of the nation.

But this concurrence of circumstances in favor of Edward might have
failed of its effect, had his succession been opposed by Godwin, whose
power, alliances, and abilities gave him a great influence at all times,
especially amidst those sudden opportunities which always attend
a revolution of government, and which, either seized or neglected,
commonly prove decisive. There were opposite reasons, which divided
men’s hopes and fears with regard to Godwin’s conduct. On the one hand,
the credit of that nobleman lay chiefly in Wessex, which was almost
entirely inhabited by English; it was therefore presumed that he would
second the wishes of that people in restoring the Saxon line, and in
humbling the Danes, from whom he, as well as they, had reason to dread,
as they had already felt, the most grievous oppressions. On the other
hand, there subsisted a declared animosity between Edward and Godwin,
on account of Alfred’s murder; of which the latter had publicly been
accused by the prince, and which he might believe so deep an offence, as
could never, on account of any subsequent merits, be sincerely pardoned.
But their common friends here interposed; and representing the necessity
of their good correspondence, obliged them to lay aside all jealousy and
rancor, and concur in restoring liberty to their native country. Godwin
only stipulated that Edward, as a pledge of his sincere reconciliation,
should promise to marry his daughter Editha; and having fortified
himself by this alliance, he summoned a general council at Gillingham,
and prepared every measure for securing the succession to Edward. The
English were unanimous and zealous in their resolutions; the Danes were
divided and dispirited: any small opposition, which appeared in this
assembly, was browbeaten and suppressed; and Edward was crowned king,
with every Demonstration of duty and affection.

The triumph of the English upon this signal and decisive advantage, was
at first attended with some insult and violence against the Danes, but
the king, by the mildness of his character, soon reconciled the latter
to his administration, and the distinction between the two nations
gradually disappeared. The Danes were interspersed with the English
in most of the provinces; they spoke nearly the same language; they
differed little in their manners and laws; domestic dissensions in
Denmark prevented, for some years, any powerful invasion from thence
which might awaken past animosities; and as the Norman conquest, which
ensued soon after, reduced both nations to equal subjection, there is
no further mention in history of any difference between them. The joy,
however, of their present deliverance made such impression on the minds
of the English, that they instituted an annual festival for celebrating
that great event; and it was observed in some counties, even to the time
of Spelman.[*]

    [* Spelm. 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 that princess; he accused her of neglecting him and his
brother during their adverse fortune;[**] he remarked that, as the
superior qualities of Canute, and his better treatment of her, had made
her entirely indifferent to the memory of Etheldred, she also gave
the preference to her children of the second bed, and always regarded
Hardicanute as her favorite.

     [** Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p.237]

The same reasons had probably made her unpopular in England; and though
her benefactions to the monks obtained her the favor of that order, the
nation was not, in general, displeased to see her stripped by Edward
of immense treasures which she had amassed. He confined her, during the
remainder of her life, in a monastery at Winchester; but carried his
rigor against her no farther. The stories of his accusing her of
a participation in her son Alfred’s murder, and of a criminal
correspondence with the bishop of Winchester, and also of her justifying
herself by treading barefoot, without receiving any hurt, over nine
burning ploughshares, were the inventions of the monkish historians, and
were propagated and believed from the silly wonder of posterity.[*]

     [* Higden, p. 277.]

The English flattered themselves that, by the accession of Edward, they
were delivered forever from the dominion of foreigners; but they soon
found that this evil was not yet entirely removed. The king had been
educated in Normandy, and had contracted many intimacies with the
natives of that country, as well as an affection for their manners.[**]
The court of England was soon filled with Normans, who, being
distinguished both by the favor of Edward, and by a degree of
cultivation superior to that which was attained by the English in those
ages, soon rendered their language, customs, and laws fashionable in the
kingdom. The study of the French tongue became general among the people.
The courtiers affected to imitate that nation in their dress, equipage,
and entertainments; even the lawyers employed a foreign language
in their deeds and papers;[***] but above all, the church felt the
influence and dominion of those strangers: Ulf and William, two Normans,
who had formerly been the king’s chaplains, were created bishops of
Dorchester and London. Robert, a Norman also, was promoted to the see of
Canterbury,[****] and always enjoyed the highest favor of his master,
of which his abilities rendered him not unworthy. And though the king’s
prudence, or his want of authority, made him confer almost all the civil
and military employments on the natives, the ecclesiastical preferments
fell often to the share of the Normans; and as the latter possessed
Edward’s confidence, they had secretly a great influence on public
affairs, and excited the jealousy of the English, particularly of Earl
Godwin.[*****]

     [** Ingulph. p. 62.]

     [*** Ingulph. p. 62.]

     [**** Chron. Sax. p. 161.]

     [***** W. Malms, 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,
Glocester, and Hereford; and Harold, his second son, was duke of East
Anglia, and at the same time governor of Essex. The great authority of
this family was supported by immense possessions and powerful alliances;
and the abilities, as well as ambition of Godwin himself, contributed to
render it still more dangerous. A prince of greater capacity and vigor
than Edward would have found it difficult to support the dignity of the
crown under such circumstances; and as the haughty temper of Godwin
made him often forget the respect due to his prince Edward’s
animosity against him was grounded on personal as well as political
considerations, on recent as well as more ancient injuries. The king, in
pursuance of his engagements, had indeed married Editha, the daughter
of Godwin;[*] but this alliance became a fresh source of enmity between
them. Edward’s hatred of the father was transferred to that princess-;
and Editha, though possessed of many amiable accomplishments, could
never acquire the confidence and affection of her husband. It is even
pretended, that, during the whole course of her life, he abstained from
all commerce of love with her; and such was the absurd admiration paid
to an inviolable chastity during those ages, that his conduct in this
particular is highly celebrated by the monkish historians, and greatly
contributed to his acquiring the title of saint and confessor[**]
{1048.}

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 157.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 80, Higden, p. 277. Abbae Rieval.
     p. 366, 377 M. West. p. 221. Chron. Thorn. 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 favorites. It was not long before this
animosity broke out into action. Eustace, count of Boulogne, having paid
a visit to the king, passed by Dover in his return: one of his train,
being refused entrance to a lodging, which had been assigned him,
attempted to make his way by force, and in the contest he wounded the
master of the house. The inhabitants revenged this insult by the death
of the stranger; the count and his train took arms, and murdered the
wounded townsman; a tumult ensued; near twenty persons were killed on
each side; and Eustace, being overpowered by numbers, was obliged to
save his life by flight from the fury of the populace.

He hurried immediately to court, and complained of tne usage he had
met with: the king entered zealously into the quarrel, and was highly
displeased that a stranger of such distinction, whom he had invited
over to his court, should, without any just cause, as he believed, have
felt so sensibly the insolence and animosity of his people. He gave
orders to Godwin, in whose government Dover lay, to repair immediately
to the place, and to punish the inhabitants for tne crime; but Godwin,
who desired rather to encourage than express the popular discontents
against foreigners, refused obedience, and endeavored to throw the whole
blame of the riot on the count of Boulogne and his retinue.[*] Edward,
touched in so sensible a point, saw the necessity of exerting the
royal authority; and he threatened Godwin, if he persisted in his
disobedience, to make him feel the utmost effects of his resentment.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 163. W. Malms, 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
Glocester.[**]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 163. W. Mabus. p. 81.]

Edward applied for protection to Siward, duke of Northumberland, and
Leofric, duke of Mercia, two powerful noblemen, whose jealousy of
Godwin’s greatness, as well as their duty to the crown, engaged them to
defend the king in this extremity. They hastened to him with such of
their followers as they could assemble on a sudden; and finding the
danger much greater than they had at first apprehended, they issued
orders for mustering all the forces within their respective governments,
and for marching them without delay to the defence of the king’s
person and authority. Edward, meanwhile, endeavored to gain time by
negotiation; while Godwin, who thought the king entirely in his power,
and who was willing to save appearances, fell into the snare; and not
sensible that he ought to have no further reserve after he had proceeded
so far, he lost the favorable opportunity of rendering himself master of
the government.

The English, though they had no high idea of Edward’s vigor and
capacity, bore him great affection on account of his humanity, justice,
and piety, as well as the long race of their native kings, from whom he
was descended; and they hastened from all quarters to defend him from
the present danger. Hia army was now so considerable, that he ventured
to take the field; and marching to London, he summoned a great council
to judge of the rebellion of Godwin and his sons. These noblemen
pretended at first that they were willing to stand their trial; but
having in vain endeavored to make their adherents persist in rebellion,
they offered to come to London, provided they might receive hostages for
their safety: this proposal being rejected, they were obliged to disband
the remains of their forces, and have recourse to flight. Baldwin, earl
of Flanders, gave protection to Godwin and his three sons, Gurth, Sweyn,
and Tosti, the latter of whom had married the daughter of that prince;
Harold and Leofwin, two others of his sons, took shelter in Ireland. The
estates of the father and sons were confiscated; their governments were
given to others; Queen Editha was confined in a monastery at Warewel;
and the greatness of this family, once so formidable, seemed now to be
totally supplanted and overthrown But Godwin had fixed his authority on
too firm a basis, and he was too strongly supported by alliances both
foreign and domestic, not to occasion further disturbances, and make new
efforts for his reëstablishment. {1052.} The earl of Flanders permitted
him to purchase and hire ships within his harbors; and Godwin, having
manned them with his followers, and with freebooters of all nations, put
to sea, and attempted to make a descent at Sandwich. The king, informed
of his preparations, had equipped a considerable fleet, much superior to
that of the enemy; and the earl hastily, before their appearance, made
his retreat into the Flemish harbors.[*] The English court, allured by
the present security, and destitute of all vigorous counsels, allowed
the seamen to disband, and the fleet to go to decay;[**] while Godwin,
expecting this event, kept his men in readiness for action. He put to
sea immediately, and sailed to the Isle of Wight, where he was joined by
Harold with a squadron, which that nobleman had collected in Ireland.
He was now master of the sea; and entering every harbor in the southern
coast, he seized all the ships,[***] and summoned his followers in those
counties, which had so long been subject to his government, to assist
him in procuring justice to himself his family, and his country, against
the tyranny of foreigners.

     [* Sim. Dunelm. p. 186.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 166]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 166.]

Reënforced by great numbers from all quarters, he entered the Thames;
and appearing before London, threw every thing into confusion. The king
alone seemed resolute to defend himself to the last extremity; but the
interposition of the English nobility, many of whom favored Godwin’s
pretensions, made Edward hearken to terms of accommodation; and the
feigned humility of the earl, who disclaimed all intentions of offering
violence to his sovereign, and desired only to justify himself by a
fair and open trial, paved the way for his more easy admission. It was
stipulated that he should give hostages for his good behavior, and that
the primate and all the foreigners should be banished: by this treaty
the present danger of a civil war was obviated, but the authority of the
crown was considerably impaired, or rather entirely annihilated. Edward,
sensible that he had not power sufficient to secure Godwin’s hostages in
England, sent them over to his kinsman, the young duke of Normandy.

Godwin’s death, which happened soon after, while he was sitting at table
with the king, prevented him from further establishing the authority
which he had acquired, and from reducing Edward to still greater
subjection.[*] [5] He was succeeded in the government of Wessex, Sussex,
Kent, and Essex, and in the office of steward of the household, a place
of great power, by his son Harold, who was actuated by an ambition
equal to that of his father, and was superior to him in address, in
insinuation, and in virtue. By a modest and gentle demeanor, he acquired
the good will of Edward; at least, softened that hatred which the prince
had so long borne his family;[**] and gaining every day new partisans by
his bounty and affability, he proceeded, in a more silent, and therefore
a more dangerous manner, to the increase of his authority. The king,
who had not sufficient vigor directly to oppose his progress, knew of
no other expedient than that hazardous one of raising him a rival in the
family of Leofric, duke of Mercia, whose son Algar was invested with the
government of East Anglia, which, before the banishment of Harold, had
belonged to the latter nobleman. But this policy, of balancing opposite
parties, required a more steady hand to manage it than that of Edward,
and naturally produced faction and even civil broils, among nobles of
such mighty and independent authority.

     [* See note E, at the end of the volume.]

     [** Brompton, p. 918]

Algar was soon after expelled his government by the intrigues and power
of Harold; but being protected by Griffith, prince of Wales, who had
married his daughter, as well as by the power of his father Leofric, he
obliged Harold to submit to an accommodation, and was reinstated in the
government of East Anglia. This peace was not of long duration: Harold,
taking advantage of Leofric’s death, which happened soon after, expelled
Algar anew, and banished him the kingdom: and though that nobleman
made a fresh irruption into East Anglia with an army of Norwegians, and
overran the country, his death soon freed Harold from the pretensions
of so dangerous a rival. Edward, the eldest son of Algar, was indeed
advanced to the government of Mercia; but the balance which the king
desired to establish between those potent families, was wholly lost, and
the influence of Harold greatly preponderated.

{1055.} The death of Siward, duke of Northumberland, made the way still
more open to the ambition of that nobleman. Siward, besides his other
merits, had acquired honor to England by his successful conduct in the
only foreign enterprise undertaken during the reign of Edward. Duncan,
king of Scotland, was a prince of a gentle disposition, but possessed
not the genius requisite for governing a country so turbulent, and so
much infested by the intrigues and animosities of the great. Macbeth,
a powerful nobleman, and nearly allied to the crown, not content with
curbing the king’s authority, carried still farther his pestilent
ambition: he put his sovereign to death; chased Malcolm Kenmore, his son
and heir, into England, and usurped the crown. Siward, whose daughter
was married to Duncan, embraced, by Edward’s orders, the protection of
this distressed family: he marched an army into Scotland; and having
defeated and killed Macbeth in battle, he restored Malcolm to the throne
of his ancestors.[*]

     [* W. Malms, p. 79. Hoveden, p. 443. Chron. Mailr.
     p. 158 Buchanan, p, 115, edit. 1715].

This service, added to his former connections with the royal family of
Scotland, brought a great accession to the authority of Siward in the
north; but as he had lost his eldest son, Osberne, in the action with
Macbeth, it proved in the issue fatal to his family. His second son,
Walthoef, appeared, on his father’s death, too young to be intrusted
with the government of Northumberland; and Harold’s influence obtained
that dukedom for his own brother Tosti.

There are two circumstances related of Siward, which discover his high
sense of honor, and his martial disposition. When intelligence was
brought him of his son Osberne’s death, he was inconsolable; till he
heard that the wound was received in the breast, and that he had
behaved with great gallantry in the action. When he found his own death
approaching, he ordered his servants to clothe him in a complete suit
of armor; and sitting erect on the couch, with a spear in his hand,
declared, that in that posture, the only one worthy of a warrior, he
would patiently await the fatal moment.

The king, now worn out with cares and infirmities, felt himself far
advanced in the decline of life; and having no issue himself, began to
think of appointing a successor to the kingdom. He sent a deputation to
Hungary, to invite over his nephew Edward, son of his elder brother, and
the only remaining heir of the Saxon line. That prince, whose succession
to the crown would have been easy and undisputed, came to England with
his children, Edgar, surnamed Atheling, Margaret, and Christina; but his
death, which happened a few days after his arrival, threw the king into
new difficulties. He saw that the great power and ambition of Harold had
tempted him to think of obtaining possession of the throne on the first
vacancy, and that Edgar, on account of his youth and inexperience, was
very unfit to oppose the pretensions of so popular and enterprising a
rival. The animosity which he had long borne to Earl Godwin, made him
averse to the succession of his son; and he could not, without extreme
reluctance, think of an increase of grandeur to a family which had risen
on the ruins of royal authority, and which, by the murder of Alfred, his
brother, had contributed so much to the weakening of the Saxon line. In
this uncertainty, he secretly cast his eye towards his kinsman, William
duke of Normandy, as the only person whose power, and reputation, and
capacity, could support any destination which he might make in his
favor, to the exclusion of Harold and his family.[*]

     [* Irgulph. p. 68]

This famous prince was natural son of Robert, duke of Normandy, by
Harlotta, daughter of a tanner in Falaise,[**] and was very early
established in that grandeur, from which his birth seemed to have set
him at so great a distance.

     [** Brompton, p. 910.]

While he was but nine years of age, his father had resolved to undertake
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; a fashionable act of devotion, which had
taken place of the pilgrimages to Rome, and which, as it was attended
with more difficulty and danger, and carried those religious adventurers
to the first sources of Christianity, appeared to them more meritorious.
Before his departure, he assembled the states of the duchy; and in
forming them of his design, he engaged them to swear allegiance to his
natural son, William, whom, as he had no legitimate issue, he intended,
in case he should die in the pilgrimage, to leave successor to his
dominions.[*] As he was a prudent prince, he could not but foresee
the great inconveniencies which must attend this journey, and this
settlement of his succession; arising from the perpetual turbulency
of the great, the claims of other branches of the ducal family and
the power of the French monarch; but all these considerations were
surmounted by the prevailing zeal for pilgrimages;[**] and probably the
more important they were, the more would Robert exult in sacrificing
them to what he imagined to be his religious duty.

     [* W. Malms, p. 95.]

     [** 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.[***] Roger, count of Toni, and Alain, count of Brittany,
advanced claims to the dominion of the state; and Henry the First king
of France, thought the opportunity favorable for reducing the power of
a vassal, who had originally acquired his settlement in so violent
and invidious a manner, and who had long appeared formidable to his
sovereign.[****] The regency established by Robert encountered great
difficulties in supporting the government under his complication of
dangers; and the young prince, when he came to maturity, found himself
reduced to a very low condition. But the great qualities which he soon
displayed in the field and in the cabinet, gave encouragement to his
friends, and struck a terror into his enemies. He opposed himself on all
sides against his rebellious subjects, and against foreign invaders; and
by his valor and conduct prevailed in every action.

     [*** Malms, p. 95. Gul. Gemet. lib. vii. cap. 1]

     [**** W. Malms, p. 97.]

He obliged the French king to grant him peace on reasonable terms; he
expelled all pretenders to the sovereignty; and he reduced his turbulent
barons to pay submission to his authority, and to suspend their mutual
animosities. The natural severity of his temper appeared in a rigorous
administration of justice; and having found the happy effects of this
plan of government, without which the laws in those ages became totally
impotent, he regarded it as a fixed maxim, that an inflexible conduct
was the first duty of a sovereign.


The tranquillity which he had established in his dominions, had given
William leisure to pay a visit to the king of England, during the time
of Godwin’s banishment; and he was received in a manner suitable to the
great reputation which he had acquired, to the relation by which he was
connected with Edward, and to the obligations which that prince owed to
his family.[*] On the return of Godwin, and the expulsion of the Norman
favorites, Robert, archbishop of Canterbury, had, before his departure,
persuaded Edward to think of adopting William as his successor;
a counsel which was favored by the king’s aversion to Godwin, his
prepossessions for the Normans, and his esteem of the duke. That
prelate, therefore, received a commission to inform William of the
king’s intentions in his favor; and he was the first person that opened
the mind of the prince to entertain those ambitious hopes.[**] But
Edward, irresolute and feeble in his purpose, finding that the English
would more easily acquiesce in the restoration of the Saxon line, and
in the mean time invited his brother’s descendants from Hungary, with a
view of having them recognized heirs to the crown.

     [* Hoveden, p. 442. Ingulph. p, 65. Chron. Mailr.
     p. 157 Higden, p. 279.]

     [** Ingulph. p. 68. Gul. Gemet. lib. vii. cap. 31
     Order Vitalis. p. 492.]

The death of his nephew, and the inexperience and unpromising qualities
of young Edgar, made him resume his former intentions in favor of the
duke of Normandy; though his aversion to hazardous enterprises engaged
him to postpone the execution, and even to keep his purpose secret from
all his ministers.

Harold, meanwhile, proceeded after a more open manner, in increasing his
popularity, in establishing his power, and in preparing the way for
his advancement on the first vacancy; an event which, from the age and
infirmities of the king, appeared not very distant. But there was still
an obstacle, which it was requisite for him previously to overcome. Earl
Godwin, when restored to his power and fortune, had given hostages for
his good behavior; and among the rest one son and one grandson, whom
Edward, for greater security, as has been related, had consigned to the
custody of the duke of Normandy. Harold, though not aware of the duke’s
being his competitor, was uneasy that such near relations should be
detained prisoners in a foreign country; and he was afraid lest William
should, in favor of Edgar, retain these pledges as a check on the
ambition of any other pretender. He represented, therefore, to the king
his unfeigned submission to royal authority, his steady duty to his
prince, and the little necessity there was, after such a uniform trial
of his obedience, to detain any longer those hostages, who had been
required on the first composing of civil discords. By these topics,
enforced by his great power, he extorted the king’s consent to release
them; and in order to effect his purpose, he immediately proceeded, with
a numerous retinue, on his journey to Normandy. A tempest drove him
on the territory of Guy, count of Ponthieu, who, being informed of his
quality, immediately detained him prisoner, and demanded an exorbitant
sum for his ransom. Harold found means to convey intelligence of his
situation to the duke of Normandy; and represented that, while he was
proceeding to his court, in execution of a commission from the king
of England, he had met with this harsh treatment from the mercenary
disposition of the count of Ponthieu.

William was immediately sensible of the importance of the incident. He
foresaw that, if he could once gain Harold, either by favors or menaces,
his way to the throne of England would be open, and Edward would meet
with no further obstacle in executing the favorable intentions which he
had entertained in his behalf. He sent, therefore, a messenger to Guy,
in order to demand the liberty of his prisoner; and that nobleman, not
daring to refuse so great a prince, put Harold into the hands of the
Norman, who conducted him to Rouen. William received him with every
demonstration of respect and friendship; and after showing himself
disposed to comply with his desire in delivering up the hostages,
he look an opportunity of disclosing to him the great secret of his
pretensions to the crown of England, and of the will which Edward
intended to make in his favor. He desired the assistance of Harold in
perfecting that design; he made professions of the utmost gratitude in
return for so great an obligation; he promised that the present grandeur
of Harold’s family, which supported itself with difficulty under the
jealousy and hatred of Edward, should receive new increase from a
successor, who would be so greatly beholden to him for his advancement
Harold was surprised at this declaration of the duke; but being sensible
that he should never recover his own liberty, much less that of his
brother and nephew, if he refused the demand, he feigned a compliance
with William, renounced all hopes of the crown for himself, and
professed his sincere intention of supporting the will of Edward, and
seconding the ptetensions of the duke of Normandy. William, to bind him
faster to his interests, besides offering him one of his daughters
in marriage, required him to take an oath that, he would fulfil his
promises; and in order to render the oath more obligatory, he employed
an artifice well suited to the ignorance and superstition of the age. He
secretly conveyed under the altar, on which Harold agreed to swear, the
relics of some of the most revered martyrs; and when Harold had taken
the oath, he showed him the relics, and admonished him to observe
religiously an engagement which had been ratified by so tremendous a
sanction.[*] The English nobleman was astonished; but dissembling his
concern, he renewed the same professions, and was dismissed with all the
marks of mutual confidence by the duke of Normandy.

     [* Wace, p. 459, 460. MS. penes Carte, p. 354. W.
     Malms, p. 93 H Hunting, 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 favor of William. Fortune,
about this time, threw two incidents in his way, by which he was enabled
to acquire general favor, and to increase the character, which he had
already attained, of virtue and abilities.

The Welsh, though a less formidable enemy than the Danes, had long been
accustomed to infest the western borders; and after committing spoil
on the low countries, they usually made a hasty retreat into their
mountains, where they were sheltered from the pursuit of their enemies,
and were ready to seize the first favorable opportunity of renewing
their depredations. Griffith, the reigning prince, had greatly
distinguished himself in those incursions; and his name had become so
terrible to the English, that Harold found he could do nothing more
acceptable to the public, and more honorable for himself, than
the suppressing of so dangerous an enemy. He formed the plan of an
expedition against Wales; and having prepared some light-armed foot to
pursue the natives in their fastnesses, some cavalry to scour the open
country, and a squadron of ships to attack the sea-coast, he employed at
once all these forces against the Welsh, prosecuted his advantages with
vigor, made no intermission in his assaults, and at last reduced
the enemy to such distress, that, in order to prevent their total
destruction, they made a sacrifice of their prince, whose head they
cut off, and sent to Harold; and they were content to receive as their
sovereigns two Welsh noblemen appointed by Edward to rule over them. The
other incident was no less honorable to Harold.

Tosti, brother of this nobleman, who had been created duke of
Northumberland, being of a violent, tyrannical temper, had acted with
such cruelty and injustice, that the inhabitants rose in rebellion,
and chased him from his government. Morcar and Edwin, two brothers,
who possessed great power in those parts, and who were grandsons of
the great duke, Leofric, concurred in the insurrection; and the former,
being elected duke, advanced with an army to oppose Harold, who was
commissioned by the king to reduce and chastise the Northumbrians.
Before the armies came to action, Morcar, well acquainted with the
generous disposition of the English commander, endeavored to justify
his own conduct. He represented to Harold, that Tosti had behaved in a
manner unworthy of the station to which he was advanced, and no one, not
even a brother, could support such tyranny, without participating,
in some degree, of the infamy attending it; that the Northumbrians,
accustomed to a legal administration, and regarding it as their
birthright, were willing to submit to the king, but required a governor
who would pay regard to their rights and privileges; that they had been
taught by their ancestors, that death was preferable to servitude, and
had taken the field determined to perish, rather than suffer a renewal
of those indignities to which they had so long been exposed; and they
trusted that Harold, on reflection, would not defend in another that
violent conduct, from which he himself in his own government, had always
kept at so great a distance. Thus vigorous remonstrance was accompanied
with such a detail of facts, so well supported, that Harold found it
prudent to abandon his brother’s cause; and returning to Edward, he
persuaded him to pardon the Northumbrians, and to confirm Morcar in the
government. He even married the sister of that nobleman;[*] and by his
interest procured Edwin, the younger brother, to be elected into the
government of Mercia. Tosti in a rage departed the kingdom, and took
shelter in Flanders with Earl Baldwin, his father-in-law.

By this marriage, Harold broke all measures with the duke of Normandy,
and William clearly perceived that he could no longer rely on the oaths
and promises which he had extorted from him. But the English nobleman
was now in such a situation, that he deemed it no longer necessary to
dissemble. He had, in his conduct towards the Northumbrians, given such
a specimen of his moderation as had gained him the affections of his
countrymen. He saw that almost all England was engaged in his interests;
while he himself possessed the government of Wessex, Morcar that of
Northumberland, and Edwin that of Mercia. He now openly aspired to the
succession; and insisted, that since it was necessary, by the confession
of all, to set aside the royal family, on account of the imbecility of
Edgar, the sole surviving heir, there was no one so capable of filling
the throne, as a nobleman of great power of mature age, of long
experience, of approved courage and abilities, who, being a native
of the kingdom, would effectually secure it against the dominion and
tyranny of foreigners. Edward, broken with age and infirmities, saw the
difficulties too great for him to encounter; and though his inveterate
prepossessions kept him from seconding the pretensions of Harold, he
took but feeble and irresolute steps for securing the succession to the
duke of Normandy.[**] [6] While he continued in this uncertainty, he was
surprised by sickness, which brought him to his grave on the fifth of
January, 1066, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and twenty-fifth of
his reign.

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]

     [** 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, at tempted not those incursions which had been
so troublesome to all his predecessors, and fatal to some of them. The
facility of his disposition made him acquiesce under the government of
Godwin and his son Harold; and the abilities, as well as the power of
these noblemen, enabled them, while they were intrusted with authority,
to preserve domestic peace and tranquillity. The most commendable
circumstance of Edward’s government was his attention to the
administration of justice, and his compiling, for that purpose, a body
of laws which he collected from the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, and Alfred.
This compilation, though now lost, (for the laws that pass under
Edward’s name were composed afterwards,[*]) was long the object of
affection to the English nation.

     [* Spelm. 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.



HAROLD

{1066.} Harold had so well prepared matters before the death of Edward,
that he immediately stepped into the vacant throne; and his accession
was attended with as little opposition and disturbance, as if he had
succeeded by the most undoubted hereditary title. The citizens of London
were his zealous partisans; the bishops and clergy had adopted his
cause; and all the powerful nobility, connected with him by alliance
or friendship, willingly seconded his pretensions. The title of Edgar
Atheling was scarcely mentioned, much less the claim of the duke of
Normandy; and Harold, assembling his partisans, received the crown from
their hands, without waiting for the free deliberation of the states, or
regularly submitting the question to their determination.[*] If any were
averse to this measure, they were obliged to conceal their sentiments;
and the new prince, taking a general silence for consent, and founding
his title on the supposed suffrages of the people, which appeared
unanimous, was, on the day immediately succeeding Edward’s death,
crowned and anointed king, by Aldred, archbishop of York. The whole
nation seemed joyfully to acquiesce in his elevation.


The first symptoms of danger which the king discovered, came from
abroad, and from his own brother, Tosti, who had submitted to a
voluntary banishment in Flanders. Enraged at the successful ambition of
Harold, to which he himself had fallen a victim, he filled the court
of Baldwin with complaints of the injustice which he had suffered; he
engaged the interest of that family against his brother; he endeavored
to form intrigues with some of the discontented nobles in England he
sent his emissaries to Norway, in order to rouse to arms the freebooters
of that kingdom, and to excite their hopes of reaping advantage from the
unsettled state of affairs on the usurpation of the new king; and, that
he might render the combination more formidable, he made a journey to
Normandy, in expectation that the duke, who had married Matilda, another
daughter of Baldwin, would, in revenge of his own wrongs, as well
as those of Tosti, second, by his counsels and forces, the projected
invasion of England.[**]

     [* Gul. Pictavensis, p. 196. Ypod. Neust. p. 486.
     Order. Vitalis, p. 492. M. West. p. 221. W. Malms, p. 93.
     Ingulph. p. 68. Brompton, p. 957. Knyghton, p. 2339. H.
     Hunting, p. 210. Many of the historians say, that Harold was
     regularly elected by the states; some that Edward left him
     his successor by will]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]

The duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of Harold’s
intrigues and accessions, had been moved to the highest pitch of
indignation; but that he might give the better color to his pretensions,
he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince with his breach
of faith, and summoning him to resign, immediately, possession of the
kingdom. Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors, that the oath, with
which he was reproached, had been extorted by the well-grounded fear of
violence, and could never, for that reason, be regarded as obligatory;
that he had had no commission, either from the late king or the states
of England, who alone could dispose of the crown, to make any tender of
the succession to the duke of Normandy; and if he, a private person, had
assumed so much authority, and had even voluntarily sworn to support the
duke’s pretensions, the oath was unlawful, and It was his duty to seize
the first opportunity of breaking it: that he had obtained the crown by
the unanimous suffrages of the people, and should prove himself totally
unworthy of their favor, did he not strenuously maintain those national
liberties, with whose protection they had intrusted him; and that the
duke, if he made any attempt by force of arms, should experience the
power of a united nation, conducted by a prince who, sensible of the
obligations imposed on him by his royal dignity, was determined that the
same moment should put a period to his life and to his government.[*]

     [* W. Malms, p. 99. Higden, p. 28,5. M. West. p.
     222. De Gest Angl., incerto 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 near fifty
years; and it would require time for its soldiers, enervated by long
peace, to learn discipline, and its generals experience. He knew that it
was entirely unprovided with fortified towns, by which it could prolong
the war; but must venture its whole fortune in one decisive action,
against a veteran enemy, who, being once master of the field, would be
in a condition to overrun the kingdom. He saw that Harold, though he had
given proofs of vigor and bravery, had newly mounted a throne which he
had acquired by faction, from which he had excluded a very ancient royal
family, and which was likely to totter under him by its own instability,
much more if shaken by any violent external impulse. And he hoped that
the very circumstance of his crossing the sea, quitting his own country,
and leaving himself no hopes of retreat, as it would astonish the
enemy by the boldness of the enterprise, would inspirit his soldiers by
despair, and rouse them to sustain the reputation of the Norman arms.


The Normans, as they had long been distinguished by valor among all the
European nations, had, at this time, attained to the highest pitch of
military glory. Besides acquiring by arms such a noble territory in
France, besides defending it against continual attempts of the French
monarch and all its neighbors, besides exerting many acts of vigor under
their present sovereign, they had, about this very time, revived their
ancient fame, by the most hazardous exploits, and the moat wonderful
successes, in the other extremity of Europe. A few Norman adventurers
in Italy had acquired such an ascendant, not only over the Italians
and Greeks, but the Germans and Saracens, that they expelled those
foreigners, procured to themselves ample establishments, and laid
the foundation of the opulent kingdom of Naples and Sicily.[*] These
enterprises of men, who were all of them vassals in Normandy many of
them banished for faction and rebellion, excited the ambition of the
haughty William, who disdained, after such examples of fortune and
valor, to be deterred from making an Attack on a neighboring country,
where he could be supported by the whole force of his principality.

     [* Gul. Gemet. lib. vii. 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 neighboring states.
France, Germany, and the Low Countries, by the progress of the feudal
institutions, were divided and subdivided into many principalities and
baronies; and the possessors, enjoying the civil jurisdiction within
them selves, as well as the right of arms, acted, in many respects, as
independent sovereigns, and maintained their propertied and privileges,
less by the authority of laws, than by their own force and valor. A
military spirit had universally diffused itself throughout Europe;
and the several leaders, whose minds were elevated by their princely
situation, greedily embraced the most hazardous enterprises; and being
accustomed to nothing, from their infancy, but recitals of the success
attending wars and battles, they were prompted by a natural ambition to
imitate those adventures which they heard so much celebrated, and which
were so much exaggerated by the credulity of the age. United, however
loosely, by their duty to one superior lord, and by their connections
with the great body of the community to which they belonged, they
desired to spread their fame each beyond his own district and in all
assemblies, whether instituted for civil deliberations for military
expeditions, or merely for show and entertainment, to outshine each
other by the reputation of strength and prowess. Hence their genius for
chivalry; hence their impatience of peace and tranquillity; and hence
their readiness to embark in any dangerous enterprise, how little soever
interested in its failure or success.

William, by his power, his courage, and his abilities, had long
maintained a preeminence among those haughty chieftains; and every one
who desired to signalize himself by his address in military exercises,
or his valor in action, had been ambitious of acquiring a reputation
in the court and in the armies of Normandy. Entertained with that
hospitality and courtesy which distinguished the age, they had formed
attachments with the prince, and greedily attended to the prospects
of the signal glory and elevation which he promised them in return for
their concurrence in an expedition against England. The more grandeur
there appeared in the attempt, the more it suited their romantic spirit;
the fame of the intended invasion was already diffused everywhere;
multitudes crowded to tender to the duke their service, with that of
their vassals and retainers;[*] and William found less difficulty in
completing his levies, than in choosing the most veteran forces, and in
rejecting the offers of those who were impatient to acquire fame under
so renowned a leader.

Besides these advantages, which William owed to his personal valor
and good conduct, he was indebted to fortune for procuring him some
assistance, and also for removing many obstacles which it was natural
for him to expect, in an undertaking in which all his neighbors were so
deeply interested. Conan, count of Brittany, was his mortal enemy:
in order to throw a damp upon the duke’s enterprise, he chose this
conjuncture for reviving his claim to Normandy itself; and he required
that, in case of William’s success against England, the possession of
that duchy should devolve to him.[**] But Conan died suddenly after
making this demand; and Hoel, his successor, instead of adopting the
malignity, or, more properly speaking, the prudence of his predecessor,
zealously seconded the duke’s views, and sent his eldest son, Alain
Fergant, to serve under him with a body of five thousand Bretons. The
counts of Anjou and of Flanders encouraged their subjects to engage in
the expedition; and even the court of France, though it might justly
fear the aggrandizement of so dangerous a vassal, pursued not its
interests on this occasion with sufficient vigor and resolution.

     [* Gul Pict. p. 198.]

     [** Gul. Gemet. lib. vii. cap. 33]

Philip I., the reign ing monarch, was a minor; and William, having
communicated his project to the council, having desired assistance, and
offered to do homage, in case of his success, for the crown of England,
was indeed openly ordered to lay aside all thoughts of the enterprise;
but the earl of Flanders, his father-in-law, being at the head of the
regency, favored underhand his levies, and secretly encouraged the
adventurous nobility to enlist under the standard of the duke of
Normandy.

The emperor, Henry IV., besides openly giving all his vassals permission
to embark in this expedition, which so much engaged the attention of
Europe, promised his protection to the duchy of Normandy during the
absence of the prince, and thereby enabled him to employ his whole force
in the invasion of England.[*]

     [* Gul. Pict. p, 198.]

But the most important ally that William gained by his negotiations, was
the pope, who had a mighty influence over the ancient barons, no less
devout in their religious principles than valorous in their military
enterprises. The Roman pontiff, after an insensible progress during
several ages of darkness and ignorance, began now to lift his head
openly above all the princes of Europe; to assume the office of a
mediator, or even an arbiter, in the quarrels of the greatest monarchs;
to interpose in all secular affairs; and lo obtrude his dictates as
sovereign laws on his obsequious disciples, It was a sufficient motive
to Alexander II., the reigning pope, for embracing William’s quarrel,
that he alone had made an appeal to his tribunal, and rendered him
umpire of the dispute between him and Harold; but there were other
advantages which that pontiff foresaw must result from the conquest of
England by the Norman arms. That kingdom, though at first converted
by Romish missionaries, though it had afterwards advanced some farther
steps towards subjection to Rome, maintained still a considerable
independence in its ecclesiastical administration; and forming a world
within itself, entirely separated from the rest of Europe, it had
hitherto proved inaccessible to those exorbitant claims which supported
the grandeur of the papacy. Alexander therefore hoped, that the French
and Norman barons, if successful in their enterprise, might import into
that country a more devoted reverence to the holy see, and bring the
English churches to a nearer conformity with those of the continent. He
declared immediately in favor of William’s claim; pronounced Harold
a perjured usurper; denounced excommunication against him and his
adherents; and the more to encourage the duke of Normandy in his
enterprise, he sent him a consecrated banner, and a ring with one of St.
Peter’s hairs in it.[*] Thus were all the ambition and violence of that
invasion covered over safely with the broad mantle of religion.

The greatest difficulty which William had to encounter in his
preparations, arose from his own subjects in Normandy. The states of the
duchy were assembled at Lislebonne; and supplies being demanded for the
intended enterprise, which promised so much glory and advantage to their
country, there appeared a reluctance in many members both to grant sums
so much beyond the common measure of taxes in that age, and to set a
precedent of performing their military service at a distance from their
own country. The duke, finding it dangerous to solicit them in a body,
conferred separately with the richest individuals in the province; and
beginning with those on whose affections he most relied, he gradually
engaged all of them to advance the sums demanded. The count of
Longueville seconded him in this negotiation; as did the count of
Mortaigne, Odo, bishop of Baieux, and especially William Fitz-Osborne,
count of Breteuil, and constable of the duchy. Every person, when he
himself was once engaged, endeavored to bring over others; and at last
the states themselves, after stipulating that this concession should be
no precedent, voted that they would assist their prince to the utmost in
his intended enterprise.[**]

William had now assembled a fleet of three thousand vessels, great and
small,[***] and had selected an army of sixty thousand men from among
those numerous supplies, which from every quarter solicited to be
received into his service.

     [* Baker, p. 22, edit. 1634.]

     [** Camden. Introd. ad Britann. p. 212, 2d edit.
     Gibs. Verstegan. p. 173]

     [*** Gul. Gemet. lib. vii. cap. 34.]

The camp bore a splendid, yet a martial appearance, from the discipline
of the men, the beauty and vigor of the horses, the lustre of the arms,
and the accoutrements of both; but above all, from the high names of
nobility who engaged under the banners of the duke of Normandy. The
most celebrated were Eustace, count of Boulogne, Aimeri de Thouars, Hugh
d’Estaples, William d’Evreux, Geoffrey de Rotrou, Roger de Beaumont,
William de Warenne, Roger de Montgomery, Hugh de Grantmesnil, Charles
Martel, and Geoffrey Giffard.[*] To these bold chieftains William held
up the spoils of England as the prize of their valor; and pointing to
the opposite shore, called to them that _there_ was the field,
on which they must erect trophies to their name, and fix their
establishments.

     [* 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 rancor
of Tosti, and encouraged him, in concert with Harold Halfager, king of
Norway, to infest the coasts of England. Tosti, having collected about
sixty vessels in the ports of Flanders, put to sea; and after
committing some depredations on the south and east coasts, he sailed to
Northumberland, and was there joined by Halfager, who came over with a
great armament of three hundred sail. The combined fleets entered
the Humber, and disembarked the troops, who began to extend their
depredations on all sides; when Morcar, earl of Northumberland, and
Edwin, earl of Mercia, the king’s brother-in-law, having hastily
collected some forces, ventured to give them battle. The action ended in
the defeat and flight of these two noblemen.

Harold, informed of this defeat, hastened with an army to the protection
of his people; and expressed the utmost ardor to show himself worthy of
the crown, which had been conferred upon him. This prince, though he
was not sensible of the full extent of his danger, from the great
combination against him, had employed every art of popularity to acquire
the affections of the public; and he gave so many proofs of an equitable
and prudent administration, that the English found no reason to repent
the choice which they had made of a sovereign. They flocked from all
quarters to join his standard; and as soon as he reached the enemy at
Standford, he found himself in condition to give them battle. The action
was bloody; but the victory was decisive on the side of Harold, and
ended in the total rout of the Norwegians, together with the death of
Tosti and Halfager. Even the Norwegian fleet fell into the hands
of Harold, who had the generosity to give prince Olave, the son of
Halfager, his liberty, and allow him to depart with twenty vessels.
But he had scarcely time to rejoice for this victory, when he received
itelligence that the duke of Normandy was landed with a great army in
the south of England.

The Norman fleet and army had been assembled, early in the summer, at
the mouth of the small river Dive, and all the troops had been instantly
embarked; but the winds proved long contrary, and detained them in
that harbor. The authority, however, of the duke, the good discipline
maintained among the seamen and soldiers, and the great care in
supplying them with provisions, had prevented any disorder, when at last
the wind became favorable, and enabled them to sail along the coast,
till they reached St. Valori. There were, however, several vessels lost
in this short passage; and as the wind again proved contrary, the
army began to imagine that Heaven had declared against them, and that,
notwithstanding the pope’s benediction, they were destined to certain
destruction. These bold warriors, who despised real dangers, were
very subject to the dread of imaginary ones; and many of them began
to mutiny, some of them even to desert their colors, when the duke, in
order to support their drooping hopes, ordered a procession to be
made with the relics of St. Valori,[*] and prayers to be said for more
favorable weather.

     [* Higden, p. 285. Order Vitalis, p. 500. M.
     Paris, edit. Pai anno 1644, p. 2.]

The wind instantly changed; and as this incident happened on the eve of
the feast of St. Michael, the tutelar saint of Normandy, the
soldiers, fancying they saw the hand of Heaven in all these concurring
circumstances, set out with the greatest alacrity: they met with no
opposition on their passage. A great fleet which Harold had assembled,
and which had cruised all summer off the Isle of Wight, had been
dismissed on his receiving false intelligence that William, discouraged
by contrary winds and other accidents, had laid aside his preparations.
The Norman armament, proceeding in great order, arrived, without any
material loss, at Pevensey, in Sussex; and the army quietly disembarked.
The duke himself, as he leaped on shore, happened to stumble and fall;
but had the presence of mind, it is said, to turn the omen to his
advantage, by calling aloud that he had taken possession of the country.
And a soldier, running to a neighboring cottage, plucked some thatch,
which, as if giving him seizin of the kingdom, he presented to his
general. The joy and alacrity of William and his whole army was so
great, that they were nowise discouraged, evan when they heard of
Harold’s great victory over the Norwegians. They seemed rather to wait
with impatience the arrival of the enemy.

The victory of Harold, though great and honorable, had proved in the
main prejudicial to his interests, and may be regarded as the immediate
cause of his ruin. He lost many of his bravest officers and soldiers
in the action, and he disgusted the rest by refusing to distribute the
Norwegian spoils among them; a conduct which was little agreeable to his
usual generosity of temper, but which his desire of sparing the people,
in the war that impended over him from the duke of Normandy, had
probably occasioned. He hastened by quick marches to reach this new
invader; but though he was reènforced at London and other places with
fresh troops, he found himself also weakened by the desertion of his old
soldiers, who from fatigue and discontent secretly withdrew from their
colors. His brother Gurth, a man of bravery and conduct, began to
entertain apprehensions of the event; and remonstrated with the king,
that it would be better policy to prolong the war; at least, to spare
his own person in the action. He urged to him that the desperate
situation of the duke of Normandy made it requisite for that prince to
bring matters to a speedy decision, and put his whole fortune on the
issue of a battle; but that the king of England, in his own country,
beloved by his subjects, provided with every supply, had more certain
and less dangerous means of insuring to himself the victory; that the
Norman troops, elated on the one hand with the highest hopes, and seeing
on the other no resource in case of a discomfiture, would fight to
the last extremity; and being the flower of all the warriors of the
continent, must be regarded as formidable to the English; that if their
first fire, which is always the most dangerous, were allowed to languish
for want of action, if they were harassed with small skirmishes,
straitened in provisions, and fatigued with the bad weather and deep
roads during the winter season which was approaching, they must fall an
easy and a bloodless prey to their enemy; that if a general action were
delayed, the English, sensible of the imminent danger to which their
properties, as well as liberties, were exposed from those rapacious
invaders, would hasten from all quarters to his assistance, and would
render his army invincible; that, at least, if he thought it necessary
to hazard a battle, he ought not to expose his own person out reserve,
in case of disastrous accidents, some resource to the liberty and
independence of the kingdom; and that having once been so unfortunate
as to be constrained to swear, and that upon the holy relics, to support
the pretensions of the duke of Normandy, it were better that the command
of the army should be intrusted to another, who, not being bound by
those sacred ties, might give the soldiers more assured hopes of a
prosperous issue to the combat.

Harold was deaf to all these remonstrances. Elated with his past
prosperity, as well as stimulated by his native courage, he resolved to
give battle in person; and for that purpose he drew near to the Normans,
who had removed their camp and fleet to Hastings, where they fixed their
quarters. He was so confident of success, that he sent a message to
the duke, promising him a sum of money if he would depart the kingdom
without effusion of blood; but his offer was rejected with disdain; and
William, not to be behind with his enemy in vaunting, sent him a message
by some monks, requiring him either to resign the kingdom, or to hold
it of him in fealty, or to submit their cause to the arbitration of the
pope, or to fight him in single combat. Harold replied, that the God of
battles would soon be the arbiter of all their differences.[*]

The English and Normans now prepared themselves for this important
decision; but the aspect of things, on the night before the battle, was
very different in the two camps. The English spent the time in riot, and
jollity, and disorder; the Normans, in silence, and in prayer, and in
the other functions of their religion.[**]

     [* Higden, p. 286]

     [** W. Malms, p. 101. De Gest Angl. p. 332]

On the morning, the duke called together the most considerable of
his commanders, and made them a speech suitable to the occasion. He
represented to them, that the event which they and he had long wished
for, was approaching; the whole fortune of the war now depended on their
swords, and would be decided in a single action; that never army had
greater motives for exerting a vigorous courage, whether they
considered the prize which would attend their victory, or the inevitable
destruction which must ensue upon their discomfiture; that if their
martial and veteran bands could once break those raw soldiers, who had
rashly dared to approach them, they conquered a kingdom at one blow,
and were justly entitled to all its possessions as the reward of their
prosperous valor; that, on the contrary, if they remitted in the least
their wonted prowess, an enraged enemy hung upon their rear, the sea
met them in their retreat, and an ignominious death was the certain
punishment of their imprudent cowardice; that by collecting so numerous
and brave a host, he had insured every human means of conquest; and
the commander of the enemy, by his criminal conduct, had given him just
cause to hope for the favor of the Almighty, in whose hands alone
lay the event of wars and battles; and that a perjured usurper,
anathematized by the sovereign pontiff, and conscious of his own breach
of faith would be struck with terror on their appearance, and would
prognosticate to himself that fate which--his multiplied crimes had so
justly merited.[*] The duke next divided his army into three lines: the
first, led by Montgomery, consisted of archers and light-armed infantry;
the second, commanded by Martel, was composed of his bravest battalions,
heavy-armed, and ranged in close order; his cavalry, at whose head he
placed himself, formed the third line, and were so disposed, that they
stretched beyond the infantry, and flanked each wing of the army.[**] He
ordered the signal of battle to be given; and the whole army, moving
at once, and singing the hymn or song of Roland, the famous peer of
Charlemagne,[***] advanced, in order and with alacrity, towards the
enemy.

     [* H. Hunting, p. 368. Brompton, p. 959. Gul.
     Pict. p. 201.]

     [** Gul. Pict. p. 201. Order. Vitalis, p. 501.]

     [*** W. Malms, p. 101. Higden, p. 286. M. West. p.
     223. Dr 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
valor by the English; and after a furious combat, which remained long
undecided, the former, overcome by the difficulty of the ground, and
hard pressed by the enemy, began first to relax their vigor, then to
retreat; and confusion was spreading among the ranks; when William, who
found himself on the brink of destruction, hastened, with a select band,
to the relief of his dismayed forces. His presence restored the action;
the English were obliged to retire with loss; and the duke, ordering his
second line to advance, renewed the attack with fresh forces and with
redoubled courage. Finding that the enemy aided by the advantage of
ground, and animated by the example of their prince, still made a
vigorous resistance, he tried a stratagem which was very delicate in
its management, but which seemed advisable in his desperate situation,
where, if he gained not a decisive victory, he was totally undone: he
commanded his troops to make a hasty retreat, and to allure the enemy
from their ground by the appearance of flight. The artifice succeeded
against those unexperienced soldiers, who, heated by the action, and
sanguine in their hopes, precipitately followed the Normans into the
plain. William gave orders, that at once the infantry should face about
upon their pursuers, and the cavalry make an assault upon their wings,
and both of them pursue the advantage, which the surprise and terror
of the enemy must give them in that critical and decisive moment. The
English were repulsed with great slaughter, and driven back to the
hill; where, being rallied by the bravery of Harold, they were able,
notwithstanding their loss, to maintain the post and continue the
combat. The duke tried the same stratagem a second time with the same
success; but even after this double advantage, he still found a great
body of the English, who, maintaining themselves in firm array, seemed
determined to dispute the victory to the last extremity. He ordered his
heavy-armed infantry to make an assault upon them; while his archers,
placed behind, should gall the enemy, who were exposed by the situation
of the ground, and who were intent in defending themselves against the
swords and spears of the assailants. By this disposition he at last
prevailed: Harold was slain by an arrow, while he was combating with
great bravery at the head of his men; his two brothers shared the same
fate; and the English, discouraged by the fall of those princes, gave
ground on all sides, and were pursued with great slaughter by the
victorious Normans. A few troops, however, of the vanquished had still
the courage to turn upon their pursuers; and attacking them in deep and
miry ground, obtained some revenge for the slaughter and dishonor of the
day. But the appearance of the duke obliged them to seek their safety by
flight; and darkness saved them from any further pursuit by the enemy.

Thus was gained by William, duke of Normandy, the great and decisive
victory of Hastings, after a battle which was fought from morning till
sunset, and which seemed worthy, by the heroic valor displayed by both
armies and by both commanders, to decide the fate of a mighty kingdom.
William had three horses killed under him; and there fell near fifteen
thousand men on the side of the Normans: the loss was still more
considerable on that of the vanquished, besides the death of the king
and his two brothers. The dead body of Harold was brought to William,
and was generously restored without ransom to his mother. The Norman
army left not the field of battle without giving thanks to Heaven,
in the most solemn manner, for their victory: and the prince, having
refreshed his troops, prepared to push to the utmost his advantage
against the divided, dismayed, and discomfited English.



APPENDIX I.


THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.

The government of the Germans, and that of all the northern nations who
established themselves on the ruins of Rome, was always extremely free;
and those fierce people, accustomed to independence and inured to arms,
were more guided by persuasion than authority in the submission which
they paid to their princes. The military despotism which had taken place
in the Roman empire, and which, previously to the irruption of those
conquerors, had sunk the genius of men, and destroyed every noble
principle of science and virtue, was unable to resist the vigorous
efforts of a free people; and Europe, as from a new epoch, rekindled her
ancient spirit, and shook off the base servitude to arbitrary will and
authority under which she had so long labored. The free constitutions
then established, however impaired by the encroachments of succeeding
princes, still preserve an air of independence and legal administration,
which distinguished the European nations; and if that part of the globe
maintain sentiments of liberty, honor, equity, and valor superior to the
rest of mankind, it owes these advantages chiefly to the seeds implanted
by those generous barbarians.

The Saxons who subdued Britain, as they enjoyed great liberty in their
own country, obstinately retained that invaluable possession in their
new settlement; and they imported into this island the same principles
of independence which they had inherited from their ancestors. The
chieftains, (for such they were, more properly than kings or princes,)
who commanded them in those military expeditions, still possessed a very
limited authority; and as the Saxons exterminated, rather than subdued,
the ancient inhabitants, they were indeed transplanted into a new
territory, but preserved unaltered all their civil and military
institutions. The language was pure Saxon; even the names of places,
which often remain while the tongue entirely changes, were almost all
affixed by the conquerors; the manners and customs were wholly German;
and the same picture of a fierce and bold liberty, which is drawn by
the masterly pencil of Tacitus, will suit those founders of the English
government. The king, so far from being invested with arbitrary power,
was only considered as the first among the citizens; his authority
depended more on his personal qualities than on his station; he was even
so far on a level with the people, that a stated price was fixed for
his head, and a legal fine was levied upon his murderer, which, though
proportionate to his station, and superior to that paid for the life of
a subject, was a sensible mark of his subordination to the community.

It is easy to imagine that an independent people, so little restrained
by law and cultivated by science, would not be very strict in
maintaining a regular succession of their princes. Though they paid
great regard to the royal family, and ascribed to it an undisputed
superiority, they either had no rule, or none that was steadily
observed, in filling the vacant throne; and present convenience, in that
emergency, was more attended to than general principles. We are
not, however, to suppose that the crown was considered as altogether
elective; and that a regular plan was traced by the constitution for
supplying, by the suffrages of the people, every vacancy made by the
demise of the first magistrate. If any king left a son of an age and
capacity fit for government, the young prince naturally stepped into the
throne: if he was a minor, his uncle, or the next prince of the blood,
was promoted to the government, and left the sceptre to his posterity:
any sovereign, by taking previous measures with the leading men, had it
greatly in his power to appoint his successor: all these changes, and
indeed the ordinary administration of government, required the express
concurrence, or at least the tacit acquiescence of the people; but
possession, however obtained, was extremely apt to secure their
obedience, and the idea of any right, which was once excluded was
but feeble and imperfect. This is so much the case in all barbarous
monarchies, and occurs so often in the history of the Anglo-Saxons, that
we cannot consistently entertain any other notion of their government.
The idea of an hereditary succession in authority is so natural to
men, and is so much fortified by the usual rule in transmitting private
possessions, that it must retain a great influence on every society,
which does not exclude it by the refinements of a republican
constitution. But as there is a material difference between gov-*
*ernment and private possessions, and every man is not as much qualified
for exercising the one as for enjoying the other, a people who are not
sensible of the general advantages attending a fixed rule are apt to
make great leaps in the succession, and frequently to pass over the
person, who, had he possessed the requisite years and abilities, would
have been thought entitled to the sovereignty. Thus these monarchies are
not, strictly speaking, either elective or hereditary; and though
the destination of a prince may often be followed in appointing his
successor, they can as little be regarded as wholly testamentary. The
states by their suffrage may sometimes establish a sovereign; but they
more frequently recognize the person whom they find established: a few
great men take the lead; the people, overawed and influenced, acquiesce
in the government; and the reigning prince, provided he be of the royal
family, passes undisputedly for the legal sovereign.

It is confessed that our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon history and
antiquities is too imperfect to afford us means of determining with
certainty all the prerogatives of the crown and privileges of the
people, or of giving an exact delineation of that government. It is
probable, also, that the constitution might be somewhat different hi the
different kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and that it changed considerably
during the course of six centuries, which elapsed from the first
invasion of the Saxons till the Norman conquest.[*] But most of these
differences and changes, with their causes and effects, are unknown to
us; it only appears that, at all times and in all the kingdoms, there
was a national council, called a wittenagemot, or assembly of the wise
men, (for that is the import of the term,) whose consent was requisite
for enacting laws, and for ratifying the chief acts of public
administration.

     [* 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 (sect. 35) say expressly that the heretoghs, or
     dukes, and the sheriffs were chosen by the freeholders in
     the folk-mote, a county court, which was assembled once a
     year, and where all the freeholders swore allegiance to the
     king.]

The preambles to all the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, Alfred, Edward the
Elder, Athelstan, Edmond, Edgar, Ethelred, and Edward the Confessor;
even those to the laws of Canute though a kind of conqueror, put this
matter beyond controversy, and carry proofs every where of a limited
and legal government. But who were the constituent members of this
wittenagemot has not been determined with certainty by antiquaries. It
is agreed that the bishops and abbots[*] were an essential part; and
it is also evident, from the tenor of those ancient laws, that the
wittenagemot enacted statutes which regulated the ecclesiastical as well
as civil government, and that those dangerous principles, by which the
church is totally severed from the state, were hitherto unknown to the
Anglo-Saxons.[**] It also appears that the aldermen or governors of
counties, who, after the Danish times, were often called earls,[***] [7]
were admitted into this council, and gave their consent to the public
statutes. But besides the prelates and aldermen, there is also mention
of the wites, or wisemen, as a component part of the wittenagemot; but
who these were is not so clearly ascertained by the laws or the history
of that period. The matter would probably be of difficult discussion,
even were it examined impartially; but as our modern parties have chosen
to divide on this point, the question has been disputed with the greater
obstinacy, and the arguments on both sides have become, on that account,
the more captious and deceitful. Our monarchical faction maintain that
these “wites,” or “sapientes,” were the judges, or men learned in
the law: the popular faction assert them to be representatives of the
boroughs, or what we now call the commons.

The expressions employed by all ancient historians in mentioning the
wittenagemot, seem to contradict the latter supposition. The members
are almost always called the “principes, satrapæ, optimates, magnates,
proceres;” terms which seem to suppose an aristocracy, and to exclude
the commons. The boroughs also, from the low state of commerce, were so
small and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such dependence on the
great men,[****] that it seems nowise probable they would be admitted as
a part of the national councils. The commons are well known to have had
no share in the governments established by the Franks, Burgundians,
and other northern nations; and we may conclude that the Saxons, who
remained longer barbarous and uncivilized than those tribes, would
never think of conferring such an extraordinary privilege on trade and
industry.

     [* Sometimes abbesses were admitted; at least they
     often sign the king’s charters or grants. Spelm. Gloss. in
     verbo Parliamentum.]

     [** Wilkins, passim.]

     [*** See note G, at the end of the volume.]

     [**** Brady’s Treatise of English Boroughs, p. 3,
     4, 5, etc.]

The military profession alone was honorable among all those conquerors:
the warriors subsisted by their possessions in land: they became
considerable by their influence over their vassals, retainers, tenants,
and slaves: and it requires strong proof to convince us that they would
admit any of a rank so much inferior as the burgesses, to share with
them in the legislative authority. Tacitus indeed affirms that, among
the ancient Germans, the consent of all the members of the community
was required in every important deliberation; but he speaks not of
representatives; and this ancient practice, mentioned by the Roman
historian, could only have place in small tribes, where every citizen
might without inconvenience be assembled upon any extraordinary
emergency. After principalities became extensive, after the difference
of property had formed distinctions more important than those which
arose from personal strength and valor, we may conclude that the
national assemblies must have been more limited in their number, and
composed only of the more considerable citizens.

But, though we must exclude the burgesses or commons from the Saxon
wittenagemot, there is some necessity for supposing that this assembly
consisted of other members than the prelates, abbots, alderman, and
the judges or privy council. For as all these, excepting some of the
ecclesiastics,[*] were anciently appointed by the king, had there been
no other legislative authority, the royal power had been, in a great
measure, absolute, contrary to the tenor of all the historians, and to
the practice of all the northern nations.

     [* 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
     Ingulf, a writer contemporary to the conquest.]

We may, therefore, conclude that the more considerable proprietors of
land were, without any election, constituent members of the national
assembly: there is reason to think that forty hides, or between four
and five thousand acres, was the estate requisite for entitling the
possessors to this honorable privilege. We find a passage in an ancient
author,[*] by which it appears that a person of very noble birth, even
one allied to the crown, was not esteemed a “princeps” (the term usually
employed by ancient historians, when the wittenagemot is mentioned) till
he had acquired a fortune of that amount. Nor need we imagine that the
public council would become disorderly or confused by admitting so great
a multitude. The landed property of England was probably in few hands
during the Saxon times, at least, during the latter part of that period;
and, as men had hardly any ambition to attend those public councils,
there was no danger of the assembly’s becoming too numerous for the
despatch of the little business which was brought before them.

It is certain that, whatever we may determine concerning the constituent
members of the wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the legislature
resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period preceding the Norman
conquest, was becoming extremely aristocratical: the royal authority
was very limited; the people, even if admitted to that assembly, were
of little or no weight and consideration. We have hints given us in
historians of the great power and riches of particular noblemen; and
it could not but happen, after the abolition of the Heptarchy, when
the king lived at a distance from the provinces, that those great
proprietors, who resided on their estates, would much augment their
authority over their vassals and retainers, and over all the inhabitants
of the neighborhood. Hence the immeasurable power assumed by Harold,
Godwin, Leofric, Siward, Morcar, Edwin, Edric, and Alfric who controlled
the authority of the kings, and rendered themselves quite necessary in
the government. The two latter, though detested by the people on account
of their joining a foreign enemy, still preserved their power and
influence; and we may therefore conclude that their authority was
founded, not on popularity, but on family rights and possessions. There
is one Athelstan, mentioned in the reign of the king of that name, who
is called alderman of all England, and is said to be half king; though
the monarch himself was a prince of valor and abilities.[**] And we find
that in the later Saxon times, and in these alone, the great offices
went from father to sun, and became in a manner hereditary in the
families.[A]

     [* Hist. Eliensis, lib. ii. cap 40]
     [** Hist. Rames. Beet. iii. p. 387]

The circumstances attending the invasions of the Danes would also serve
much to increase the power of the principal nobility. Those freebooters
made unexpected inroads on all quarters, and there was a necessity that
each county should resist them by its own force, and under the conduct
of its own nobility and its own magistrates. For the same reason that a
general war, managed by the united efforts of the whole state commonly
augments the power of the crown, those private wars and inroads turned
to the advantage of the aldermen and nobles.

Among that military and turbulent people, so averse to commerce and the
arts, and so little inured to industry, justice was commonly very ill
administered, and great oppression and violence seem to have prevailed.
These disorders would be increased by the exorbitant power of the
aristocracy; and would, in their turn, contribute to increase it. Men,
not daring to rely on the guardianship of the laws, were obliged to
devote themselves to the service of some chieftain, whose orders they
followed even to the disturbance of the government, or the injury of
their fellow-citizens, and who afforded them, in return, protection from
any insult or injustice by strangers. Hence we find, by the extracts
which Dr. Brady has given us from Domesday, that almost all the
inhabitants, even of towns, had placed themselves under the clientship
of some particular nobleman, whose patronage they purchased by annual
payments, and whom they were obliged to consider as their sovereign,
more than the king himself, or even the legislature.[B]

     [A] 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.
     Dunelm. 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.

     [B] Brady’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, etc. The case
     was the same with the freemen in the country. See Pref. to
     his Hist. p. 8, 9, 10, etc.

A client, though a freeman, was supposed so much to belong to his
patron, that his murderer was obliged by law to pay a fine to the
latter, as a compensation for his loss; in like manner as he paid a fine
to the master for the murder of his slave.[A] Men who were of a more
considerable rank, but not powerful enough each to support himself by
his own independent authority, entered into formal confederacies with
each other, and composed a kind of separate community, which rendered
itself formidable to all aggressors. Dr. Hickes has preserved a curious
Saxon bond of this kind, which he calls a “sodalitium,” and which
contains many particulars characteristical of the manners and customs
of the times.[B] All the associates are there said to be gentlemen of
Cambridgeshire; and they swear before the holy relics to observe their
confederacy, and to be faithful to each other: they promise to bury
any of the associates who dies, in whatever place he had appointed; to
contribute to his funeral charges, and to attend to his interment; and
whoever is wanting in this last duty, binds himself to pay a measure
of honey. When any of the associates is in danger, and calls for the
assistance of his fellows, they promise, besides flying to his succor,
to give information to the sheriff; and if he be negligent in protecting
the person exposed to danger, they engage to levy a fine of one pound
upon him; if the president of the society himself be wanting in this
particular, he binds himself to pay one pound; unless he has the
reasonable excuse of sickness, or of duty to his superior. When any
of the associates is murdered, they are to exact eight pounds from the
murderer; and if he refuse to pay it, they are to prosecute him for the
sum at their joint expense. If any of the associates, who happens to
be poor, kill a man, the society are to contribute, by a certain
proportion, to pay his fine,--a mark apiece, if the fine be seven
hundred shillings; less if the person killed be a clown or ceorle;
the half of that sum, again, if he be a Welshman But where any of the
associates kill a man wilfully and without provocation, he must himself
pay the fine. If any of the associates kill any of his fellows in a like
criminal manner, besides paying the usual fine to the relations of
the deceased, he must pay eight pounds to the society, or renounce the
benefit of it; in which case they bind themselves, under the penalty of
one pound, never to eat or drink with him, except in the presence of
the king, bishop, or alderman. There are other regulations to protect
themselves and their servants from all injuries, to revenge such as are
committed, and to prevent their giving abusive language to each other;
and the fine which they engage to pay for this last offence is a measure
of honey.

     [A] LL. Edw. Conf. Sect. viii. apad Ingulph.

     [B] 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 valor, and from the assistance of their
friends and patrons. As animosities were then more violent, connections
were also more intimate, whether voluntary or derived from blood: the
most remote degree of propinquity was regarded; an indelible memory of
benefits was preserved; severe vengeance was taken for injuries, both
from a point of honor and as the best means of future security; and the
civil union being weak, many private engagements were contracted, in
order to supply its place, and to procure men that safety, which the
laws and their own innocence were not alone able to insure to them.

On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather
licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body, even of the free
citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty than
where the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects
are reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the
civil magistrate. The reason is derived from the excess itself of that
liberty. Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and
injuries; and where they receive not protection from the laws and
magistrates, they will seek it by submission to superiors, and by
herding in some private confederacy, which acts under the direction of a
powerful leader. And thus all anarchy is the immediate cause of tyranny,
if not over the state, at least over many of the individuals.

Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the
wittenagemot, both in going and returning, “except they were notorious
thieves and robbers.”

The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were divided
into three ranks of men--the noble, the free, and the slaves.[A] This
distinction they brought over with them into Britain.

     [A] Nithard. Hist. lib. iv.

The nobles were called thanes; and were of two kinds, the king’s thanes
and lesser thanes. The latter seem to have been dependent on the former,
and to have received lands, for which they paid rent, services, or
attendance in peace and war.[*] We know of no title which raised any one
to the rank of thane, except noble birth and the possession of land. The
former was always much regarded by all the German nations, even in their
most barbarous state; and as the Saxon nobility, having little credit,
could scarcely burden their estates with much debt, and as the commons
had little trade or industry by which they could accumulate riches’
these two ranks of men, even though they were not separated by positive
laws, might remain long distinct, and the noble families continue many
ages in opulence and splendor. There were no middle ranks of men, that
could gradually mix with their superiors, and insensibly procure to
themselves honor and distinction. If, by any extraordinary accident,
a mean person acquired riches, a circumstance so singular made him
be known and remarked; he became the object of envy, as well as of
indignation, to all the nobles; he would have great difficulty to defend
what he had acquired; and he would find it impossible to protect
himself from oppression, except by courting the patronage of some great
chieftain, and paying a large price for his safety.


There are two statutes among the Saxon laws, which seem calculated to
confound those different ranks of men; that of Athelstan, by which a
merchant, who had made three long sea voyages on his own account, was
entitled to the quality of thane;[**] and that of the same prince, by
which a ceorle, or husbandman, who had been able to purchase five hides
of land, and had a chapel, a kitchen, a hall, and a bell, was raised to
the same distinction.[***] But the opportunities were so few, by which a
merchant or ceorle could thus exalt himself above his rank, that the law
could never overcome the reigning prejudices; the distinction between
noble and base blood would still be indelible; and the well-born thanes
would entertain the highest contempt for those legal and factitious
ones. Though we are not informed of any of these circumstances by
ancient historians, they are so much founded on the nature of things,
that we may admit them as a necessary and infallible consequence of the
situation of the kingdom during those ages.

     [* Spel. Feus and Tenures, p. 40.]

     [** Wilkins, p. 71.]

     [*** Selden, Titles of Honor, p, 515. Wilkins, p.
     7.]

The cities appear by domesday-book to have been, at the conquest little
better than villages.[*] York itself, though it was always the second,
at least the third[**] city in England, and was the capital of a great
province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest, contained
then but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families.[***] Malmsbury
tells us,[****] that the great distinction between the Anglo-Saxon
nobility and the French and Norman, was, that the latter built
magnificent and stately castles; whereas the former consumed their
immense fortunes in riot and hospitality, and in mean houses. We may
thence infer, that the arts in general were much less advanced in
England than in France: a greater number of idle servants and retainers
lived about the great families; and as these, even in France, were
powerful enough to disturb the execution of the laws, we may judge of
the authority acquired by the aristocracy in England. When Earl Godwin
besieged the Confessor in London, he summoned from all parts his
huscarles, or houseceorles and retainers, and thereby constrained his
sovereign to accept of the conditions which he was pleased to impose
upon him.


The lower rank of freemen were denominated ceorles among the
Anglo-Saxons; and where they were industrious they were chiefly employed
in husbandry; whence a ceorle and a husbandman became in a manner
synonymous terms. They cultivated the farms of the nobility, or thanes,
for which they paid rent; and they seem to have been removable at
pleasure; for there is little mention of leases among the Anglo-Saxons:
the pride of the nobility, together with the general ignorance of
writing, must have rendered those contracts very rare, and must have
kept the husbandmen in a dependent condition. The rents of farms were
then chiefly paid in kind.[*****]

     [* Winchester, being the capital of the West Saxon
     monarchy, was anciently a considerable city. Gul. Pict. p.
     210.]

     [** Norwich contained 738 houses; Exeter, 315;
     Ipswich, 538; Northampton, 60; Hertford, 146; Canterbury,
     262; Bath, 61; Southampton 84; Warwick, 225. See Brady, of
     Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. These are the most
     considerable he mentions. The account of these is extracted
     from domesday-book.]

     [*** 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
     seven thousand souls. The sixth ward was laid waste.]

     [**** Page 102. See also de Gest. Angl. p. 333.]

     [***** LL. Inae, sect. 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 to have been the
slaves or villains, who were the property of their lords, and were
consequently incapable themselves of possessing any property. Dr. Brady
assures us, from a survey of domesday-book,[*] that, in all the counties
of England, the far greater part of the land was occupied by them, and
that the husbandmen, and still more the socmen, who were tenants that,
could not be removed at pleasure, were very few in comparison. This was
not the case with the German nations, as far as we can collect from the
account given us by Tacitus. The perpetual wars in the Heptarchy, and
the depredations of the Danes, seem to have been the cause of this great
alteration with the Anglo-Saxons. Prisoners taken in battle, or carried
off in the frequent inroads, were then reduced to slavery, and became,
by right of war,[**] entirely at the disposal of their lords.
Great property in the nobles, especially if joined to an irregular
administration of justice, naturally favors the power of the
aristocracy; but still more so, if the practice of slavery be admitted,
and has become very common. The nobility not only possess the influence
which always attends riches, but also the power which the laws give them
over their slaves and villains. It then becomes difficult, and almost
impossible, for a private man to remain altogether free and independent.

There were two kinds of slaves among the Anglo-Saxons; household slaves,
after the manner of the ancients, and praedial, or rustic, after the
manner of the Germans.[***] These latter resembled the serfs, which are
at present to be met with in Poland, Denmark, and some parts of Germany.
The power of a master over his slaves was not unlimited among the
Anglo-Saxons, as it was among their ancestors. If a man beat out his
slave’s eye or teeth, the slave recovered his liberty:[****] if he
killed him, he paid a fine to the king, provided the slave died within a
day after the wound or blow; otherwise it passed unpunished.[*****] The
selling of themselves or children to slavery, was always the
practice among the German nations,[******] and was continued by the
Anglo-Saxons.[*******]

     [* General Preface to his Hist. p. 7, 8, 9, etc.]

     [** LL. Edg. sect. 14, apud Spel. Concil. vol. i.
     p. 471.]

     [*** Spel. Gloss, in verbo Servus.]

     [**** LL. Ælf. sect. 20]

     [***** LL. Ælf. sect. 17.]

     [****** Tacit, de Mor. Germ]

     [******* LL. Inse, sect. 11. LL. Ælf. sect. 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.[*] This institution must
have had a very contrary effect to that which was intended, and must
have procured robbers a sure protection on the lands of such noblemen as
did not sincerely mean to discourage crimes and violence.

But though the general strain of the Anglo-Saxon government seems to
have become aristocratical, there were still considerable remains of
the ancient democracy, which were not indeed sufficient to protect the
lowest of the people, without the patronage of some great lord, but
might give security, and even some degree of dignity, to the gentry or
inferior nobility. The administration of justice, in particular, by
the courts of the decennary, the hundred, and the county, was well
calculated to defend general liberty, and to restrain the power of the
nobles. In the county courts, or shiremotes, all the freeholders were
assembled twice a year, and received appeals from the inferior courts.
They there decided all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil; and the
bishop, together with the alderman or earl, presided over them.[**]
The affair was determined in a summary manner, without much pleading
formality, or delay, by a majority of voices; and the bishop and
alderman had no further authority than to keep order among the
freeholders, and interpose with their opinion.[***] Where justice was
denied during three sessions by the hundred, and then by the county
court, there lay an appeal to the king’s court;[****] but this was not
practised on slight occasions. The aldermen received a third of the
fines levied in those courts;[*****] and as most of the punishments
were then pecuniary, this perquisite formed a considerable part of the
profits belonging to his office. The two thirds also, which went to the
king, made no contemptible part of the public revenue. Any free-holder
was fined who absented himself thrice from these courts.[******]

     [* Higden, lib, i. cap. 50. LL. Edw. Conf. sect.
     26. Spel. Concil vol. i. p. 415. Gloss, in verbo. Haligemot
     ot Infangenthefe.]

     [** LL. Edg. sect. 5. Wilkins, p. 78. LL. Cantit.
     sect. 17. Wilkins. p. 136.]

     [*** Hickes, Dissert, epist. p. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
     8.]

     [**** LL. Edg. sect. 2. Wilkins, p. 77. LL. Canut.
     sect. 18, apud Wilkins, p. 136.]

     [***** LL. Edw. Conf. sect. 31].

     [****** LL. Ethelst. sect, 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.[*]

     [* 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 mon archy, the loose
execution of the laws, the continued disorders and convulsions of the
state,--all these circumstances evince that the Anglo-Saxon government
became at last extremely aristocratical; and the events, during the
period immediately preceding the conquest, confirm this inference or
conjecture.

Both the punishments inflicted by the Anglo-Saxon courts of judicature,
and the methods of proof employed in all causes, appear somewhat
singular, and are very different from those which prevail at present
among all civilized nations.

We must conceive that the ancient Germans were little removed from the
original state of nature: the social confederacy among them was more
martial than civil: they had chiefly in view the means of attack or
defence against public enemies, not those of protection against their
fellow-citizens: their possessions were so slender and so equal, that
they were not exposed to great danger; and the natural bravery of the
people made every man trust to himself and to his particular friends for
his defence or vengeance. This defect in the political union drew much
closer the knot of particular confederacies: an insult upon any man was
regarded by all his relations and associates as a common injury: they
were bound by honor, as well as by a sense of common interest,
to revenge his death, or any violence which he had suffered: they
retaliated on the aggressor by like acts of violence; and if he were
protected, as was natural and usual, by his own clan, the quarrel was
spread still wider, and bred endless disorders in the nation.

The Frisians, a tribe of the Germans, had never advanced beyond this
wild and imperfect state of society; and the right of private revenge
still remained among them unlimited and uncontrolled.[*] But the other
German nations, in the age of Tacitus, had made one step farther towards
completing the political or civil union. Though it still continued to be
an indispensable point of honor for every clan to revenge the death or
injury of a member, the magistrate had acquired a right of interposing
in the quarrel, and of accommodating the difference. He obliged the
person maimed or injured, and the relations of one killed, to accept of
a present from the aggressor and his relations,[**] as a compensation
for the injury.[***] and to drop all farther prosecution of revenge.
That the accommodation of one quarrel might not be the source of more,
this present was fixed and certain according to the rank of the person
killed or injured, and was commonly paid in cattle, the chief property
of those rude and uncultivated nations.

     [* LL. Fris. tit. 2, apud Lindenbrog. p. 491.]

     [** LL. Æthelb, sect. 23. LL. Ælf. sect. 27]

     [*** Called by the Saxons “maegbota.”]

A present of this kind gratified the revenge of the injured family by
the loss which the aggressor suffered: it satisfied then pride by the
submission which it expressed: it diminished their regret for the loss
or injury of a kinsman by their acquisition of new property; and thus
general peace was for a moment restored to the society.[*]

But when the German nations had been settled some time in the provinces
of the Roman empire, they made still another step towards a more
cultivated life, and their criminal justice gradually improved and
refined itself. The magistrate, whose office it was to guard public
peace, and to suppress private animosities, conceived himself to be
injured by every injury done to any of his people; and besides the
compensation to the person who suffered, or to his family, he thought
himself entitled to exact a fine, called the “fridwit,” as an atonement
for the breach of peace, and as a reward for the pains which he had
taken in accommodating the quarrel. When this idea, which is so natural,
was once suggested, it was willingly received both by sovereign and
people. The numerous fines which were levied, augmented the revenue of
the king; and the people were sensible that he would be more vigilant
in interposing with his good offices, when he reaped such immediate
advantage from them; and that injuries would be less frequent, when,
besides compensation to the person injured, that they were exposed to
this additional penalty.[**]

     [* Tacit, de Mor. 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.]

     [** 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 of vassal a sum, as a compensation
     for his loss. This was called the “manbote” See Spel. 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 legislators knew to be impossible, but only
to regulate and moderate them. The laws of Alfred enjoin, that if
any one know that his enemy or aggressor, after doing him an injury,
resolves to keep within his own house _and his own lands_[*] he
shall not fight him, till he require compensation for the injury. If
he be strong enough to besiege him in his house, he may do it for seven
days without attacking him; and if the aggressor be a willing, during
that time, to surrender himself and his arms, his, adversary may detain
him thirty days, but is afterwards obliged to restore him safe to his
kindred, “and be content with the compensation.” If the criminal fly to
the temple, that sanctuary must not be violated. Where the assailant has
not force sufficient to besiege the criminal in his house, he must
apply to the alderman for assistance; and if the alderman refuse aid
the assailant must have recourse to the king; and he is not allowed
to assault the house till after this supreme magistrate has refused
assistance. If any one meet with his enemy, and be ignorant that he was
resolved to keep within his own lands he must, before he attack him,
require him to surrender him self prisoner, and deliver up his arms; in
which case he may detain him thirty days; but if he refuse to deliver
up his arms it is then lawful to fight him. A slave may fight in his
master’s quarrel: a father may fight in his son’s with any one except
with his master.[**]


It was enacted by King Ina, that no man should take revenge for an
injury till he had first demanded compensation, and had been refused
it.[***]

     [* The addition of these last words is Italics
     appears necessary from what follows in the same law.]

     [** IL. Ælf. sect. 28. Wilkins, p. 43.]

     [*** LL. Inae sect. 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 ordains
that if any one commit murder, he may, with the assistance of his
kindred, pay within a twelvemonth the fine of his crime; and if they
abandon him, he shall alone sustain the deadly feud or quarrel with the
kindred of the murdered person: his own kindred are free from the feud,
but on condition that they neither converse with the criminal, nor
supply him with meat or other necessaries: if any of them, after
renouncing him, receive him into their house, or give him assistance,
they are finable to the king, and are involved in the feud. If the
kindred of the murdered person take revenge on any but the criminal
himself, after he is abandoned by his kindred, all their property is
forfeited, and they are declared to be enemies to the king and all his
friends.[*] It is also ordained that the fine for murder shall never be
remitted by the king,[**] and that no criminal shall be killed who flies
to the church, or any of the king’s towns;[***] and the king himself
declares, that his house shall give no protection to murderers, till
they have satisfied the church by their penance, and the kindred of
the deceased by making compensation.[****] The method appointed for
transacting this composition is found in the same law.[*****]


These attempts of Edmond, to contract and diminish the feuds, were
contrary to the ancient spirit of the northern barbarians, and were a
step towards a more regular administration of justice. By the salic law,
any man-night, by a public declaration, exempt himself from his family
quarrels: but then he was considered by the law as no longer belonging
to the family; and he was deprived of all right of succession, as the
punishment of his cowardice.[******]


The price of the king’s head, or his weregild, as it was then called,
was by law thirty thousand thrimsas, near thirteen hundred pounds of
present money. The price of the prince’s head was fifteen thousand
thrimsas; that of a bishop’s or alderman’s, eight thousand; a sheriff’s,
four thousand; a thane’s or clergyman’s, two thousand; a ceorle’s,
two hundred and sixty-six. These prices were fixed by the laws of the
Angles. By the Mercian law, the price of a ceorle’s head was two hundred
shillings; that of a thane’s, six times as much; that of a king’s, six
times more.[*******] By the laws of Kent, the price of the archbishop’s
head was higher than that of the king’s.[********] Such respect was then
paid to the ecclesiastics! It must be understood, that where a
person was unable or unwilling to pay the fine, he was put out of the
protection of law, and the kindred of the deceased had liberty to punish
him as they thought proper.


Some antiquaries [*********] have thought that these compensations were
only given for manslaughter, not for wilful murder.

     [* LL. Edm. sect,. 1. Wilkins, p. 73.]

     [** LL. Edm. sect. 3.]

     [*** LL. Edm. sect. 2.]

     [**** LL. Edm. sect. 4.]

     [***** LL. Edm. sect. 7,]

     [****** Tit. 63.]

     [******* Wilkins, p. 71, 72]

     [******** LL. Elthredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.]

     [********* Tyrrel, Introduct. vol. i. p. 120. Carte vol i.
     p. 366.]

But no such distinction appears in the laws; and it is contradicted
by the practice of all the other barbarous nations,[*] by that of the
ancient Germans,[**] and by that curious monument above mentioned of
Saxon antiquity, preserved by Hickes. There is indeed a law of Alfred’s
which makes wilful murder capital;[***] but this seems only to have been
an attempt of that great legislator towards establishing a better police
in the kingdom, and it probably remained without execution. By the laws
of the same prince, a conspiracy against the life of the king might be
redeemed by a fine.[****]


The price of all kinds of wounds was likewise fixed by the Saxon laws: a
wound of an inch long under the hair was paid with one shilling: one of
a like size in the face, two shillings; thirty shillings for the loss of
an ear; and so forth.[*****] There seems not to have been any difference
made, according to the dignity of the person. By the laws of Ethelbert,
any one who committed adultery with his neighbor’s wife was obliged to
pay him a fine, and buy him another wife.[******]


These institutions are not peculiar to the ancient Germans. They seem
to be the necessary progress of criminal jurisprudence among every free
people, where the will of the sovereign is not implicitly obeyed. We
find them among the ancient Greeks during the time of the Trojan war.
Compositions for murder are mentioned in Nestor’s speech to Achilles, in
the ninth Iliad, and are called [Greek: apoinai]. The Irish, who never
had any connections with the German nations, adopted the same practice
till very lately; and the price of a man’s head was called among them
his “eric;” as we learn from Sir John Davis. The same custom seems also
to have prevailed among the Jews.[*******]


Theft and robbery were frequent among the Anglo-Saxons In order to
impose some check upon these crimes, it was ordained, that no man
should sell or buy any thing above twenty pence value, except in open
market;[********] and every bargain of sale must be executed before
witnesses.[*********]

     [1: Lindenbrogius, passim.]

     [2: Tacit, de Mor. Germ.]

     [3: LL. Ælf. sect. 12. Wilkins, p. 29. It is
     probable that by wilful murder Alfred means a treacherous
     murder, committed by one who has no declared feud with
     another.]

     [4: LL. Ælf. sect. 4. Wilkins, p. 35.]

     [5: LL. Ælf. sect. 40. See also LL. Ethelb. sect.
     34, etc.]

     [6: LL Ethelb. sect. 32.]

     [7: Exod. cap. xxi. 29, 30.]

     [8: LL. Æthelst. sect. 12.]

     [9: LL. Æthelst. sect. 10, 12. LL.Edg. apud
     Wilkins, p. 80. LL Ethelredi, sect 4, apud Wilkins, p. 103.
     Hloth. et Eadm. sect 16. LL. Canute. sect. 22.]

Gangs of robbers much disturbed the peace of the country, and the law
determined that a tribe of banditti, consisting of between seven and
thirty-five persons, was to be called a “turma,” or troop; any greater
company was denominated an army.[*] The punishments for this crime were
various, but none of them capital.[**] If any man could track his stolen
cattle into another’s ground, the latter was obliged to show the tracks
out of it, or pay their value.[***]


Rebellion, to whatever excess it was carried, was not capital but
might be redeemed by a sum of money.[****] The legislators, knowing
it impossible to prevent all disorders, only imposed a higher fine
on breaches of the peace committed in the king’s court, or before an
alderman or bishop. An ale-house, too, seems to have been considered as
a privileged place; and any quarrels that arose there were more severely
punished than else where.[*****]

    [* LL. Inæ, sect. 12.]

    [* LL. Inæ, sect. 37.]

    [* LL. Æthelst. sect. 2. Wilkins, p. 63.]

    [* LL. Ethelredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110. LL. Ælf. sect. 4.
     Wilkins, p35.]

    [* LL. Hloth. et Eadm. sect. 12, 13. LL. Ethelr. apud
     Wilkins, P 117.]

If the manner of punishing crimes among the Anglo-Saxons appear
singular, the proofs were not less so; and were also the natural result
of the situation of those people. Whatever we may imagine concerning the
usual truth and sincerity of men who live in a rude and barbarous state,
there is much more falsehood, and even perjury, among them, than among
civilized nations: virtue, which is nothing but a more enlarged and more
cultivated reason, never flourishes to any degree, nor is founded
on steady principles of honor, except where a good education becomes
general; and where men are taught the pernicious consequences of vice,
treachery, and immorality. Even superstition, though more prevalent
among ignorant nations, is but a poor supply for the defects in
knowledge and education; our European ancestors, who employed every
moment the expedient of swearing on extraordinary crosses and relics,
were less honorable in all engagements than their posterity, who from
experience have omitted those ineffectual securities. This general
proneness to assumed perjury was much increased by the usual want of
discernment in judges, who could not discuss an intricate evidence, and
were obliged to number, not weigh, the testimony of the witnesses,[*]
Hence the ridiculous practice of obliging men to bring compurgators,
who, as they did not pretend to know any thing of the fact, expressed
upon oath, that they believed the person spoke true; and these
compurgators were in some cases multiplied to the number of three
hundred.[**] The practice also of single combat was employed by most
nations on the continent as a remedy against false evidence;[***] and
though it was frequently dropped, from the opposition of the clergy, it
was continually revived, from experience of the falsehood attending
the testimony of witnesses.[****] It became at last a species of
jurisprudence: the cases were determined by law, in which the
party might challenge his adversary or the witnesses, or the judge
himself;[*****] and though these customs were absurd, they were rather
an improvement on the methods of trial which had formerly been practised
among those barbarous nations, and which still prevailed among the
Anglo-Saxons.

     [* Præf. Nicol. ad Wilkins, p. 11.]

     [** LL. Burgund. cap. 45. LL. Lomb. lib. ii. tit.
     55, cap. 34.]

     [*** LL. Longob. lib. ii. tit. 55, cap. 23, apud
     Lindenbrog. p. 661]

     [**** See Desfontaines and Beaumanoir.]

     [***** Sometimes the laws fixed easy general rules
     for weighing the credibility of witnesses. A man whose life
     was estimated at a hundred and twenty shillings,
     counterbalanced six ceorles, each of whose lives was only
     valued at twenty shillings, and his oath was esteemed
     equivalent to that of all the six. See Wilkins, p. 72.]

When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those
ignorant judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the
judgment of God, that is, to fortune. Their methods of consulting this
oracle were various. One of them was the decision by the cross: it was
practised in this manner: When a person was accused of any crime,
he first cleared himself by oath, and he was attended by eleven
compurgators. He next took two pieces of wood, one of which was marked
with the sign of the cross, and wrapping both up in wool, he placed them
on the altar, or on some celebrated relic. After solemn prayers for the
success of the experiment, a priest, or in his stead some unexperienced
youth, took up one of the pieces of wood, and if he happened upon that
which was marked with the figure of the cross, the person was pronounced
innocent; if otherwise, guilty. [*] This practice, as it arose from
superstition, was abolished by it in France.

     [* LL. Prison, tit. 14, apud Lindenbrog. p. 496.
     trial, not because it was uncertain, but lest that sacred
     figure says he, of the cross should be prostituted in common
     disputes and controversies.]

The ordeal was another established method of trial among Saxons. It
was practised either by boiling water or red-hot iron. The former was
appropriated to the common people; the latter to the nobility. The
water or iron was consecrated by many prayers, masses, fastings, and
exorcisms,[*] after which, the person accused either took up a stone
sunk in the water[**] to a certain depth, or carried the iron to a
certain distance; and his hand being wrapped up, and the covering sealed
for three days, if there appeared, on examining it, no marks of burning,
he was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty.[***] The trial by cold
water was different: the person was thrown into consecrated water; if he
swam, he was guilty, if he sunk, innocent.[****] It is difficult for us
to conceive how any innocent person could ever escape by the one trial,
or any criminal be convicted by the other. But there was another usage
admirably calculated for allowing every criminal to escape, who had
confidence enough to try it. A consecrated cake, called a corsned,
was produced, which if the person could swallow and digest, he was
pronounced innocent.[******]


The feudal law, if it had place at all among the Anglo-Saxons, which is
doubtful, was not certainly extended over all the landed property, and
was not attended with those consequences of homage, reliefs,[*******]
wardship, marriage, and other burdens, which were inseparable from it
in the kingdoms of the continent. As the Saxons expelled, or almost
entirely destroyed, the ancient Britons, they planted themselves in this
island on the same footing with their ancestors in Germany, and found no
occasion for the feudal institutions,[********] which were calculated
to maintain a kind of standing army, always in readiness to suppress any
insurrection among the conquered people.

     [* Du Cange, in verbo Crux.]

     [** Spel in verbo Ordealium. Parker, p. 155.
     Lindenbrog. p, 1299]

     [*** LL. Inæ, sect. 77.]

     [**** Sometimes the person accused walked barefoot
     over a red hot iron]

     [***** Spel in verbo Ordealium.]

     [****** Spel in verbo Corsned. Parker, p. 156.
     Text. Roffens. p. 33.]

     [******* 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 Spel. of Tenures, p. 2. The
     value of this heriot was fixed by Canute’s laws, sect. 69.]

     [******** Bracton de Acqu. Rer. Domin. ii. cap.
     16. See more fully Spel of Feus and Tenures, and Q aigius de
     Jure Feud, lib. i. dieg.]

The trouble and expense of defending the state in England lay equally
upon all the land; and it was usual for every five hides to equip a
man for the service. The “trinoda necessitas,” as it was called, or the
burden of military expeditions, of repairing highways, and of building
and supporting bridges, was inseparable from landed property, even
though it belonged to the church or monasteries, unless exempted by a
particular charter.[*] The ceorles, or husbandmen, were provided with
arms, and were obliged to take their turn in military duty.[**] There
were computed to be two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred
hides in England;[***] consequently the ordinary military force of the
kingdom consisted of forty-eight thousand seven hundred and twenty men;
though, no doubt, on extraordinary occasions, a greater number might
be assembled. The king and nobility had some military tenants, who were
called “sithcun-men.”[****] And there were some lands annexed to the
office of aldermen, and to other offices; but these probably were not
of great extent, and were possessed only during pleasure, as in the
commencement of the feudal law in other countries of Europe.

The revenue of the king seems to have consisted chiefly in his demesnes,
which were large; and in the tolls and imposts which he probably levied
at discretion on the boroughs and seaports that lay within his demesnes.
He could not alienate any part of the crown lands, even to religious
uses, without the consent of the states.[*****] Danegelt was a land-tax
of a shilling a hide, imposed by the states,[******] either for payment
of the sums exacted by the Danes, or for putting the kingdom in a
posture of defence against those invaders.[*******]


The Saxon pound, as likewise that which was coined for some centuries
after the conquest, was near three times the weight of our present
money. There were forty-eight shillings in the pound, and five pence
in a shilling;[********] consequently a Saxon shilling was near a
fifth heavier than ours, and a Saxon penny near three times as
heavy.[*********]

    [* Spel. Concil. vol. i. p. 256.]

    [** Inæ, sect. 51.]

    [*** Spel. of Feus and Tenures, p. 17.]

    [**** Spel. Concil. vol. i. p. 195.]

    [***** Spel. Concil. vol. i. p. 340.]

    [****** Chron. Sax. p. 128.]

    [******* LL. Edw. Conf. sect. 12.]

    [******** LL. Ælf. sect. 40.]

    [********* Fleetwood’s Chron. Pretiosum, p. 27 28, etc.]


As to the value of money in those times, compared to commodities, there
are some though not very certain, means of computation. A sheep, of the
laws of Athelstan, was estimated at a shilling; that is, fifteen pence
of our money. The fleece was two fifths of the value of the whole
sheep,[*] much above its present estimation; and the reason probably
was, that the Saxons, like the ancients, were little acquainted with any
clothing but what was made of wool. Silk and cotton were quite unknown:
linen was not much used. An ox was computed at six times the value of
a sheep; a cow at four.[**] If we suppose that the cattle in that age,
from the defects in husbandry, were not so large as they are at present
in England, we may compute that money was then near ten times of greater
value. A horse was valued at about thirty-six shillings of our money,
or thirty Saxon shillings;[***] a mare a third less. A man at three
pounds.[****] The board-wages of a child the first year was eight
shillings, together with a cow’s pasture in summer, and an ox’s in
winter.[*****] William of Malmsbury mentions it as a remarkably high
price that William Rufus gave fifteen marks for a horse, or about thirty
pounds of our present money.[******] Between the years 900 and 1000,
Ednoth bought a hide of land for about one hundred and eighteen
shillings of present money.[*******] This was little more than a
shilling an acre, which indeed appears to have been the usual price,
as we may learn from other accounts.[********] A palfrey was sold for
twelve shillings about the year 966.[*********] The value of an ox in
King Ethel ed’s[** word?] time was between seven and eight shillings;
a cow about six shillings.[*********] Gervas of Tilbury says, that in
Henry I’s time, bread which would suffice a hundred men for a day was
rated at three shillings, or a shilling of that age: for it is thought
that soon after the conquest a pound sterling was divided into twenty
shillings. A sheep was rated at a shilling, and so of other things in
proportion. In Athelstan’s time, a ram was valued at a shilling, or
fourpence Saxon.[**********] The tenants of Shireburn were obliged, at
their choice, to pay either sixpence or four hens.[***********]

     [* LL. Inse, sect. 69.]

     [** Wilkins, p. 126.

     [*** LL. Inse, sect. 38.]

     [**** Hist. Eliens. p. 471]

     [***** Wilkins, p. 56.]

     [****** Wilkins, p. 66.]

     [******* Wilkins, p. 126.]

     [******** Page 121.]

     [********* Hist. Eliens. p. 473.]

     [********** Wilkins, p. 126.]

     [*********** Monast. Anglie. vol. ii. p. 528.]

About 1232, the abbot of St. Alban’s, going on a journey, hired seven
handsome, stout horses; and agreed, if any of them died on the road, to
pay the owner thirty shillings apiece of our present money.[*] It is to
be remarked, that in all ancient times the raising of corn, especially
wheat, being a species of manufactory, that commodity always bore a
higher price, compared to cattle, than it does in our times.[**] The
Saxon Chronicle tells us,[***] that in the reign of Edward the Confessor
there was the most terrible famine ever known; insomuch that a quarter
of wheat rose to sixty pennies, or fifteen shillings of our present
money. Consequently, it was as dear as if it now cost seven pounds
ten shillings. This much exceeds the great famine in the end of Queen
Elizabeth, when a quarter of wheat was sold for four pounds. Money in
this last period was nearly of the same value as in our time. These
severe famines are a certain proof of bad husbandry.

     [* M. Paris].

     [** Fleetwood. p. 83, 94, 96. 98]

     [*** Page 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 hundred fold above a sum of the same denomination
at present.

In the Saxon times, land was divided equally among all the male children
of the deceased, according to the custom of gavelkind. The practice of
entails is to be found in those times.[*] Land was chiefly of two kinds,
bockland, or land held by book or charter, which was regarded as full
property, and descended to the heirs of the possessor; and folkland, or
the land held by the ceorles and common people, who were removable at
pleasure, and were, indeed, only tenants during the will of their lords.

The first attempt which we find in England to separate the
ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar by
which all disputes among the clergy were ordered to be carried before
the bishop.[**] The penances were then very severe; but as a man could
buy them off with money, or might substitute others to perform them,
they lay easy upon the rich.[***]

With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons, we can say little,
but that they were in general a rude, uncultivated people, ignorant of
letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under
law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder. Their
best quality was their military courage, which yet was not supported by
discipline or conduct. Their want of fidelity to the prince, or to any
trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the history of their later
period; and their want of humanity in all their history. Even the Norman
historians, notwithstanding the low state of the arts in their own
country, speak of them as barbarians, when they mention the invasion
made upon them by the duke of Normandy.[****] The conquest put the
people in a situation of receiving slowly, from abroad, the rudiments
of science and cultivation, and of correcting their rough and licentious
manners.

     [* LL. Ælf. sect. 37, apud Wilkins, p. 43.]

     [** Wilkins, p. 83.]

     [*** Wilkins, p. 96, 97. Spel. Concil. p. 473.]

     [**** Gul, Pict. p. 202.]



CHAPTER IV.

[Illustration: 068.jpg WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.]



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

Contemporary Monarchs:

     EMP. OF GERM.  K. OF SCOTLAND      K. OF FRANCE.   Ks. OF SPAIN.
     Henry IV.      Malcolm III. 1093    Philip I.      Sancho II. 1072
     Alphonso VI.

     POPES.
     Alexander II.1073
     Gregory VII. 1085
     Victor III.  1087

{1066.} _Nothing_ could exceed the consternation which seized the
English when they received intelligence of the unfortunate battle of
Hastings, the death of their king, the slaughter of their principal
nobility and of their bravest warriors, and the rout and dispersion
of the remainder. But though the loss which they had sustained in that
fatal action was considerable, it might have been repaired by a great
nation; where the people were generally armed, and where there resided
so many powerful noblemen in every province, who could have assembled
their retainers, and have obliged the duke of Normandy to divide his
army, and probably to waste it in a variety of actions and rencounters.
It was thus that the kingdom had formerly resisted for many years its
invaders, and had been gradually subdued by the continued efforts of
the Romans, Saxons, and Danes; and equal difficulties might have been
apprehended by William in this bold and hazardous enterprise. But there
were several vices in the Anglo-Saxon constitution, which rendered it
difficult for the English to defend their liberties in so critical an
emergency. The people had in a great measure lost all national pride and
spirit by their recent and long subjection to the Danes; and as Canute
had, in the course of his administration, much abated the rigors of
conquest, and had governed them equitably by their own laws, they
regarded with the less terror the ignominy of a foreign yoke, and
deemed the inconveniences of submission less formidable than those of
bloodshed, war, and resistance. Their attachment also to the ancient
royal family had been much weakened by their habits of submission to
the Danish princes, and by their late election of Harold or their
acquiescence in his usurpation. And as they had long been accustomed
to regard Edgar Atheling, the only heir of the Saxon line, as unfit
to govern them even in times of order and tranquillity, they could
entertain small hopes of his being able to repair such great losses as
they had sustained, or to withstand the victorious arms of the duke of
Normandy.

That they might not, however, be altogether wanting to themselves in
this extreme necessity, the English took some steps towards adjusting
their disjointed government, and uniting themselves against the common
enemy. The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London
with the remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion: in
concert with Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of great
authority and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and endeavored
to put the people in a posture of defence, and encourage them to
resist the Normans.[*] But the terror of the late defeat, and the near
neighborhood of the invaders, increased the confusion inseparable from
great revolutions; and every resolution proposed was hasty, fluctuating,
tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction; ill planned, and worse
executed.

William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their
consternation or unite their counsels, immediately put himself in motion
after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise which nothing
but celerity and vigor could render finally successful. His first
attempt was against Rornney, whose inhabitants he severely punished, on
account of their cruel treatment of some Norman seamen and soldiers, who
had been carried thither by stress of weather, or by a mistake in their
course;[**] and foreseeing that his conquest of England might still be
attended with many difficulties and with much opposition, he deemed it
necessary, before he should advance farther into the country, to make
himself master of Dover, which would both secure him a retreat in
cast of adverse fortune, and afford him a safe landing-place for such
supplies as might be requisite for pushing his advantages.

     [* Gill. Pict. p. 205. Order. Vitaas, p. 502.
     Hoveden, p. 449 Knygnton, p. 2343.]

     [** Gul. Pict. p. 204]

The terror diffused by his victory at Hastings was so great that the
garrison of Dover, though numerous and well provided, immediately
capitulated; and as the Normans, rushing in to take possession of the
town, hastily set fire to some of the houses, William, desirous to
conciliate the minds of the English by an appearance of lenity and
justice, made compensation to the inhabitants for their losses.[*]

The Norman army, being much distressed with a dysentery, was obliged to
remain here eight days; but the duke, on their recovery, advanced
with quick marches towards London, and by his approach increased the
confusions which were already so prevalent in the English counsels. The
ecclesiastics in particular, whose influence was great over the people
began to declare in his favor; and as most of the bishops and dignified
clergymen were even then Frenchmen or Normans, the pope’s bull, by which
his enterprise was avowed and hallowed, was now openly insisted on as a
reason for general submission. The superior learning of those prelates,
which, during the Confessor’s reign, had raised them above the ignorant
Saxons, made their opinions be received with implicit faith; and a
young prince; like Edgar, whose capacity was deemed so mean, was but ill
qualified to resist the impression which they made on the minds of the
people. A repulse which a body of Londoners received from five hundred
Norman horse, renewed in the city the terror of the great defeat at
Hastings; the easy submission of all the inhabitants of Kent was an
additional discouragement to them; the burning of Southwark before
their eyes made them dread a like fate to their own city; and no man
any longer entertained thoughts but of immediate safety ana of
self-preservation. Even the Earls Edwin and Morcar, in despair of making
effectual resistance, retired with their troops to their own provinces;
and the people thenceforth disposed themselves unanimously to yield to
the victor. As soon as he passed the Thames at Wallingford, and reached
Berkhamstead, Stigand, the primate, made submissions to him: before
he came within sight of the city, all the chief nobility, and Edgar
Atheling himself, the new elected king, came into his camp, and declared
their intention of yielding to his authority.[**] They requested him to
mount their throne, which they now considered as vacant; and declare to
him, that as they had always been ruled by regal power, they desired to
follow, in this particular, the example of their ancestors, and knew of
no one more worthy than himself to hold the reins of government.[***]

     [* Gul. Pict. p. 204.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 450. Flor. Wigorn. p, 634]

     [*** Gul. Pict. p. 205. Order. Vitalis, 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;[*] but Aimar
of Aquitain, a man equally respected for valor in the field and for
prudence in council, remonstrating with him on the danger of delay in so
critical a conjuncture, he laid aside all further scruples, and accepted
of the crown which was tendered him. Orders were immediately issued to
prepare every thing for the ceremony of his coronation; but as he
was yet afraid to place entire confidence in the Londoners, who were
numerous and warlike, he meanwhile commanded fortresses to be erected,
in order to curb the inhabitants, and to secure his person and
government.[**]

Stigand was not much in the duke’s favor, both because he had intruded
into the see on the expulsion of Robert the Norman, and because he
possessed such influence and authority over the English[***] as might be
dangerous to a new-established monarch. William, therefore, pretending
that the primate had obtained his pall in an irregular manner from Pope
Benedict IX., who was himself a usurper, refused to be consecrated
by him, and conferred this honor on Aldred, arch bishop of York.
Westminster Abbey was the place appointed for that magnificent
ceremony; the most considerable of the nobility, both English and
Norman, attended the duke on this occasion; Aldred, in a short speech,
asked the former whether they agreed to accept of William as their king;
the bishop of Coutance put the same question to the latter; and both
being answered with acclamations,[****] Aldred administered to the duke
the usual coronation oath, by which he bound himself to protect the
church, to administer justice, and to repress violence; he then anointed
him, and put the crown upon his head.[*****] There appeared nothing but
joy in the countenance of the spectators; but in that very moment there
burst forth the strongest symptoms of the jealousy and animosity which
prevailed between the nations, and which continually increased during
the reign of this prince.

     [* Gul. Pict. p. 205].

     [** Gul. Pict. p. 205.]

     [*** Eadmer, p. 6.]

     [**** Order. Vitalis, p. 503.]

     [***** Malmsbury (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 time!]

The Norman soldiers, who were placed without in order to guard the
church, hearing the shouts within, fancied that the English were
offering violence to their duke; and they immediately assaulted the
populace, and set fire to the neighboring houses. The alarm was conveyed
to the nobility who surrounded the prince; both English and Normans,
full of apprehensions, rushed out to secure themselves from the present
danger; and it was with difficulty that William himself was able to
appease the tumult.[*]

The king, thus possessed of the throne by a pretended descination of
King Edward, and by an irregular election of the people, but still more
by force of arms, retired from London to Berking, in Essex, {1067.} and
there received the submissions of all the nobility who had not attended
his coronation. Edric, surnamed the Forester, grand-nephew to that Edric
so noted for his repeated acts of perfidy during the reigns of Ethelred
and Edmond; Earl Coxo, a man famous for bravery; even Edwin and Morcar,
earls of Mercia and Northumberland; with the other principal noblemen
of England, came and swore fealty to him; were received into favor; and
were confirmed in the possession of their estates and dignities.[**]
Every thing bore the appearance of peace and tranquillity; and William
had no other occupation than to give contentment to the foreigners who
had assisted him to mount the throne, and to his new subjects, who had
so readily submitted to him.

He had got possession of the treasure of Harold, which was considerable;
and being also supplied with rich presents from the opulent men in all
parts of England, who were solicitous to gain the favor of their new
sovereign, he distributed great sums among his troops, and by this
liberality gave them hopes of obtaining at length those more durable
establishments which they had expected from his enterprise.[***] The
ecclesiastics, both at home and abroad, had much forwarded his success;
and he failed not, in return, to express his gratitude and devotion in
the manner which was most acceptable to them; he sent Harold’s
standard to the pope, accompanied with many valuable presents; all the
considerable monasteries and churches in France, where prayers had been
put up for his success, now tasted of his bounty;[****] the English
monks found him well disposed to favor their order; and he built a
new convent near Hastings, which he called Battle Abbey, and which on
pretence of supporting monks to pray lor his own soul, and for that of
Harold, served as a lasting memorial of his victory.[*****]

     [* Gul Pict. p. 206. Order. Vitalis, p. 503.]

     [** Gul. Pict. p. 208. Order. Vitalis, p. 506.]

     [*** Gul. Pict. p. 206.]

     [**** Gul. Pict. p. 205.]

     [***** 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.
     Anglic, 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.[*]

     [* Gul. Pict. p. 208. Order, Vitalis, p. 506.]

His army in particular was governed with severe discipline; and
notwithstanding the insolence of victory, care was taken to give as
little offence as possible to the jealousy of the vanquished. The king
appeared solicitous to unite in an amicable manner the Normans and the
English, by intermarriages and alliances; and all his new subjects who
approached his person were received with affability and regard. No signs
of suspicion appeared, not even towards Edgar Atheling, the heir of the
ancient royal family, whom William confirmed in the honors of earl of
Oxford, conferred on him by Harold, and whom he affected to treat with
the highest kindness, as nephew to the Confessor, his great friend and
benefactor. Though he confiscated the estates of Harold, and of those
who had fought in the battle of Hastings on the side of that prince,
whom he represented as a usurper, he seemed willing to admit of every
plausible excuse for past opposition to his pretensions, and he received
many into favor who had carried arms against him, He confirmed the
liberties and immunities of London and the other cities of England; and
appeared desirous of replacing every thing on ancient establishments.
In his whole administration, he bore the semblance of the lawful prince,
not of the conqueror; and the English began to flatter themselves, that
they had changed, not the form of their government, but the succession
only of their sovereigns; a matter which gave them small concern. The
better to reconcile his new subjects to his authority, William made a
progress through some parts of England; and besides a splendid court and
majestic presence, which overawed the people, already struck with his
military fame, the appearance of his clemency and justice gained the
approbation of the wise, attentive to the first steps of their new
sovereign.

But amidst this confidence and friendship which he expressed for the
English, the king took care to place all real power in the hands of his
Normans, and still to keep possession of the sword, to which, he
was sensible, he had owed his advancement to sovereign authority.
He disarmed the city of London and other places, which appeared most
warlike and populous; and building citadels in that capital, as well as
in Winchester, Hereford, and the cities best situated for commanding the
kingdom, he quartered Norman soldiers in all of them, and left nowhere
any power able to resist or oppose him. He bestowed the forfeited
estates on the most eminent of hia captains, and established funds for
the payment of his soldiers. And thus, while his civil administration
carried the face of a legal magistrate, his military institutions were
those of a master and tyrant; at least of one who reserved to himself,
whenever he pleased, the power of assuming that character.

By this mixture, however, of vigor and lenity, he had so soothed the
minds of the English, that he thought he might safely revisit his
native country, and enjoy the triumph and congratulation of his ancient
subjects. He left the administration in the hands of his uterine
brother, Odo, bishop of Baieux, and of William Fitz-Osberne. That their
authority might be exposed to less danger, he carried over with him all
the most considerable nobility of England, who, while they served to
grace his court by their presence and magnificent retinues, were in
reality hostages for the fidelity of the nation. Among these were Edgar
Atheling, Stigand the primate, the earls Edwin and Morcar, Waltheof, the
son of the brave Earl Siward, with others, eminent for the greatness
of their fortunes and families, or for their ecclesiastical and civil
dignities. He was visited at the abbey of Fescamp, where he resided
during some time, by Rodulph, uncle to the king of France, and by many
powerful princes and nobles, who, having contributed to his enterprise,
were desirous of participating in the joy and advantages of its success.
His English courtiers, willing to ingratiate themselves with their new
sovereign, outvied each other in equipages and entertainments; and
made a display of riches which struck the foreigners with astonishment.
William of Poictiers, a Norman historian,[*] who was present, speaks
with admiration of the beauty of their persons, the size and workmanship
of their silver plate, the costliness of their embroideries, an art in
which the English then excelled; and he expresses himself in such terms,
as tend much to exalt our idea of the opulence and cultivation of the
people.[**]


     [* Page 211, 212.]

     [** As the historian chiefly insists on the siver
     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.]

But though every thing bure the face of joy and festivity, and William
himself treated nia new courtiers with great appearance of kindness, it
was impossible altogether to prevent the insolence of the Normans;
and the English nobles derived little satisfaction from those
entertainments, where they considered themselves as led in triumph by
their ostentatious conqueror.

In England affairs took still a worse turn during the absence of the
sovereign. Discontents and complaints multiplied every where; secret
conspiracies were entered into against the government; hostilities
were already begun in many places; and every thing seemed to menace a
revolution as rapid as that which had placed William on the throne. The
historian above mentioned, who is a panegyrist of his master, throws the
blame entirely on the fickle and mutinous disposition of the English,
and highly celebrates the justice and lenity of Odo’s and Fitz-Osborne’s
administration.[**] But other historians, with more probability, impute
the cause chiefly to the Normans; who, despising a people that had so
easily submitted to the yoke, envying their riches, and grudging the
restraints imposed upon their own rapine, were desirous of provoking
them to a rebellion, by which they expected to acquire new confiscations
and forfeitures, and to gratify those unbounded hopes which they had
formed in entering on this enterprise.[***]

     [** Page 212.]

     [*** Order. Vitalis, 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 neighbors; and should so long leave his jealous
subjects at the mercy of an insolent and licentious army. Were we not
assured of the solidity of his genius, and the good sense displayed in
all other circumstances of his conduct, we might ascribe this measure to
a vain ostentation, which rendered him impatient to display his pomp and
magnificence among his ancient subjects. It is therefore more natural to
believe that, in so extraordinary a step, he was guided by a concealed
policy; and that though he had thought proper at first to allure the
people to submission by the semblance of a legal administration, he
found that he could neither satisfy his rapacious captains, nor
secure his unstable government, without farther exerting the rights of
conquest, and seizing the possessions of the English. In order to have
a pretext for this violence, he endeavored without discovering his
intentions, to provoke and allure them into insurrections, which he
thought could never prove dangerous, while he detained all the principal
nobility in Normandy, while a great and victorious army was quartered
in England, and while he himself was so near to suppress any tumult or
rebellion. But as no ancient writer has ascribed this tyrannical purpose
to William, it scarcely seems allowable, from conjecture alone, to throw
such an imputation upon him.

But whether we are to account for that measure from the king’s vanity or
from his policy, it was the immediate cause of all the calamities which
the English endured during this and the subsequent reigns, and gave rise
to those mutual jealousies and animosities between them and the Normans,
which were never appeased till a long tract of time had gradually united
the two nations, and made them one people. The inhabitants of Kent, who
had first submitted to the conqueror, were the first that attempted to
throw off the yoke; and in confederacy with Eustace, count of Boulogne,
who had also been disgusted by the Normans, they made an attempt, though
without success, on the garrison of Dover.[*] Edric the Forester,
whose possessions lay on the banks of the Severn, being provoked at
the depredations of some Norman captains in his neighborhood, formed an
alliance with Blethyn and Rowallan, two Welsh princes; and endeavored,
with their assistance, to repel force by force.[**]

     [* Gul. Gemet. p. 239. Order. Vitalis, p. 508.
     Anglia Sacra, vol i. p, 245.]

     [** Hoveden, p 450. M. West, p 226. Sim. Dunelm.
     p. 197.]

But though these open hostilities were not very considerable, the
disaffection was general among the English, who had become sensible,
though too late, of their defenceless condition, and began already to
experience those insults and injuries, which a nation must always expect
that allows itself to be reduced to that abject situation. A secret
conspiracy was entered into, to perpetrate in one day, a general
massacre of the Normans, like that which had formerly been executed upon
the Danes; and the quarrel was become so general and national, that
the vassals of Earl Coxo, having desired him to head them in an
insurrection, and finding him resolute in maintaining his fidelity to
William, put him to death as a traitor to his country.

The king, informed of these dangerous discontents, hastened over
to England; and by his presence, and the vigorous measures which he
pursued, disconcerted all the schemes of the conspirators. Such of them
as had been more violent in their mutiny, betrayed their guilt by flying
or concealing themselves; and the confiscation of their estates, while
it increased the number of malecontents, both enabled William to gratify
farther the rapacity of his Norman captains, and gave them the prospect
of new forfeitures and attainders. The king began to regard all
his English subjects as inveterate and irreclaimable enemies; and
thenceforth either embraced, or was more fully confirmed in the
resolution of seizing their possessions, and of reducing them to the
most abject slavery. Though the natural violence and severity of his
temper made him incapable of feeling any remorse in the execution of
this tyrannical purpose, he had art enough to conceal his intention,
and to preserve still some appearance of justice in his oppressions. He
ordered all the English who had been arbitrarily expelled by the Normans
during his absence, to be restored to their estates;[*] but at the same
time he imposed a general tax on the people, that of danegelt, which
had been abolished by the Confessor, and which had always been extremely
odious to the nation.[**]

     [* 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.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 450. Sim. Dunelm. p. 197. Alured.
     Beverl. p. 127]

{1068.} As the vigilance of William overawed the malecontents, their
insurrections were more the result of an impatient humor in the people,
than of any regular conspiracy which could give them a rational hope of
success against the established power of the Normans. The inhabitants of
Exeter, instigated by Githa, mother to King Harold, refused to admit a
Norman garrison, and, betaking themselves to arms, were strengthened
by the accession of the neighboring inhabitants of Devonshire and
Cornwall.[*] The king hastened with his forces to chastise the revolt;
and on his approach, the wiser and more considerable citizens, sensible
of the unequal contest, persuaded the people to submit, and to deliver
hostages for their obedience. A sudden mutiny of the populace broke this
agreement; and William, appearing before the walls, ordered the eyes of
one of the hostages to be put out, as an earnest of that severity which
the rebels must expect, if they persevered in their revolt.[**]
The inhabitants were anew seized with terror, and surrendering at
discretion, threw themselves at the king’s feet, and supplicated his
clemency and forgiveness. William was not destitute of generosity,
when his temper was not hardened either by policy or passion: he was
prevailed on to pardon the rebels, and he set guards on all the gates,
in order to prevent the rapacity and insolence of his soldiery.[***]

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 510.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 510]

     [*** Order. Vitalis, p. 510.]

Githa escaped with her treasures to Flanders. The malecontents of
Cornwall imitated the example of Exeter, and met with like treatment;
and the king having built a citadel in that city, which he put under
the command of Baldwin, son of Earl Gilbert, returned to Winchester, and
dispersed his army into their quarters. He was here joined by his wife,
Matilda, who had not before visited England, and whom he now ordered to
be crowned by Archbishop Aldred. Soon after she brought him an accession
to his family, by the birth of a fourth son, whom he named Henry.
His three elder sons, Robert, Richard, and William, still resided in
Normandy.

But though the king appeared thus fortunate both in public and domestic
life, the discontents of his English subjects augmented daily; and
the injuries committed and suffered on both sides rendered the quarrel
between them and the Normans absolutely incurable. The insolence of
victorious masters, dispersed throughout the kingdom, seemed intolerable
to the natives; and wherever they found the Normans separate or
assembled in small bodies, they secretly set upon them, and gratified
their vengeance by the slaughter of their enemies. But an insurrection
in the north drew thither the general attention, and seemed to threaten
more important consequences. Edwin and Morcar appeared at the head
of this rebellion; and these potent noblemen, before they took arms,
stipulated for foreign succors from their nephew Blethyn, prince of
North Wales, from Malcolm, king of Scotland and from Sweyn, king of
Denmark. Besides the general discontent which had seized the English,
the two earls were incited to this revolt by private injuries. William,
in order to insure them to his interests, had on his accession promised
his daughter in marriage to Edwin; but either he had never seriously
intended to perform this engagement, or, having changed his plan of
administration in England from clemency to rigor, he thought it was
to little purpose if he gained one family, while he enraged the whole
nation. When Edwin, therefore, renewed his applications, he gave him
an absolute denial;[*] and this disappointment, added to so many other
reasons of disgust, induced that nobleman and his brother to concur
with their incensed countrymen, and to make one general effort for the
recovery of their ancient liberties. William knew the importance of
celerity in quelling an insurrection supported by such powerful leaders,
and so agreeable to the wishes of the people; and having his troops
always in readiness, he advanced by great journeys to the north. On his
march he gave orders to fortify the castle of Warwick, of which he left
Henry de Beaumont governor, and that of Nottingham, which he committed
to the custody of William Peverell, another Norman captain.[**] He
reached York before the rebels were in any condition for resistance, or
were joined by any of the foreign succors which they expected, except a
small reënforcement from Wales;[***] and the two earls found no means
of safety but having recourse to the clemency of the victor. Archil, a
potent nobleman in those parts, imitated their example, and delivered
his son as a hostage for his fidelity;[****] nor were the people, thus
deserted by their leaders, able to make any farther resistance. But the
treatment which William gave the chiefs was very different from that
which fell to the share of their followers. He observed religiously
the terms which he had granted to the former, and allowed them for the
present to keep possession of their estates; but he extended the rigors
of his confiscations over the latter, and gave away their lands to his
foreign adventurers.

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 511.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 511.]

     [*** Order. Vitalia, p. 511.]

     [*** Order. Vitalis, p. 511.]

These, planted throughout the whole country, and in possession of the
military power, left Edwin and Morcar, whom he pretended to spare,
destitute of all support, and ready to fall whenever he should think
proper to command their ruin. A peace which he made with Malcolm, who
did him homage for Cumberland, seemed at the same time to deprive them
of all prospect of foreign assistance.[*]

The English were now sensible that their final destruction was intended;
and that instead of a sovereign, whom they had hoped to gain by their
submission, they had tamely surrendered themselves, without resistance,
to a tyrant and a conqueror. Though the early confiscation of Harold’s
followers might seem iniquitous, being inflicted on men who had
never sworn fealty to the duke of Normandy, who were ignorant of his
pretensions, and who only fought in defence of the government which they
themselves had established in their own country, yet were these rigors,
however contrary to the ancient Saxon laws, excused on account of the
urgent necessities of the prince; and those who were not involved in
the present ruin, hoped that they should thenceforth enjoy, without
molestation, their possessions and their dignities. But the successive
destruction of so many other families convinced them that the king
intended to rely entirely on the support and affections of foreigners;
and they foresaw new forfeitures, attainders, and acts of violence, as
the necessary result of this destructive plan of administration. They
observed that no Englishman possessed his confidence, or was intrusted
with any command or authority; and that the strangers, whom a rigorous
discipline could have but ill restrained, were encouraged in their
insolence and tyranny against them. The easy submission of the
kingdom on its first invasion had exposed the natives to contempt; the
subsequent proofs of their animosity and resentment had made them the
object of hatred; and they were now deprived of every expedient by which
they could hope to make themselves either regarded or beloved by their
sovereign. Impressed with the sense of this dismal situation, many
Englishmen fled into foreign countries, with an intention of passing
their lives abroad free from oppression, or of returning, on a favorable
opportunity, to assist their friends in the recovery of their native
liberties.[**] Edgar

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 511.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 508. M. West. p. 225. M.
     Paris, p. 4. Sim Dunehn. p. 197.]

Atheling himself, dreading the insidious caresses of William, was,
persuaded by Cospatric, a powerful Northumbrian, to escape with him
into Scotland; and he carried thither his two sisters, Margaret and
Christina. They were well received by Malcolm, who soon after espoused
Margaret, the elder sister; and partly with a view of strengthening
his kingdom by the accession of so many strangers, partly in hopes
of employing them against the growing power of William, he gave great
countenance to all the English exiles. Many of them settled there, and
laid the foundation of families which afterwards made a figure in that
country.

While the English suffered under these oppressions, even the foreigners
were not much at their ease; but finding themselves surrounded on all
hands by engaged enemies, who took every advantage against them, and
menaced them with still more bloody effects of the public resentment,
they began to wish again for the tranquillity and security of their
native country. Hugh de Grentmesnil and Humphry de Teliol, though
intrusted with great commands, desired to be dismissed the service;
and some others imitated their example; a desertion which was highly
resented by the king, and which he punished by the confiscation of all
their possessions ii England.[*] But William’s bounty to his followers
could not fail of alluring many new adventurers into his service; and
the rage of the vanquished English served only to excite the attention
of the king and those warlike chiefs, and keep them in readiness to
suppress every commencement of domestic rebellion or foreign invasion.

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 512]

It was not long before they found occupation for their prowess and
military conduct. Godwin, Edmond, and Magnus, three sons of Harold, had,
immediately after the defeat at Hastings, sought a retreat in Ireland,
where, having met with a kind reception from Dermot and other princes of
that country, they projected an invasion on England, and they hoped that
all the exiles from Denmark, Scotland, and Wales, assisted by forces
from these several countries, would at once commence hostilities, and
rouse the indignation of the English against their haughty conquerors.
They landed in Devonshire; but found Brian, son of the count of
Brittany, at the head of some foreign troops, ready to oppose them; and
being defeated in several actions, they were obliged to retreat to their
ships, and to return with great loss to Ireland.[*] The efforts of the
Normans were now directed to the north, where affairs had fallen into
the utmost confusion. The more impatient of the Northumbrians had
attacked Robert de Comyn, who was appointed governor of Durham; and
gaining the advantage over him from his negligence, they put him to
death in that city, with seven hundred of his followers.[**] This
success animated the inhabitants of York, who, rising in arms, slew
Robert Fitz-Richard, their governor,[***] and besieged in the castle
William Mallet, on whom the command now devolved. A little after, the
Danish troops landed from three hundred vessels: Osberne, brother to
King Sweyn, was intrusted with the command of these forces, and he
was accompanied by Harold and Canute, two sons of that monarch. Edgar
Atheling appeared from Scotland, and brought along with him Cospatric,
Waltheof, Siward, Bearne, Merleswain, Adelin, and other leaders, who,
partly from the hopes which they gave of Scottish succors, partly
from their authority in those parts, easily persuaded the warlike and
discontented Northumbrians to join the insurrection. Mallet, that he
might better provide for the defence of the citadel of York, set fire
to some houses which lay contiguous; but this expedient proved the
immediate cause of his destruction. The flames, spreading into the
neighboring streets, reduced the whole city to ashes. The enraged
inhabitants, aided by the Danes, took advantage of the confusion to
attack the castle, which they carried by assault; and the garrison,
to the number of three thousand men, was put to the sword without
mercy.[****]

This success proved a signal to many other parts of England, and gave
the people an opportunity of showing their malevolence to the Normans.
Hereward, a nobleman in East Anglia, celebrated for valor, assembled his
followers, and taking shelter in the Isle of Ely, made inroads on all
the neighboring country.[*****] The English in the counties of Somerset
and Dorset rose in arms, and assaulted Montacute, the Norman governor;
while the inhabitants of Cornwall and Devon invested Exeter, which from
the memory of William’s clemency still remained faithful to him.

     [* Gul. Gemet. p. 290. Order. Vitalis, p. 513.
     Anglia Sacra, TO! I. p. 216.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 512. Chron. de Mailr. p.
     116. Hoveden, p. 450. M. Paris, p. 5. Sim. Dunelm. p. 198.]

     [*** Order. Vitalis, p. 512.]

     [**** Order. Vitalis, p. 513. Hoveden, p. 451.]

     [***** Ingulph. p. 71. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de
     Burgo, p. 47.]

Edric the Forester, calling in the assistance of the Welsh, laid siege
to Shrewsbury, and made head against Earl Brient and Fitz-Osberne, who
commanded in those quarters.[*] The English, everywhere repenting their
former easy submission, seemed determined to make by concert one great
effort for the recovery of their liberties, and for the expulsion of
their oppressors.

William, undismayed amidst this scene of confusion, assembled. his
forces, and animating them with the prospect of new confiscations
and forfeitures, he marched against the rebels in the north, whom he
regarded as the most formidable, and whose defeat, he knew, would strike
a terror into all the other malecontents. Joining policy to force, he
tried, before his approach, to weaken the enemy, by detaching the Danes
from them; and he engaged Osberne, by large presents, and by offering
him the liberty of plundering the sea-coast, to retire without
committing farther hostilities into Denmark.[**] Cospatric also, in
despair of success, made his peace with the king, and paying a sum of
money as an atonement for his insurrection, was received into favor,
and even invested with the earldom of Northumberland. Waltheof, who long
defended York with great courage, was allured with this appearance of
clemency; and as William knew how to esteem valor, even in an enemy,
that nobleman had no reason to repent of this confidence.[***] Even
Edric, compelled by necessity, submitted to the conqueror, and received
forgiveness, which was soon after followed by some degree of trust
and favor. Malcolm, coming too late to support his confederates, was
constrained to retire; and all the English rebels in other parts, except
Hereward, who still kept in his fastnesses, dispersed themselves, and
left the Normans undisputed masters of the kingdom. Edgar Atheling, with
his followers, sought again a retreat in Scotland from the pursuit of
his enemies.

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 514.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 451. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de
     Burgo, p. 47. Sim Dunelm. p. 199.]

     [*** W. Malms, p. 104. H. Hunting, p. 369.]

{1070.} But the seeming clemency of William toward the English leaders,
proceeded only from artifice, or from his esteem of individuals: his
heart, was hardened against all compassion towards the people, and he
scrupled no measure, however violent or severe, which seemed requisite
to support his plan of tyrannical administration. Sensible of the
restless disposition of the Northumbrians, he determined to incapacitate
them even after from giving him disturbance; and he issued orders for
laying entirely waste that fertile country, which, for the extent of
sixty miles, lies between the Humber and the Tees.[*] The houses were
reduced to ashes by the merciless Normans; the cattle seized and driven
away; the instruments of husbandry destroyed; and the inhabitants
compelled either to seek for a subsistence in the southern parts of
Scotland, or if they lingered in England, from a reluctance to abandon
their ancient habitations, they perished miserably in the woods from
cold and hunger. The lives of a hundred thousand persons are computed to
have been sacrificed to this stroke of barbarous policy,[**] which, by
seeking a remedy for a temporary evil, thus inflicted a lasting wound on
the power and populousness of the nation.

But William, finding himself entirely master of a people who had given
him such sensible proofs of their impotent rage and animosity, now
resolved to proceed to extremities against all the natives of England;
and to reduce them to a condition in which they should no longer be
formidable to his government. The insurrections and conspiracies in
so many parts of the kingdom had involved the bulk of the landed
proprietors, more or less, in the guilt of treason; and the king took
advantage of executing against them, with the utmost rigor, the laws of
forfeiture and attainder. Their lives were, indeed, commonly spared;
but their estates were confiscated, and either annexed to the royal
demesnes, or conferred with the most profuse bounty, on the Normans
and other foreigners.[***] While the king’s declared intention was to
depress, or rather entirely extirpate, the English gentry,[****] [8] it
is easy to believe that scarcely the form of justice would be observed
in those violent proceedings;[*****] and that any suspicions served as
the most undoubted proofs of guilt against a people thus devoted to
destruction.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 174. Ingulph. p. 79. W. Malms,
     p. 103. Hoveden, p. 451. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p.
     47. M. Paris, p. 5. Sim. Dunelm. p. 199. Brompton, p. 966.
     Knyghton, p. 2344. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p, 702.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 515.]

     [*** W. Malms, p. 104.]

     [**** H. Hunting, p. 370.]

     [***** H See note H, at the end of the volume.]

It was crime sufficient in an Englishman to be opulent, or noble, or
powerful; and the policy of the king, concurring with the rapacity of
foreign adventurers, produced almost a total revolution in the landed
property of the kingdom. Ancient and honorable families were reduced to
beggary; the nobles themselves were every where treated with ignominy
and contempt; they had the mortification of seeing their castles and
manors possessed by Normans of the meanest birth and lowest stations;[*]
and they found themselves carefully excluded from every road which led
either to riches or preferment.[**] [9]

As power naturally follows property, this revolution alone gave great
security to the foreigners; but William, by the new institutions which
he established, took also care to retain forever the military authority
in those hands which had enabled him to subdue the kingdom. He
introduced into England the feudal law, which he found established in
France and Normandy, and which, during that age, was the foundation
both of the stability and of the disorders in most of the monarchical
governments of Europe. He divided all the lands of England, with
very few exceptions, beside the royal demesnes, into baronies; and he
conferred these, with the reservation of stated services and payments,
on the most considerable of his adventurers. These great barons, who
held immediately of the crown, shared out a great part of their lands to
other foreigners, who were denominated knights or vassals, and who paid
their lord the same duty and submission, in peace and war, which he
himself owed, to his sovereign. The whole kingdom contained about
seven hundred chief tenants, and sixty thousand two hundred and fifteen
knights’ fees;[***] and as none of the native English were admitted into
the first rank, the few who retained their landed property were glad to
be received into the second, and, under the protection of some powerful
Norman, to load themselves and their posterity with this grievous
burden, for estates which they had received free from their
ancestors.[****] The small mixture of English which entered into this
civil or military fabric, (for it partook of both species,) was so
restrained by subordination under the foreigners, that the Norman
dominion seemed now to be fixed on the most durable basis, and to defy
all the efforts of its enemies.

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 521. M. West, p. 229.]

     [** See note I, at the end of the volume.]

     [*** Order. Vitalis, p. 523. Secretum Abbatis,
     apud Selden. Title of Honor, p. 573. Spel. Gloss, in verbo
     Feodum. Sir Robert Cotton.]

     [**** M. West. p. 225. M. Paris, p. 4. Bracton,
     lib. i. cap. 11, num. I, Flets, lib, 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.[*] The pope and the
ecclesiastics exclaimed against this tyranny, as they called it; but the
king’s authority was so well established over the army, who held every
thing from his bounty, that superstition itself, even in that age,
when it was most prevalent, was constrained to bend under his superior
influence.

But as the great body of the clergy were still natives, the king had
much reason to dread the effects of their resentment; he therefore
used the precaution of expelling the English from all the considerable
dignities, and of advancing foreigners in their place. The partiality
of the Confessor towards the Normans had been so great, that, aided by
their superior learning, it had promoted them to many of the sees in
England; and even before the period of the conquest, scarcely more than
six or seven of the prelates were natives of the country. But among
these was Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, a man who, by his address
and vigor, by the greatness of his family and alliances, by the extent
of his possessions, as well as by the dignity of his office, and his
authority among the English, gave jealousy to the king.[**] Though
William had, on his accession, affronted this prelate by employing the
archbishop of York to officiate at his consecration, he was careful,
on other occasions, to load him with honors and caresses, and to
avoid giving him farther offence till the opportunity should offer of
effecting his final destruction.[***]

     [* M. Paris, p. 5. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 248.]

     [** Parker, p. 161.]

     [*** Parker, p. 164.]

The suppression of the late rebellions, and the total subjection of the
English, made him hope that an attempt against Stigand, however violent,
would be covered by his great successes and be overlooked amidst the
other important revolutions, which affected so deeply the property and
liberty of the kingdom. Yet, notwithstanding these great advantages,
he did not think it safe to violate the reverence usually paid to the
primate, but under cover of a new superstition, which he was the great
instrument of introducing into England.

The doctrine which exalted the papacy above all human power, had
gradually diffused itself from the city and court of Rome; and was,
during that age, much more prevalent in the southern than in the
northern kingdoms of Europe. Pope Alexander, who had assisted William
in his conquests, naturally expected, that the French and Normans would
import into England the same reverence for his sacred character with
which they were impressed in their own country; and would break the
spiritual as well as civil independency of the Saxons who had hitherto
conducted their ecclesiastical government, with an acknowledgment indeed
of primacy in the see of Rome, but without much idea of its title to
dominion or authority. As soon, therefore, as the Norman prince seemed
fully established on the throne, the pope despatched Ermenfloy, bishop
of Sion, as his legate into England; and this prelate was the first
that had ever appeared with that character in any part of the British
islands. The king, though he was probably led by principle to pay this
submission to Rome, determined, as is usual, to employ the incident as a
means of serving his political purposes, and of degrading those English
prelates, who were become obnoxious to him. The legate submitted to
become the instrument of his tyranny; and thought, that the more violent
the exertion of power, the more certainly did it confirm the authority
of that court from which he derived his commission. He summoned,
therefore, a council of the prelates and abbots at Winchester; and
being assisted by two cardinals, Peter and John, he cited before him
Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, to answer for his conduct. The
primate was accused of three crimes; the holding of the see of
Winchester together with that of Canterbury; the officiating in the pall
of Robert, his predecessor; and the having received his own pall from
Benedict IX., who was afterwards deposed for simony, and for intrusion
into the papacy.[*]

     [* Hoveden, p. 453. Diceto, p. 482. Knyghton, p.
     2345. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 5, 6. Ypod. Neust. p. 438.]

These crimes of Stigand were mere pretences; since the first had been a
practice not unusual in England, and was never any where subjected to a
higher penalty than a resignation of one of the sees; the second was a
pure ceremonial; and as Benedict was the only pope who then officiated,
and his acts were never repealed, all the prelates of the church,
especially thope who lay at a distance, were excusable for making their
applications to him. Stigand’s ruin, however, was resolved on, and
was prosecuted with great severity. The legate degraded him from his
dignity; the king confiscated his estate, and cast him into prison,
where he continued in poverty and want during the remainder of his life.
Like rigor was exercised against the other English prelates: Agelric,
bishop of Selesey, and Agelmare, of Elmham, were deposed by the legate,
and imprisoned by the king. Many considerable abbots shared the same
fate: Egelwin, bishop of Durham, fled the kingdom Wulstan, of Worcester,
a man of an inoffensive character was the only English prelate that
escaped this general proscription,[*] and remained in possession of his
dignity. Aldred, archbishop of York, who had set the crown on William’s
head, had died a little before of grief and vexation, and had left his
malediction to that prince, on account of the breach of his coronation
oath, and of the extreme tyranny with which he saw he was determined to
treat his English subjects.[**]

It was a fixed maxim in this reign, as well as in some of the
subsequent, that no native of the island should ever be advanced to any
dignity, ecclesiastical, civil, or military[***]

     [* Brompton relates, that Wulstan was also
     deprived by the synod; out 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.]

     [** W. Malmes de Gest. Pont. p. 154.]

     [*** Ingulph. p. 70, 71.]

The king, therefore, upon Stigand’s deposition, promoted Lanfranc, a
Milanese monk, celebrated for his learning and piety, to the vacant see.
This prelate was rigid in defending the prerogatives of his station; and
after a long process before the pope, he obliged Thomas, a Norman monk,
who had been appointed to the see of York, to acknowledge the primacy of
the archbishop of Canterbury. Where ambition can be so happy as to cover
its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance
of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human
passions. Hence Lanfranc’s zeal in promoting the interests of
the papacy, by which he himself augmented his own authority, was
indefatigable, and met with proportionable success. The devoted
attachment to Rome continually increased in England and being favored
by the sentiments of the conquerors, as well as by the monastic
establishments formerly introduced by Edred and by Edgar, it soon
reached the same height at which it had, during some time, stood in
France and Italy.[*] It afterwards went much farther; being favored by
that very remote situation which had at first obstructed its progress;
and being less checked by knowledge and a liberal education, which were
still somewhat more common in the southern countries.

The prevalence of this superstitious spirit became dangerous to some
of William’s successors, and incommodious to most of them; but the
arbitrary sway of this king over the English, and his extensive
authority over the foreigners, kept him from feeling any immediate
inconveniences from it. He retained the church in great subjection, as
well as his lay subjects; and would allow none, of whatever character,
to dispute his sovereign will and pleasure. He prohibited his subjects
from acknowledging any one for pope whom he himself had not previously
received; he required that all the ecclesiastical canons, voted in
any synod, should first be laid before him, and be ratified by his
authority; even bulls or letters from Rome could not legally be
produced, till they received the same sanction; and none of his
ministers or barons, whatever offences they were guilty of, could be
subjected to spiritual censures, till he himself had given his consent
to their excommunication.[**] These regulations were worthy of a
sovereign, and kept united the civil and ecclesiastical powers, which
the principles, introduced by this prince himself, had an immediate
tendency to separate.

But the English had the cruel mortification to find that their king’s
authority, however acquired or however extended, was all employed in
their oppression; and that the scheme of their subjection, attended with
every circumstance of insult and indignity,[***] was deliberately formed
by the prince, and wantonly prosecuted by his followers.[****]

     [* 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.]

     [** Eadmer, p. 6]

     [*** Order Vitalis, p. 523. H. Hunting, p. 370.]

     [**** Ingulph. p. 71]

William had even entertained the difficult project of totally abolishing
the English language; and for that purpose he ordered, that in all
schools throughout the kingdom, the youth should be instructed in the
French tongue; a practice which was continued from custom till after
the reign of Edward III., and was never indeed totally discontinued
in England. The pleadings in the supreme courts of judicature were in
French:[*] the deeds were often drawn in the same language: the laws
were composed in that idiom:[**] no other tongue was used at court:
it became the language of all fashionable company; and the English
themselves, ashamed of their own country, affected to excel in that
foreign dialect. From this attention of William, and from the extensive
foreign dominions, long annexed to the crown of England, proceeded that
mixture of French which is at present to be found in the English tongue,
and which composes the greatest and best part of our language. But
amidst those endeavors to depress the English nation, the king, moved by
the remonstrances of some of his prelates, and by the earnest desires
of the people, restored a few of the laws of King Edward;[***] [11]
which, though seemingly of no great importance towards the protection of
general liberty, gave them extreme satisfaction, as a memorial of their
ancient government, and an unusual mark of complaisance in their
imperious conquerors.[****]

     [* 36 Ed. III. cap. 15. Selden. Spicileg. ad Eadm.
     p. 189. Fortesque de Laud. Leg. Angl. cap. 48.]

     [** Chron. Rothom. A.D. 1066.]

     [*** Ingulph. p. 88. Brompton, p. 982. Knyghton,
     p. 2355 Hoveden, p. 600.]

     [**** See note K, at the end of the volume.]

{1071.} The situation of the two great earls, Morcar and Edwin, became
now very disagreeable. Though they had retained their allegiance during
this general insurrection of their countrymen, they had not gained the
king’s confidence, and they found themselves exposed to the malignity
of the courtiers, who envied them on account of their opulence and
greatness, and at the same time involved them in that general contempt
which they entertained for the English. Sensible that they had entirely
lost their dignity, and could not even hope to remain long in safety,
they determined, though too kite, to share the same fate with their
countrymen. While Edwin retired to his estate in the north, with a view
of commencing an insurrection, Morcar took shelter in the Isle of Ely,
with the brave Hereward, who, secured by the inaccessible situation of
the place, still defended himself against the Normans. But this attempt
served only to accelerate the ruin of the few English who had hitherto
been able to preserve their rank or fortune during the past convulsions.
William employed all his endeavors to subdue the Isle of Ely; and having
surrounded it with flat-bottomed boats, and made a causeway through the
morasses to the extent of two miles, he obliged the rebels to surrender
at discretion. Hereward alone forced his way, sword in hand, through the
enemy; and still continued his hostilities by sea against the Normans,
till at last William, charmed with his bravery, received him into favor,
and restored him to his estate. Earl Morcar, and Egelwin, bishop of
Durham, who had joined the malecontents, were thrown into prison, and
the latter soon after died in confinement. Edwin, attempting to make
his escape into Scotland, was betrayed by some of his followers, and was
killed by a party of Normans, to the great affliction of the English,
and even to that of William, who paid a tribute of generous tears to
the memory of this gallant and beautiful youth. The king of Scotland,
in hopes of profiting by these convulsions, had fallen upon the northern
counties; but on the approach of William, he retired; and when the king
entered his country, he was glad to make peace, and to pay the usual
homage to the English crown. To complete the king’s prosperity, Edgar
Atheling himself, despairing of success, and weary of a fugitive
life, submitted to his enemy; and receiving a decent pension for his
subsistence, was permitted to live in England unmolested. But these acts
of generosity towards the leaders were disgraced, as usual, by William’s
rigor against the inferior malecontents. He ordered ihe hands to be
lopped off, and the eyes to be put out, of many of the prisoners whom
he had taken in the Isle of Ely; and he dispersed them in that miserable
condition throughout the country, as monuments of his severity.

{1073.} The province of Maine, in France, had, by the will of Herbert,
the last count, fallen under the dominion of William some years before
his conquest of England; but the inhabitants, dissatisfied with the
Norman government, and instigated by Fulk, count of Anjou, who had some
pretensions to the succession, now rose in rebellion, and expelled the
magistrates whom the king had placed over them. The full settlement of
England afforded him leisure to punish this insult on his authority; but
being unwilling to remove his Norman forces from this island, he carried
over a considerable army, composed almost entirely of English, and
joining them to some troops levied in Normandy, he entered the revolted
province. The English appeared ambitious of distinguishing themselves on
this occasion, and of retrieving that character of valor which had long
been national among them, but which their late easy subjection under the
Normans had some what degraded and obscured. Perhaps, too, they hoped
that, by their zeal and activity, they might recover the confidence of
their sovereign, as their ancestors had formerly, by like means, gained
the affections of Canute; and might conquer his inveterate prejudices
in favor of his own countrymen. The king’s military conduct, seconded
by these brave troops, soon overcame all opposition in Maine: the
inhabitants were obliged to submit, and the count of Anjou relinquished
his pretensions.

{1074.} But during these transactions, the government of England was
greatly disturbed; and that, too, by those very foreigners who owed
every thing to the king’s bounty, and who were the sole object of his
friendship and regard. The Norman barons, who had engaged with their
duke in the conquest of England, were men of the most independent
spirit; and though they obeyed their leader in the field, they would
have regarded with disdain the richest acquisitions, had they been
required, in return, to submit, in their civil government, to the
arbitrary will of one man. But the imperious character of William,
encouraged by his absolute dominion over the English, and often impelled
by the necessity of his affairs, had prompted him to stretch his
authority over the Normans themselves beyond what the free genius of
that victorious people could easily bear. The discontents were become
general among those haughty nobles; and even Roger, earl of Hereford,
son and heir of Fitz-Osberne, the king’s chief favorite, was strongly
infected with them. This nobleman, intending to marry his sister to
Ralph de Guader, earl of Norfolk, had thought, it his duty to inform the
king of his purpose, and to desire the royal consent; but meeting with
a refusal, he proceeded nevertheless to complete the nuptials, and
assembled all his friends, and those of Guader, to attend the solemnity.
The two earls, disgusted by the denial of their request, and dreading
William’s resentment for their disobedience, here prepared measures for
a revolt; and during the gayety of the festival, while the company was
heated with wine, they opened the design to their guests. They inveighed
against the arbitrary conduct of the king; his tyranny over the English,
whom they affected on this occasion to commiserate; his imperious
behavior to his barons of the noblest birth; and his apparent intention
of reducing the victors and the vanquished to a like ignominious
servitude. Amidst their complaints, the indignity of submitting to
a bastard[*] was not forgotten; the certain prospect of success in a
revolt, by the assistance of the Danes and the discontented English, was
insisted on; and the whole company, inflamed with the same sentiments,
and warmed by the jollity of the entertainment, entered, by a solemn
engagement, into the design of shaking off the royal authority.
Even Earl Waltheof, who was present, inconsiderately expressed his
approbation of the conspiracy, and promised his concurrence towards its
success.

This nobleman, the last of the English who for some generations
possessed any power or authority, had, after his capitulation at York,
been received into favor by the conqueror; had even married Judith,
niece to that prince; and had been promoted to the earldoms of
Huntingdon and Northampton.[**] Cospatric, earl of Northumberland,
having, on some new disgust from William, retired into Scotland, where
he received the earldom of Dunbar from the bounty of Malcolm, Waltheof
was appointed his successor in that important command, and seemed still
to possess the confidence and friendship of his sovereign.[***]

     [* William was so little ashamed of his birth,
     that he assumed the appellation of Bastard in some of his
     letters and charters. Spel Gloss. in verbo Bastardus. Camden
     in Richmondshire.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 522 Hoveden, p. 454.]

     [*** Sim, Dunelm. p. 205.]

But as he was a man of generous principles, and loved his country, it is
probable that the tyranny exercised over the English lay heavy upon his
mind, and destroyed all the satisfaction which he could reap from his
own grandeur and advancement. When a prospect, therefore, was opened of
retrieving their liberty, he hastily embraced it; while the fumes of the
liquor and the ardor of the company prevented him from reflecting on the
consequences of that rash attempt. But after his cool judgment returned,
he foresaw that the conspiracy of those discontented barons was not
likely to prove successful against the established power of William; or,
if it did, that the slavery of the English, instead of being alleviated
by that event, would become more grievous under a multitude of foreign
leaders, factious and ambitious, whose union and whose discord would be
equally oppressive to the people. Tormented with these reflections, he
opened his mind to his wife Judith, of whose fidelity he entertained
no suspicion, but who, having secretly fixed her affections on another,
took this opportunity of ruining her easy and credulous husband. She
conveyed intelligence of the conspiracy to the king, and aggravated
every circumstance which she believed would tend to incense him against
Waltheof, and render him absolutely implacable.[*] Meanwhile the earl,
still dubious with regard to the part which he should act, discovered
the secret in confession to Lanfranc, on whose probity and judgment he
had a great reliance: he was persuaded by the prelate, that he owed
no fidelity to those rebellious barons, who had by surprise gained
his consent to a crime; that his first duty was to his sovereign and
benefactor, his next to himself and his family; and that if he seized
not the opportunity of making atonement for his guilt by revealing it,
the temerity of the conspirators was so great, that they would give
some other person the means of acquiring the merit of the discovery.
Waltheof, convinced by these arguments, went over to Normandy; but
though he was well received by the king, and thanked for his fidelity,
the account previously transmitted by Judith had sunk deep into
William’s mind, and had destroyed all the merit of her husband’s
repentance.

      [* Order. Vitalis, 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 Warrenne, the two justiciaries. The prisoners taken in this
action had their right foot cut off, as a punishment of their treason
the earl himself escaped to Norwich, thence to Denmark where the
Danish fleet, which had made an unsuccessful attempt upon the coast of
England,[*] soon after arrived, and brought him intelligence, that all
his confederates were suppressed, and were either killed, banished,
or taken prisoners.[**] Ralph retired in despair to Brittany, where he
possessed a large estate and extensive jurisdictions.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 183. M. Paris, p. 7.]

     [** 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.
{1075.} But Waltheof, being an Englishman, was not treated with so much
humanity; though his guilt, always much inferior to that of the other
conspirators, was atoned for by an early repentance and return to his
duty. William, instigated by his niece, as well as by his rapacious
courtiers, who longed for so rich a forfeiture, ordered him to be tried,
condemned, and executed. The English, who considered this nobleman as
the last resource of their nation, grievously lamented his fate, and
fancied that miracles were wrought by his relics, as a testimony of his
innocence and sanctity. The infamous Judith, falling soon after under
the king’s displeasure, was abandoned by all the world, and passed the
rest of her life in contempt, remorse, and misery.

Nothing remained to complete William’s satisfaction but the punishment
of Ralph de Guader; and he hastened over to Normandy, in order to
gratify his vengeance on that criminal. But though the contest seemed
very unequal between a private nobleman and the king of England, Ralph
was so well supported both by the earl of Brittany and the king of
France that William, after besieging him for some time in Dol, was
obliged to abandon the enterprise, and make with those powerful princes
a peace, in which Ralph himself was included England, during his
absence, remained in tranquillity; and nothing remarkable occurred,
except two ecclesiastical synods, which were summoned, one at London,
another at Winchester. In the former, the precedency among the
episcopasees was settled, and the seat of some of them was removed from
small villages to the most considerable town within the diocese. In the
second was transacted a business of more importance.

{1076.} The industry and perseverance are surprising, with which the
popes had been treasuring up powers and pretensions during so many ages
of ignorance; while each pontiff employed every fraud for advancing
purposes of imaginary piety, and cherished all claims which might turn
to the advantage of his successors, though he himself could not expect
ever to reap any benefit from them. All this immense storm of spiritual
and civil authority was now devolved on Gregory VII., of the name of
Hildebrand, the most enterprising pontiff that had ever filled that
chair, and the least restrained by fear, decency, or moderation. Not
content with shaking off the yoke of the emperors, who had hitherto
exercised the power of appointing the pope on every vacancy, at least
of ratifying his election, he undertook the arduous task of entirely
disjoining the ecclesiastical from the civil power, and of excluding
profane laymen from the right which they had assumed, of filling the
vacancies of bishoprics, abbeys, and other spiritual dignities.[*] The
sovereigns, who had long exercised this power, and who had acquired
it, not by encroachments on the church, but on the people, to whom it
originally belonged,[**] made great opposition to this claim of the
court of Rome; and Henry IV., the reigning emperor, defended this
prerogative of his crown with a vigor and resolution suitable to its
importance.

     [* L’Abbé Conc. tom. x. p. 371, 372, com, 2.]

     [** Padre Paolo sopra Benef. Eccles. p. 30]

The few offices, either civil or military, which the feudal institutions
left the sovereign the power of bestowing, made the prerogative of
conferring the pastoral ring and staff the most valuable jewel of the
royal diadem: especially as the general ignorance of the age bestowed a
consequence on the ecclesiastical offices, even beyond the great extent
of power and property which belonged to them. Superstition, the child of
ignorance, invested the clergy with an authority almost sacred; and
as they engrossed the little learning of the age, their interposition
became requisite in all civil business, and a real usefulness in common
life was thus superadded to the spiritual sanctity of their character.

When the usurpations, therefore, of the church had come to such maturity
as to embolden her to attempt extorting the right of investitures from
the temporal power, Europe, especially Italy and Germany, was thrown
into the most violent convulsions, and the pope and the emperor waged
implacable war on each other. Gregory dared to fulminate the sentence
of excommunication against Henry and his adherents, to pronounce him
rightfully deposed, to free his subjects from their oath of allegiance;
and, instead of shocking mankind by this gross encroachment on the
civil authority, he found the stupid people ready to second his most
exorbitant pretensions. Every minister, servant, or vassal of the
emperor, who received any disgust, covered his rebellion under the
pretence of principle; and even the mother of this monarch, forgetting
all the ties of nature, was seduced to countenance the insolence of
his enemies. Princes themselves, not attentive to the pernicious
consequences of those papal claims, employed them for their present
purposes; and the controversy, spreading into every city of Italy,
engendered the parties of Guelf and Ghibbelin; the most durable and most
inveterate factions that ever arose from the mixture of ambition
and religious zeal. Besides numberless assassinations, tumults, and
convulsions, to which they gave rise, it is computed that the quarrel
occasioned no less then sixty battles in the reign of Henry IV., and
eighteen in that of his successor, Henry V., when the claims of the
sovereign pontiff finally prevailed.[*]

     [* Padre Paolo sopra Eccles. Benef. 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 rigor which he had employed against the emperor;[*] he
pretended to the entire property and dominion of Spain; and he parcelled
it out amongst adventurers, who undertook to conquer it from the
Saracens, and to hold it in vassalage under the see of Rome:[**] even
the Christian bishops, on whose aid he relied for subduing the temporal
princes, saw that he was determined to reduce them to servitude, and,
by assuming the whole legislative and judicial power of the church to
centre all authority in the sovereign pontiff.[***]

William the Conqueror, the most potent, the most haughty, and the most
vigorous prince in Europe, was not, amidst all his splendid successes,
secure from the attacks of this enterprising pontiff. Gregory wrote him
a letter, requiring him to fulfil his promise in doing homage for the
kingdom of England to the see of Rome, and to sent him over that tribute
which all his predecessors had been accustomed to pay to the vicar of
Christ. By the tribute, he meant Peter’s pence; which, though at first a
charitable donation of the Saxon princes, was interpreted, according
to the usual practice of the Romish court, to be a badge of subjection
acknowledged by the kingdom. William replied, that the money should
be remitted as usual; but that neither had he promised to do homage to
Rome, nor was it in the least his purpose to impose that servitude on
his state.[****] And the better to show Gregory his independence, he
ventured, notwithstanding the frequent complaints of the pope, to refuse
to the English bishops the liberty of attending a general council, which
that pontiff had summoned against his enemies.

     [* Epist. Greg. VII. epist. 32, 35; lib. ii.
     epist. 5]

     [** Epist. Greg. VII. lib. i. epist. 7.]

     [*** Epist. Greg. VII. lib. ii. epist. 55.]

     [**** Seldini Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 4.]

But though the king displayed this vigor in supporting the royal
dignity, he was infected with the general superstition of the age; and
he did not perceive the ambitious scope of those institutions, which
under color of strictness in religion, were introduced or promoted
by the court of Rome. Gregory, while he was throwing all Europe into
combustion by his violence and impostures, affected an anxious care for
the purity of manners; and even the chaste pleasures of the marriage bed
were inconsistent, in his opinion, with the sanctity of the sacerdotal
character. He had issued a decree prohibiting the marriage of priests,
excommunicating all clergymen who retained their wives, declaring such
unlawful commerce to be fornication, and rendering it criminal in the
laity to attend divine worship, when such profane priests officiated at
the altar.[*]

     [* Hoveden, p. 455, 457. Flor. Wigorn. p. 638
     Spel. Concil fol, 13, A. D. 1078.]

This point was a great object in the politics of the Roman pontiffs; and
it cost them infinitely more pains to establish it than the propagation
of any speculative absurdity which they had ever attempted to introduce.
Many synods were summoned in different parts of Europe before it was
finally settled; and it was there constantly remarked, that the
younger clergymen complied cheerfully with the pope’s decrees in this
particular, and that the chief reluctance appeared in those who were
more advanced in years; an event so little consonant to men’s natural
expectations, that it could not fail to be glossed on even in that blind
and superstitious age. William allowed the pope’s legate to assemble, in
his absence a synod at Winchester, in order to establish the celibacy of
the clergy; but the church of England could not yet be carried the whole
length expected. The synod was content with decreeing, that the bishops
should not thenceforth ordain any priests or deacons without exacting
from them a promise of celibacy; but they enacted that none, except
those who belonged to collegiate or cathedral churches, should be
obliged to separate from their wives.

The king passed some years in Normandy; but his long residence there
was not entirely owing to his declared preference of that duchy: his
presence was also necessary for composing those disturbances which
had arisen in that favorite territory, and which had even originally
proceeded from his own family. Robert, his eldest son, surnamed Gambaron
or Courthose, from his short legs, was a prince who inherited all
the bravery of his family and nation; but without that policy and
dissimulation by which his father was so much distinguished, and which,
no less than his military valor, had contributed to his great successes.
Greedy of fame, impatient of contradiction, without reserve in his
friendships, declared in his enmities, this prince could endure no
control even from his imperious father, and openly aspired to that
independence, to which his temper, as well as some circumstances in
his situation, strongly invited him.[*] When William first received the
submissions of the province of Maine, he had promised the inhabitants
that Robert should be their prince; and before he undertook the
expedition against England, he had, on the application of the French
court, declared him his successor in Normandy, and had obliged the
barons of that duchy to do him homage as their future sovereign. By this
artifice, he had endeavored to appease the jealousy of his neighbors,
as affording them a prospect of separating England from his dominions
on the continent; but when Robert demanded of him the execution of those
engagements, he gave him an absolute refusal, and told him, according to
the homely saying, that he never intended to throw off his clothes
till he went to bed.[**] Robert openly declared his discontent, and was
suspected of secretly instigating the king of France and the earl of
Brittany to the opposition which they made to William, and which had
formerly frustrated his attempts upon the town of Dol. And as the
quarrel still augmented, Robert proceeded to entertain a strong jealousy
of his two surviving brothers, William and Henry, (for Richard
was killed, in hunting, by a stag,) who, by greater submission and
complaisance, had acquired the affections of their father. In this
disposition, on both sides, the greatest trifle sufficed to produce a
rupture between them.

The three princes, residing with their father in the castle of L’Aigle,
in Normandy, were one day engaged in sport together, and after some
mirth and jollity, the two younger took a fancy of throwing over
some water on Robert as he passed through the court on leaving their
apartment;[***] a frolic which he would naturally have regarded as
innocent, had it not been for the suggestions of Alberic de Grentmesnil,
son of that Hugh de Grentmesnil whom William had formerly deprived
of his fortunes, when that baron deserted him during his greatest
difficulties in England. The young man, mindful of the injury, persuaded
the prince that this action was meant as a public affront, which it
behoved him in honor to resent; and the choleric Robert, drawing
his sword, ran up stairs, with an intention of taking revenge on his
brothers.[****]

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 545. Hoveden, p. 457. Flor.
     Wigorn. p. 639.]

     [** Chron. de Mailr. p. 160.]

     [*** Order. Vitalis, p 545]

     [**** Order. Vitalis, p 545]

The whole castle was filled with tumult, which the king himself, who
hastened from his apartment, found some difficulty to appease. But
he could by no means appease the resentment of his eldest son who,
complaining of his partiality, and fancying that no proper atonement
had been made him for the insult, left the court that very evening,
and hastened to Rouen, with an intention of seizing the citadel of that
place.[*] But being disappointed in this view by the precaution
and vigilance of Roger de Ivery, the governor, he fled to Hugh de
Neufchatel, a powerful Norman baron, who gave him protection in his
castles; and he openly levied war against his father.[**] The popular
character of the prince, and a similarity of manners, engaged all the
young nobility of Normandy and Maine, as well as of Anjou and Brittany,
to take part with him: and it was suspected that Matilda, his mother,
whose favorite he was, supported him in his rebellion by secret
remittances of money; and by the encouragement which she gave his
partisans.

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 545.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 545. Hoveden, 457, Sim.
     Dunelm. p. 210. Diceto, p. 487]

All the hereditary provinces of William, as well as his family, were
during several years thrown into convulsions by this war; and he was at
last obliged to have recourse to England, where that species of military
government, which he had established, gave him greater authority than
the ancient feudal institutions permitted him to exercise in Normandy.
He called over an army of English under his ancient captains, who soon
expelled Robert and his adherents from their retreats, and restored the
authority of the sovereign in all his dominions. The young prince was
obliged to take shelter in the castle of Gerberoy, in the Beauvoisis,
which the king of France, who secretly fermented all these dissensions,
had provided for him. In this fortress he was closely besieged by his
father, against whom having a strong garrison, he made an obstinate
defence. There passed under the walls of this place many rencounters
which resembled more the single combats of chivalry than the military
actions of armies; but one of them was remarkable for its circumstances
and its event. Robert happened to engage the king, who was concealed
by his helmet, and, both of them being valiant, a fierce combat ensued,
till at last the young prince wounded his father in the arm and unhorsed
him. On his calling out for assistance, his voice discovered him to his
son, who, struck with remorse for his past guilt, and astonished with
the apprehensions of one much greater, which he had so nearly incurred,
instantly threw himself at his father’s feet, craved pardon for his
offences, and offered to purchase forgiveness by any atonement.[*]
The resentment harbored by William was so implacable, that he did not
immediately correspond to this dutiful submission of his son with like
tenderness; but, giving him his malediction, departed for his own camp,
on Robert’s horse, which that prince had assisted him to mount, He soon
after raised the siege, and marched with his army to Normandy; where
the interposition of the queen and other common friends brought about
a reconcilement, which was probably not a little forwarded by the
generosity of the son’s behavior in this action, and by the returning
sense of his past misconduct. The king seemed so fully appeased that he
even took Robert with him into England, where he intrusted him with
the command of an army, in order to repel an inroad of Malcolm, king
of Scotland, and to retaliate by a like inroad into that country. The
Welsh, unable to resist William’s power, were, about the same time,
necessitated to pay a compensation for their incursions; and every thing
was reduced to full tranquillity in this island.

     [* W. Malms, p. 106. H. Hunting, p. 369. Hoveden,
     p. 457. Flor Wigorn. p. 639. Sim. Dunelm. p. 210. Diceto, p.
     287. Knyghton, p. 2351. Alured. Beverl. p. 135.]

{1081.} This state of affairs gave William leisure to begin and finish
an undertaking, which proves his extensive genius and does honor to his
memory; it was a general survey of all the lands in the kingdom, their
extent in each district, their proprietors, tenures, value; the quantity
of meadow, pasture, wood, and arable land, which they contained; and
in some counties, the number of tenants, cottagers, and slaves of all
denominations, who lived upon them. He appointed commissioners for this
purpose, who entered every particular in their register by the verdict
of juries; and after a labor of six years, (for the work was so long in
finishing,) brought him an exact account of all the landed property of
his kingdom.[*]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 190. Ingulph. p. 79. Chron. T.
     Wykes, p. 23. H. Hunting, p. 370. Hoveden, p. 460. M. West.
     p. 229. Flor Wigorn. p. 641. Chron. Abb. St. 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.]

This monument, called domesday-book, the most valuable piece of
antiquity possessed by any nation, is still preserved in the exchequer;
and though only some extracts of it have hitherto been published, it
serves to illustrate to us, in many particulars, the ancient state of
England. The great Alfred had finished a like survey of the kingdom in
his time, which was long kept at Winchester, and which probably served
as a model to William in this undertaking.[*]

The king was naturally a great economist; and though no prince had ever
been more bountiful to his officers and servants, it was merely because
he had rendered himself universal proprietor of England, and had a whole
kingdom to bestow. He reserved an ample revenue for the crown; and in
the general distribution of land among his followers, he kept possession
of no less than one thousand four hundred and twenty--two manors in
different parts of England,[**] which paid him rent either in money, or
in corn, cattle, and the usual produce of the soil. An ancient historian
computes that his annual fixed income, besides escheats, fines, reliefs,
and other casual profits to a great value, amounted to near four hundred
thousand pounds a year;[***] a sum which, if all circumstances be
attended to, will appear wholly incredible. A pound in that age, as we
have already observed, contained three times the weight of silver that
it does at present; and the same weight of silver, by the most probable
computation, would purchase near ten times more of the necessaries of
life, though not in the same proportion of the finer manufactures. This
revenue, therefore, of William, would be equal to at least nine or ten
millions at present; and as that prince had neither fleet nor army to
support, the former being only an occasional expense, and the latter
being maintained, without any charge to him, by his military vassals,
we must thence conclude that no emperor or prince, in any age or nation,
can be compared to the Conqueror for opulence and riches. This leads us
to suspect a great mistake in the computation of the historian; though,
if we consider that avarice is always imputed to William as one of his
vices, and that, having by the sword rendered himself master of all the
lands in the kingdom, he would certainly, in the partition, retain a
great proportion for his own share, we can scarcely be guilty of any
error in asserting, that perhaps no king of England was ever more
opulent, was more able to support by his revenue the splendor and
magnificence of a court, or could bestow more on his pleasures, or in
liberalities to his servants and favorites.[****]

     [* Ingulph. p. 8.]

     [** West’s Inquiry into the Manner of creating
     Peers, p. 24.]

     [*** Order. Vitalis, p. 523. He says, one thousand
     and sixty pounds and some odd shillings and pence a day.]

     [**** Fortescue, de Dom. Reg. el Politic, cap.
     111.]

There was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans and
ancient Saxons, was extremely addicted, and that was hunting; but this
pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects, whose
interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution of his
own revenue. Not content with those large forests which former kings
possessed in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new forest near
Winchester, the usual place of his residence; and for that purpose,
he laid waste the country in Hampshire for an extent of thirty miles,
expelled the inhabitants from their houses, seized their property, even
demolished churches and convents, and made the sufferers no compensation
for the injury.[*] At the same time, he enacted new laws, by which he
prohibited all his subjects from hunting in any of his forests, and
rendered the penalties more severe than ever had been inflicted for such
offences. The killing of a deer or boar, or even a hare, was punished
with the loss of the delinquent’s eyes; and that at a time when the
killing of a man could be atoned for by paying a moderate fine or
composition.

     [* W. Malms, p. 3. H. Hunting, 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 further grandeur.
He had formed the chimerical project of buying the papacy; and though
Gregory, the reigning pope, was not of advanced years, the prelate had
confided so much in the predictions of an astrologer, that he reckoned
upon the pontiff’s death, and upon attaining, by his own intrigues and
money, that envied state of greatness. Resolving, therefore, to remit
all his riches to Italy, he had persuaded many considerable barons, and
among the rest Hugh, earl of Chester, to take the same course; in hopes
that, when he should mount the papal throne, he would bestow on them
more considerable establishments in that country. The king, from
whom all these projects had been carefully concealed, at last got
intelligence of the design, and ordered Odo to be arrested. His
officers, from respect to the immunities which the ecclesiastics now
assumed, scrupled to execute the command, till the king himself was
obliged in person to seize him; and when Odo insisted that he was a
prelate, and exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, William replied,
that he arrested him, not as bishop of Baieux, but as earl of Kent. He
was sent prisoner to Normandy; and notwithstanding the remonstrances and
menaces of Gregory, was detained in custody during the remainder of this
reign.

{1083.} Another domestic event gave the king much more concern: it was
the death of Matilda, his consort, whom he tenderly loved, and for
whom he had ever preserved the most sincere friendship. Three years
afterwards he passed into Normandy, and carried with him Edgar Atheling,
to whom he willingly granted permission to make a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. He was detained on the continent by a misunderstanding which broke
out between him and the king of France, and which was occasioned by
inroads made into Normandy by some French barons on the frontiers.
{1087.} It was little in the power of princes at that time to restrain
their licentious nobility; but William suspected, that these barons
durst not have provoked his indignation, had they not been assured of
the countenance and protection of Philip. His displeasure was increased
by the account he received of some railleries which that monarch had
thrown out against him. William, who was become corpulent, had been
detained in bed some time by sickness; upon which Philip expressed
his surprise that his brother of England should be so long in being
delivered of his big belly. The king sent him word, that, as soon as he
was up, he would present so many lights at Notre-dame, as would perhaps
give little pleasure to the king of France; alluding to the usual
practice at that time of women after childbirth. Immediately on his
recovery, he led an army into L’Isle de France, and laid every thing
waste with fire and sword. He took the town of Mante, which he reduced
to ashes. But the progress of these hostilities was stopped by an
accident which soon after put an end to William’s life. His horse
starting aside of a sudden, he bruised his belly on the pommel of the
saddle; and being in a bad habit of body, as well as somewhat advanced
in years, he began to apprehend the consequences, and ordered himself
to be carried in a litter to the monastery of St Gervas. Finding his
illness increase, and being sensible of the approach of death, he
discovered at last the vanity of all human grandeur, and was struck with
remorse for those horrible cruelties and acts of violence, which, in the
attainment and defence of it, he had committed during the course of
his reign over England. He endeavored to make atonement by presents to
churches and monasteries; and he issued orders that Earl Morcar, Siward,
Bearne, and other English prisoners, should be set at liberty. He was
even prevailed on, though not without reluctance, to consent, with his
dying breath, to release his brother Odo, against whom he was extremely
incensed. He left Normandy and Maine to his eldest son, Robert: he
wrote to Lanfranc, desiring him to crown William king of England; he
bequeathed to Henry nothing but the possessions of his mother, Matilda;
but foretold that he would one day surpass both his brothers in power
and opulence. He expired in the sixty-third year of his age, in the
twenty-first year of his reign over England, and in the fifty-fourth of
that over Normandy.

Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were
better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the
vigor of mind which he displayed in all his conduct. His spirit was
bold and enterprising, yet guided by prudence; his ambition, which was
exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less
under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound policy.
Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable, and unacquainted
with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his purposes, and,
partly from the ascendant of his vehement character, partly from art
and dissimulation, to establish an unlimited authority. Though not
insensible to generosity, he was hardened against compassion; and he
seemed equally ostentatious and equally ambitious of show and parade in
his clemency and in his severity. The maxims of his administration were
austere, but might have been useful, had they been solely employed to
preserve order in an established government:[*] they were ill calculated
for softening the rigors which, under the most gentle management, are
inseparable from conquest.

     [* M. West. p. 230. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 258.]

His attempt against England was the last great enterprise of the kind,
which, during the course of seven hundred years, has fully succeeded
in Europe, and the force of his genius broke through those limits which
first the feudal institutions, chen the refined policy of princes, have
fixed to the several states of Christendom. Though he rendered himself
infinitely odious to his English subjects, he transmitted his power
to his posterity, and the throne is still filled by his descendants; a
proof that the foundations which he laid were firm and solid, and that,
amidst all his violence, while he seemed only to gratify the present
passion, he had still an eye towards futurity.

Some writers have been desirous of refusing to this prince the title of
conqueror, in the sense which that term commonly bears; and on pretence
that the word is sometimes in old books applied to such as make an
acquisition of territory by any means, they are willing to reject
William’s title, by right of war, to the crown of England. It is
needless to enter, into a controversy, which, by the terms of it, must
necessarily degenerate into a dispute of words. It suffices to say, that
the duke of Normandy’s first invasion of the island was hostile; that
his subsequent administration was entirely supported by arms; that in
the very frame of his laws he made a distinction between the Normans and
English, to the advantage of the former;[*] that he acted in every thing
as absolute master over the natives, whose interests and affections he
totally disregarded; and that if there was an interval when he assumed
the appearance of a legal sovereign, the period was very short, and was
nothing but a temporary Sacrifice, which he, as has been the case with
most conquerors, was obliged to make, of his inclination to his present
policy.

     [* Hoveden, p. 600.]

Scarce any of those revolutions, which, both in history and in common
language, have always been denominated conquests, appear equally
violent, or were attended with so sudden an alteration both of power and
property. The Roman state, which spread its dominion over Europe,
left the rights of individuals in a great measure untouched; and those
civilized conquerors, while they made their own country the seat of
empire, found that they could draw most advantage from the subjected
provinces, by securing to the natives the free enjoyment cf their own
laws and of their private possessions. The barbarians who subdued the
Roman empire, though they settled in the conquered countries, yet being
accustomed to a rude, uncultivated life, found a part only of the land
sufficient to supply all their wants; and they were not tempted to seize
extensive possessions, which they knew neither how to cultivate nor
enjoy. But the Normans and other foreigners who followed the standard of
William while they made the vanquished kingdom the seat of government,
were yet so far advanced in arts as to be acquainted with the advantages
of a large property; and having totally subdued the natives, they
pushed the rights of conquest (very extensive in the eyes of avarice
and ambition, however narrow in those of reason) to the utmost extremity
against them. Except the former conquest of England by the Saxons
themselves, who were induced, by peculiar circumstances, to proceed even
to the extermination of the natives, it would be difficult to find
in all history a revolution more destructive, or attended with a more
complete subjection of the ancient inhabitants. Contumely seems even
co have been wantonly added to oppression;[*] and the natives were
universally reduced to such a state of meanness and poverty, that the
English, name became a term of reproach; and several generations elapsed
before one family of Saxon pedigree was raised to any considerable
honors, or could so much as attain the rank of baron of the realm.[**]
These facts are so apparent from the whole tenor of the English history,
that none would have been tempted to deny or elude them, were they no
heated by the controversies of faction; while one party was absurdly
afraid of those absurd consequences which they saw the other party
inclined to draw from this event. But it is evident that the present
rights and privileges of the people, who are a mixture of English and
Normans, can never be affected by a transaction which passed seven
hundred years ago; and as all ancient authors,[***] [12] who lived
nearest the time, and best knew the state of the country, unanimously
speak of the Norman dominion as a conquest by war and arms, no
reasonable man, from the fear of imaginary consequences, will ever be
tempted to reject their concurring and undoubted testimony.

     [* H. Hunting, p. 370. Brompton, p. 980.]

     [** 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, etc.” Brompton, p. 1026. See,
     further, Abbas Rieval, p. 339, etc All the barons and
     military men of England still called themselves Normans.]

     [*** See note L. at the end of the volume.]

King William had issue, besides his three sons who survived him, five
daughters, to wit, first, Cicily, a nun in the monastery of Feschamp,
afterwards abbess in the Holy Trinity at Caen, where she died in 1127.
Second, Constantia, married to Alan Fergant, earl of Brittany: she died
without issue. Third Alice, contracted to Harold. Fourth, Adela, married
to Stephen, earl of Blois, by whom she had four sons, William, Theobold,
Henry, and Stephen; of whom the elder was neglected, on account of the
imbecility of his understanding. Fifth, Agatha, who died a virgin; but
was betrothed to the king of Gallicia. She died on her journey thither
before she joined her bridegroom.



CHAPTER V.

[Illustration: 081.jpg WILLIAM II.]



WILLIAM RUFUS.

_Contemporary Monarchs_

     EMP. OF GERM.   KINGS OF SCOTLAND.       K. OF FRANCE.  K. OF SPAIN.
     Henry IV.       Malcolm III       1093     Philip I.    Alphonso VI.
                     Donald Bane, dep  1091
                     Duncan            1094
                     Donald Bane       1097
                     Edgar.

     POPES.
     Urban II.    1099
     Paschal II.

{1087.} WILLIAM, surnamed Rufus, or the Red, from the color of his hair,
had no sooner procured his father’s recommendatory letter to Lanfranc,
the primate, than he hastened to take measures for securing to himself
the government of England. Sensible that a deed so unformal, and so
little prepared, which violated Robert’s right of promigeniture, might
meet with great opposition, he trusted entirely for success to his own
celerity; and having left St. Gervas while William was breathing his
last, he arrived in England before intelligence of his father’s death
had reached that kingdom.[*] Pretending orders from the king, he
secured the fortresses of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, whose situation
rendered them of the greatest importance; and he got possession of the
royal treasure at Winchester, amounting to the sum of sixty thousand
pounds, by which he hoped to encourage and increase his partisans,[**]
The primate, whose rank and reputation in the kingdom gave him great
authority, had been intrusted with the care of his education, and had
conferred on him the honor of knighthood;[***] and being connected with
him by these ties, and probably deeming his pretensions just, declared
that he would pay a willing obedience to the last will of the Conqueror,
his friend and benefactor. Having assembled some bishops and some of the
principal nobility, he instantly proceeded to the ceremony of crowning
the new king;[****] and by this despatch endeavored to prevent all
faction and resistance. At the same time, Robert, who had been already
acknowledged successor to Normandy, took peaceable possession of that
duchy.

     [* W. Malms, p. 120. M. Paris, p. 10.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 192. Brompton, p. 983.]

     [*** W. Malms, p. 120. M. Paris, p. 10. Thorn.
     Rudborne, p. 263]

     [**** Hoveden, p. 461.]

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.[*]

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 666.]

Robert’s title to the duchy they esteemed incontestable; his claim to
the kingdom plausible; and they all desired that this prince, who alone
had any pretensions to unite these states, should be put in possession
of both. A comparison also of the personal qualities of the two brothers
led them to give the preference to the elder. The duke was brave, open,
sincere, generous: even his predominant faults, his extreme indolence
and facility, were not disagreeable to those haughty barons, who
affected independence, and submitted with reluctance to a vigorous
administration in their sovereign. The king, though equally brave, was
violent, haughty, tyrannical; and seemed disposed to govern more by
the fear than by the love of his subjects. Odo, bishop of Baieux, and
Robert, earl of Mortaigne, maternal brothers of the Conqueror, envying
the great credit of Lanfranc, which was increased by his late services
enforced all these motives with their partisans, and engaged them in a
formal conspiracy to dethrone the king. They communicated their design
to Eustace, count of Boulogne Roger, earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel,
Robert de Belesme, his eldest son, William, bishop of Durham, Robert de
Moubray, Roger Bigod, Hugh de Grentmesnil; and they easily procured the
assent of these potent noblemen. The conspirators, retiring to their
castles, hastened to put themselves in a military posture; and expecting
to be soon supported by a powerful army from Normandy, they had already
begun hostilities in many places.

The king, sensible of his perilous situation, endeavored to engage the
affections of the native English, As that people were now so thoroughly
subdued that they no longer aspired to the recovery of their ancient
liberties, and were content with the prospect of some mitigation in ihe
tyranny of the Norman princes, they zealously embraced William’s cause,
upon receiving general promises of good treatment, and of enjoying
the license of hunting in the royal forests. The king was soon in a
situation to take the field; and as he knew the danger of delay, he
suddenly marched into Kent, where his uncles had already seized the
fortresses of Pevensey and Rochester. These places he successively
reduced by famine; and though he was prevailed on by the earl of
Chester, William de Warrenne, and Robert Fitz-Hammon, who had embraced
his cause, to spare the lives of the rebels, he confiscated all their
estates, and banished them the kingdom.[*] This success gave authority
to his negotiations with Roger, earl of Shewsbury, whom he detached
from the confederates; and as his powerful fleet, joined to the indolent
conduct of Robert, prevented the arrival of the Norman succors, all the
other rebels found no resource but in flight or submission. Some of them
received a pardon; but the greater part were attainted; and the king
bestowed their estates on the Norman barons who had remained faithful to
him.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 195. Order. Vitalis, p. 668.]

{1089.} William, freed from the danger of these insurrections, took
little care of fulfilling his promises to the English, who still found
themselves exposed to the same oppressions which they had undergone
during the reign of the Conqueror, and which were rather augmented
by the violent, impetuous temper of the present monarch. The death of
Lanfranc, who retained great influence over him, gave soon after a full
career to his tyranny; and all orders of men found reason to complain
of an arbitrary and illegal administration. Even the privileges of the
church, held sacred in those days, were a feeble rampart against his
usurpations. He seized the temporalities of all the vacant bishoprics
and abbeys; he delayed the appointing of successors to those dignities,
that he might the longer enjoy the profits of their revenue; he bestowed
some of the church lands in property on his captains and favorites;
and he openly set to sale such sees and abbeys as he thought proper to
dispose of. Though the murmurs of the ecclesiastics, which were quickly
propagated to the nation, rose high against this grievance, the terror
of William’s authority, confirmed by the suppression of the late
insurrections, retained everyone in subjection, and preserved general
tranquillity in England.

{1090.} The king, even thought himself enabled to disturb his brother
in the possession of Normandy. The loose and negligent administration
of that prince had imboldened the Norman barons to affect a great
independency; and their mutual quarrels and devastations had rendered
that whole territory a scene of violence and outrage. Two of them,
Walter and Odo, were bribed by William to deliver the fortresses of
St. Valori and Albemarle into his hands: others soon after imitated
the example of revolt, while Philip, king of France, who ought to have
protected his vassal in the possession of his fief, was, after making
some efforts in his favor, engaged by large presents to remain neuter.
The duke had also reason to apprehend danger from the intrigues of his
brother Henry.

This young prince, who had inherited nothing of his father’s great
possessions but some of his money, has furnished Robert, while he was
making his preparations against England, with ihe sum of three thousand
marks; and in return for so slender a supply, had been put in possession
of the Cotentin, which comprehended near a third of the duchy of
Normandy. Robert afterwards, upon some suspicion, threw him into prison;
but finding himself exposed to invasion from the king of England, ind
dreading the conjunction of the two brothers against him, he now gave
Henry his liberty, and even made use of his assistance in suppressing
the insurrections of his rebellious subjects. Conan, a rich burgess of
Rouen, had entered into a conspiracy to deliver that city to William;
but Henry, on the detection of his guilt, carried the traitor up to a
high tower and with his own hands flung him from the battlements.

The king appeared in Normandy at the head of an army and affairs seemed
to have come to extremity between the brothers, when the nobility on
both sides, strongly connected by interest and alliances, interposed,
and meditated an accommodation. The chief advantage of this treaty
accrued to William, who obtained possession of the territory of Eu, the
towns of Aumule, Fescamp, and other places; but in return he promised,
that he would assist his brother in subduing Maine, which had rebelled;
and that the Norman barons, attainted in Robert’s cause, should be
restored to their estates in England. The two brothers also stipulated,
that, on the demise of either without issue, the survivor should inherit
all his dominions; and twelve of the most powerful barons on each
side swore that they would employ their power to insure the effectual
execution of the whole treaty,[*] a strong proof of the great
independence and authority of the nobles in those ages.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 197. W. Malms, p. 121. Hoveden,
     p. 462. M Paris, p. 11. Annul. Waverl. p. 137. W. Heming. p.
     463. Sum 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 neighborhood
with his incursions. Robert and William, with their joint forces,
besieged him in this place, and had nearly reduced him by the scarcity
of water, when the elder, hearing of his distress, granted him
permission to supply himself, and also sent him some pipes of wine for
his own table. Being reproved by William for this ill-timed generosity,
he replied, “What, shall I suffer my brother to die of thirst? Where
shall we find another when he is gone?” The king also, during this
siege, performed an act of generosity which was less suitable to his
character. Riding out one day alone, to take a survey of the fortress,
he was attacked by two soldiers, and dismounted. One of them drew his
sword in order to despatch him, when the king exclaimed, “Hold, knave! I
am the king of England.” The soldier suspended his blow and, raising the
king from the ground with expressions of respect, received a handsome
reward, and was taken into his service. Prince Henry was soon after
obliged to capitulate; and being despoiled of all his patrimony,
wandered about for some time with very few attendants, and often in
great poverty.

{1091.} The continued intestine discord among the barons was alone in
that age destructive; the public wars were commonly short and feeble,
produced little bloodshed, and were attended with no memorable event.
To this Norman war, which was so soon concluded, there succeeded
hostilities with Scotland, which were not of longer duration. Robert
here Commanded his brother’s army, and obliged Malcolm to accept of
peace, and do homage to the crown of England. This peace was not more
durable. {1093.} Malcolm, two years after, levying an army, invaded
England; and after ravaging, Northumberland, he laid siege to Alnwick,
where, a party of Earl Moubray’s troops falling upon him by surprise,
a sharp action ensued in which Malcolm was slain. This incident
interrupted for some years the regular succession to the Scottish crown,
Though Malcolm left legitimate sons, his brother Donald, on account of
the youth of these princes, was advanced to the throne; but kept
not long possession of it. Duncan, natural son of Malcolm, formed a
conspiracy against him; and being assisted by William with a small
force, made himself master of the kingdom. New broils ensued with
Normandy. The frank, open, remiss temper of Robert was ill fitted to
withstand the interested, rapacious character of William, who, supported
by greater power, was still encroaching on his brother’s possessions,
and instigating his turbulent barons to rebellion against him. The king,
having gone over to Normandy to support his partisans, ordered an army
of twenty thousand men to be levied in England, and to be conducted to
the sea-coast, as if they were instantly to be embarked. {1094.} Here
Ralph Flambard, the king’s minister, and the chief instrument of his
extortions, exacted ten shillings apiece from them, in lieu of their
service, and then dismissed them into their several counties. This money
was so skilfully employed by William that it rendered him better service
than he could have expected from the army. He engaged the French king
by new presents to depart from the protection of Robert; and he daily
bribed the Norman barons to desert his service; but was prevented from
pushing his advantages by an incursion of the Welsh, which obliged him
to return to England, tie found no difficulty in repelling the enemy;
but was not able to make any considerable impression on a country
guarded by its mountainous situation. A conspiracy of his own barons
which was detected at this time, appeared a more serious concern,
and engrossed all his attention. {1095.} Robert Moubray, earl of
Northumberland, was at the head of this combination; and he engaged in
it the count d’Eu, Richard de Tunbridge, Roger de Lacy, and many others.
The purpose of the conspirators was to dethrone the king, and to
advance in his stead Stephen, count of Aumale, nephew to the Conqueror.
William’s despatch prevented the design from taking effect, and
disconcerted the conspirators. Moubray made some resistance; but being
taken prisoner, was attainted and thrown into confinement, where he died
about thirty years after. {1096.} The count d’Eu denied his concurrence
in the plot, and to justify himself, fought, in the presence of the
court at Windsor, a duel with Geoffrey Bainard, who accused him. But
being worsted in the combat, he was condemned to be castrated, and
to have his eyes put out. William de Alderi, another conspirator, was
supposed to be treated with more rigor when he was sentenced to be
hanged.

But the noise of these petty wars and commotions was quite sunk in the
tumult of the crusades, which now engrossed the attention of Europe, and
have ever since engaged the curiosity of mankind, as the most signal and
most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or
nation. After Mahomet had, by means of his pretended revelations, united
the dispersed Arabians under one head, they issued forth from their
deserts in great multitudes; and being animated with zeal for their new
religion, and supported by the vigor of their new government, they made
deep impression on the eastern empire, which was far in the decline with
regard both to military discipline and to civil policy. Jerusalem,
by its situation, became one of their most early conquests; and the
Christians had the mortification to see the holy sepulchre, and the
other places consecrated by the presence of their religious founder,
fallen into the possession of infidels. But the Arabians or Saracens
were so employed in military enterprises, by which they spread their
empire, in a few years, from the banks of the Ganges to the Straits of
Gibraltar, that they had no leisure for theological controversy; and
though the Alcoran, the original monument of their faith, seems to
contain some violent precepts, they were much less infected with the
spirit of bigotry and persecution than the indolent and speculative
Greeks, who were continually refining on the several articles of their
religious system. They gave little disturbance to those zealous pilgrims
who daily flocked to Jerusalem; and they allowed every man, after
paying a moderate tribute, to visit the holy sepulchre, to perform his
religious duties, and so return in peace. But the Turcomans or Turks,
a tribe of Tartars, who had embraced Mahometanism, having wrested Syria
from the Saracens, and having in the year 1065 made themselves masters
of Jerusalem, rendered the pilgrimage much more difficult and dangerous
to the Christians. The barbarity of their manners, and the confusions
attending their unsettled government, exposed the pilgrims to many
insults, robberies, and extortions; and these zealots, returning from
their meritorious fatigues and sufferings, filled all Christendom with
indignation against the infidels, who profaned the holy city by their
presence, and derided the sacred mysteries in the very place of
their completion. Gregory VII., among the other vast ideas which he
entertained, had formed the design of uniting all the western Christians
against the Mahometans; but the egregious and violent invasions of that
pontiff on the civil power of princes had created him so many enemies,
and had rendered his schemes so suspicious, that he was not able to make
great progress in this undertaking. The work was reserved for a meaner
instrument, whose low condition ir life exposed aim to no jealousy,
and whose folly was well calculated to coincide with the prevailing
principles of the times.

Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens, in Picardy, had
made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Being deeply affected with the dangers
to which that act of piety now exposed the pilgrims, as well as with the
instances of oppression under which the eastern Christians labored, he
entertained the bold, and, in all appearance, impracticable project of
leading into Asia, from the farthest extremities of the west, armies
sufficient to subdue those potent and warlike nations which now held
the holy city in subjection.[*] He proposed his views to Martin II., who
filled the papal chair, and who, though sensible of the advantages which
the head of the Christian religion must reap from a religious war, and
though he esteemed the blind zeal of Peter a proper means for effecting
the purpose,[**] resolved not to interpose his authority till he saw
a greater probability of success. He summoned a council at Placentia,
which consisted of four thousand ecclesiastics and thirty thousand
seculars; and which was so numerous that no hall could contain the
multitude, and it was necessary to hold the assembly in a plain.

     [* Gul. Tyrius, lib. i. cap. 11 M. Paria, p, 17.]

     [** Gul. Trrius, lib. i. cap. 13.]

The harangues of the pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal
situation of their brethren in the East, and the indignity suffered by
the Christian name, in allowing the holy city to remain in the hands of
infidels, here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the whole
multitude suddenly and violently declared for the war, and solemnly
devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious, as they
believed it, to God and religion.

But though Italy seemed thus to have zealously embraced the enterprise,
Martin knew that, in order to insure success, it was necessary to enlist
the greater and more warlike nations in the same engagement; and having
previously exhorted Peter to visit the chief cities and sovereigns of
Christendom, he summoned another council at Clermont, in Auvergne.[*]
The fame of this great and pious design being now universally diffused,
procured the attendance of the greatest prelates, nobles, and princes;
and when the pope and the hermit renewed their pathetic exhortations,
the whole assembly, as if impelled by an immediate inspiration, not
moved by their preceeding impressions, exclaimed with one voice, “It is
the will of God, It is the will of God”--words deemed so memorable and
so much the result of a divine influence, that they were employed as
the signal of rendezvous and battle in all the future exploits of those
adventurers.[**] Men of all ranks flew to arms with the utmost ardor;
and an exterior symbol too--a circumstance of chief moment,--was here
chosen by the devoted combatants. The sign of the cross, which had been
hitherto so much revered among Christians, and which, the more it was
an object of reproach among the pagan world, was the more passionately
cherished by them, became the badge of union, and was affixed to
their right shoulder by all who enlisted themselves in this sacred
warfare.[***]

Europe was at this time sunk into profound ignorance and superstition.
The ecclesiastics had acquired the greatest ascendant over the human
mind; the people, who, being little restrained by honor, and less by
law, abandoned themselves to the worst crimes and disorders, knew of no
other expiation than the observances imposed on them by their spiritual
pastors; and it was easy to represent the holy war as an equivalent for
all penances,[****] and an atonement for every violation of justice and
humanity.

     [* Concil. torn. x. Concil. Clarom. M. Paris, p.
     16. M. West, p. 233.]

     [** Historia Bell. Sacri, torn. i. Musaei Ital.]

     [*** Hist. Bell Sacri, tom. i. Mua. Ital. Order.
     Vitalis, p. 721.]

     [**** Order. Vitalis, p. 720.]

But amidst the abject superstition which now prevailed, the military
spirit also had universally diffused itself; and though not supported
by art or discipline, was become the general passion of the nations
governed by the feudal law. All the great lords possessed the right
of peace and war: they were engaged in perpetual hostilities with each
other: the open country was become a scene of outrage and disorder: the
cities, still mean and poor, were neither guarded by walls nor protected
by privileges, and were exposed to every insult: individuals were
obliged to depend for safety on their own force, or their private
alliances; and valor was the only excellence which was held in esteem,
or gave one man the preeminence above another. When all the particular
superstitions, therefore, were here united in one great object, the
ardor for military enterprises took the same direction; and Europe,
impelled by its two ruling passions, was loosened, as it were, from its
foundations, and seemed to precipitate itself in one united body upon
the East.

All orders of men, deeming the crusades the only road to heaven,
enlisted themselves under these sacred banners, and were impatient
to open the way with their sword to the holy city. Nobles, artisans,
peasants, even priests,[*] enrolled their names; and to decline this
meritorious service was branded with the reproach of impiety, or,
what perhaps was esteemed still more disgraceful, of cowardice and
pusillanimity.[**] The infirm and aged contributed to the expedition by
presents and money; and many of them, not satisfied with the merit of
this atonement, attended it in person, and were determined, if possible,
to breathe their last in sight of that city where their Savior had died
for them. Women themselves, concealing their sex under the disguise of
armor, attended the camp; and commonly forgot still more the duty of
their sex, by prostituting themselves without reserve to the army.[***]
The greatest criminals were forward in a service which they regarded
as a propitiation for all crimes; and the most enormous disorders were,
during the course of those expeditions, committed by men inured to
wickedness, encouraged by example, and impelled by necessity. The
multitude of the adventurers soon became so great, that their more
sagacious leaders, Hugh, count of Vermandois, brother to the French
king, Raymond, count of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, prince of
Brabant, and Stephen, count of Blois,[****] became apprehensive lest the
greatness itself of the armament should disappoint its purpose; and they
permitted an undisciplined multitude, computed at three hundred thousand
men, to go before them, under the command of Peter the Hermit, and
Walter the Moneyless.[*****]

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 720.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 133,]

     [*** Vertot, Hist. de Chev. de Malte, vol. i. p.
     46.]

     [**** Sim. Dunelm. p. 222]

     [***** M. Paris, p. 17.]

These men took the road towards Constantinople, through Hungary and
Bulgaria; and trusting that Heaven, by supernatural assistance, would
supply all their necessities, they made no provision for subsistence
on their march. They soon found themselves obliged to obtain by plunder
what they had vainly expected from miracles; and the enraged inhabitants
of the countries through which they passed, gathering together in arms,
attacked the disorderly multitude, and put them to slaughter without
resistance. The more disciplined armies followed after; and passing the
straits at Constantinople, they were mustered in the plains of Asia,
and amounted in the whole to the number of seven hundred thousand
combatants.[*]

Amidst this universal frenzy, which spread itself by contagion
throughout Europe, especially in France and Germany, men were not
entirely forgetful of their present interests; and both those who went
on this expedition, and those who stain behind, entertained schemes of
gratifying by its means their avarice or their ambition. The nobles who
enlisted themselves were moved, from the romantic spirit of the age, to
hope for opulent establishments in the East, the chief seat of arts and
commerce during those ages; and in pursuit of these chimerical projects,
they sold at the lowest price their ancient castles and inheritances,
which had now lost all value in their eyes. The greater princes, who
remained at home, besides establishing peace in their dominions by
giving occupation abroad to the inquietude and martial disposition of
their subjects, took the opportunity of annexing to their crown many
considerable fiefs, either by purchase or by the extinction of heirs.
The pope frequently turned the zeal of the crusaders from the infidels
against his own enemies, whom he represented as equally criminal with
the enemies of Christ. The convents and other religious societies bought
the possessions of the adventurers; and as the contributions of the
faithful were commonly intrusted to their management, they often
diverted to this purpose what was intended to be employed against the
infidels.[**] But no one was a more immediate gainer by this epidemic
fury than the king of England, who kept aloof from all connections with
those fanatical and romantic warriors.

     [* M. Paris, p. 20, 21.]

     [** Padre Paolo, Hist. delle Benef. Eccles. p.
     128]

Robert, duke of Normandy, impelled by the bravery and mistaken
generosity of his spirit, had early enlisted himself in the crusade;
but being always unprovided with money, he found that it would be
impracticable for him to appear in a manner suitable to his rank
and station, at the head of his numerous vassals and subjects, who,
transported with the general rage, were determined to follow him into
Asia. He resolved, therefore, to mortgage, or rather to sell, his
dominions, which he had not talents to govern; and he offered them to
his brother William for the very unequal sum of ten thousand marks.[*]
The bargain was soon concluded: the king raised the money by violent
extortions on his subjects of all ranks, even on the convents, who were
obliged to melt their plate in order to furnish the quota demanded of
them[**] he was put in possession of Normandy and Maine; and Robert,
providing himself with a magnificent train, set out for the Holy Land,
in pursuit of glory, and in full confidence of securing his eternal
salvation.

The smallness of this sum, with the difficulties which William found
in raising it, suffices alone to refute the account which is heedlessly
adopted by historians, of the enormous revenue of the Conqueror. Is it
credible that Robert would consign to the rapacious hands of his brother
such considerable dominions, for a sum which, according to that account,
made not a week’s income of his father’s English revenue alone? or
that the king of England could not on demand, without oppressing his
subjects, have been able to pay him the money? The Conqueror, it is
agreed, was frugal as well as rapacious, yet his treasure at his death
exceeded not sixty thousand pounds, which hardly amounted to his income
for two months; another certain refutation of that exaggerated account.

The fury of the crusades during this age less infected England than the
neighboring kingdoms; probably because the Norman conquerors, finding
their settlement in that kingdom still somewhat precarious, durst
not abandon their homes in quest of distant adventures. The selfish,
interested spirit also of the king, which kept him from kindling in the
general flame, checked its progress among his subjects; and as he is
accused of open profaneness,[***] and was endued with a sharp wit,[****]
it is likely that he made the romantic chivalry of the crusaders the
object of his perpetual raillery.

     [* W. Malms, p. 123. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 24.
     Annal. Waverl p. 139. W. Heming. p. 467. Flor. Wigorn. p.
     648. Sim. Dunelm, p. 222. Knyghton, p. 2364.]

     [** Eadmer,p. 35. W. Malms, p. 123. W. Heming. p.
     467.]

     [*** Gul. Newbr. p. 358. Gul. Gemet. p. 292.]

     [**** W. Malms, p. 122].

As an instance of his religion, we are told that he once accepted of
sixty marks from a Jew, whose son had been converted to Christianity,
and who engaged him by that present to assist him in bringing back the
youth to Judaism. William employed both menaces and persuasion for that
purpose; but finding the convert obstinate in his new faith, he sent for
the father, and told him that as he had not succeeded, it was not just
that he should keep the present; but as he had done his utmost, it
was but equitable that he should be paid for his pains; and he would
therefore retain only thirty marks of the money.[*] At another time,
it is said, he sent for some learned Christian theologians and some
rabbies, and bade them fairly dispute the question of their religion in
his presence. He was perfectly indifferent between them; had his ears
open to reason and conviction; and would embrace that doctrine
which, upon comparison, should be found supported by the most solid
arguments.[**] If this story be true, it is probable that he meant only
to amuse himself by turning both into ridicule; but we must be cautious
of admitting every thing related by the monkish historians to the
disadvantage of this prince. He had the misfortune to be engaged in
quarrels with the ecclesiastics, particularly with Anselm, commonly
called St. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury; and it is no wonder his
memory should be blackened by the historians of that order.

After the death of Lanfranc, the king for several years retained in
his own hands the revenues of Canterbury, as he did those of many other
vacant bishoprics: but falling into a dangerous sickness, he was seized
with remorse; and the clergy represented to him, that he was in danger
of eternal perdition, if before his death he did not make atonement
for those multiplied impieties and sacrileges of which he had been
guilty.[***] He resolved, therefore, to supply instantly the vacancy of
Canterbury; and for that purpose he sent for Anselm, a Piedmontese
by birth, abbot of Bee, in Normandy, who was much celebrated for his
learning and piety. The abbot earnestly refused the dignity, fell on
his knees, wept, and entreated the king to change his purpose,[****] and
when he found the prince obstinate in forcing the pastoral staff upon
him, he kept his fist so fast clinched, that it required the utmost
violence of the bystanders to open it, and force him to receive that
ensign of spiritual dignity.[*****]

     [* Eadmer, p. 47.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 123.]

     [*** Eadmer, p. 16. Chron. Sax. p. 198,]

     [**** Eadmer, p. 17. Diceto, p. 494.]

     [***** Eadmer, p. 18.]

William soon after recovered; and his passions regaining their wonted
vigor, he returned to his former violence and rapine. He detained in
prison several persons whom he had ordered to be freed during the time
of his penitence; he still preyed upon the ecclesiastical benefices;
the sale of spiritual dignities continued as open as ever; and he kept
possession of a considerable part of the revenues belonging to the see
of Canterbury.[**] But he found in Anselm that persevering opposition
which he had reason to expect from the ostentatious humility which that
prelate had displayed in refusing his promotion.

The opposition made by Anselm was the more dangerous on account of the
character of piety which he soon acquired in England by his great zeal
against all abuses, particularly those in dress and ornament. There was
a mode which, in that age, prevailed throughout Europe, both among men
and women, to give an enormous length to their shoes, to draw the toe to
a sharp point, and to affix to it the figure of a bird’s bill, or some
such ornament, which was turned upwards, and which was often sustained
by gold or silver chains tied to the knee.[***] The ecclesiastics took
exception at this ornament, which, they said, was an attempt to bely
the Scripture, where it is affirmed, that no man can add a cubit to
his stature; and they declaimed against it with great vehemence, nay,
assembled some synods, who absolutely condemned it. But--such are the
strange contradictions in human nature--though the clergy, at that time,
could overturn thrones, and had authority sufficient to send above a
million of men on their errand to the deserts of Asia, they could never
prevail against these long-pointed shoes: on the contrary, that caprice,
contrary to all other modes, maintained its ground during several
centuries; and if the clergy had not at last desisted from their
persecution of it, it might still have been the prevailing fashion in
Europe.

     [** Eadmer, p. 19, 43. Chron. Sax. p. 199.]

     [*** Order. Vitalis, p. 082. W. Malms, 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.[*]

When William’s profaneness therefore returned to him with his health, he
was soon engaged in controversies with this austere prelate. There was
at that time a schism in the church between Urban and Clement, who
both pretended to the papacy;[**] and Anselm, who, as abbot of Bee,
had already acknowledged the former, was determined, without the king’s
consent, to introduce his authority into England.[***] William, who,
imitating his father’s example, had prohibited his subjects from
recognizing any pope whom he had not previously received, was enraged at
this attempt, and summoned a synod at Buckingham, with an intention of
deposing Anselm; but the prelate’s suffragans declared, that, without
the papal authority, they knew of no expedient for inflicting that
punishment on their primate.[****] The king was at last engaged by other
motives to give the preference to Urban’s title; Anselm received the
pall from that pontiff; and matters seemed to be accommodated between
the king and the primate,[*****] when the quarrel broke out afresh from
a new cause. William had undertaken an expedition against Wales, and
required the archbishop to furnish his quota of soldiers for that
service, but Anselm, who regarded the demand as an oppression on the
church, and yet durst not refuse compliance, sent them so miserably
accoutred, that the king was extremely displeased, and threatened
him with a prosecution.[******] Anselm, on the other hand, demanded
positively that all the revenues of his see should be restored to him;
appealed to Borne against the king’s injustice;[*******] and affairs
came to such extremities, that the primate, finding it dangerous to
remain in the kingdom, desired and obtained the king’s permission to
retire beyond sea. All his temporalities were seized;[********] but he
was received with great respect by Urban, who considered him as a martyr
in the cause of religion, and even menaced the king, on account of his
proceedings against the primate and the church with the sentence of
excommunication.

     [* Eadmer, p. 23.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 463]

     [*** Eadmer, p. 25. M. Paris, p. 13. Diceto, p.
     494. Spei Concil vol. ii. p. 16.]

     [**** Eadmer, p. 30]

     [***** Diceto, p 495.]

     [****** Eadmer, p. 37, 43.]

     [******* Eadmer, p. 40.]

     [******** M. Paris, p. 13. Parker, p. 178.]

Anselm assisted at the council of Bari, where, besides fixing the
controversy between the Greek and Latin churches concerning the
procession of the Holy Ghost,[*] the right of election to church
preferments was declared to belong to the clergy alone, and spiritual
censures were denounced against all ecclesiastics who did homage to
laymen for their sees or benefices, and against all laymen who exacted
it.[**] The rite of homage, by the feudal customs, was, that the vassal
should throw himself on his knees, should put his joined hands between
those of his superior, and should in that posture swear fealty to
him.[***] But the council declared & execrable that pure hands,
which could create God, and could offer him up as a sacrifice for the
salvation of mankind, should be put, after this humiliating manner,
between profane hands, which, besides being inured to rapine and
bloodshed, were employed day and night in impure purposes and obscene
contacts.[****] Such were the reasonings prevalent in that age;
reasonings which, though they cannot be passed over in silence, without
omitting the most curious and perhaps not the least instructive part
of history, can scarcely be delivered with the requisite decency and
gravity.

     [* Eadmer, p. 49. M. Paris, p. 13. Sim. Dunelm,p.
     224.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 14.]

     [*** Spelman. Du Cange, in verbo Hominium.]

     [**** W. Hemmg. p. 467. Flor. Wigorn. p. 649. Sim.
     Dunelm p. 524. Brompton, p. 994.]

{1097.} The cession of Normandy and Maine by Duke Robert increased the
king’s territories; but brought him no great increase of power, because
of the unsettled state of those countries the mutinous disposition of
the barons, and the vicinity of the French king, who supported them in
all their insurrections. Even Helie, lord of La Fleche, a small town
in Anjou, was able to give him inquietude; and this great monarch
was obliged to make several expeditions abroad, without being able
to prevail over so petty a baron, who had acquired the confidence and
affections of the inhabitants of Maine. He was, however, so fortunate as
at last to take him prisoner in a rencounter, but having released him,
at the intercession of the French king and the count of Anjou, he found
the province of Maine still exposed to his intrigues and incursions.
Helie, being introduced by the citizens into the town of Mans, besieged
the garrison in the citadel, {1099.} William, who was hunting in the
new forest when he received intelligence of this hostile attempt, was
so provoked, that he immediately turned his horse, and galloped to the
sea-shore at Dartmouth, declaring that he would not stop a moment till
he had taken, vengeance for the offence. He found the weather so cloudy
and tempestuous, that the mariners thought it dangerous to put to sea:
but the king hurried on board, and ordered them to set sail instantly;
telling them that they never yet heard of a king that was drowned.[*]
By this vigor and celerity he delivered the citadel of Mans from its
present danger, and pursuing Helie into his own territories, he laid
siege to Majol, a small castle in those parts: {1100.} but a wound which
he received before this place, obliged him to raise the siege; and he
returned to England.

The weakness of the greatest monarchs during this age, in their
military expeditions against their nearest neighbors, appears the more
surprising, when we consider the prodigious numbers, which even petty
princes, seconding the enthusiastic rage of the people, were able
to assemble, and to conduct in dangerous enterprises to the remote
provinces of Asia. William earl of Poitiers and duke of Guienne,
inflamed with the glory and not discouraged by the misfortunes, which
had attended the former adventurers in the crusades, had put himself at
the head of an immense multitude, computed by some historians to amount
to sixty thousand horse, and a much greater number of foot,[**] and he
purposed to lead them into the Holy Land against the infidels. He wanted
money to forward the preparations requisite for this expedition, and he
offered to mortgage all his dominions to William, without entertaining
any scruple on account of that rapacious and iniquitous hand to which he
resolved to consign them.[***]

     [* W. Malms, p. 124. H. Hunting, p. 378. M. Paris,
     p. 33. Ypod. Neust. p. 442.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 149. The whole is said, by Order.
     Vitalie (p. 789) to amount to three hundred thousand men.]

     [*** W. Maims, p. 127.]

The king accepted the offer; and had prepared a fleet and an army, in
order to escort the money and take possession of the rich provinces of
Guienne and Poictou; when an accident put an end to his life, and to all
his ambitious projects. He was engaged in hunting, the sole amusement,
and indeed the chief occupation of princes in those rude times, when
society was little cultivated and the arts afforded few objects worthy
of attention. Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman, remarkable for his
address in archery, attended him in this recreation, of which the new
forest was the scene: and as William had dismounted after a chase,
Tyrrel, impatient to show his dexterity, let fly an arrow at a stag
which suddenly started before him. The arrow, glancing from a tree,
struck the king in the breast, and instantly slew him;[*] while Tyrrel,
without informing any one of the accident, put spurs to his horse,
hastened to the sea-shore, embarked for France, and joined the crusade
in an expedition to Jerusalem; a penance which he imposed on himself for
this involuntary crime. The body of William was found in the forest
by the country people, and was buried without any pomp or ceremony at
Winchester. His courtiers were negligent in performing the last duties
to a master who was so little beloved; and every one was too much
occupied in the interesting object of fixing his successor, to attend
the funeral of a dead sovereign.

     [* W. Malms, p. 126. H. Hunting, p. 378. M. Paris,
     p. 87. Petr. Bles. p. 110]

The memory of this monarch is transmitted to us with little advantage
by the churchmen, whom he had offended; and though we may suspect in
general that their account of his vices is somewhat exaggerated, his
conduct affords little reason for contradicting the character which
they have assigned him, or for attributing to him any very estimable
qualities. He seems to have been a violent and tyrannical prince;
a perfidious, encroaching, and dangerous neighbor; an unkind and
ungenerous relation. He was equally prodigal and rapacious in the
management of his treasury; and if he possessed abilities, he lay so
much under the government of impetuous passions, that he made little
use of them in his administration; and he indulged without reserve that
domineering policy which suited his temper, and which, if supported, as
it was it him, with courage and vigor, proves often more successful in
disorderly times, than the deepest foresight and most refined artifice.

The monuments which remain of this prince in England are the Tower,
Westminster Hall, and London Bridge, which he built. The most laudable
foreign enterprise which he undertook was the sending of Edgar Atheling,
three years before his death, into Scotland, with a small army, to
restore Prince Edgar, the true heir of that kingdom, son of Malcolm,
and of Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling; and the enterprise proved
successful. It was remarked in that age, that Richard, an elder brother
of William’s, perished by an accident in the new forest; Richard, his
nephew, natural son of Duke Robert, lost his life in the same place
after the same manner; and all men, upon the king’s fate, exclaimed
that, as the Conqueror had been guilty of extreme violence in expelling
all the inhabitants of that large district to make room for his game,
the just vengeance of Heaven was signalized in the same place by the
slaughter of his posterity. William was killed in the thirteenth year of
his reign, and about the fortieth of his age. As he was never married,
he left no legitimate issue.

In the eleventh year of this reign, Magnus, king of Norway, made a
descent on the Isle of Anglesea; but was repulsed by Hugh, earl of
Shrewsbury. This is the last attempt made by the northern nations upon
England. That restless people seem about this time to have learned the
practice of tillage, which thenceforth kept them at home, and freed the
other nations of Europe from the devastations spread over them by
those piratical invaders. This proved one great cause of the subsequent
settlement and improvement of the southern nations.



CHAPTER VI.

[Illustration: 86.jpg HENRY I.]



HENRY I.

{1100.} After the adventurers in the holy war were assembled on the
banks of the Bosphorus, opposite to Constantinople, they proceeded on
their enterprise; but immediately experienced those difficulties which
their zeal had hitherto concealed from them, and for which, even if they
had foreseen them, it would have been almost impossible to provide
a remedy. The Greek emperor, Alexis Comnenus, who had applied to the
western Christians for succor against the Turks, entertained hopes, and
those but feeble ones, of obtaining such a moderate supply as, acting
under his command, might enable him to repulse the enemy; but he was
extremely astonished to see his dominions overwhelmed on a sudden by
such an inundation of licentious barbarians, who, though they pretended
friendship, despised his subjects as unwarlike, and detested them
as heretical. By all the arts of policy, in which he excelled, he
endeavored to divert the torrent; but while he employed professions,
caresses, civilities, and seeming services towards the leaders of the
crusade, he secretly regarded those imperious allies as more dangerous
than the open enemies by whom his empire had been formerly invaded.
Having effected that difficult point of disembarking them safely in
Asia, he entered into a private correspondence with Soliman, emperor
of the Turks; and practised every insidious art which his genius, his
power, or his situation enabled him to employ, for disappointing the
enterprise, and, discouraging the Latins from making thenceforward any
such prodigious migrations. His dangerous policy was seconded by the
disorders inseparable from so vast a multitude, who were not united
under one head, and were conducted by leaders of the most independent,
intractable spirit, unacquainted with military discipline, and
determined enemies to civil authority and submission. The scarcity of
provisions, the excess of fatigue, the influence of unknown climates,
joined to the want of concert in their operations, and to the sword of
a warlike enemy, destroyed the adventurers by thousands, and would have
abated the ardor of men impelled to war by less powerful motives. Their
zeal, however, their bravery, and their irresistible force still carried
them forward, and continually advanced them to the great end of their
enterprise. After an obstinate siege, they took Nice, the seat of the
Turkish empire; they defeated Soliman in two great battles; they made
themselves masters of Antioch; and entirely broke the force of the
Turks, who had so long retained those countries in subjection. The
soldan of Egypt, whose alliance they had hitherto courted, recovered, on
the fall of the Turkish power, his former authority in Jerusalem; and
he informed them by his ambassadors, that if they came disarmed to
that city, they might now perform their religious vows, and that all
Christian pilgrims, who should thenceforth visit the holy sepulchre,
might expect the same good treatment which they had ever received from
his predecessors. The offer was rejected; the soldan was required to
yield up the city to the Christians; and on his refusal, the champions
of the cross advanced to the siege of Jerusalem, which they regarded
as the consummation of their labors. By the detachments which they had
made, and the disasters which they had undergone, they were diminished
to the number of twenty thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse; but
these were still formidable from their valor, their experience, and the
obedience which, from past calamities, they had learned to pay to their
leaders. After a siege of five weeks, they took Jerusalem by assault;
and, impelled by a mixture of military and religious rage, they put the
numerous garrison and inhabitants to the sword, without distinction.
Neither arms defended the valiant, nor submission the timorous; no age
or sex was spared; infants on the breast were pierced by the same blow
with their mothers, who implored for mercy; even a multitude, to the
number of ten thousand persons, who had surrendered themselves prisoners
and were promised quarter, were butchered in cold blood by those
ferocious conquerors.[*] The streets of Jerusalem were covered with dead
bodies;[**] and the triumphant warriors, after every enemy was subdued
and slaughtered, immediately turned themselves, with the sentiments of
humiliation and contrition, towards the holy sepulchre.

     [* Vertot, vol. i. p. 57.]


     [** M. Paris, p. 34. Order.]

They threw aside their arms, still streaming with blood; they advanced
with reclined bodies, and naked feet and heads, to that sacred monument;
they sung anthems to their Savior, who had there purchased their
salvation by his death and agony; and their devotion enlivened by the
presence of the place where he had suffered, so overcame their fury,
that they dissolved in tears, and bore the appearance of every soft and
tender sentiment. So inconsistent is human nature with itself! and so
easily does the most effeminate superstition ally, both with the most
heroic courage and with the fiercest barbarity!

This great event happened on the fifth of July in the last year of
the eleventh century. The Christian princes and nobles, after choosing
Godfrey of Bouillon king of Jerusalem, began to settle themselves in
their new conquests; while some of them returned to Europe, in order
to enjoy at home that glory which their valor had acquired them in this
popular and meritorious enterprise. Among these was Robert, duke of
Normandy, who, as he had relinquished the greatest dominions of any
prince that attended the crusade, had all along distinguished himself
by the most intrepid courage, as well as by that affable disposition and
unbounded generosity which gain the hearts of soldiers, and qualify a
prince to shine in a military life. In passing through Italy, he became
acquainted with Sibylla, daughter of the count of Conversana, a young
lady of great beauty and merit, whom he espoused: indulging himself in
this new passion, as well as fond of enjoying ease and pleasure after
the fatigues of so many rough campaigns, he lingered a twelvemonth in
that delicious climate; and though his friends in the north looked every
moment for his arrival, none of them knew when they could with certainty
expect it. By this delay he lost the kingdom of England, which the
great fame he had acquired during the crusades, as well as his undoubted
title, both by birth and by the preceding agreement with his deceased
brother, would, had he been present, have infallibly secured to him.

Prince Henry was hunting with Rufus in the new forest, when intelligence
of that monarch’s death was brought him, and being sensible of the
advantage attending the conjuncture he hurried to Winchester, in order
to secure the royal treasure, which he knew to be a necessary implement
for facilitating his designs on the crown. He had scarcely reached the
place when William de Breteuil, keeper of the treasure, arrived, and
opposed himself to Henry’s pretensions. This nobleman, who had been
engaged in the same party of hunting, had no sooner heard of his
master’s death, than he hastened to take care of his charge; and he told
the prince, that this treasure, as well as the crown, belonged to his
elder brother, who was now his sovereign; and that he himself, for his
part, was determined, in spite of all other pretensions, to maintain
his allegiance to him. But Henry, drawing his sword, threatened him
with instant death if he dared to disobey him; and as others of the late
king’s retinue, who came every moment to Winchester, joined the prince’s
party, Breteuil was obliged to withdraw his opposition, and to acquiesce
in this violence.[*]

     [* Order. Vitalis, 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;[**] and thus, by his
courage and celerity, he intruded himself into the vacant throne.

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 208. Order.]

No one had sufficient spirit or sense of duty to appear in defence
of the absent prince; all men were seduced or intimidated; present
possession supplied the apparent defects in Henry’s title, which was
indeed founded on plain usurpation; and the barons, as well as the
people, acquiesced in a claim, which, though it could neither be
justified nor comprehended, could now, they found, be opposed through
the perils alone of civil war and rebellion.

But as Henry foresaw that a crown usurped against all rules of justice
would sit unsteady on his head, he resolved, by fair professions at
least, to gain the affections of all his subjects. Besides taking the
usual coronation oath to maintain the laws and execute justice, he
passed a charter, which was calculated to remedy many of the grievous
oppressions which had been complained of during the reigns of his father
and brother.[*] He there promised, that, at the death of any bishop or
abbot, he never would seize the revenues of the see or abbey during the
vacancy, but would leave the whole to be reaped by the successor; and
that he would never let to farm any ecclesiastical benefice, nor dispose
of it for money. After this concession to the church, whose favor was
of so great importance, he proceeded to enumerate the civil grievances
which he purposed to redress. He promised that, upon the death of any
earl, baron, or military tenant, his heir should be admitted to the
possession of his estate, on paying a just and lawful relief, without
being exposed to such violent exactions as had been usual during the
late reigns: he remitted the wardship of minors, and allowed guardians
to be appointed, who should be answerable for the trust: he promised
not to dispose of any heiress in marriage but by the advice of all the
barons; and if any baron intended to give his daughter sister, niece,
or kinswoman in marriage, it should only be necessary for him to consult
the king, who promised to take no money for his consent, nor ever to
refuse permission, unless the person to whom it was purposed to marry
her should happen to be his enemy: he granted his barons and military
tenants the power of bequeathing by will their money or personal
estates; and if they neglected to make a will, he promised that their
heirs should succeed to them: he renounced the right of imposing
moneyage, and of levying taxes at pleasure on the farms which the barons
retained in their own hands:[**] he made some general professions of
moderating fines: he offered a pardon for all offences; and he remitted
all debts due to the crown: he required that the vassals of the barons
should enjoy the same privileges which he granted to his own barons; and
he promised a general confirmation and observance of the laws of King
Edward. This is the substance of the chief articles contained in that
famous charter.[***]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 208. Sim. Dunelm. p. 225.]

     [** See Appendix II.]

     [*** Mr Paris, p. 38. Hoveden, p. 468. Brompton, p. 1021.
     Haguistadt, 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;[*] and it is evident that the general promise here given,
of accepting a just and lawful relief, ought to have been reduced to
more precision, in order to give security to the subject. The oppression
of wardship and marriage was perpetuated even till the reign of Charles
II.; and it appears from Glanville,[**] the famous justiciary of Henry
II., that in his time, where any man died intestate--an accident which
must have been very frequent when the art of writing was so little
known--the king, or the lord of the fief, pretended to seize all the
movables, and to exclude every heir, even the children of the deceased;
a sure mark of a tyrannical and arbitrary government.

     [* Glanv. lib. ii. cap. 36.]

     [** Lib. vii. cap. 15.]

The Normans, indeed, who domineered in England, were, during this age,
so licentious a people, that they may be pronounced incapable of any
true or regular liberty; which requires such improvement in knowledge
and morals, as can only be the result of reflection and experience, and
must grow to perfection during several ages of settled and established
government. A people so insensible to the rights of their sovereign, as
to disjoint, without necessity, the hereditary succession, and permit
a younger brother to intrude himself into the place of the elder, whom
they esteemed, and who was guilty of no crime but being absent, could
not expect that. What is called a relief in the Conqueror’s laws,
preserved by Ingulf, seems to have been the heriot; since reliefs, as
well as the other burdens of the feudal law, were unknown in the age
of the Confessor, whose laws these originally were. This practice was
contrary to the laws of King Edward, ratified by the Conqueror, as
we learn from Ingulf, p. 91. But laws had at that time very little
influence: power and violence governed every thing. Prince would pay any
greater regard to their privileges, or allow his engagements to fetter
his power, and debar him from any considerable interest or convenience.
They had indeed arms in their hands, which prevented the establishment
of a total despotism, and left their posterity sufficient power,
whenever they should attain a sufficient degree of reason, to assume
true liberty; but their turbulent disposition frequently prompted them
to make such use of their arms, that they were more fitted to obstruct
the execution of justice, than to stop the career of violence and
oppression. The prince, finding that greater opposition was often made
to him when he enforced the laws than when he violated them, was apt
to render his own will and pleasure the sole rule of government; and on
every emergency to consider more the power of the persons whom he might
offend, than the rights of those whom he might injure. The very form of
this charter of Henry proves, that the Norman barons (for they, rather
than the people of England, are chiefly concerned in it,) were totally
ignorant of the nature of limited monarchy, and were ill qualified to
conduct, in conjunction with their sovereign, the machine of government.
It is an act of his sole power, is the result of his free grace,
contains some articles which bind others as well as himself, and is
therefore unfit to be the deed of any one who possesses not the
whole legislative power, and who may not at pleasure revoke all his
concessions.

Henry, further to increase his popularity, degraded and committed
to prison Ralph Flambard, bishop of Durham, who had been the chief
instrument of oppression under his brother.[*] But this act was followed
by another, which was a direct violation of his own charter, and was a
bad prognostic of his sincere intentions to observe it: he kept the
see of Durham vacant for five years, and during that time retained
possession of all its revenues. Sensible of the great authority which
Anselm had acquired by his character of piety, and by the persecutions
which he had undergone from William, he sent repeated messages to him at
Lyons, where he resided, and invited him to return and take possession
of his dignities.[**] On the arrival of the prelate, he proposed to him
the renewal of that homage which he had done his brother, and which had
never been refused by any English bishop; but Anslem had acquired
other sentiments by his journey to Rome, and gave the king an absolute
refusal.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 208. W. Malms, p. 156. M. Paris, p. 39.
     Alured. Beverl. p. 144.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 208. Order. Vitalis, p. 783. M. Paris, p.
     39 C. Judon, p 273.]

He objected the decrees of the council of Bari, at which he himself
had assisted; and he declared, that, so far from doing homage for
his spiritual dignity, he would not so much as communicate with any
ecclesiastic who paid that submission, or who accepted of investitures
from laymen. Henry, who expected, in his present delicate situation, to
reap great advantages from the authority and popularity of Anselm, durst
not insist on his demand;[*] he only desired that the controversy might
be suspended, and that messengers might be sent to Rome, in order to
accommodate matters with the pope, and obtain his confirmation of the
laws and customs of England.

There immediately occurred an important affair, in which the king was
obliged to have recourse to the authority of Anselm. Matilda, daughter
of Malcolm III., king of Scotland, and niece to Edgar Atheling, had,
on her father’s death, and the subsequent revolutions in the Scottish
government, been brought to England, and educated under her aunt
Christina, in the nunnery of Rumsey. This princess Henry purposed to
marry; but as she had worn the veil, though never taken the vows, doubts
might arise concerning the lawfulness of the act; and it behoved him to
be very careful not to shock, in any particular, the religious prejudges
of his subjects. The affair was examined by Anselm, in a council of
the prelates and nobles, which was summoned at Lambeth; Matilda there
proved, that she had put on the veil, not with a view of entering into
a religious life, but merely in consequence of a custom familiar to the
English ladies who protected their chastity from the brutal violence of
the Normans by taking shelter under that habit,[**] which, amidst the
horrible licentiousness of the times, was yet generally revered. The
council, sensible that even a princess had otherwise no security for her
honor, admitted this reason as valid: they pronounced that Matilda was
still free to marry;[***] and her espousals with Henry were celebrated
by Anselm with great pomp and solemnity.[****] No act of the king’s
reign rendered him equally popular with his English subjects, and tended
more to establish him on the throne. Though Matilda, during the life of
her uncle and brothers, was not heir of the Saxon line, she was become
very dear to the English on account of her connections with it; and that
people, who, before the conquest, had fallen into a kind of indifference
towards their ancient royal family, had felt so severely the tyranny
of the Normans, that they reflected with extreme regret on their former
liberty, and hoped for a more equal and mild administration, when the
blood of their native princes should be mingled with that of their new
sovereigns.[*****]

     [* W. Malms, p. 225.]

     [** Eadmer, p. 57.]

     [*** Eadmer p. 57.]

     [**** Hoveden, p. 468.]

     [***** M. Paris, p. 40.]

But the policy and prudence of Henry, which, if time had been allowed
for these virtues to produce their full effect, would have secured him
possession of the crown, ran great hazard of being frustrated by the
sudden appearance of Robert, who returned to Normandy about a month
after the death of his brother William. {1101.} He took possession,
without opposition, of that duchy; and immediately made preparations
for recovering England, of which, during his absence, he had, by Henry’s
intrigues, been so unjustly defrauded. The great fame which he had
acquired in the East forwarded his pretensions, and the Norman barons,
sensible of the consequences, expressed the same discontent at the
separation of the duchy and kingdom, which had appeared on the accession
of William. Robert de Belesme, earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel, William
de Warrenne, earl of Surrey, Arnulf de Montgomery, Walter Giffard,
Robert de Pontefract, Robert de Mallet, Yvo de Grentmesnil, and many
others of the principal nobility,[*] invited Robert to make an attempt
upon England, and promised on his landing to join him with all their
forces.

     [* Order. Vitalis, p. 785]

Even the seamen were affected with the general popularity of his name,
and they carried over to him the greater part of a fleet which had been
equipped to oppose his passage. Henry, in this extremity, began to be
apprehensive for his life, as well as for his crown and had recourse to
the superstition of the people, in order to oppose their sentiment of
justice. He paid diligent court to Anselm, whose sanctity and wisdom
he pretended to revere. He consulted him in all difficult emergencies;
seemed to be governed by him in every measure; promised a strict regard
to ecclesiastical privileges; professed a great attachment to Rome, and
a resolution of persevering in an implicit obedience to the decrees of
councils, and to the will of the sovereign pontiff. By these caresses
and declarations he entirely gained the confidence of the primate, whose
influence over the people, and authority with the barons, were of the
utmost service to him in his present situation. Anselm scrupled not to
assure the nobles of the king’s sincerity in those professions which he
made, of avoiding the tyrannical and oppressive government of his father
and brother: he even rode through the ranks of the army, recommended
to the soldiers the defence of their prince, represented the duty
of keeping their oaths of allegiance, and prognosticated to them the
greatest happiness from the government of so wise and just a sovereign.
By this expedient, joined to the influence of the earls of Warwick and
Mellent, of Roger Bigod, Richard de Redvers, and Robert Fitz-Hamon,
powerful barons, who still adhered to the present government, the army
was retained in the king’s interests, and marched, with seeming union
and firmness, to oppose Robert, who had landed with his forces at
Portsmouth.

The two armies lay in sight of each other for some days without coming
to action; and both princes, being apprehensive of the event, which
would probably be decisive, hearkened the more willingly to the counsels
of Anselm and the other great men, who mediated an accommodation between
them. After employing some negotiation, it was agreed, that Robert
should resign his pretensions to England, and receive, in lieu of
them, an annual pension of three thousand marks; that, if either of the
princes died without issue, the other should succeed to his dominions;
that the adherents of each should be pardoned, and restored to all their
possessions either in Normandy or England; and that neither Robert nor
Henry should thenceforth encourage, receive, or protect the enemies of
the other.[*]

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 209. W. Malms, p. 156.]

{1102.} This treaty, though calculated so much for Henry’s advantage, he
was the first to violate. He restored indeed the estates of all Robert’s
adherents; but was secretly determined, that noblemen so powerful and
so ill affected, who had both inclination and ability to disturb his
government, should not long remain unmolested in their present opulence
and grandeur. He began with the earl of Shrewsbury, why was watched
for some time by spies, and then indicted on a charge, consisting of
forty-five articles. This turbulent nobleman, knowing his own guilt, as
well as the prejudices of his judges and the power of his prosecutor,
had recourse to aims for defence; but being soon suppressed by the
activity and address of Henry, he was banished the kingdom, and
his great estate was confiscated. His ruin involved that of his two
brothers, Arnulf de Montgomery, and Roger, earl of Lancaster. Soon after
followed the prosecution and condemnation of Robert de Pontefract
and Robert de Mallet, who had distinguished themselves among Robert’s
adherents. William de Warrenne was the next victim; {1103.} even
William, earl of Cornwall, son of the earl of Mortaigne, the king’s
uncle, having given matter of suspicion against him, lost all the vast
acquisitions of his family in England. Though the usual violence and
tyranny of the Norman barons afforded a plausible pretence for those
prosecutions, and it is probable that none of the sentences pronounced
against these noblemen was wholly iniquitous, men easily saw, or
conjectured, that the chief part of their guilt was not the injustice or
illegality of their conduct Robert, enraged at the fate of his friends,
imprudently ventured to come into England; and he remonstrated with his
brother, in severe terms, against this breach of treaty; but met with so
bad a reception, thai he began to apprehend danger to his own liberty,
and was glad to purchase an escape by resigning his pension.

The indiscretion of Robert soon exposed him to more fatal injuries.
This prince, whose bravery and candor procured him respect while at a
distance, had no sooner attained the possession of power and enjoyment
of peace, than all the vigor of his mind relaxed; and he fell into
contempt among those who approached his person, or were subjected to his
authority. Alternately abandoned to dissolute pleasures and to womanish
superstition, he was so remiss, both in the care of his treasure and the
exercise of his government, that his servants pillaged his money with
impunity, stole from him his very clothes, and proceeded thence to
practise every species of extortion on his defenceless subjects. The
barons, whom a severe administration alone could have restrained,
gave way to their unbounded rapine upon their vassals, and inveterate
animosities against each other; and all Normandy, during the reign of
this benign prince, was become a scene of violence and depredation.
The Normans at last, observing the regular government which Henry,
notwithstanding his usurped title, had been able to establish in
England, applied to him, that he might use his authority for the
suppression of these disorders and they thereby afforded him a pretence
for interposing in the affairs of Normandy. Instead of employing his
mediation to render his brother’s government respectable, or to redress
the grievances of the Normans, he was only attentive to support his
own partisans, and to increase their number by every art of bribery,
intrigue, and insinuation. Having found, in a visit which he made to that
duchy, that the nobility were more disposed to pay submission to him
than to their legal sovereign, he collected, by arbitrary extortions on
England a great army and treasure, and returned next year to Normandy,
in a situation to obtain, either by violence or corruption, the dominion
of that province. {1105.} He took Baieux by storm, after an obstinate
siege; he made himself master of Caen, by the voluntary submission of
the inhabitants; but being repulsed at Falaise, and obliged, by the
winter season, to raise the siege, he returned into England; after
giving assurances to his adherents, that he would persevere in
supporting and protecting them.

{1106.} Next year he opened the campaign with the siege of Tenchebray;
and it became evident, from his preparations and progress, that he
intended to usurp the entire possession of Normandy. Robert was at last
roused from his lethargy; and being supported by the earl of Mortaigne
and Robert de Belesme, the king’s inveterate enemies, he raised a
considerable army, and approached his brother’s camp, with a view of
finishing, in one decisive battle, the quarrel between them. He was
now entered on that scene of action in which alone he was qualified to
excel; and he so animated his troops by his example, that they threw the
English into disorder, and had nearly obtained the victory,[*] when the
flight of Belesme spread a panic among the Normans, and occasioned their
total defeat. Henry, besides doing great execution on the enemy, made
near ten thousand prisoners; among whom was Duke Robert himself, and all
the most considerable barons, who adhered to his interests.[**]

     [* H. Hunting, p. 379. M. Paris, p. 48. Brompton,
     p. 1002.]

     [** Eadmer, p, 90. Chron. Sax. p. 214. Order.
     Vitalis p. 821.]

This victory was followed by the final reduction of Normandy: Rouen
immediately submitted to the conqueror: Falaise, after some negotiation,
opened its gates; and by this acquisition, besides rendering himself
master of an important fortress, he got into his hands Prince William,
the only son of Robert: he assembled the states of Normandy; and having
received the homage of all the vassals of the duchy, having settled the
government, revoked his brother’s donations, and dismantled the castles
lately built, he returned into England and carried along with him the
duke as prisoner. That unfortunate prince was detained in custody during
the remainder of his life, which was no less than twenty-eight years,
and he died in the castle of Cardiff in Glamorganshire; happy, if,
without losing his liberty, he could have relinquished that power which
he was not qualified either to hold or exercise. Prince William was
committed to the care of Helie de St. Saen, who had married Robert’s
natural daughter, and who, being a man of probity and honor, beyond what
was usual in those ages, executed the trust with great affection and
fidelity, Edgar Atheling, who had followed Robert in the expedition
to Jerusalem, and who had lived with him ever since in Normandy, was
another illustrious prisoner taken in the battle of Tenchebray.[*] Henry
gave him his liberty, and settled a small pension on him, with which he
retired; and he lived to a good old age in England, totally neglected
and forgotten. This prince was distinguished by personal bravery; but
nothing can be a stronger proof of his mean talents in every other
respect, than that, notwithstanding he possessed the affections of the
English, and enjoyed the only legal title to the throne, he was allowed,
during the reigns of so many violent and jealous usurpers, to live
unmolested, and go to his grave in peace.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 214. Annal. Waverl. p. 144]

{1107.} A little after Henry had completed the conquest of Normandy, and
settled the government of that province, he finished a controversy which
had been long depending between him and the pope, with regard to the
investitures in ecclesiastical benefices; and though he was here obliged
to relinquish some of the ancient rights of the crown, he extricated
himself from the difficulty on easier terms than most princes, who in
that age were so unhappy as to be engaged in disputes with the apostolic
see. The king’s situation in the beginning of his reign, obliged him to
pay great court to Anselm: the advantages which he had reaped from the
zealous friendship of that prelate, had made him sensible how prone
the minds of his people were to superstition, and what an ascendant the
ecclesiastics had been able to assume over them. He had seen, on the
accession of his brother Rufus, that though the rights of primogeniture
were then violated, and the inclinations of almost all the barons
thwarted, yet the authority of Lanfranc, the primate, had prevailed
over all other considerations: his own case, which was still more
unfavorable, afforded an instance in which the clergy had more evidently
shown their influence and authority. These recent examples, while they
made him cautious not to offend that powerful body, convinced him, at
the same time, that it was extremely his interest to retain the former
prerogative of the crown in filling offices of such vast importance, and
to check the ecclesiastics in that independence to which they visibly
aspired. The choice which his brother, in a fit of penitence, had made
of Anselm, was so far unfortunate to the king’s pretensions, that this
prelate was celebrated for his piety and zeal, and austerity of manners;
and though his monkish devotion and narrow principles prognosticated no
great knowledge of the world or depth of policy, he was, on that very
account, a more dangerous instrument in the hands of politicians, and
retained a greater ascendant over the bigoted populace. The prudence
and temper of the king appear in nothing more conspicuous than in the
management of this delicate affair; where he was always sensible that
it had become necessary for him to risk his whole crown, in order to
preserve the most invaluable jewel of it.[*]

Anselm had no sooner returned from banishment, than his refusal to do
homage to the king raised a dispute, which Henry evaded at that critical
juncture, by promising to send a messenger, in order to compound the
matter with Pascal II, who then filled the papal throne. The messenger,
as was probably foreseen, returned with an absolute refusal of the
king’s demands;[**] and that fortified by many reasons which were well
qualified to operate on the understandings of men in those ages. Pascal
quoted the Scriptures to prove that Christ was the door; and he thence
inferred that all ecclesiastics must enter into the church through
Christ alone, not through the civil magistrate, or any profane
laymen.[***]

     [* Eadmer, p. 56.]

     [** W Malms, p. 225]

     [*** Eadmer, p. 60. This topic is further enforced
     in p. 73, 74. See also W. Malms, p. 163.]

“It is monstrous,” added the pontiff, “that a son should pretend to
beget his father, or a man to create his God: priests are called gods in
Scripture, as being the vicars of God; and will you, by your abominable
pretensions to grant them their investiture, assume the right of
creating them?”[*]

But how convincing soever these arguments, they could not persuade Henry
to resign so important a prerogative; and perhaps, as he was possessed
of great reflection and learning, he thought that the absurdity of a
man’s creating his God, even allowing priests to be gods, was not urged
with the best grace by the Roman pontiff. But as he desired still to
avoid, at least to delay, the coming to any dangerous extremity with
the church, he persuaded Anselm that he should be able, by further
negotiation, to attain some composition with Pascal; and for that
purpose he despatched three bishops to Rome, while Anselm sent
two messengers of his own, to be more fully assured of the pope’s
intentions.[**] Pascal wrote back letters equally positive and arrogant,
both to the king and primate, urging to the former that, by assuming the
right of investitures, he committed a kind of spiritual adultery with
the church, who was the spouse of Christ, and who must not admit of such
a commerce with any other person;[***] and insisting with the latter,
that the pretension of kings to confer benefices was the source of all
simony; a topic which had but too much foundation in those ages.[****]

Henry had now no other expedient than to suppress the letter addressed
to himself, and to persuade the three bishops to prevaricate, and
assert, upon their episcopal faith, that Pascal had assured them in
private of his good intentions towards Henry, and of his resolution
not to resent any future exertion of his prerogative in granting
investitures, though he himself scrupled to give this assurance under
his hand, lest other princes should copy the example and assume a like
privilege.[*****]

     [* 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 Epist. St. Thorn, p. 169.]

     [** Eadmer, p. 62. W. Malms, p. 225.]

     [*** Eadmer, p. 63]

     [**** Eadmer, p. 64, 66.]

     [***** Eadmer, p. 65. W. Malms, p. 225]

Anselm’s two messengers, who were monks, affirmed to him that it was
impossible this story could have any foundation; but their word was
not deemed equal to that of three bishops; and the king, as if he had
finally gained his cause, proceeded to fill the sees of Hereford and
Salisbury, and to invest the new bishops in the usual manner.[*] But
Anselm, who, as he had good reason, gave no credit to the asseveration
of the king’s messengers, refused not only to consecrate them, but
even to communicate with them; and the bishops’ themselves, finding how
odious they were become, returned to Henry the ensigns of their dignity.
The quarrel every day increased between the king and the primate. The
former, notwithstanding the prudence and moderation of his temper, threw
out menaces against such as should pretend to oppose him in exerting
the ancient prerogatives of his crown; and Anselm, sensible of his own
dangerous situation, desired leave to make a journey to Rome, in order
to lay the case before the sovereign pontiff. Henry, well pleased to rid
himself without violence of so inflexible an antagonist, readily granted
him permission. The prelate was attended to the shore by infinite
multitudes, not only of monks and clergymen, but people of all ranks,
who scrupled not in this manner to declare for their primate against
their sovereign, and who regarded his departure as the final abolition
of religion and true piety in the kingdom.[**] The king, however, seized
all the revenues of his see; and sent William de Warelwast to negotiate
with Pascal, and to find some means of accommodation in this delicate
affair.

The English minister told Pascal, that his master would rather lose
his crown than part with the right of granting investitures. “And I,”
 replied Pascal, “would rather lose my head than allow him to retain
it.”[***] Henry secretly prohibited Anselm from returning, unless he
resolved to conform himself to the laws and usages of the kingdom; and
the primate took up his residence at Lyons, in expectation that the king
would at last be obliged to yield the point which was the present object
of controversy between them. Soon after, he was permitted to return to
his monastery at Bec, in Normandy; and Henry, besides restoring to him
the revenues of his see, treated him with the greatest respect, and held
several conferences with him, in order to soften his opposition, and
bend him to submission.[****]

     [* Eadmer, p. 66. W. Malms, p. 225. Hoveden, p.
     469. Sim. Dunelm. p. 228.]

     [** Eadmer, p. 71.]

     [*** Eadmer, p. 73 W. Malms, p. 226. M. Paris, p.
     40]

     [**** Hoveden, p. 471]

The people of England, who thought all differences now accommodated,
were inclined to blame their primate for absenting, himself so long
from his charge; and he daily received letters from his partisans
representing the necessity of his speedy return. The total extinction,
they told him, of religion and Christianity was likely to ensue from the
want of his fatherly care: the most shocking customs prevail in England;
and the dread of his severity being now removed, sodomy and the practice
of wearing long hair gain ground among all ranks of men, and these
enormities openly appear every where, without sense of shame or fear of
punishment.[*]

     [* 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 a universal and almost absolute monarchy
in Europe. But the wisdom of so long a succession of men who filled
the papal throne, and who were of such different ages, tempers, and
interests, is not intelligible, and could never have place in nature.
The instrument, indeed, with which they wrought, the ignorance and
superstition of the people, is so gross an engine, of such universal
prevalence, and so little liable to accident or disorder, that it may be
successful even in the most unskilful hands; and scarce any indiscretion
can frustrate its operations. While the court of Rome was openly
abandoned to the most flagrant disorders, even while it was torn with
schisms and factions, the power of the church daily made a sensible
progress in Europe; and the temerity of Gregory and caution of Pascal
were equally fortunate in promoting it. The clergy, feeling the
necessity which they lay under of being protected against the violence
of princes, or rigor of the laws, were well pleased to adhere to a
foreign head, who, being removed from the fear of the civil authority,
could freely employ the power of the whole church in defending her
ancient or usurped properties and privileges, when invaded in any
particular country. The monks, desirous of an independence on their
diocesans, professed a still more devoted attachment to the triple
crown; and the stupid people possessed no science or reason which they
could oppose to the most exorbitant pretensions. Nonsense passed for
demonstration: the most criminal means were sanctified by the piety of
the end: treaties were not supposed to be binding, where the interests
of God were concerned: the ancient laws and customs of states had no
authority against a divine right: impudent forgeries were received as
authentic monuments of antiquity: and the champions of holy church, if
successful, were celebrated as heroes; if unfortunate, were worshipped
as martyrs; and all events thus turned out equally to the advantage of
clerical usurpations. Pascal himself, the reigning pope, was, in the
course of this very controversy concerning investitures, involved in
circumstances, and necessitated to follow a conduct which would
have drawn disgrace and ruin on any temporal prince that had been so
unfortunate as to fail into a like situation. His person was seized by
the emperor Henry V., and he was obliged, by a formal treaty, to resign
to that monarch the right of granting investitures, for which they
had so long contended.[*] In order to add greater solemnity to this
agreement, the emperor and pope communicated together on the same
host; one half of which was given to the prince, the other taken by the
pontiff. The most tremendous imprecations were publicly denounced on
either of them who should violate the treaty; yet no sooner did Pascal
recover his liberty, than he revoked all his concessions, and pronounced
the sentence of excommunication against the emperor, who, in the end,
was obliged to submit to the terms required of him, and to yield up all
his pretensions, which he never could resume.[**]

The king of England had very nearly fallen into the same dangerous
situation: Pascal had already excommunicated the earl of Mallent, and
the other ministers of Henry who were instrumental in supporting
his pretensions:[***] he daily menaced the king himself with a like
sentence, and he suspended the blow only to give him leisure to prevent
it by a timely submission. The malecontents waited impatiently for
the opportunity of disturbing his government by conspiracies and
insurrections:[****] the king’s best friends were anxious at the
prospect of an incident which would set their religious and civil duties
at variance; and the countess of Blois, his sister, a princess of piety,
who had great influence over him, was affrightened with the danger of
her brother’s eternal damnation.[*****]

     [* W. Malms, p. 167.]

     [** Padre Paolo, sopra Benef. Eccles. p. 112. W.
     Malms, p. 179 Chron. Abb St. Petri de Burgo, p. 63. Sim.
     Dunelm. p. 233.]

     [*** Eadmer p. 79.]

     [**** Eadmer, p. 80.]

     [***** Eadmer, p. 79.]

Henry, on the other hand, seemed determined to run all hazards, rather
than resign a prerogative of such importance, which had been enjoyed by
all his predecessors; and it seemed probable from his great prudence
and abilities, that he might be able co sustain his rights, and finally
prevail in the contest. While Pascal and Henry thus stood mutually in
awe; of each other, it was the more easy to bring about an accommodation
between them, and to find a medium in which they might agree.

Before bishops took possession of their dignities, they had formerly
been accustomed to pass through two ceremonies: they received from the
hands of the sovereign a ring and crosier, as symbols of their office;
and this was called their investiture: they also made those submissions
to the prince which were required of vassals by the rites of the feudal
law, and which received the name of homage. And as the king might refuse
both to grant the investiture and to receive the homage, though the
chapter had, by some canons of the middle age, been endowed with the
right of election, the sovereign had in reality the sole power of
appointing prelates. Urban II. had equally deprived laymen of the rights
of granting investiture and of receiving homage:[*] the emperors never
were able, by all their wars and negotiations, to make any distinction
be admitted between them: the interposition of profane laymen, in any
particular, was still represented as impious and abominable; and the
church openly aspired to a total independence on the state. But Henry
had put England, as well as Normandy, in such a situation as gave
greater weight to his negotiations, and Pascal was for the present
satisfied with his resigning the right of granting investitures, by
which the spiritual dignity was supposed to be conferred; and he
allowed the bishops to do homage for their temporal properties
and privileges.[**] The pontiff was well pleased to have made this
acquisition, which, he hoped, would in time involve the whole; and the
king, anxious to procure an escape from a very dangerous situation,
was content to retain some, though a more precarious authority, in the
election of prelates.

     [* Eadmer, p. 91. W. Malms, p. 163. Sim. Dunelm.
     p. 230.]

     [** Eadmer, p. 91. W Malms, p. 164. 227. Hoveden,
     p. 471, M. Paris, p. 43. T. Rudborne, 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. If the pope allowed Anselm to
communicate with the prelates who had already received investitures from
the crown; and he only required of them some submissions for their past
misconduct.[*] He also granted Anselm a plenary power of remedying every
other disorder, which, he said, might arise from the barbarousness of he
country.[**] Such was the idea which the popes then entertained of the
English; and nothing can be a stronger proof of the miserable ignorance
in which that people were then plunged, than that, a man who sat on
the papal throne, and who subsisted by absurdities and nonsense, should
think himself entitled to treat them as barbarians.

During the course of these controversies, a synod was held at
Westminster, where the king, intent only on the mam dispute, allowed
some canons of less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote
the usurpations of the clergy. The celibacy of priests was enjoined; a
point which it was still found very difficult to carry into execution;
and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of
affinity.[***] By this contrivance, the pope augmented the profits which
he reaped from granting dispensations, and likewise those from divorces.
For as the art of writing was then rare, and parish registers were not
regularly kept, it was not easy to ascertain the degrees of affinity
even among people of rank; and any man, who had money sufficient to
pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on pretence that his wife was more
nearly related to him than was permitted by the canons. The synod also
passed a vote, prohibiting the laity from wearing long hair.[****] The
aversion of the clergy to this mode was not confined to England. When
the king went to Normandy, before he had conquered that province, the
bishop of Seeze, in a formal harangue, earnestly exhorted him to redress
the manifold disorders under which the government labored, and to oblige
the people to poll their hair in a decent form. Henry, though he would
not resign his prerogatives to the church willingly parted with his
hair: he cut it in the form which they required of him, and obliged all
the courtiers to imitate his example.[*****]

     [* Eadmer, p. 87.]

     [** Eadmer, p. 91.]

     [*** Eadmer, p 67, 68. Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p.
     22.]

     [**** Eadmer, p 68. ]

     [***** Order. Vitalis, p 816.]

The acquisition of Normandy was a great point of Henry’s ambition; being
the ancient patrimony of his family, and the only territory winch,
while in his possession, gave him any weight or consideration on the
continent: but the injustice of his usurpation was the source of great
inquietude, involved him in frequent wars, and obliged him to impose on
his English subjects those many heavy and arbitrary taxes, of which all
the historians of that age unanimously complain.[*] His nephew William
was but six years of age when he committed him to the care of Helie
de St. Saen; and it is probable that his reason for intrusting that
important charge to a man of so unblemished a character, was to prevent
all malignant suspicions, in case any accident should befall the life
of the young prince, {1110.} He soon repented of his choice; but when
he desired to recover possession of William’s person, Helie withdrew his
pupil, and carried him to the court of Fulk, count of Anjou, who gave
him protection.[**]

     [* Eadmer, p. 83. Chron. Sax. p. 211, 212, 213,
     219, 220, 228. H Hunting. p. 380. Hoveden, p. 470. Aimal.
     Waverl. p. 143.]

     [** Ordei Vitalis, p 837.]

In proportion as the prince grew up to man’s estate, he discovered
virtues becoming his birth; and wandering through different courts of
Europe, he excited the friendly compassion of many princes, and raised a
general indignation against his uncle, who had so unjustly bereaved him
of his inheritance. Lewis the Gross son of Philip, was at this time king
of France, a brave and generous prince, who, having been obliged, during
the lifetime of his father, to fly into England, in order to escape the
persecutions of his step-mother Gertrude, had been protected by Henry,
and had thence conceived a personal friendship for him. But these
ties were soon dissolved after the accession of Lewis, who found his
interests to be, in so many particulars opposite to those of the English
monarch, and who became sensible of the danger attending the annexation
of Normandy to England. He joined, therefore, the counts of Anjou and
Flanders in giving disquiet to Henry’s government; and this monarch, in
order to defend his foreign dominions, found himself obliged to go over
to Normandy, where he resided two years. The war which ensued among
those princes was attended with no memorable event, and produced only
slight skirmishes on the frontiers, agreeably to the weak condition of
the sovereigns in that age, whenever their subjects were not roused by
some great and urgent occasion. Henry, by contracting his eldest
son, William, to the daughter of Fulk, detached that prince from the
alliance, and obliged the others to come to an accommodation with him.
This peace was not of long duration. His nephew William retired to the
court of Baldwin, earl of Flanders, who espoused his cause; and the king
of France, having soon after, for other reasons, joined the party, a new
war was kindled in Normandy, which produced no event more memorable than
had attended the former. {1118.} At last the death of Baldwin, who was
slain in an action near Eu, gave some respite to Henry, and enabled him
to carry on war with more advantage against his enemies.

Lewis, finding himself unable to wrest Normandy from the king by force
of arms, had recourse to the dangerous expedient of applying to the
spiritual power, and of affording the ecclesiastics a pretence to
interpose in the temporal concerns of princes. {1019.} He carried young
William to a general council, which was assembled at Rheims, by Pope
Calixtus II., presented the Norman prince to them, complained of the
manifest usurpation and injustice of Henry, craved the assistance of the
church for reinstating the true heir in his dominions, and represented
the enormity of detaining in captivity so brave a prince as Robert,
one of the most eminent champions of the cross, and who, by that very
quality, was placed under the immediate protection of the holy see.
Henry knew how to defend the rights of his crown with vigor, and yet
with dexterity. He had sent over the English bishops to this synod;
but at the same time had warned them, that, if any further claims were
started by the pope or the ecclesiastics, he was determined to adhere
to the laws and customs of England and maintain the prerogatives
transmitted to him by his predecessors. “Go,” said he to them, “salute
the pope in my name; hear his apostolical precepts; but take care to
bring none of his new inventions into my kingdom.” Finding, however,
that it would be easier for him to elude than oppose the efforts of
Calixtus, he gave his ambassadors orders to gain the pope and his
favorites by liberal presents and promises. The complaints of the Norman
prince were thenceforth heard with great coldness by the council; and
Calixtus confessed, after a conference which he had the same sunaaier
with Henry, and when that prince probably renewed his presents, that,
of all men whom he had ever yet been acquainted with, he was, beyond
comparison, the most eloquent and persuasive.

The warlike measures of Lewis proved as ineffectual as his intrigues.
He had laid a scheme for surprising Noyon; but Henry, having received
intelligence of the design, marched to the relief of the place, and
suddenly attacked the French at Brenneville, as they were advancing
towards it. A sharp conflict ensued, where Prince William behaved with
great bravery, and the king himself was in the most imminent danger. He
was wounded in the head by Crispin, a gallant Norman officer, who had
followed the fortunes of William;[*] but being rather animated than
terrified by the blow, he immediately beat his antagonist to the ground,
and so encouraged his troops by the example, that they put the French to
total rout, and had very nearly taken their king prisoner. The dignity
of the persons engaged in this skirmish rendered it the most memorable
action of the war; for in other respects it was not of great importance.
There were nine hundred horsemen who fought on both sides, yet were
there only two persons slain. The rest were defended by that heavy armor
worn by the cavalry in those times.[**] An accommodation soon after
ensued between the kings of France and England, and the interests of
young William were entirely neglected in it.

     [* H. Hunting, p. 381. M. Paris, p 47. Diceto, p.
     503.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 854.]

{1120.} But this public prosperity of Henry was much overbalanced by
a domestic calamity, which befell him. His only son, William, had now
reached his eighteenth year; and the king, from the facility with which
he himself had usurped the crown, dreading that a like revolution might
subvert his family, had taken care to have him recognized successor by
the states of the kingdom, and had carried him over to Normandy, that he
might receive the homage of the barons of that duchy. The king, on his
return, set sail from Barfleur, and was soon carried by a fair wind
out of sight of land. The prince was detained by some accident; and his
sailors, as well as their captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephens, having spent
me interval in drinking, were so flustered, that, being in a hurry to
follow the king, they heedlessly carried the ship on a rock, where she
immediately foundered. William was put into the long boat, and had got
clear of the ship, when, hearing the cries of his natural sister, the
countess of Perche, he ordered the seamen to row back, in hopes of
saving her: but the numbers who then crowded in, soon sunk the boat;
and the prince with all his retinue perished. Above a hundred and forty
young noblemen, of the principal families of England and Normandy, were
lost on this occasion. A butcher of Rouen was the only person on board
who escaped:[*] he clung to the mast, and was taken up next morning by
fishermen. Fitz-Stephens also took hold of the mast; but being informed
by the butcher that Prince William had perished, he said that he
would not survive the disaster; and he threw himself headlong into the
sea.[**] Henry entertained hopes for three days that his son had put
into some distant port of England; but when certain intelligence of the
calamity was brought him, he fainted away; and it was remarked, that
he never after was seen to smile, nor ever recovered his wonted
cheerfulness.[***]

The death of William may be regarded, in one respect, as a misfortune
to the English; because it was the immediate source of those civil
wars which, after the demise of the king, caused such confusion in the
kingdom; but it is remarkable, that the young prince had entertained a
violent aversion to the natives; and had been heard to threaten, that
when he should be king he would make them draw the plough, and would
turn them into beasts of burden. These prepossessions he inherited from
his father; who, though he was wont, when it might serve his purpose, to
value himself on his birth, as a native of England,[****] showed, in the
course of his government, an extreme prejudice against that people. All
hopes of preferment to ecclesiastical as well as civil dignities were
denied them during this whole reign; and any foreigner, however
ignorant or worthless, was sure to have the preference in every
competition.[*****] As the English had given no disturbance to the
government during the course of fifty years, this inveterate antipathy
in a prince of so much temper as well as penetration, forms a
presumption that the English of that age were still a rude and barbarous
people even compared to the Normans, and impresses us with no very
favorable idea of the Anglo-Saxon manners.

Prince William left no children; and the king had not now any legitimate
issue, except one daughter, Matilda, whom, in 1110, he had betrothed,
though only eight years of age,[******] to the emperor Henry V., and
whom he had then sent over to be educated in Germany.[*******] [13]

     [* Sim. Dunelm. p. 242. Alured. Beverl. p. 148.]

     [** Order. Vitalis, p. 868.]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 476. Order. Vitalis, p. 869.]

     [**** Gul. Neubr. lib. i. cap, 3.]

     [***** Eadmer, p 110.]

     [****** Chron, Sax. p. 215. W. Malms, p. 166.
     Order. Vitalis, p 83]

     [******* See note M, at the end of the volume.]

But as her absence from the kingdom, and her marriage into a foreign
family, might endanger the succession, Henry, who was now a widower,
was induced to marry, in hopes of having male heirs; and he made his
addresses to Adelais, daughter of Godfrey, duke of Lovainc, and niece
of Pope Calixtus, a young princess of an amiable person.[*] {1121.} But
Adelais brought him no children; and the prince who was most likely to
dispute the succession, and even the immediate possession of the crown,
recovered hopes of subverting his rival, who had successively seized all
his patrimonial dominions. William, the son of Duke Robert, was still
protected in the French court; and as Henry’s connections with the count
of Anjou were broken off by the death of his son, Fulk joined the party
of the unfortunate prince, gave him his daughter in marriage, and aided
him in raising disturbances in Normandy. But Henry found the means
of drawing off the count of Anjou, by forming anew with him a nearer
connection than the former, and one more material to the interests of
that count’s family. {1127.} The emperor, his son-in-law, dying without
issue, he bestowed his daughter on Geoffrey, the eldest son of Fulk, and
endeavored to insure her succession, by having her recognized heir to
all his dominions, and obliging the barons both of Normandy and England
to swear fealty to her. He hoped that the choice of this husband would
be more agreeable to all his subjects than that of the emperor; as
securing them from the danger of falling under the dominion of a great
and distant potentate, {1128.} who might bring them into subjection,
and reduce their country to the rank of a province; but the barons were
displeased that a step so material to national interests had been taken
without consulting them;[**] and Henry had too sensibly experienced
the turbulence of their disposition not to dread the effects of their
resentment.

     [* Chron. Sax. p. 223. W. Malms, p. 165.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 175. The Annals of (Waverly p.
     150) say that the king asked and obtained the consent of all
     the barons.]

It seemed probable that his nephew’s party might gain force from the
increase of the malecontents; an accession of power, which that prince
acquired a little after, tended to render his pretensions still more
dangerous. Charles, earl of Flanders, being assassinated during the
celebration of divine service, King Lewis immediately put the young
prince in possession of that county, to which he had pretensions in the
right of his grandmother Matilda, wife to the Conqueror. But William
survived a very little time this piece of good fortune, which seemed to
open the way to still further prosperity. He was killed in a skirmish
with the landgrave of Alsace, his competitor for Flanders; and his death
put an end, for the present, to the jealousy and inquietude of Henry.

The chief merit of this monarch’s government consists in the profound
tranquillity which he established and maintained throughout all his
dominions during the greater part of his reign. The mutinous barons were
retained in subjection; and his neighbors, in every attempt which they
made upon him, found him so well prepared that they were discouraged
from continuing or renewing their enterprises. In order to repress the
incursions of the Welsh, he brought over some Flemings in the year
1111, and settled them in Pembrokeshire, where they long maintained
a different language, and customs, and manners, from their neighbors.
Though his government seems to have been arbitrary in England, it was
judicious and prudent; and was as little oppressive as the necessity
of his affairs would permit. He wanted not attention to the redress
of grievances; and historians mention in particular the levying of
purveyance, which he endeavored to moderate and restrain. The tenants
in the king’s demesne lands were at that time obliged to supply, gratis,
the court with provisions, and to furnish carriages on the same hard
terms, when the king made a progress, as he did frequently, into any
of the counties. These exactions were so grievous, and levied in so
licentious a manner, that the farmers, when they heard of the approach
of the court, often deserted their houses, as if an enemy had invaded
the country;[*] and sheltered their persons and families in the
woods, from the insults of the king’s retinue. Henry prohibited those
enormities, and punished the persons guilty of them by cutting off their
hands, legs, or other members.[**] But the prerogative was perpetual;
the remedy applied by Henry was temporary; and the violence itself of
this remedy, so far from giving security to the people, was only a proof
of the ferocity of the government, and threatened a quick return of like
abuses.

     [* Eadmer, p. 94. Chron. Sax., p. 212.]

     [** 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,[*] the king, who was then in the
commencement of his reign, and was involved in many difficulties, was
obliged to submit to this encroachment on his authority. But in the
year 1116, Anselm, abbot of St. Sabas, who was coming over with a like
legantine commission, was prohibited from entering the kingdom;[**]
and Pope Calixtus, who in his turn was then laboring under many
difficulties, by reason of the pretensions of Gregory, an antipope,
was obliged to promise that he never would for the future, except
when solicited by the king himself, send any legate into England.[***]
Notwithstanding this engagement, the pope, as soon as he had suppressed
his antagonist, granted the cardinal De Crema a legantine commission
over that kingdom; and the king, who, by reason of his nephew’s
intrigues and invasions, found himself at that time in a
dangerous situation, was obliged to submit to the exercise of this
commission.[****] A synod was called by the legate at London; where,
among other canons, a vote passed enacting severe penalties on the
marriages of the clergy.[*****] The cardinal, in a public harangue,
declared it to be an unpardonable enormity, that a priest should dare to
consecrate and touch the body of Christ immediately after he had risen
from the side of a strumpet; for that was the decent appellation which
he gave to the wives of the clergy. But it happened, that the very next
night the officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly house, found
the cardinal in bed with a courtesan;[******] an incident which threw
such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of the kingdom;
the synod broke up; and the canons against the marriage of clergymen
were worse executed than ever.[*******]

     [* Eadmer, p. 58.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 474.]

     [*** Eadmer, p. 125, 137, 138.]

     [**** Chron. Sax. p. 229.]

     [***** Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p. 34.]

     [****** Hoveden, p. 478. M. Paris. p. 48.]

     [******* M. West. ad ann 1125. H. Hunting. 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.

Henry, in order to prevent this alternate revolution of concessions
and encroachments, sent William, then archbishop of Canterbury, to
remonstrate with the court of Rome against those abuses, and to assert
the liberties of the English church. It was a usual maxim with every
pope, when he found that he could not prevail in any pretension, to
grant princes or states a power which they had always exercised, to
resume at a proper juncture the claim which seemed to be resigned, and
to pretend that the civil magistrate had possessed the authority only
from a special indulgence of the Roman pontiff. After this manner,
the pope, finding that the French nation would not admit his claim
of granting investitures, had passed a bull, giving the king that
authority; and he now practised a like invention to elude the complaints
of the king of England. He made the archbishop of Canterbury his legate,
renewed his commission from time to time, and still pretended that
the rights which that prelate had ever exercised as metropolitan, were
entirely derived from the indulgence of the apostolic see. The English
princes, and Henry in particular, who were glad to avoid any immediate
contest of so dangerous a nature, commonly acquiesced by their silence
in these pretensions of the court of Rome.[*] [14]

     [* See note N, at the end of the volume.]

{1131.} As every thing in England remained in tranquillity, Henry took
the opportunity of paying a visit to Normandy, to which he was invited,
as well by his affection for that country as by his tenderness for his
daughter the empress Matilda, who was always his favorite. Some time
after, that princess was delivered of a son, {1132.} who received the
name of Henry; and the king, further to insure her succession, made all
the nobility of England and Normandy renew the oath of fealty, {1135.}
which they had already sworn to her.[*] The joy of this event, and
the satisfaction which he reaped from his daughter’s company, who
bore successively two other sons, made his residence in Normandy very
agreeable to him;[**] and he seemed determined to pass the remainder of
his days in that country, when an incursion of the Welsh obliged him to
think of returning into England. He was preparing for the journey, but
was seized with a sudden illness at St. Dennis le Forment, from eating
too plentifully of lampreys, a food which always agreed better with his
palate than his constitution.[***]

     [* W. Malms, p. 177.]

     [** H. Hunting, p. 315.]

     [*** H. Hunting, p. 385. M. Paris p. 50.]

He died in the sixty-seventh year of his age and the thirty-fifth year
of his reign, leaving by will his daughter Matilda heir of all his
dominions, without making any mention of her husband, Geoffrey, who had
given him several causes of displeasure.[*]

     [* W. Malms, 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 humor, he knew how to
temper it with discretion, and ever kept at a distance from all indecent
familiarities with his courtiers. His superior eloquence and judgment
would have given him an ascendant, even had he been born in a private
station; and his personal bravery would have procured him respect,
though it had been less supported by art and policy. By his great
progress in literature, he acquired the name of ‘Beauclerk,’ or the
scholar; but his application to those sedentary pursuits abated nothing
of the activity and vigilance of his government; and though the learning
of that age was better fitted to corrupt than improve the understanding,
his natural good sense preserved itself untainted both from the pedantry
and superstition which were then so prevalent among men of letters. His
temper was susceptible of the sentiments as well of friendship as of
resentment; and his ambition, though high, might be deemed moderate and
reasonable, had not his conduct towards his brother and nephew showed
that he was too much disposed to sacrifice to it all the maxims of
justice and equity. But the total incapacity of Robert for government
afforded his younger brother a reason or pretence for seizing the
sceptre both of England and Normandy; and when violence and usurpation
are once begun, necessity obliges a prince to continue in the same
criminal course, and engages him in measures which his better judgment
and sounder principles would otherwise have induced him to reject with
warmth and indignation.

King Henry was much addicted to women; and historians mention no less
than seven illegitimate sons and six daughters born to him.[*] Hunting
was also one of his favorite amusements; and he exercised great rigor
against those who encroached on the royal forests, which were augmented
during his reign,[**] though their number and extent were already too
great. To kill a stag was as criminal as to murder a man: he made all
the dogs be mutilated which were kept on the borders of his forests; and
he sometimes deprived his subjects of the liberty of hunting on their
own lands, or even cutting their own woods. In other respects he
executed justice, and that with rigor; the best maxim which a prince
in that age could follow. Stealing was first made capital in this
reign;[***] false coining, which was then a very common crime, and by
which the money had been extremely debased, was severely punished by
Henry.* Near fifty criminals of this kind were at one time hanged or
mutilated; and though these punishments seem to have been exercised in
a manner somewhat arbitrary, they were grateful to the people, more
attentive to present advantages than jealous of general laws. There is
a code which passes under the name of Henry I.; but the best antiquaries
have agreed to think it spurious. It is, however, a very ancient
compilation, and may be useful to instruct us in the manners and customs
of the times. We learn from it, that a great distinction was then made
between the English and Normans, much to the advantage of the latter.*
The deadly feuds and the liberty of private revenge, which had been
avowed by the Saxon laws, were still continued, and were not yet wholly
illegal.[****]

Among the laws granted on the king’s accession, it is remarkable that
the reunion of the civil and ecclesiastical courts, as in the Saxon
times, was enacted.[*****] But this law, like the articles of his
charter, remained without effect, probably from the opposition of
Archbishop Anselm.

     [Footnonte * Sim. Dunelm. p. 231. Brompton, p. 1000. Flor. Wigorn. p.
     653 Hoveden, p. 471.]

     [Footnonte ** Sim. Dunelm. p. 231. Brompton, p. 1000. Hoveden, p. 471
     Annal. Waverl. p. 149.]

     [Footnonte *** LL. Hen. I. sect. 18, 75.]

     [Footnonte **** LL. Hen. I. sect. 82.]

     [Footnonte ***** Spel. 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 bold pleas of the crown; and it was exempted from scot,
danegelt, trials by combat, and lodging the king’s retinue These, with
a confirmation of the privileges of their court of hustings, wardmotes,
and common halls, and their liberty of hunting in Middlesex and Surrey,
are the chief articles of this charter.[*]

It is said [**] that this prince, from indulgence to his tenants,
changed the rents of his demesnes, which were formerly paid in kind,
into money, which was more easily remitted to the exchequer. But the
great scarcity of coin would render that commutation difficult to be
executed, while at the same time provisions could not be sent to a
distant quarter of the kingdom. This affords a probable reason why the
ancient kings of England so frequently changed their place of abode:
they carried their court from one place to another, that they might
consume upon the spot the revenue of their several demesnes.

     [Footnonte * Lambardi Archaionomia, ex edit. Twisden.
     Wilkins, p. 385.]

     [Footnonte ** Dail. de Scaocario, lib. i. cap. 7.]



CHAPTER VII.

[Illustration: 095.jpg STEPHEN]



STEPHEN.

_Contemporary Monarchs._

     EMP. OF GERM      K. OF SCOTLAND.   K. OF FRANCE    K. OF SPAIN.

     Lothaire II. 1138  David I. 1143   Louis VI. 1137  Alphonse VIII.
     Conrad III.  1152  Malcolm IV.     Louis VII.
     Frederic I.        Lucius II.1145

     POPES
     Innocent II. 1142
     Celestin II. 1144
     Eugenius III. 1153
     Anastasius IV.

{1135.} IN the progress and settlement of the feudal law, the male
succession to fiefs had taken place some time before the female was
admitted; and estates, being considered as military benefices, not as
property, were transmitted to such only as could serve in the armies,
and perform in person the conditions upon which they were originally
granted. But when the continuance of rights, during some generations,
in the same family, had, in a great measure, obliterated the primitive
idea, the females were gradually admitted to the possession of feudal
property; and the same revolution of principles which procured them the
inheritance of private estates, naturally introduced their succession to
government and authority. The failure, therefore, of male heirs to the
kingdom of England and duchy of Normandy, seemed to leave the succession
open, without a rival, to the empress Matilda; and as Henry had made all
his vassals in both states swear fealty to her, he presumed that they
would not easily be induced to depart at once from her hereditary right,
and from their own reiterated oaths and engagements. But the irregular
manner in which he himself had acquired the crown might have instructed
him, that neither his Norman nor English subjects were as yet capable of
adhering to a strict rule of government; and as every precedent of this
kind seems to give authority to new usurpations, he had reason to dread,
even from his own family, some invasion of his daughter’s title, which
he had taken such pains to establish.

Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, had been married to Stephen,
count of Blois, and had brought him several sons; among whom Stephen and
Henry, the two youngest, had been invited over to England by the late
king and had received great honors, riches, and preferment, from the
zealous friendship which that prince bore to every one that had been
so fortunate as to acquire his favor and good opinion. Henry, who had
betaken himself to the ecclesiastical profession, was created abbot of
Glastonbury and bishop of Winchester; and though these dignities
were considerable, Stephen had, from his uncle’s liberality, attained
establishments still more solid and durable.[*] The king had married him
to Matilda, who was daughter and heir of Eustace, count of Boulogne, and
who brought him, besides that feudal sovereignty in France, an immense
property in England, which, in the distribution of lands, had been
conferred by the Conqueror on the family of Boulogne. Stephen also
by this marriage acquired a new connection with the royal family of
England, as Mary, his wife’s mother, was sister to David, the reigning
king of Scotland, and to Matilda, the first wife of Henry, and mother
of the empress. The king, still imagining that he strengthened the
interests of his family by the aggrandizement of Stephen, took pleasure
in enriching him by the grant of new possessions; and he conferred on
him the great estate forfeited by Robert Mallet in England, and that
forfeited by the earl of Mortaigne in Normandy. Stephen, in return,
professed great attachment to his uncle, and appeared so zealous for
the succession of Matilda, that, when the barons swore fealty to that
princess, he contended with Robert, earl of Glocester, the king’s
natural son, who should first be admitted to give her this testimony of
devoted zeal and fidelity.[**] Meanwhile he continued to cultivate, by
every art of popularity, the friendship of the English nation; and many
virtues with which he seemed to be endowed, favored the success of his
intentions. By his bravery, activity, and vigor, he acquired the
esteem of the barons; by his generosity, and by an affable and familiar
address, unusual in that age among men of his high quality, he obtained
the affections of the people, particularly of the Londoners.[***] And
though he dared not to take any steps towards his further grandeur, lest
he should expose himself to the jealousy of so penetrating a prince as
Henry, he still hoped that, by accumulating riches and power, and by
acquiring popularity, he might in time be able to open his way to the
throne.

     [* Gul. Neubr. p. 360. Brompton, p. 1023.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 192.]

     [*** W. Malms, p. 179. Gest. Steph. p. 925.]

No sooner had Henry breathed his last, than Stephen, insensible to all
the ties of gratitude and fidelity, and blind to danger, gave full reins
to his criminal ambition; and trusted that, even without any previous
intrigue, the celerity of his enterprise, and the boldness of his
attempt, might overcome the weak attachment which the English and
Normans in that age bore to the laws and to the rights of their
sovereign. He hastened over to England, and though the citizens of
Dover and those of Canterbury, apprised of his purpose, shut their gates
against him, he stopped not till he arrived at London, where some of
the lower rank, instigated by his emissaries, as well as moved by his
general popularity, immediately saluted him king. His next point was to
acquire the good will of the clergy; and by performing the ceremony of
his coronation, to put himself in possession of the throne, from which
he was confident it would not be easy afterwards to expel him. His
brother, the bishop of Winchester, was useful to him in these capital
articles; having gained Roger, bishop of Salisbury, who, though he owed
a great fortune and advancement to the favor of the late king,
preserved no sense of gratitude to that prince’s family, he applied, in
conjunction with that prelate, to William, archbishop of Canterbury,
and required him, in virtue of his office, to give the royal unction
to Stephen. The primate, who, as all the others, had sworn fealty
to Matilda, refused to perform this ceremony; but his opposition was
overcome by an expedient equally dishonorable with the other steps
by which this revolution was effected. Hugh Bigod, steward of the
household, made oath before the primate, that the late king, on his
death-bed, had shown a dissatisfaction with his daughter Matilda, and
had expressed his intention of leaving the count of Boulogne heir to
all his dominions.[*] William, either believing or feigning to believe
Bigod’s testimony, anointed Stephen, and put the crown upon his head;
and from this religious ceremony, that prince, without any shadow,
either of hereditary title or consent of the nobility or people, was
allowed to proceed to the exercise of sovereign authority. Very few
barons attended his coronation;[**] but none opposed his usurpation,
however unjust or flagrant.

     [* M. Paris, p. 51. Diccto, p. 505 Chron. Durst.
     p. 23.]

     [* Brompton, p. 1023.]

The sentiment of religion which, if corrupted into superstition, has
often little efficacy in fortifying the duties of civil society, was
not affected by the multiplied oaths taken in favor of Matilda, and only
rendered the people obedient to a prince who was countenanced by the
clergy, and who had received from the primate the rite of royal unction
and consecration.[*]

Stephen, that he might further secure his tottering throne passed a
charter, in which he made liberal promises to all orders of men; to
the clergy, that he would speedily fill all vacant benefices, and would
never levy the rents of any of them during the vacancy; to the nobility,
that he would reduce the royal forests to their ancient boundaries, and
correct all encroachments; and to the people, that he would remit the
tax of danegelt, and restore the laws of King Edward.[**] The late king
had a great treasure at Winchester, amounting to a hundred thousand
pounds; and Stephen, by seizing this money, immediately turned against
Henry’s family the precaution which that prince had employed for their
grandeur and security; an event which naturally attends the policy of
amassing treasures. By means of this money, the usurper insured the
compliance, though not the attachment, of the principal clergy and
nobility; but not trusting to this frail security, he invited over from
the continent, particularly from Brittany and Flanders, great numbers
of those bravoes, or disorderly soldiers, with whom every country in
Europe, by reason of the general ill police and turbulent government,
extremely abounded.[***] These mercenary troops guarded his throne by
the terrors of the sword; and Stephen, that he might also overawe all
malecontents by new and additional terrors of religion, procured a bull
from Rome, which ratified his title, and which the pope, seeing this
prince in possession of the throne, and pleased with an appeal to his
authority in secular controversies, very readily granted him.[****]

     [* Such stress was formerly laid on the right 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.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 179. Hoveden, p. 482.]

     [*** W. Malms, p. 179.]

     [**** Hagulstadt, p. 259, 313.]

{1136.} Matilda and her husband Geoffrey were as unfortunate in Normandy
as they had been in England. The Norman nobility, moved by an hereditary
animosity against the Angevins, first applied to Theobold, count of
Blois, Stephen’s elder brother for protection and assistance; but
hearing afterwards that Stephen had got possession of the English crown,
and having, many of them, the same reasons as formerly for desiring a
continuance of their union with that kingdom, they transferred their
allegiance to Stephen, and put him in possession of their government.
Lewis the younger, the reigning king of France, accepted the homage
of Eustace, Stephen’s eldest son, for the duchy; and the more to
corroborate his connections with that family, he betrothed his sister
Constantia to the young prince. The count of Blois assigned all his
pretensions, and received in lieu of them an annual pension of two
thousand marks; and Geoffrey himself was obliged to conclude a truce for
two years with Stephen, on condition of the king’s paying him, during
that time, a pension of five thousand.[*] Stephen, who had taken a
journey to Normandy, finished all these transactions in person, and soon
after returned to England.

Robert, earl of Glocester, natural son of the late king, was a man of
honor and abilities; and as he was much attached to the interests of his
sister Matilda, and zealous for the lineal succession, it was chiefly
from his intrigues and resistance that the king had reason to dread a
new revolution of government. This nobleman, who was in Normandy when
he received intelligence of Stephen’s accession, found himself much
embarrassed concerning the measures which he should pursue in that
difficult emergency. To swear allegiance to the usurper appeared to him
dishonorable, and a breach of his oath to Matilda: to refuse giving
this pledge of his fidelity was to banish himself from England, and be
totally incapacitated from serving the royal family, or contributing to
their restoration.[**] He offered Stephen to do him homage, and to take
the oath of fealty; but with an express condition, that the king should
maintain all his stipulations, and should never invade any of Robert’s
rights or dignities; and Stephen, though sensible that this reserve, so
unusual in itself, and so unbefitting the duty of a subject, was meant
only to afford Robert a pretence for a revolt on the first favorable
opportunity, was obliged by the numerous friends and retainers of that
nobleman, to receive him on those terms.[***]

     [* M. Paris, p. 52.]

     [** W. Malms, p. 170.]

     [*** W. Malms, p. 179. M Paris, p. 51.]


The clergy, who could scarcely at this time be deemed subjects to the
crown, imitated that dangerous example: they annexed to their oaths of
allegiance this condition, that they were only bound so long as the king
defended the ecclesiastical liberties, and supported the discipline of
the church.[*] The barons, in return for their submission, exacted terms
still more destructive of public peace, as well as of royal authority.
Many of them required the right of fortifying their castles, and of
putting themselves in a posture of defence; and the king found himself
totally unable to refuse his consent to this exorbitant demand.[**] All
England was immediately filled with those fortresses, which the noblemen
garrisoned either with their vassals, or with licentious soldiers, who
flocked to them from all quarters. Unbounded rapine was exercised upon
the people for the maintenance of these troops; and private animosities,
which had with difficulty been restrained by law, now breaking out
without control, rendered England a scene of uninterrupted violence and
devastation. Wars between the nobles were carried on with the utmost
fury in every quarter; the barons even assumed the right of coining
money, and of exercising, without appeal, every act of jurisdiction;
[***] and the inferior gentry, as well as the people, finding no defence
from the laws during this total dissolution of sovereign authority, were
obliged, for their immediate safety, to pay court to some neighboring
chieftain, and to purchase his protection, both by submitting to his
exactions, and by assisting him in his rapine upon others. The erection
of one castle proved the immediate cause of building many others; and
even those who obtained not the king’s permission, thought that they
were entitled, by the great principle of self-preservation, to put
themselves on an equal footing with their neighbors, who commonly
were also their enemies and rivals. The aristocratical power, which is
usually so oppressive in the Feudal governments, had now risen to its
utmost height, during the reign of a prince who, though endowed with
vigor and abilities, had usurped the throne without the pretence of a
title, and who was necessitated to tolerate in others the same violence
to which he himself had been holden for his sovereignty.

     [* W. Malms, p. 179.]

     [** W. Malms, p, 180]

     [*** Trivet, p, 19 Gul Neub. p. 372. W. 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,[*] as well as the ancient privileges
of his subjects. The mercenary soldiers, who chiefly supported
his authority, having exhausted the royal treasure, subsisted by
depredations; and every place was filled with the best grounded
complaints against the government. The earl of Glocester, having now
settled with his friends the plan of an insurrection, retired beyond
sea, sent the king a defiance, solemnly renounced his allegiance, and
upbraided him with the breach of those conditions which had been annexed
to the oath of fealty sworn by that nobleman.[**]

     [* W. Malms, p. 180. M. Paris, p. 5 ]

     [** W. Malms, p. 180.]

{1137.} David, king of Scotland, appeared at the head of an army in
defence of his niece’s title, and penetrating into Yorkshire, committed
the most barbarous devastations on that country. {1138.} The fury of his
massacres and ravages enraged the northern nobility, who might otherwise
have been inclined to join him; and William, earl of Albemarle, Robert
de Ferrers, William Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger Moubray, Ilbert Lacy,
Walter l’Espee, powerful barons in those parts, assembled an army, with
which they encamped at North Allerton, and awaited the arrival of
the enemy. A great battle was here fought, called the battle of the
Standard, from a high crucifix, erected by the English on a wagon, and
carried along with the army as a military ensign. The king of Scots was
defeated; and he himself, as well as his son Henry, narrowly escaped
falling into the hands of the English. This success overawed the
malecontents in England, and might have given some stability to
Stephen’s throne, had he not been so elated with prosperity as to engage
in a controversy with the clergy, who were at that time an overmatch for
any monarch.

Though the great power of the church, in ancient times, weakened the
authority of the crown, and interrupted the course of the laws, it may
be doubted whether, in ages of such violence and outrage, it was not
rather advantageous that some limits were set to the power of the sword,
both in the hands of the prince and nobles, and that men were taught
to pay regard to some principles and privileges. {1139.} The chief
misfortune was, that the prelates, on some occasions, acted entirely
as barons, employed military power against their sovereign or their
neighbors, and thereby often increased those disorders which it was
their duty to repress. The bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the
nobility, had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at
the Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third at Malmsbury: his
nephew; Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at Newark;
and Stephen, who was now sensible from experience of the mischiefs
attending these multiplied; citadels, resolved to begin with destroying
those of the clergy, who by their function seemed less entitled than the
barons to such military securities.[*] Making pretence of a fray, which
had arisen in court between the retinue of the bishop of Salisbury and
that of the earl of Brittany, he seized both that prelate and the bishop
of Lincoln, threw them into prison, and obliged them by menaces to
deliver up those places of strength which they had lately erected.[**]

Henry, bishop of Winchester, the king’s brother, being armed with a
legantine commission, now conceived himself to be an ecclesiastical
sovereign no less powerful than the civil; and forgetting the ties of
blood which connected him with the king, he resolved to vindicate the
clerical privileges which, he pretended, were here openly violated. He
assembled a synod at Westminster, and there complained of the impiety
of Stephen’s measures, who had employed violence against the dignitaries
of the church, and had not awaited the sentence of a spiritual court, by
which alone, he affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if
their conduct had anywise merited censure or punishment.[***] The synod,
ventured to send a summons to the king, charging him to appear before
them, and to justify his measures;[****] and Stephen, instead of
resenting this indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause
before that assembly. De Vere accused; the two prelates of treason and
sedition; but the synod refused, to try the cause, or examine their
conduct, till those castles of which they had been dispossessed, were
previously restored to them.[*****] The bishop of Salisbury declared,
that he would appeal to the pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans
employed menaces, and even shown a disposition of executing violence
by the hands of the soldiery, affairs had instantly come to extremity
between the crown and the mitre.[******]

     [* Gul. Neub. p. 362.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 238. W. Malms, p. 181]

     [*** W. Malms p. 182.]

     [**** W. Malms, p. 182. M. Paris, p. 53,]

     [***** W. Malms, p 183.]

     [****** W. Malms p 183.]

While this quarrel, joined to so many other grievances, increased the
discontents among the people, the empress, invited by the opportunity,
and secretly encouraged by the legate himself, landed in England, with
Robert, earl of Glocester, and a retinue of a hundred and forty knights.
She fixed her residence at Arundel Castle, whose gates were opened to
her by Adelais, the queen dowager, now married to William de Albini,
earl of Sussex; and she excited, by messengers, her partisans to take
arms in every county of England. Adelais, who had expected that her
daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater
force, became apprehensive of danger; and Matilda, to ease her of her
fears, removed first to Bristol, which belonged to her brother Robert,
thence to Glocester, where she remained under the protection of Milo, a
gallant nobleman in those parts, who had embraced her cause. Soon after,
Geoffrey Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovell, William Fitz-John, William
Fitz-Alan, Paganell, and many other barons, declared for her; and her
party, which was generally favored in the kingdom, seemed every day to
gain ground upon that of her antagonist.

Were we to relate all the military events transmitted to us by
contemporary and authentic historians, it would be easy to swell our
accounts of this reign into a large volume; but those incidents, so
little memorable in themselves, and so confused both in time and place,
could afford neither instruction nor entertainment to the reader. It
suffices to say, that the war was spread into every quarter; and that
those turbulent barons, who had already shaken off, in a great measure,
the restraint of government, having now obtained the pretence of
a public cause, carried on their devastations with redoubled fury,
exercised implacable vengeance on each other, and set no bounds to their
oppressions over the people. The castles of the nobility were become
receptacles of licensed robbers, who, sallying forth day and night,
committed spoil on the open country, on the villages, and even on the
cities; put the captives to torture, in order to make them reveal their
treasures; sold their persons to slavery; and set fire to their houses,
after they had pillaged them of every thing valuable. The fierceness of
their disposition, leading them to commit wanton destruction, frustrated
their rapacity of its purpose; and the property and persons even of the
ecclesiastics, generally so much revered, were at last, from necessity,
exposed to the same outrage which had laid waste the rest of the
kingdom. The land was left untilled; the instruments of husbandry were
destroyed or abandoned; and a grievous famine, the natural result
of those disorders, affected equally both parties, and reduced the
spoilers, as well as the defenceless people, to the most extreme want
and indigence.[*]

     [* Chron. Sax, p. 238. W. Malms, p. 185. Gest.
     Steph. p. 961.]

{1140.} After several fruitless negotiations and treaties of peace,
which never interrupted these destructive hostilities, there happened at
last an event which seemed to promise some end of the public calamities.
Ralph, earl of Chester, and his half-brother, William de Roumara,
partisans of Matilda, had surprised the Castle of Lincoln; but the
citizens, who were better affected to Stephen, having invited him to
their aid, that prince laid close siege to the castle, in hopes of soon
rendering himself master of the place, either by assault or by famine.
The earl of Glocester hastened with an army to the relief of his
friends; and Stephen, informed of his approach, took the field with a
resolution of giving him battle. {1141.} After a violent shock, the
two wings of the royalists were put to flight; and Stephen himself,
surrounded by the enemy, was at last, after exerting great efforts of
valor, borne down by numbers and taken prisoner. He was conducted to
Glocester; and though at first treated with humanity, was soon after, on
some suspicion, thrown into prison, and loaded with irons.

Stephen’s party was entirely broken by the captivity of their leader,
and the barons came in daily from all quarters, and did homage to
Matilda. The princess, however, amidst all her prosperity, knew that she
was not secure of success, unless she could gain the confidence of
the clergy; and as the conduct of the legate had been of late very
ambiguous, and showed his intentions to have rather aimed at humbling
his brother, than totally ruining him, she employed every endeavor to
fix him in her interests. She held a conference with him in an open
plain near Winchester; where she promised upon oath, that if he would
acknowledge her for sovereign, would recognize her title as the sole
descendant of the late king, and would again submit to the allegiance
which he, as well as the rest of the kingdom, had sworn to her,
he should in return be entire master of the administration, and in
particular should, at his pleasure, dispose of all vacant bishoprics and
abbeys. Earl Robert, her brother, Brian Fitz-Count, Milo of Glocester,
and other great men, became guaranties for her observing these
engagements;[*] and the prelate was at last induced to promise her
allegiance, but that still burdened with the express condition, that
she should on her part fulfil her promises. He then conducted her to
Winchester, led her in procession to the cathedral, and with great
solemnity, in the presence of many bishops and abbots, denounced curses
against all those who cursed her, poured out blessings on those who
blessed her granted absolution to such as were obedient to her, and
excommunicated such as were rebellious.[**] Theobald, archbishop of
Canterbury, soon after came also to court, and swore allegiance to the
empress.[***]

     [* W. Malms, p. 187.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p 242. Contin. Flor. Wigorn. p.
     676]

     [*** W. Malms, p. 187.]

Matilda, that she might further insure the attachment of the clergy, was
willing to receive the crown from their hands; and instead of assembling
the states of the kingdom, the measure which the constitution, had it
been either fixed or regarded, seemed necessarily to require, she was
content that the legate should summon an ecclesiastical synod, and
that her title to the throne should there be acknowledged. The legate,
addressing himself to the assembly, told them, that in the absence of
the empress, Stephen, his brother, had been permitted to reign, and,
previously to his ascending the throne, had seduced them by many fair
promises, of honoring and exalting the church, of maintaining the laws,
and of reforming all abuses; that it grieved him to observe how much
that prince had in every particular been wanting to his engagements;
public peace was interrupted, crimes were daily committed with
impunity, bishops were thrown into prison and forced to surrender their
possessions, abbeys were put to sale, churches were pillaged and
the most enormous disorders prevailed in the administration; that he
himself, in order to procure a redress of these grievances, had formerly
summoned the king before a council of bishops; but instead of inducing
him to amend his conduct, had rather offended him by that expedient;
that, how much soever misguided, that prince was still his brother,
and the object of his affections; but his interests, however, must be
regarded as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had now
rejected him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies; that it
principally belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain kings; he had
summoned them together for that purpose; and having invoked the divine
assistance, he now pronounced Matilda, the only descendant of Henry,
their late sovereign, queen of England. The whole assembly, by their
acclamations or silence, gave or seemed to give, their assent to this
declaration.[*]

The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of
the crown, were the Londoners; and even these were required not to give
their opinion, but to submit to the decrees of the synod. The deputies
of London, however, were not so passive; they insisted that their king
should be delivered from prison; but were told by the legate, that it
became not the Londoners, who were regarded as noblemen in England,
to take part with those barons who had basely forsaken their lord in
battle, and who had treated holy church with contumely. It is with
reason that the citizens of London assumed so much authority, if it be
true, what is related by Fitz-Stephen, a contemporary author, that
that city should at this time bring into the field no less than eighty
thousand combatants.[**]

     [* W. Malms, p. 188. This author, a judicious man,
     was present, and says that he was very attentive to what
     passed. This speech therefore, may be regarded as entirely
     genuine.]

     [** 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, splendor, and
     commerce of London, proves only the great poverty of the
     other towns of the kingdoms 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.[*] The Londoners applied for the
establishment of King Edward’s laws, instead of those of King Henry,
which, they said, were grievous and oppressive.[**] All these petitions
were rejected in the most haughty and peremptory manner.

     [* Brompton, p. 1031.]

     [** Contin. Flor. Wigorn. p. 677. Gervase, p.1855]

The legate, who had probably never been sincere in his compliance with
Matilda’s government, availed himself of the ill humor excited by this
imperious conduct, and secretly instigated the Londoners to a revolt. A
conspiracy was entered into to seize the person of the empress, and
she saved herself from the danger by a precipitate retreat. She fled to
Oxford: soon after she went to Winchester, whither the legate, desirous
to save appearances, and watching the opportunity to ruin her cause, had
retired. But having assembled all his retainers, he openly joined his
force to that of the Londoners, and to Stephen’s mercenary troops,
who had not yet evacuated the kingdom; and he besieged Matilda in
Winchester. The princess, being hard pressed by famine, made her escape;
but in the flight, Earl Robert, her brother, fell into the hands of the
enemy. This nobleman, though a subject, was as much the life and soul of
his own party, as Stephen was of the other: and the empress, sensible of
his merit and importance, consented to exchange the prisoners on equal
terms. The civil war was again kindled with greater fury than ever.

{1142.} Earl Robert, finding the successes on both sides nearly
balanced, went over to Normandy, which, during Stephen’s captivity, had
submitted to the earl of Anjou; and he persuaded Geoffrey to allow his
eldest son, Henry, a young prince of great hopes, to take a journey
into England, and appear at the head of his partisans. {1143.} This
expedient, however, produced nothing decisive. Stephen took Oxford after
a long siege: he was defeated by Earl Robert at Wilton; and the empress,
though of a masculine spirit, yet being harassed with a variety of good
and bad fortune, and alarmed with continual dangers to her person and
family, at last retired into Normandy, {1146.} whither she had sent her
son some time before. The death of her brother, which happened nearly
about the same time, would have proved fatal to her interests, hail
not some incidents occurred which checked the course of Stephen’s
prosperity. This prince, finding that the castles built by the noblemen
of his own party encouraged the spirit of independence, and were little
less dangerous than those which remained in the hands of the enemy,
endeavored to extort from them a surrender of those fortresses and he
alienated the affections of many of them by this equitable demand. The
artillery, also, of the church, which his brother had brought over to
his side, had, after some interval, joined the other party. Eugenius
III. had mounted the papal throne; the bishop of Winchester was deprived
of the legantine commission, which was conferred on Theobald, archbishop
of Canterbury, the enemy and rival of the former legate. That pontiff,
also, having summoned a general council at Rheims, in Champagne, instead
of allowing the church of England, as had been usual, to elect its own
deputies, nominated five English bishops to represent that church, and
required their attendance in the council. Stephen, who, notwithstanding
his present difficulties, was jealous of the rights of his crown,
refused them permission to attend;[*] and the pope, sensible of his
advantage in contending with a prince who reigned by a disputed title,
took revenge by laying all Stephen’s party under an interdict.[**]
{1147.} The discontents of the royalists at being thrown into this
situation, were augmented by a comparison with Matilda’s party, who
enjoyed all the benefits of the sacred ordinances; and Stephen was at
last obliged, by making proper submissions to the see of Rome, to remove
the reproach from his party.[***]

{1148.} The weakness of both sides, rather than any decrease of mutual
animosity, having produced a tacit cessation of arms in England, many of
the nobility, Roger de Moubray, William de Warrenne, and others,
finding no opportunity to exert their military ardor at home, enlisted
themselves in a new crusade, which, with surprising success after former
disappointments and misfortunes, was now preached by St. Barnard.[****]
But an event soon after happened which threatened a revival of
hostilities in England. Prince Henry, who had reached his sixteenth
year, was desirous of receiving the honor of knighthood; a ceremony
which every gentleman in that age passed through before he was admitted
to the use of arms, and which was even deemed requisite for the greatest
princes.

     [* Epist. St. Thom, p. 225.]

     [** Chron. W. Thom, p. 1807.]

     [*** Epist. St. Thom, p. 226.]

     [**** Hagulstadt, p. 275, 276.]

He intended to receive his admission from his great-uncle, David, king
of Scotland; and for that purpose he passed through England with a great
retinue, and was attended by the most considerable of his partisans.
He remained some time with the king of Scotland, made incursions into
England, and by his dexterity and vigor in all manly exercises, by his
valor in war, and his prudent conduct in every occurrence, he roused the
hopes of his party, and gave symptoms of those great qualities which he
afterwards displayed when he mounted the throne of England. {1150.} Soon
after his return to Normandy, he was, by Matilda’s consent, invested in
that duchy, and upon the death of his father Geoffrey, which happened
in the subsequent year, he took possession both of Anjou and Maine, and
concluded a marriage which brought him a great accession of power, and
rendered him extremely formidable to his rival. Eleanor, the daughter
and heir of William, duke of Guienne, and earl of Poictou, had been
married sixteen years to Lewis VII., king of France, and had attended
him in a crusade which that monarch conducted against the infidels; but
having there lost the affections of her husband, and even fallen
under some suspicion of gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Lewis, more
delicate than politic, procured a divorce from her, and restored her
those rich provinces, which, by her marriage, she had annexed to the
crown of France. Young Henry, neither discouraged by the inequality
of years, nor by the reports of Eleanor’s gallantries, made successful
courtship to that princess, and espousing her six weeks after her
divorce, got possession of all her dominions as her dowry. {1152.} The
lustre which he received from this acquisition, and the prospect of
his rising fortune, had such an elect in England, that when Stephen,
desirous to insure the crown to his son Eustace, required the archbishop
of Canterbury to anoint that prince as his successor, the primate
refused compliance, and made his escape beyond sea, to avoid the
violence and resentment of Stephen.

{1153.} Henry, informed of these dispositions in the people, made
an invasion on England: having gained some advantage over Stephen at
Malmsbury, and having taken that place, he proceeded thence to throw
succors into Wallingford, which the king had advanced with a superior
army to besiege. A decisive action was every day expected, when the
great men of both sides, terrified at the prospect of further bloodshed
and confusion, interposed with their good offices, and set on foot a
negotiation between the rival princes, The death of Eustace, during the
course of the treaty, facilitated its conclusion: an accommodation was
settled, by which it was agreed that Stephen should possess the crown
during his lifetime, that justice should be administered in his name,
even in the provinces which had submitted to Henry, and that this latter
prince should, on Stephen’s demise, succeed to the kingdom, and William,
Stephen’s son, to Boulogne and his patrimonial estate. After all the
barons had sworn to the observance of this treaty, and done homage to
Henry, as to the heir of the crown, that prince evacuated the kingdom;
and the death of Stephen which happened next year, [October 25, 1154,]
after a short illness, prevented all those quarrels and jealousies which
were likely to have ensued in so delicate a situation.

England suffered great miseries during the reign of this prince: but
his personal character, allowing for the temerity and injustice of his
usurpation, appears not liable to any great exception; and he seems
to have been well qualified, had he succeeded by a just title, to
have promoted the happiness and prosperity of his subjects.[*] He was
possessed of industry, activity, and courage, to a great degree; though
not endowed with a sound judgment, he was not deficient in abilities;
he had the talent of gaining men’s affections, and notwithstanding his
precarious situation, he never indulged himself in the exercise of any
cruelty or revenge. His advancement to the throne procured him neither
tranquillity nor happiness; and though the situation of England
prevented the neighboring states from taking any durable advantage of
her confusions, her intestine disorders were to the last degree ruinous
and destructive. The court of Rome was also permitted, during those
civil wars, to make further advances in her usurpations; and appeals to
the pope, which had always been strictly prohibited by the English laws,
became now common in every ecclesiastical controversy.

     [* W. Malms, p. 180., M. Paris, p. 51 Hagul, p. 312.,  H.
     Hunting. p. 395.]



CHAPTER VIII.

[Illustration: 100.jpg HENRY II.]



HENRY II.

{1154.} The extensive confederacies, by which the European potentates
are now at once united and set in opposition to each other, and which,
though they are apt to diffuse the least spark of dissension throughout
the whole, are at least attended with this advantage, that they prevent
any violent revolutions or conquests in particular states, were totally
unknown in ancient ages; and the theory of foreign politics in each
kingdom formed a speculation much less complicated and involved than at
present. Commerce had not yet bound together the most distant nations
in so close a chain: wars, finished in one campaign, and often in one
battle, were little affected by the movements of remote states: the
imperfect communication among the kingdoms, and their ignorance of each
other’s situation, made it impracticable for a great number of them to
combine in one object or effort: and above all, the turbulent spirit and
independent situation of the barons or great vassals in each state, gave
so much occupation to the sovereign, that he was obliged to confine his
attention chiefly to his own state and his own system of government,
and was more indifferent about what passed among his neighbors. Religion
alone, not politics, carried abroad the views of princes, while it
either fixed their thoughts on the Holy Land, whose conquest and defence
was deemed a point of common honor and interest, or engaged them in
intrigues with the Roman pontiff, to whom they had yielded the direction
of ecclesiastical affairs, and who was every day assuming more authority
than they were willing to allow him.

Before the conquest of England by the duke of Normandy, this island
was as much separated from the rest of the world in politics as in
situation; and except from the inroads of the Danish pirates, the
English, happily confined at home, had neither enemies nor allies on the
continent. The foreign dominions of William connected them with the king
and great vassals of France; and while the opposite pretensions of
the pope and emperor in Italy produced a continual intercourse between
Germany and that country, the two great monarchs of France and England
formed, in another part of Europe, a separate system, and carried on
their wars and negotiations, without meeting either with opposition or
support from the others.

On the decline of the Carlovingian race, the nobles in every province of
France, taking advantage of the weakness of the sovereign, and obliged
to provide each for his own defence against the ravages of the Norman
freebooters, had assumed, both in civil and military affairs, an
authority almost independent, and had reduced within very narrow limits
the prerogative of their princes. The accession of Hugh Capet, by
annexing a great fief to the crown, had brought some addition to
the royal dignity; but this fief, though considerable for a subject,
appeared a narrow basis of power for a prince who was placed at the head
of so great a community. The royal demesnes consisted only of Paris,
Orleans, Estampes, Compiegne, and a few places scattered over the
northern provinces: in the rest of the kingdom, the prince’s authority
was rather nominal than real: the vassals were accustomed, nay,
entitled, to make war, without his permission, on each other: they were
even entitled, if they conceived themselves injured, to turn their arms
against their sovereign: they exercised all civil jurisdiction, without
appeal, over their tenants and inferior vassals: their common jealousy
of the crown easily united them against any attempt on their exorbitant
privileges; and as some of them had attained the power and authority
of great princes, even the smallest baron was sure of immediate and
effectual protection. Besides six ecclesiastical peerages, which,
with the other immunities of the church, cramped extremely the general
execution of justice, there were six lay peerages, Burgundy, Normandy
Guienne, Flanders, Toulouse, and Champagne, which formed very extensive
and puissant sovereignties. And though the combination of all those
princes and barons could on urgent occasions, muster a mighty power,
yet was it very difficult to set that great machine in movement; it was
almost impossible to preserve harmony in its parts; a sense of common
interest alone could, for a time, unite them under their sovereign
against a common enemy; but if the king attempted to turn the force
of the community against any mutinous vassal, the same sense of common
interest made the others oppose themselves to the success of his
pretensions. Lewis the Gross, the last sovereign, marched, at one time,
to his frontiers against the Germans at the head of an army of two
hundred thousand men; but a petty lord of Corbeil, of Puiset, of Couci,
was able, at another period, to set that prince at defiance, and to
maintain open war against him.

The authority of the English monarch was much more extensive within his
kingdom, and the disproportion much greater between him and the most
powerful of his vassals. His demesnes and revenue were large, compared
to the greatness of his state: he was accustomed to levy arbitrary
exactions on his subjects: his courts of judicature extended their
jurisdiction into every part of the kingdom: he could crush by his
power, or by a judicial sentence, well or ill founded, any obnoxious
baron: and though the feudal institutions, which prevailed in his
kingdom, had the same tendency, as in other states, to exalt the
aristocracy and depress the monarchy, it required in England, according
to its present constitution, a great combination of the vassals to
oppose their sovereign lord, and there had not hitherto arisen any baron
so powerful, as of himself to levy war against the prince, and to afford
protection to the inferior barons.

While such were the different situations of France and England, and the
latter enjoyed so many advantages above the former, the accession
of Henry II., a prince of great abilities, possessed of so many rich
provinces on the continent, might appear an event dangerous, if not
fatal to the French monarchy, and sufficient to break entirely the
balance between the states. He was master, in the right of his father,
of Anjou and Touraine; in that of his mother, of Normandy and Maine; in
that of his wife, of Guienne, Poictou, Xaintonge, Auvergne, Perigord,
Angoumois, the Limousin. He soon after annexed Brittany to his other
states, and was already possessed of the superiority over that province,
which, on the first cession of Normandy to Rollo the Dane, had been
granted by Charles the Simple in vassalage to that formidable ravager.
These provinces composed above a third of the whole French monarchy, and
were much superior, in extent and opulence, to those territories which
were subjected to the immediate jurisdiction and government of the king.
The vassal was here more powerful than his liege lord: the situation
which had enabled Hugh Capet to depose the Carlovingian princes, seemed
to be renewed, and that with much greater advantages on the side of the
vassal: and when England was added to so many provinces, the French king
had reason to apprehend, from this conjuncture, some great disaster to
himself and to his family. But, in reality, it was this circumstance,
which appeared so formidable, that saved the Capetian race, and, by
its consequences, exalted them to that pitch of grandeur which they at
present enjoy.

The limited authority of the prince in the feudal constitutions,
prevented the king of England from employing with advantage the force
of so many states which were subjected to his government; and these
different members, disjoined in situation, and disagreeing in laws,
language, and manners, were never thoroughly cemented into one monarchy.
He soon became, both from his distant place of residence and from
the incompatibility of interests, a kind of foreigner to his French
dominions; and his subjects on the continent considered their allegiance
as more naturally due to their superior lord, who lived in their
neighborhood, and who was acknowledged to be the supreme head of their
nation. He was always at hand to invade them; their immediate lord was
often at too great a distance to protect them; and any disorder in any
part of his dispersed dominions gave advantages against him The other
powerful vassals of the French crown were rather pleased to see the
expulsion of the English, and were not affected with that jealousy which
would have arisen from the oppression of a co-vassal who was of the same
rank with themselves. By this means, the king of France found it more
easy to conquer those numerous provinces from England than to subdue a
duke of Normandy or Guienne, a count of Anjou, Maine, or Poietou.
And after reducing such extensive territories, which immediately
incorporated with the body of the monarchy, he found greater facility in
uniting to the crown the other great fiefs which still remained separate
and independent.

But as these important consequences could not be foreseen by human
wisdom, the king of France remarked with terror the rising grandeur of
the house of Anjou or Plantagenet; and in order to retard its progress,
he had ever maintained a strict union with Stephen, and had endeavored
to support the tottering fortunes of that bold usurper. But after this
prince’s death, it was too late to think of opposing the succession of
Henry, or preventing the performance of those stipulations which, with
the unanimous consent of the nation, he had made with his predecessor.
The English, harassed with civil wars, and disgusted with the bloodshed
and depredations which, during the course of so many years, had attended
them were little disposed to violate their oaths, by excluding the
lawful heir from the succession of their monarchy.* Many of the most
considerable fortresses were in the hands of his partisans; the whole
nation had had occasion to see the noble qualities with which he was
endowed, and to compare them with the mean talents of William, the son
of Stephen; and as they were acquainted with his great power, and were
rather pleased to see the accession of so many foreign dominions to the
crown of England, they never entertained the least thoughts of resisting
him. Henry himself, sensible of the advantages attending his present
situation, was in no hurry to arrive in England; and being engaged in
the siege of a castle on the frontiers of Normandy, when he received
intelligence of Stephen’s death, he made it a point of honor not to
depart from his enterprise till he had brought it to an issue. He
then set out on his journey, and was received in England with the
acclamations of all orders of men, who swore with pleasure the oath of
fealty and allegiance to him.

{1155.} The first act of Henry’s government corresponded to the
high idea entertained of his abilities, and prognosticated the
reestablishment of justice and tranquillity, of which the kingdom had
so long been bereaved. He immediately dismissed all those mercenary
soldiers who had committed great disorders in the nation; and he sent
them abroad, together with William of Ypres, their leader, the friend
and confidant of Stephen. He revoked all the grants made by his
predecessor, even those which necessity had extorted from the empress
Matilda; and that princess, who had resigned her rights in favor of
Henry, made no opposition to a measure so necessary for supporting the
dignity of the crown. He repaired the coin, which had been extremely
debased during the reign of his predecessor; and he took proper measures
against the return of a like abuse. He was rigorous in the execution
of justice, and in the suppression of robbery and violence; and that
he might restore authority to the laws, he caused all the new erected
castles to be demolished, which had proved so many sanctuaries to
freebooters and rebels. The earl of Albemarle, Hugh Mortimer, and Roger
the son of Milo of Glocester, were inclined to make some resistance to
this salutary measure; but the approach of the king with his forces soon
obliged them to submit.

{1156.} Everything being restored to full tranquillity in England, Henry
went abroad in order to oppose the attempts of his brother Geoffrey,
who, during his absence, had made an incursion into Anjou and Maine,
{1157.} had advanced some pretensions to those provinces, and had got
possession of a considerable part of them. On the king’s appearance, the
people returned to their allegiance; and Geoffrey, resigning his claim
for an annual pension of a thousand pounds, departed and took possession
of the county of Nantz, which the inhabitants, who had expelled Count
Iloel, their prince, had put into his hands. Henry returned to England
the following year: the incursions of the Welsh then provoked him to
make an invasion upon them; where the natural fastnesses of the country
occasioned him great difficulties, and even brought him into danger.
His vanguard, being engaged in a narrow pass, was put to rout: Henry de
Essex, the hereditary standard-bearer, seized with a panic, threw down
the standard, took to flight, and exclaimed that the king was slain; and
had not the prince immediately appeared in person, and led on his troops
with great gallantry, the consequences might have proved fatal to the
whole army. For this misbehavior, Essex was afterwards accused of felony
by Robert de Montfort; was vanquished in single combat; his estate was
confiscated; and he himself was thrust into a convent. The submissions
of the Welsh procured them an accommodation with England.

{1158.} The martial disposition of the princes in that age engaged them
to head their own armies in every enterprise, even the most frivolous;
and their feeble authority made it commonly impracticable for them to
delegate, on occasion, the command to their generals. Geoffrey, the
king’s brother, died soon after he had acquired possession of Nantz;
though he had no other title to that county than the voluntary
submission or election of the inhabitants two years before, Henry laid
claim to the territory as devolved to him by hereditary right, and he
went over to support his pretensions by force of arms. Conan, duke or
earl of Brittany (for these titles are given indifferently by historians
to those princes) pretended that Nantz had been lately separated by
rebellion from his principality, to which of right it belonged; and
immediately on Geoffrey’s death, he took possession of the disputed
territory. Lest Lewis, the French king, should interpose in the
controversy, Henry paid him a visit; and so allured him by caresses
and civilities, that an alliance was contracted between them; and
they agreed that young Henry, heir to the English monarchy, should be
affianced to Margaret of France, though the former was only five years
of age; the latter was still in her cradle. Henry, now secure of meeting
with no interruption on this side, advanced with his army into Brittany;
and Conan, in despair of being able to make resistance, delivered up
the county of Nantz to him. The able conduct of the king procured
him further and more important advantages from this incident. Conan,
harassed with the turbulent disposition of his subjects, was desirous of
procuring to himself the support of so great a monarch; and he betrothed
his daughter and only child, yet an infant, to Geoffrey, the king’s
third son, who was of the same tender years. The duke of Brittany died
about seven years after; and Henry, being mesne lord and also natural
guardian to his son and daughter-in-law, put himself in possession of
that principality, and annexed it for the present to his other great
dominions.

{1159.} The king had a prospect of making still further acquisitions;
and the activity of his temper suffered no opportunity of that kind to
escape him. Philippa, duchess of Guienne, mother of Queen Eleanor,
was the only issue of William IV., count of Toulouse; and would have
inherited his dominions, had not that prince, desirous of preserving the
succession in the male line, conveyed the principality to his brother
Raymond de St. Gilles, by a contract of sale which was in that age
regarded as fictitious and illusory. By this means the title to the
county of Toulouse came to be disputed between the male and female
heirs; and the one or the other, as opportunities favored them, had
obtained possession. Raymond, grandson of Raymond de St. Gilles was
the reigning sovereign; and on Henry’s reviving his wife’s claim, this
prince had recourse for protection to the king of France, who was so
much concerned in policy to prevent the further aggrandizement of the
English monarch. Lewis himself, when married to Eleanor, had asserted
the justice of her claim, and had demanded possession of Toulouse; but
his sentiments changing with his interest, he now determined to defend,
by his power and authority, the title of Raymond. Henry found that
it would be requisite to support his pretensions against potent
antagonists; and that nothing but a formidable army could maintain a
claim which he had in vain asserted by arguments and manifestoes.

An army composed of feudal vassals was commonly very intractable and
undisciplined, both because of the independent spirit of the persons
who served in it, and because the commands were not given either by the
choice of the sovereign or from the military capacity and experience of
the officers. Each baron conducted his own vassals: his rank was greater
or less, proportioned to the extent of his property: even the supreme
command under the prince was often attached to birth; and as the
military vassals were obliged to serve only forty days at their own
charge, though, if the expedition were distant, they were put to great
expense, the prince reaped little benefit from their attendance. Henry,
sensible of these inconveniences, levied upon his vassals in Normandy
and other provinces, which were remote from Toulouse, a sum of money
in lieu of their service; and this commutation, by reason of the
great distance, was still more advantageous to his English vassals. He
imposed, therefore, a scutage of one hundred and eighty thousand pounds
on the knights’ fees, a commutation to which, though it was unusual,
and the first perhaps to be met with in history,[*] [16] the military
tenants willingly submitted; and with this money he levied an army which
was more under his command, and whose service was more durable and
constant.

     [* See note P, at the end of the volume.]

Assisted by Berenger, count of Barcelona, and Trincaval, count of
Nismes, whom he had gained to his party, he invaded the county of
Toulouse; and after taking Verdun, Castlenau, and other places, he
besieged the capital of the province, and was likely to prevail in the
enterprise; when Lewis, advancing before the arrival of his main body,
threw himself into the place with a small reenforcement. Henry was urged
by some of his ministers to prosecute the siege, to take Lewis prisoner,
and to impose his own terms in the pacification; but he either thought
it so much his interest to maintain the feudal principles, by which his
foreign dominions were secured, or bore so much respect to his superior
lord, that he declared he would not attack a place defended by him in
person; and he immediately raised the siege. He marched into Normandy
to protect that province against an incursion which the count of Dreux,
instigated by King Lewis, his brother, had made upon it. War was now
openly carried on between the two monarchs, but produced no memorable
event: it soon ended in a cessation of arms, and that followed by a
peace, which was not, however, attended with any confidence or good
correspondence between those rival princes. {1160.} The fortress of
Gisors, being part of the dowry stipulated to Margaret of France, had
been consigned by agreement to the knights templars, on condition that
it should be delivered into Henry’s hands after the celebration of
the nuptials. The king, that he might have a pretence for immediately
demanding the place, ordered the marriage to be solemnized between
the prince and princess, though both infants; and he engaged the grand
master of the templars, by large presents, as was generally suspected,
to put him in possession of Gisors.[*] {1161.} Lewis, resenting this
fraudulent conduct, banished the templars, and would have made war upon
the king of England, had it not been for the mediation and authority
of Pope Alexander III., who had been chased from Rome by the antipope,
Victor IV., and resided at that time in France.

     [* Since the first publication of this History,
     Lord Lyttleton 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, observe, that the two kings had the year
     before, met the pope at the castle of Torci on the Loir; 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: “a spectacle,”
      cries Baronius in an ecstasy, “to God, angels, and men; and
     such as had never before been exhibited to the world!”]

{1162.} Henry, soon after he had accommodated his differences with Lewis
by the pope’s mediation, returned to England; where he commenced an
enterprise, which, though required by sound policy, and even conducted
in the main with prudence, bred him great disquietude, involved him in
danger, and was not concluded without some loss and dishonor.

The usurpations of the clergy, which had at first been gradual, were
now become so rapid, and had mounted to such a height, that the contest
between the regale and pontificale was really arrived at a crisis in
England; and it became necessary to determine whether the king or the
priests, particularly the archbishop of Canterbury, should be sovereign
of the kingdom. The aspiring spirit of Henry, which gave inquietude to
all his neighbors, was not likely long to pay a tame submission to
the encroachments of subjects; and as nothing opens the eyes of men
so readily as their interest, he was in no danger of falling, in this
respect, into that abject superstition which retained his people in
subjection. From the commencement of his reign, in the government of his
foreign dominions, as well as of England, he had shown a fixed purpose
to repress clerical usurpations, and to maintain those prerogatives
which had been transmitted to him by his predecessors. During the schism
of the papacy between Alexander and Victor, he had determined, for some
time, to remain neuter; and when informed that the archbishop of Rouen
and the bishop of Mans had, from their own authority, acknowledged
Alexander as legitimate pope, he was so enraged, that, though he spared
the archbishop on account of his great age, he immediately issued orders
for overthrowing the houses of the bishop of Mans and archdeacon of
Rouen;[*] [17] and it was not till he had deliberately examined the
matter, by those views which usually enter into the councils of princes,
that he allowed that pontiff to exercise authority over any of his
dominions.

     [* See note Q, at the end of the volume.]

In England, the mild character and advanced years of Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury, together with his merits in refusing to put
the crown on the head of Eustace, son of Stephen, prevented Henry,
during the lifetime of that primate, from taking any measures against
the multiplied encroachments of the clergy; but after his death, the
king resolved to exert himself with more activity; and that he might be
secure against any opposition, he advanced to that dignity Becket, his
chancellor, on whose compliance he thought he could entirely depend.

Thomas à Becket, the first man of English descent who, since the Norman
conquest, had, during the course of a whole century, risen to any
considerable station, was born of reputable parents in the city of
London; and being endowed both with industry and capacity, he early
insinuated himself into the favor of Archbishop Theobald, and obtained
from that prelate some preferments and offices. By their means he was
enabled to travel for improvement to Italy, where he studied the civil
and canon law at Bologna; and on his return he appeared to have made
such proficiency in knowledge, that he was promoted by his patron to the
archdeaconry of Canterbury, an office of considerable trust and profit.
He was afterwards employed with success by Theobald in transacting
business at Rome; and on Henry’s accession, he was recommended to that
monarch as worthy of further preferment Henry, who knew that Becket had
been instrumental in supporting that resolution of the archbishop, which
had tended so much to facilitate his own advancement to the throne, was
already prepossessed in his favor; and finding on further acquaintance,
that his spirit and abilities entitled him to any trust he soon promoted
him to the dignity of chancellor, one of the first civil offices in the
kingdom. The chancellor, in that age, besides the custody of the great
seal, had possession of all vacant prelacies and abbeys; he was the
guardian of all such minors and pupils as were the king’s tenants; all
baronies which escheated to the crown were under his administration; he
was entitled to a place in council, even though he were not particularly
summoned; and as he exercised also the office of secretary of state, and
it belonged to him to countersign all commissions, writs, and letters
patent, he was a kind of prime minister and was concerned in the
despatch of every business of importance. Besides exercising this high
office, Becket by the favor of the king or archbishop, was made provost
of Beverley, dean of Hastings, and constable of the Tower: he was put
in possession of the honors of Eye and Berkham large baronies that had
escheated to the crown; and to complete his grandeur, he was intrusted
with the education of Prince Henry, the king’s eldest son, and heir
of the monarchy. The pomp of his retinue, the sumptuousness of his
furniture, the luxury of his table, the munificence of his presents,
corresponded to these great preferments; or rather exceeded any thing
that England had ever before seen in any subject. His historian and
secretary, Fitz-Stephens, mentions, among other particulars, that his
apartments were every day in winter covered with clean straw or hay, and
in summer with green rushes or boughs, lest the gentlemen who paid court
to him and who could not, by reason of their great number, find a place
at table, should soil their fine clothes by sitting on a dirty floor.[*]
A great number of knights were retained in his service; the greatest
barons were proud of being received at his table; his house was a place
of education for the sons of the chief nobility; and the king himself
frequently vouchsafed to partake of his entertainments. As his way of
life was splendid and opulent, his amusements and occupations were gay,
and partook of the cavalier spirit, which, as he had only taken deacon’s
orders, he did not think unbefitting his character. He employed himself
at leisure hours in hunting, hawking, gaming, and horsemanship; he
exposed his person in several military actions; he carried over, at
his own charge, seven hundred knights to attend the king in his wars
at Toulouse; in the subsequent wars on the frontiers of Normandy, he
maintained, during forty days, twelve hundred knights, and four
thousand of their train; and in an embassy to France, with which he was
intrusted, he astonished that court by the number and magnificence of
his retinue.


     [* John Baldwin held the manor of Oterarsfee in
     Aylesbury of the king in soccage, by the service of finding
     litter for the king’s bed, viz., in summer, grass or herbs,
     and two gray 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.]

Henry, besides committing all his more important business to Becket’s
management, honored him with his friendship and intimacy; and whenever
he was disposed to relax himself by sports of any kind, he admitted his
chancellor to the party. An instance of their familiarity is mentioned
by Fitz-Stephens which, as it shows the manners of the age, it may not
be improper to relate. One day, as the king and the chancellor were
riding together in the streets of London, they observed a beggar, who
was shivering with cold. “Would it not be very praiseworthy,” said the
king, “to give that poor man a warm coat in this severe season?” “It
would, surely,” replied the chancellor; “and you do well, sir, in
thinking of such good actions.” “Then he shall have one presently,”
 cried the king; and seizing the skirt of the chancellor’s coat, which
was scarlet, and lined with ermine, began to pull it violently. The
chancellor defended himself for some time; and they had both of them
like to have tumbled off their horses in the street, when Becket, after
a vehement struggle, let go his coat; which the king bestowed on the
beggar, who, being ignorant of the quality of the persons, was not a
little surprised at the present.

Becket, who, by his complaisance and good humor, had rendered himself
agreeable, and by his industry and abilities useful, to his master,
appeared to him the fittest person for supplying the vacancy made by the
death of Theobold. As he was well acquainted with the king’s intentions
of retrenching, or rather confining within the ancient bounds, all
ecclesiastical privileges, and always showed a ready disposition to
comply with them, Henry, who never expected any resistance from that
quarter, immediately issued orders for electing him archbishop of
Canterbury. But this resolution, which was taken contrary to the opinion
of Matilda, and many of the ministers, drew after it very unhappy
consequences; and never prince of so great penetration appeared, in
the issue, to have so little understood the genius and character of his
minister.

No sooner was Becket installed in this high dignity, which rendered
him for life the second person in the kingdom, with some pretensions
of aspiring to be the first, than he totally altered his demeanor and
conduct, and endeavored to acquire the character of sanctity, of which
his former busy and ostentatious course of life might, in the eyes of
the people, have naturally bereaved him. Without consulting the king,
he immediately returned into his hands the commission of chancellor;
pretending that he must thenceforth detach himself from secular affairs,
and be solely employed in the exercise of his spiritual function; but in
reality, that he might break off all connections with Henry, and apprise
him that Becket, as primate of England, was now become entirely a new
personage. He maintained, in his retinue and attendants alone, his
ancient pomp and lustre, which was useful to strike the vulgar; in
his own person he affected the greatest austerity and most rigid
mortification, which he was sensible would have an equal or a greater
tendency to the same end. He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his
affected care to conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all
the world: he changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt
and vermin: his usual diet was bread; his drink water, which he even
rendered further unpalatable by the mixture of unsavory herbs: he tore
his back with the frequent discipline which he inflicted on it: he
daily on his knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen
beggars, whom he afterwards dismissed with presents: he gained the
affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and
hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity, was admitted to
his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility, as
well as on the piety and mortification, of the holy primate: he seemed
to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or
in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the appearance of
seriousness, and mental recollection, and secret devotion; and all men
of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design,
and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned itself
towards a new and a more dangerous object.

{1163.} Becket waited not till Henry should commence those projects
against the ecclesiastical power, which he knew had been formed by that
prince: he was himself the aggressor, and endeavored to overawe the king
by the intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises. He summoned the earl
of Clare to surrender the barony of Tunbridge, which, ever since the
conquest, had remained in the family of that nobleman, but which, as it
had formerly belonged to the see of Canterbury, Becket pretended his
predecessors were prohibited by the canons to alienate. The earl of
Clare, besides the lustre which he derived from the greatness of his own
birth and the extent of his possessions, was allied to all the principal
families in the kingdom; his sister, who was a celebrated beauty, had
further extended his credit among the nobility and was even supposed to
have gained the king’s affections; and Becket could not better discover,
than by attacking so powerful an interest, his resolution of maintaining
with vigor the rights, real or pretended, of his see.

William de Eynsford, a military tenant of the crown, was patron of
a living which belonged to a manor that held of the archbishop of
Canterbury; but Becket, without regard to William’s right, presented,
on a new and illegal pretext, one Laurence to that living, who was
violently expelled by Eynsford. The primate, making himself, as was
usual in spiritual courts, both judge and party, issued in a summary
manner the sentence of excommunication against Eynsford, who complained
to the king, that he, who held “in capite” of the crown, should,
contrary to the practice established by the Conqueror, and maintained
ever since by his successors, be subjected to that terrible sentence
without the previous consent of the sovereign. Henry, who had now broken
off all personal intercourse with Becket, sent him, by a messenger, his
orders to absolve Eynsford; but received for answer, that it belonged
not for the king to inform him whom he should absolve and whom
excommunicate; and it was not till after many remonstrances and menaces
that Becket, though with the worst grace imaginable, was induced to
comply with the royal mandate.

Henry, though he found himself thus grievously mistaken in the character
of the person whom he had promoted to the primacy, determined not to
desist from his former intention of retrenching clerical usurpations. He
was entirely master of his extensive dominions: the prudence and vigor
of his administration, attended with perpetual success, had raised his
character above that of any of his predecessors: the papacy seemed to
be weakened by a schism which divided all Europe; and he rightly judged
that, if the present favorable opportunity were neglected, the crown
must, from the prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of
falling into entire subordination under the mitre.

The union of the civil and ecclesiastical power serves extremely, in
every civilized government, to the maintenance of peace and order; and
prevents those mutual encroachments which, as there can be no ultimate
judge between them, are often attended with the most dangerous
consequences Whether the supreme magistrate who unites these powers
receives the appellation of prince or prelate, is not material.
The superior weight which temporal interests commonly bear in the
apprehensions of men above spiritual, renders the civil part of his
character most prevalent; and in time prevents those gross impostures
and bigoted persecutions which, in all false religions, are the
chief foundation of clerical authority. But during the progress of
ecclesiastical usurpations, the state, by the resistance of the civil
magistrate, is naturally thrown into convulsions; and it behoves the
prince, both for his own interest and for that of the public, to provide
in time sufficient barriers against so dangerous and insidious a rival.
This precaution had hitherto been much neglected in England, as well as
in other Catholic countries; and affairs at last seemed to have come to
a dangerous crisis: a sovereign of the greatest abilities was now on
the throne: a prelate of the most inflexible and intrepid character was
possessed of the primacy: the contending powers appeared to be armed
with their full force and it was natural to expect some extraordinary
event to result from their conflict.

Among their other inventions to obtain money, the clergy had inculcated
the necessity of penance as an atonement for sin; and having again
introduced the practice of paying them large sums as a commutation, or
species of atonement for the remission of those penances, the sins of
the people, by these means, had become a revenue to the priests; and the
king computed, that by this invention alone they levied more money upon
his subjects than flowed, by all the funds and taxes, into the royal
exchequer. That he might ease the people of so heavy and arbitrary
an imposition, Henry required that a civil officer of his appointment
should be present in all ecclesiastical courts, and should, for the
future, give his consent to every composition which was made with
sinners for their spiritual offences.

The ecclesiastics in that age had renounced all immediate subordination
to the magistrate: they openly pretended to an exemptior, in criminal
accusations, from a trial before courts of justice; and were gradually
introducing a like exemption in civil causes: spiritual penalties alone
could be inflicted on their offences; and as the clergy had extremely
multiplied in England, and many of them were consequently of very low
characters, crimes of the deepest dye--murders, robberies, adulteries,
rapes--were daily committed with impunity by the ecclesiastics. It
had been found, for instance, on inquiry, that no less than a hundred
murders had, since the king’s accession, been perpetrated by men of that
profession, who had never been called to account for these offences; and
holy orders were become a full protection for all enormities. A clerk
in Worcestershire, having debauched a gentleman’s daughter, had, at
this time, proceeded to murder the father; and the general indignation
against this crime moved the king to attempt the remedy of an abuse
which was become so palpable, and to require that the clerk should be
delivered up, and receive condign punishment from the magistrate. Becket
insisted on the privileges of the church; confined the criminal in
the bishop’s prison, lest he should be seized by the king’s officers;
maintained that no greater punishment could be inflicted on him than
degradation; and when the king demanded that, immediately after he was
degraded, he should be tried by the civil power, the primate asserted
that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the same accusation, and
for the same offence.

Henry, laying hold of so plausible a pretence, resolved to push the
clergy with regard to all their privileges, which they had raised to
an enormous height, and to determine at once those controversies which
daily multiplied between the civil and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions.
He summoned an assembly of all the prelates in England; and he put
to them this concise and decisive question, whether or not they were
willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom? The
bishops unanimously replied, that they were willing, “saving their own
order;” a device by which they thought to elude the present urgency
of the king’s demand, yet reserve to themselves, on a favorable
opportunity, the power of resuming all their pretensions. The king was
sensible of the artifice, and was provoked to the highest indignation.
He left the assembly with visible marks of his displeasure: he required
the primate instantly to surrender the honors and castles of Eye and
Berkham: the bishops were terrified, and expected still further effects
of his resentment. Becket alone was inflexible; and nothing but the
interposition of the pope’s legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a
breach with so powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, could
have prevailed on him to retract the saving clause, and give a general
and absolute promise of observing the ancient customs.

But Henry was not content with a declaration in these general terms; he
resolved, ere it was too late, to define expressly those customs with
which he required compliance, and to put a stop to clerical usurpations,
before they were fully consolidated, and could plead antiquity, as they
already did a sacred authority, in their favor. The claims of the church
were open and visible. After a gradual and insensible progress during
many centuries, the mask had at last been taken off, and several
ecclesiastical councils, by their canons, which were pretended to be
irrevocable and infallible, had positively defined those privileges and
immunities which gave such general offence, and appeared so dangerous
to the civil magistrate. Henry, therefore, deemed it necessary to define
with the same precision the limits of the civil power; to oppose
his legal customs to their divine ordinances; to determine the exact
boundaries of the rival jurisdictions; and for this purpose he summoned
a general council of the nobility and prelates at Clarendon, to whom he
submitted this great and important question. [15th Jan. 1164.]

The barons were all gained to the king’s party, either by the reasons
which he urged, or by his superior authority. The bishops were overawed
by the general combination against them; and the following laws,
commonly called the “Constitutions of Clarendon,” were voted without
opposition by this assembly. It was enacted, that all suits concerning
the advowson and presentation of churches should be determined in the
civil courts: that the churches, belonging to the king’s fee, should not
be granted in perpetuity without his consent; that clerks, accused
of any crime, should be tried in the civil courts: that no person,
particularly no clergyman of any rank, should depart the kingdom without
the king’s license: that excommunicated persons should not be bound to
give security for continuing in their present place of abode: that laics
should not be accused in spiritual courts, except by legal and reputable
promoters and witnesses: that no chief tenant of the crown should be
excommunicated, nor his lands be put under an interdict, except with the
king’s consent: that all appeals in spiritual causes should be carried
from the archdeacon to the bishop, from the bishop to the primate, from
him to the king; and should be carried no farther without the king’s
consent: that if any lawsuit arose between a layman and a clergyman
concerning a tenant, and it be disputed whether the land be a lay or
an ecclesiastical fee, it should first be determined by the verdict of
twelve lawful men to what class it belonged; and if it be found to be
a lay fee, the cause should finally be determined in the civil
courts: that no inhabitant in demesne should be excommunicated for
non-appearance in a spiritual court, till the chief officer of the
place where he resides be consulted, that he may compel him by the civil
authority to give satisfaction to the church: that the archbishops,
bishops, and other spiritual dignitaries, should be regarded as barons
of the realm; should possess the privileges and be subjected to the
burdens belonging to that rank; and should be bound to attend the king
in his great councils, and assist at all trials, till the sentence,
either of death or loss of members, be given against the criminal: that
the revenue of vacant sees should belong to the king; the chapter, or
such of them as he pleases to summon, should sit in the king’s chapel
till they made the new election with his consent, and that the bishop
elect should do homage to the crown: that if any baron or tenant “in
capite” should refuse to submit to the spiritual courts, the king should
employ his authority in obliging him to make such submissions; if any
of them throw off his allegiance to the king, the prelates should assist
the king with their censures in reducing him: that goods forfeited to
the king should not be protected in churches or churchyards: that the
clergy should no longer pretend to the right of enforcing payment of
debts contracted by oath or promise; but should leave these lawsuits,
equally with others, to the determination of the civil courts; and that
the sons of villains should not be ordained clerks, without the consent
of their lord.

These articles, to the number of sixteen, were calculated to prevent the
chief abuses which had prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to put
an effectual stop to the usurpations of the church, which, gradually
stealing on, had threatened the total destruction of the civil power.
Henry, therefore, by reducing those ancient customs of the realm to
writing, and by collecting them in a body, endeavored to prevent
all future dispute with regard to them; and by passing so many
ecclesiastical ordinances in a national and civil assembly, he fully
established the superiority of the legislature above all papal decrees
or spiritual canons, and gained a signal victory over the ecclesiastics.
But as he knew that the bishops, though overawed by the present
combination of the crown and the barons, would take the first
favorable opportunity of denying the authority which had enacted these
constitutions, he resolved that they should all set their seal to them,
and give a promise to observe them. None of the prelates dared to oppose
his will, except Becket, who, though urged by the earls of Cornwall and
Leicester, the barons of principal authority in the kingdom, obstinately
withheld his assent. At last, Richard de Hastings, grand prior of the
templars in England, threw himself on his knees before him, and with
many tears entreated him, if he paid any regard either to his own safety
or that of the church, not to provoke, by a fruitless opposition, the
indignation of a great monarch, who was resolutely bent on his purpose,
and who was determined to take full revenge on every one that should
dare to oppose him. Becket, finding himself deserted by all the
world, even by his own brethren, was at last obliged to comply; and he
promised, “legally, with good faith, and without fraud or reserve,”
 to observe the constitutions; and he took an oath to that purpose.
The king, thinking that he had now finally prevailed in this great
enterprise, sent the constitutions to Pope Alexander, who then resided
in France; and he required that pontiff’s ratification of them; but
Alexander, who, though he had owed the most important obligations to
the king, plainly saw that these laws were calculated to establish the
independency of England on the papacy, and of the royal power on the
clergy, condemned them in the strongest terms; abrogated, annulled, and
rejected them. There were only six articles, the least important, which,
for the sake of peace, he was willing to ratify.

Becket, when he observed that he might hope for support in an
opposition, expressed the deepest sorrow for his compliance; and
endeavored to engage all the other bishops in a confederacy to adhere to
their common rights, and to the ecclesiastical privileges, in which he
represented the interest and honor of God to be so deeply concerned. He
redoubled his austerities in order to punish himself for his criminal
assent to the constitutions of Clarendon: he proportioned his discipline
to the enormity of his supposed offence: and he refused to exercise any
part of his archiepiscopal function, till he should receive absolution
from the pope, which was readily granted him. Henry, informed of his
present dispositions, resolved to take vengeance for this refractory
behavior; and he attempted to crush him by means of that very power
which Becket made such merit in supporting. He applied to the pope
that he should grant the commission of legate in his dominions to the
archbishop of York; but Alexander, as politic as he, though he granted
the commission, annexed a clause, that it should not empower the legate
to execute any act in prejudice of the archbishop of Canterbury: and the
king, finding how fruitless such an authority would prove, sent back the
commission by the same messenger that brought it.

The primate, however, who found himself still exposed to the king’s
indignation, endeavored twice to escape secretly from the kingdom; but
was as often detained by contrary winds: and Henry hastened to make
him feel the effects of an obstinacy which he deemed so criminal.
He instigated John, mareschal of the exchequer, to sue Becket in the
archiepiscopal court for some lands, part of the manor of Pageham; and
to appeal thence to the king’s court for justice. On the day appointed
for trying the cause, the primate sent four knights to represent certain
irregularities in John’s appeal; and at the same time to excuse himself,
on account of sickness, for not appearing personally that day in the
court. This slight offence (if it even deserve the name) was represented
as a grievous contempt; the four knights were menaced, and with
difficulty escaped being sent to prison, as offering falsehoods to the
court;[*] [18] and Henry, being determined to prosecute Becket to the
utmost, summoned at Northampton a great council, which he purposed to
make the instrument of his vengeance against the inflexible prelate.

[* See note R, at the end of the volume.]

The king had raised Becket from a low station to the highest offices,
had honored him with his countenance and friendship, had trusted to his
assistance in forwarding his favorite project against the clergy; and
when he found him become of a sudden his most rigid opponent, while
every one beside complied with his will, rage at the disappointment, and
indignation against such signal ingratitude, transported him beyond all
bounds of moderation; and there seems to have entered more of passion
than of justice, or even of policy, in this violent prosecution. The
barons, notwithstanding, in the great council voted whatever sentence
he was pleased to dictate to them; and the bishops themselves, who
undoubtedly bore a secret favor to Becket, and regarded him as the
champion of their privileges, concurred with the rest in the design of
oppressing their primate. In vain did Becket urge that his court
was proceeding with the utmost regularity and justice in trying the
mareschal’s cause; which, however, he said, would appear, from the
sheriff’s testimony, to be entirely unjust and iniquitous: that he
himself had discovered no contempt of the king’s court; but, on the
contrary, by sending four knights to excuse his absence, had virtually
acknowledged its authority: that he also, in consequence of the king’s
summons, personally appeared at present in the great council, ready to
justify his cause against the mareschal, and to submit his conduct to
their inquiry and jurisdiction: that even should it be found that he
had been guilty of non-appearance, the laws had affixed a very slight
penalty to that offence; and that as he was an inhabitant of Kent, where
his archiepiscopal palace was seated, he was by law entitled to some
greater indulgence than usual in the rate of his fine. Notwithstanding
these pleas, he was condemned as guilty of a contempt of the king’s
court, and as wanting in the fealty which he had sworn to his sovereign;
all his goods and chattels were confiscated; and that this triumph over
the church might be carried to the utmost, Henry, bishop of Winchester,
the prelate who had been so powerful in the former reign, was in spite
of his remonstrances, obliged, by order of the court, to pronounce the
sentence against him. The primate submitted to the decree; and all the
prelates, except Folliot, bishop of London, who paid court to the king
by this singularity, became sureties for him. It is remarkable, that
several Norman barons voted in this council; and we may conclude, with
some probability, that a like practice had prevailed in many of the
great councils summoned since the conquest. For the contemporary
historian, who has given us a full account of these transactions, does
not mention this circumstance as anywise singular; and Becket, in all
his subsequent remonstrances with regard to the severe treatment which
he had met with, never founds any objection on an irregularity, which to
us appears very palpable and flagrant. So little precision was there at
that time in the government and constitution!

The king was not content with this sentence, however violent and
oppressive. Next day he demanded of Becket the sum of three hundred
pounds, which the primate had levied upon the honors of Eye and Berkham,
while in his possession. Becket, after premising that he was not obliged
to answer to this suit, because it was not contained in his summons;
after remarking that he had expended more than that sum in the repairs
of those castles, and of the royal palace at London, expressed, however,
his resolution, that money should not be any ground of quarrel between
him and his sovereign; he agreed to pay the sum, and immediately gave
sureties for it. In the subsequent meeting, the king demanded five
hundred marks, which, he affirmed, he had lent Becket during the war at
Toulouse; and another sum to the same amount, for which that prince had
been surety for him to a Jew. Immediately after these two claims, he
preferred a third, of still greater importance; he required him to give
in the accounts of his administration while chancellor, and to pay
the balance due from the revenues of all the prelacies, abbeys,
and baronies, which had, during that time, been subjected to his
management.[*] Becket observed that, as this demand was totally
unexpected, he had not come prepared to answer it; but he required a
delay, and promised in that case to give satisfaction. The king insisted
upon sureties; and Becket desired leave to consult his suffragans in a
case of such importance.[**]

It is apparent, from the known character of Henry, and from the usual
vigilance of his government, that, when he promoted Becket to the see
of Canterbury, he was, on good grounds, well pleased with his
administration in the former high office with which he had intrusted
him; and that, even if that prelate had dissipated money beyond the
income of his place, the king was satisfied that his expenses were not
blamable, and had in the main been calculated for his service.[***] Two
years had since elapsed; no demand had during that time been made
upon him; it was not till the quarrel arose concerning ecclesiastical
privileges, that the claim was started, and the primate was, of a
sudden, required to produce accounts of such intricacy and extent before
a tribunal which had shown a determined resolution to ruin and oppress
him. To find sureties that he should answer so boundless and uncertain
a claim, which in the king’s estimation amounted to forty-four thousand
marks,[****] was impracticable; and Becket’s suffragans were extremely
at a loss what counsel to give him in such a critical emergency. By the
advice of the bishop of Winchester he offered two thousand marks as a
general satisfaction for all demands; but this offer was rejected by the
king,[*****] Some prelates exhorted him to resign his see, on condition
of receiving an acquittal; others were of opinion that he ought to
submit himself entirely to the king’s mercy;[******] but the primate,
thus pushed to the utmost, had too much courage to sink under
oppression; he determined to brave all his enemies, to trust to the
sacredness of his character for protection, to involve his cause with
that of God and religion, and to stand the utmost efforts of royal
indignation.

     [* Hoveden, p. 494. Diceto, p. 537.]

     [** Fitz-Steph. p. 38]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 495.]

     [**** Epist. St. Thorn, p. 315]

     [***** Fitz-Steph. p. 38.]

     [****** Fitz-Steph. 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 entroit to the communion
service should begin with these words, “Princes sat and spake against
me;” the passage appointed for the martyrdom of St. Stephen, whom the
primate thereby tacitly pretended to resemble in his sufferings for the
sake of righteousness. He went thence to court arrayed in his sacred
vestments: as soon as he arrived within the palace gate, he took the
cross into his own hands, bore it aloft as his protection, and marched
in that posture into the royal apartments.[*] The king, who was in an
inner room, was astonished at this parade, by which the primate seemed
to menace him and his court with the sentence of excommunication; and
he sent some of the prelates to remonstrate with him on account of
such audacious behavior. These prelates complained to Becket, that, by
subscribing himself to the constitutions of Clarendon, he had seduced
them to imitate his example; and that now, when it was too late,
he pretended to shake off all subordination to the civil power, and
appeared desirous of involving them in the guilt which must attend any
violation of those laws, established by their consent and ratified by
their subscriptions.[**]

     [* Fitz-Steph. p. 40. Hist. Quad. p. 53 Hoveden,
     p. 404. Gul Neubr. p. 394. Epist. St. Thom. p. 43.]

     [** Fitz-Steph p. 35]

Becket replied, that he had indeed subscribed the constitutions of
Clarendon, “legally, with good faith, and without fraud or reserve;”
 but in these words was virtually implied a salvo for the rights of their
order, which, being connected with the cause of God and his church,
could never be relinquished by their oaths and engagements: that if he
and they had erred in resigning the ecclesiastical privileges, the best
atonement they could now make was to retract their consent, which
in such a case could never Be obligatory, and to follow the pope’s
authority, who had solemnly annulled the constitutions of Clarendon, and
had absolved them from all oaths which they had taken to observe them:
that a determined resolution was evidently embraced to oppress the
church; the storm had first broken upon him; for a slight offence, and
which too was falsely imputed to him, he had been tyrannically condemned
to a grievous penalty; a new and unheard-of claim was since started,
in which he could expect no justice; and he plainly saw that he was
the destined victim, who, by his ruin, must prepare the way for the
abrogation of all spiritual immunities: that he strictly prohibited
them who were his suffragans from assisting at any such trial, or giving
their sanction to any sentence against him; he put himself and his see
under the protection of the supreme pontiff; and appealed to him against
any penalty which his iniquitous judges might think proper to inflict
upon him; and that, however terrible the indignation of so great a
monarch as Henry, his sword could only kill the body; while that of the
church, intrusted into the hands of the primate, could kill the soul,
and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal perdition.[*]

Appeals to the pope, even in ecclesiastical causes, had been abolished
by the constitutions of Clarendon, and were become criminal by law but
an appeal in a civil cause, such as the king’s demand upon Becket, was
a practice altogether new and unprecedented; it tended directly to the
subversion of the government, and could receive no color of excuse,
except from the determined resolution, which was but too apparent to
Henry and the great council, to effectuate, without justice, but under
color of law, the total ruin of the inflexible primate. The king, having
now obtained a pretext so much more plausible for his violence, would
probably have pushed the affair to the utmost extremity against him;
but Becket gave him no leisure to conduct the prosecution. He refused
so much as to hear the sentence which the barons, sitting apart from the
bishops, and joined to some sheriffs and barons of the second rank,[**]
had given upon the king’s claim; he departed from the palace; asked
Henry’s immediate permission to leave Northampton; and upon meeting with
a refusal, he withdrew secretly, wandered about in disguise for some
time, and at last took shipping and arrived safely at Gravelines.

     [* Fitz-Steph. p. 42,44,45,46. Hist. Quad. p. 57.
     Hoveden, p. 495, M. Paris, p. 72. Epist. St. Thorn, p. 45,
     195.]

     [** 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 further 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 favor on his side, and to make men overlook his former
ingratitude towards the king and his departure from all oaths and
engagements, as well as the enormity of those ecclesiastical privileges,
of which he affected to be the champion. There were many other reasons
which procured him countenance and protection in foreign countries.
Philip, earl of Flanders,[*] and Lewis, king of France,[**] jealous of
the rising greatness of Henry, were well pleased to give him disturbance
in his government; and forgetting that this was the common cause of
princes, they affected to pity extremely the condition of the exiled
primate; and the latter even honored him with a visit at Soissons, in
which city he had invited him to fix his residence.[***]

     [* Epist. St Thom. p. 35.]

     [** Epist. St. Thom. p. 36, 37.]

     [*** Hist. Quad. p. 76.]

The pope, whose interests were more immediately concerned in supporting
him, gave a cold reception to a magnificent embassy which Henry sent
to accuse him; while Becket himself, who had come to Sens in order to
justify his cause before the sovereign pontiff was received with the
greatest marks of distinction. The king in revenge, sequestered
the revenues of Canterbury; and by conduct which might be esteemed
arbitrary, had there been at that time any regular check on royal
authority, he banished all the primate’s relations and domestics, to
the number of four hundred, whom he obliged to swear, before their
departure, that they would instantly join their patron. But this policy,
by which Henry endeavored to reduce Becket sooner to necessity, lost its
effect; the pope, when they arrived beyond sea, absolved them from their
oath, and distributed them among the convents in Franc? and Flanders;
a residence was assigned to Becket himself, in the convent of Pontigny,
where he lived for some years in great magnificence, partly from
a pension granted him on the revenues of that abbey, partly from
remittances made him by the French monarch.

{1165.} The more to ingratiate himself with the pope, Becket resigned
into his hands the see of Canterbury, to which, he affirmed, he had
been uncanonically elected, by the authority of the royal mandate; and
Alexander, in his turn, besides investing him anew with that dignity,
pretended to abrogate by a bull, the sentence which the great council
of England had passed against him. Henry, after attempting in vain to
procure a conference with the pope, who departed soon after for Rome,
whither the prosperous state of his affairs now invited him, made
provisions against the consequences of that breach which impended
between his kingdom and the apostolic see. He issued orders to his
justiciaries, inhibiting, under severe penalties, all appeals to the
pope or archbishop, forbidding any one to receive any mandates from
them, or apply in any case to their authority; declaring it treasonable
to bring from either of them an interdict upon the kingdom, and
punishable in secular clergymen, by the loss of their eyes and by
castration, in regulars by amputation of their feet, and in laies
with death; and menacing with sequestration and banishment the persons
themselves, as well as their kindred, who should pay obedience to any
such interdict; and he further obliged all his subjects to swear to
the observance of those orders.[*] These were edicts of the utmost
importance, affected the lives and properties of all the subjects, and
even changed, for the time, the national religion, by breaking off all
communication with Rome; yet were they enacted by the sole authority of
the king, and were derived entirely from his will and pleasure.

The spiritual powers, which, in the primitive church, were, in a great
measure, dependent on the civil, had, by a gradual progress, reached
an equality and independence; and though the limits of the two
jurisdictions were difficult to ascertain or define, it was not
impossible but, by moderation on both sides, government might still have
been conducted in that imperfect and irregular manner which attends
all human institutions But as the ignorance of the age encouraged the
ecclesiastics daily to extend their privileges, and even to advance
maxims totally incompatible with civil government,[**] Henry had thought
it high time to put an end to their pretensions, and formally, in a
public council, to fix those powers which belonged to the magistrate,
and which he was for the future determined to maintain. In this attempt
he was led to reestablish customs which, though ancient, were beginning
to be abolished by a contrary practice, and which were still more
strongly opposed by the prevailing opinions and sentiments of the age.

     [* Hist. Quad. p. 88,167. Hoveden, p. 496. M.
     Paris, p. 73,]

     [** “Quis dubitet,” says Becket to the king,
     “sacerdotes Christi legum et principum omniumque fidelium
     patres et magistros censeri,” Epist. St. Thom. 97, 148.]

Principle, therefore, stood on the one side, power on the other; and
if the English had been actuated by conscience more than by present
interest, the controversy must soon, by the general defection of Henry’s
subjects, have been decided against him, Becket, in order to forward
this event, filled all places with exclamations against the violence
which he had suffered. He compared himself to Christ, who had been
condemned by a lay tribunal,[*] and who was crucified anew in the
present oppressions under which his church labored: he took it for
granted, as a point incontestable, that his cause was the cause of
God:[**] he assumed the character of champion for the patrimony of the
divinity: he pretended to be the spiritual father of the king and all
the people of England:[***] he even told Henry that kings reign solely
by the authority of the church,[****] and though he had thus torn off
the veil more openly on the one side than that prince had on the other,
he seemed still, from the general favor borne him by the ecclesiastics,
to have all the advantage in the argument. The king, that he might
employ the weapons of temporal power remaining in his hands, suspended
the payment of Peter’s pence; he made advances towards an alliance with
the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who was at that time engaged in violent
wars with Pope Alexander; he discovered some intentions of acknowledging
Pascal III., the present antipope, who was protected by that emperor;
and by these expedients he endeavored to terrify the enterprising though
prudent pontiff from proceeding to extremities against him.

{1166.} But the violence of Becket, still more than the nature of the
controversy, kept affairs from remaining long in suspense between
the parties. That prelate, instigated by revenge, and animated by the
present glory attending his situation, pushed matters to a decision, and
issued a censure excommunicating the king’s chief ministers by name,
and comprehending in general all those who favored or obeyed the
constitutions of Clarendon: these constitutions he abrogated and
annulled; he absolved all men from the oaths which they had taken to
observe them; and he suspended the spiritual thunder over Henry himself
only that the prince might avoid the blow by a timely repentance.[*****]

     [* Epist. St. Thom. p. 63, 105, 194.]

     [** Epist St. Thom. p. 29, 30, 31, 226.]

     [*** Fitz-Steph. p. 46. Epist. St. Thom. p.
     52,148.]

     [**** Brady’s Append. No. 56. Epist. St. Thom. p.
     94,95, 97, 99,197. Roveden, p, 497.]

     [***** Fitz-Steph. p.56. Hist. Quad. p. 93. M.
     Paris, p. 74. Beaulieu. Vie de St. Thom. p. 213. Erzst. 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 legantine commission over England; and in
virtue of that authority, which admitted of no appeal, he summoned the
bishops of London, Salisbury, and others to attend him, and ordered,
under pain of excommunication, the ecclesiastics, sequestered on his
account, to be restored in two months to all their benefices. But John
of Oxford, the king’s agent with the pope, had the address to procure
orders for suspending this sentence; and he gave the pontiff such hopes
of a speedy reconcilement between the king and Becket, that two legates,
William of Pavia and Otho, were sent to Normandy, where the king then
resided, and they endeavored to find expedients for that purpose. But
the pretensions of the parties were as yet too opposite to admit of an
accommodation: the king required that all the constitutions of Clarendon
should be ratified; Becket, that previously to any agreement, he and his
adherents should be restored to their possessions; and as the legates
had no power to pronounce a definite sentence on either side, the
negotiation soon after came to nothing. The cardinal of Pavia also,
being much attached to Henry, took care to protract the negotiation;
to mitigate the pope by the accounts which he sent of that prince’s
conduct, and to procure him every possible indulgence from the see
of Rome. About this time, the king had also the address to obtain a
dispensation for the marriage of his third son, Geoffrey, with the
heiress of Brittany; a concession which, considering Henry’s demerits
towards the church, gave great scandal both to Becket, and to his
zealous patron, the king of France.

{1167.} The intricacies of the feudal law had, in that age, rendered the
boundaries of power between the prince and his vassals, and between
one prince and another, as uncertain as those between the crown and the
mitre; and all wars took their origin from disputes, which, had there
been any tribunal possessed of power to enforce their decrees, ought
to have been decided only before a court of judicature. Henry, in
prosecution of some controversies in which he was involved with the
count of Auvergne, a vassal of the duchy of Guienne, bad invaded the
territories of that nobleman; who had recourse to the king of France,
his superior lord, for protection, and thereby kindled a war between
the two monarchs. Bur the war was, as usual, no less feeble in its
operations than it wail frivolous in its cause and object; and after
occasioning some mutual depredations,[*] and some insurrections among
the barons of Poictou and Guienne, was terminated by a peace. The terms
of this peace were rather disadvantageous to Henry, and prove that
that prince had, by reason of his contest with the church, lost the
superiority which he had hitherto maintained over the crown of France;
an additional motive to him for accommodating those differences.

The pope and the king began at last to perceive that, in the present
situation of affairs, neither of them could expect a final and decisive
victory over the other, and that they had more to fear than to hope from
the duration of the controversy. Though the vigor of Henry’s government
had confirmed his authority in all his dominions, his throne might be
shaken by a sentence of excommunication; and if England itself could,
by its situation, be more easily guarded against the contagion
of superstitious prejudices, his French provinces at least, whose
communication was open with the neighboring states, would be much
exposed, on that account, to some great revolution or convulsion,
He could not, therefore, reasonably imagine that the pope, while
he retained such a check upon him, would formally recognize the
constitutions of Clarendon, which both put an end to papal pretensions
in England,[**] and would give an example to other states of asserting a
like independency.[***]

     [* Hoveden, p. 517. M. Paris, p. 75. Diecto, p.
     547 p. 1402, 1403. Robert de Monte.]

     [** Epist. St. Thom, p. 230.]

     [*** Epist. St. Thom, p. 276.]

Pope Alexander, on the other hand, being still engaged in dangerous wars
with the emperor Frederic, might justly apprehend that Henry, rather
than relinquish claims of such importance, would join the party of
his enemy; and as the trials hitherto made of the spiritual weapons
by Becket had not succeeded to his expectation, and every thing had
remained quiet in all the king’s dominions, nothing seemed impossible
to the capacity and vigilance of so great a monarch. The disposition
of minds on both sides, resulting from these circumstances, produced
frequent attempts towards an accommodation; but as both parties knew
that the essential articles of the dispute could not then be terminated,
they entertained a perpetual jealousy of each other, and were anxious
not to lose the least advantage in the negotiation. The nuncios, Gratian
and Vivian, having received a commission to endeavor a reconciliation,
met with the king in Normandy; and after all differences seemed to be
adjusted, Henry offered to sign the treaty, with a salvo to his royal
dignity; which gave such umbrage to Becket, that the negotiation in the
end became fruitless, and the excommunications were renewed against the
king’s ministers. Another negotiation was conducted at Montmirail, in
presence of the king of France and the French prelates where Becket also
offered to make his submissions, with a salvo to the honor of God and
the liberties of the church; which, for a like reason, was extremely
offensive to the king, and rendered the treaty abortive, {1169.} A
third conference, under the same mediation, was broken off, by Becket’s
insisting on a like reserve in his submissions; and even in a fourth
treaty, when all the terms were adjusted, and when the primate expected
to be introduced to the king, and to receive the kiss of peace, which it
was usual for princes to grant in those times, and which was regarded
as a sure pledge of forgiveness, Henry refused him that honor, under
pretence that, during his anger, he had made a rash vow to that purpose.
This formality served, among such jealous spirits, to prevent the
conclusion of the treaty; and though the difficulty was attempted to be
overcome by a dispensation which the pope granted to Henry from his vow,
that prince could not be pre vailed on to depart from the resolution
which he had taken.

In one of these conferences, at which the French king was present, Henry
said to that monarch, “There have been many kings of England, some of
greater, some of less authority than myself: there have also been many
archbishops of Canterbury, holy and good men, and entitled to every kind
of respect: let Becket but act towards me with the same submission which
the greatest of his predecessors have paid to the least of mine, and
there shall be no controversy between us.” Lewis was so struck with
this state of the case, and with an offer which Henry made to submit
his cause to the French clergy, that he could not forbear condemning the
primate, and withdrawing his friendship from him during some time; but
the bigotry of that prince, and their common animosity against Henry,
soon produced a renewal of their former good correspondence.

{1170.} All difficulties were at last adjusted between the parties; and
the king allowed Becket to return, on conditions which may be esteemed
both honorable and advantageous to that prelate. He was not required
to give up any rights of the church, or resign any of those pretensions
which had been the original ground of the controversy. It was agreed
that all these questions should be buried in oblivion; but that Becket
and his adherents should, without making further submission, be restored
to all their livings, and that even the possessors of such benefices
as depended on the see of Canterbury and had been filled during the
primate’s absence, should be expelled, and Becket have liberty to supply
the vacancies.[*] In return for concessions which intrenched so deeply
on the honor and dignity of the crown, Henry reaped only the advantage
of seeing his ministers absolved from the sentence of excommunication
pronounced against them, and of preventing the interdict, which, if
these hard conditions had not been complied with, was ready to be laid
on all his dominions.[**] It was easy to see how much he dreaded that
event, when a prince of so high a spirit could submit to terms
so dishonorable, in order to prevent it. So anxious was Henry to
accommodate all differences, and to reconcile himself fully with Becket,
that he took the most extraordinary steps to flatter his vanity, and
even on one occasion humiliated himself so far as to hold the stirrup of
that haughty prelate while he mounted.[***]

     [* Fitz-Steph. p. 68, 69. Hoveden, p. 520.]

     [** Hist Quad. p. 104. Brompton, p, 1062. Gervase,
     p. 1408, Epist. St. Thom. 704, 705, 706, 707, 792, 793, 794.
     Benedict. Abbas p. 70.]

     [*** Epist. 45, lib. r]

But the king attained not even that temporary tranquillity which he had
hoped to reap from these expedients. During the heat of his quarrel with
Becket, while he was every day expecting an interdict to be laid on his
kingdom, and a sentence of excommunication to be fulminated against
his person, he had thought it prudent to have his son. Prince Henry,
associated with him in the royalty, and to make him be crowned king,
by the hands of Roger, archbishop of York. By this precaution, he both
insured the succession of that prince, which, considering the many
past irregularities in that point, could not but be esteemed somewhat
precarious; and he preserved at least his family on the throne, if the
sentence of excommunication should have the effect which he dreaded, and
should make his subjects renounce their allegiance to him. Though his
design was conducted with expedition and secrecy, Becket, before it was
carried into execution, had got intelligence of it, and being desirous
of obstructing all Henry’s measures, as well as anxious to prevent this
affront to himself, who pretended to the sole right, as archbishop of
Canterbury, to officiate in the coronation, he had inhibited all the
prelates of England from assisting at this ceremony, had procured from
the pope a mandate to the same purpose, and had incited the king of
France to protest against the coronation of young Henry, unless the
princess, daughter of that monarch, should at the same time receive the
royal unction. There prevailed in that age an opinion which was akin
to its other superstitions, that the royal unction was essential to the
exercise of royal power: it was therefore natural, both for the king of
France, careful of his daughter’s establishment and for Becket,
jealous of his own dignity, to demand, in the treaty with Henry, some
satisfaction in this essential point. Henry, after apologizing to Lewis
for the omission with regard to Margaret, and excusing it on account of
the secrecy and despatch requisite for conducting that measure, promised
that the ceremony should be renewed in the persons both of the prince
and princess; and he assured Becket, that besides receiving the
acknowledgments of Roger and the other bishops for the seeming
affront put on the see of Canterbury, the primate should, as a further
satisfaction, recover his rights by officiating in this coronation. But
the violent spirit of Becket, elated by the power of the church, and by
the victory which he had already obtained over his sovereign, was not
content with this voluntary compensation, but resolved to make the
injury, which he pretended to have suffered, a handle for taking revenge
on all his enemies. On his arrival in England, he met the archbishop of
York and the bishops of London and Salisbury, who were on their journey
to the king in Normandy. He notified to the archbishop the sentence of
suspension, and to the two bishops that of excommunication, which, at
his solicitation, the pope had pronounced against them. Reginald de
Warrenne and Gervase de Cornhill, two of the king’s ministers, who
were employed on their duty in Kent, asked him, on hearing of this bold
attempt whether he meant to bring fire and sword into the kingdom. But
the primate, heedless of the reproof, proceeded in the most ostentatious
manner to take possession of his diocese in Rochester and all the
towns through which he passed, he was received with the shouts and
acclamations of the populace. As he approached Southwark, the clergy,
the laity, men of all ranks and ages, came forth to meet him, and
celebrated with hymns of joy his triumphant entrance. And though he
was obliged, by order of the young prince, who resided at Woodstock,
to return to his diocese, he found that he was not mistaken, when he
reckoned upon the highest veneration of the public towards his person
and his dignity. He proceeded, therefore, with the more courage to
dart his spiritual thunders. He issued the sentence of excommunication
against Robert de Broc and Nigel de Sackville, with many others, who
either had assisted at the coronation of the prince, or been active
in the late persecution of the exiled clergy. This violent measure, by
which he, in effect, denounced war against the king himself, is commonly
ascribed to the vindictive disposition and imperious character of
Becket; but as this prelate was also a man of acknowledged abilities, we
are not in his passions alone to look for the cause of his conduct, when
he proceeded to these extremities against his enemies. His sagacity had
led him to discover all Henry’s intentions; and he proposed, by this
bold and unexpected assault, to prevent the execution of them.

The king, from his experience of the dispositions of his people, was
become sensible that his enterprise had been too bold, in establishing
the constitutions of Clarendon, in defining all the branches of royal
power, and in endeavoring to extort from the church of England, as well
as from the pope, an express avowal of these disputed prerogatives.
Conscious also of his own violence in attempting to break or subdue the
inflexible primate, he was not displeased to undo that measure which had
given his enemies such advantage against him, and he was contented that
the controversy should terminate in that ambiguous manner, which was
the utmost that princes, in those ages, could hope to attain in their
disputes with the see of Rome. Though he dropped for the present
the prosecution of Becket, he still reserved to himself the right of
maintaining, that the constitutions of Clarendon, the original ground
of the quarrel, were both the ancient customs and the present law of
the realm; and though he knew that the papal clergy asserted them to
be impious in themselves, as well as abrogated by the sentence of the
sovereign pontiff, he intended, in spite of their clamors, steadily to
put those laws in execution, and to trust to his own abilities, and to
the course of events, for success in that perilous enterprise. He hoped
that Becket’s experience of a six years’ exile would, after his pride
was fully gratified by his restoration, be sufficient tc teach him more
reserve in his opposition; or if any controversy arose, he expected
thenceforth to engage in a more favorable cause, and to maintain with
advantage, while the primate was now in his power, the ancient and
undoubted customs of the kingdom against the usurpations of the clergy.
But Becket, determined not to betray the ecclesiastical privileges by
his connivance, and apprehensive lest a prince of such profound policy,
if allowed to proceed in his own way, might probably in the end prevail,
resolved to take all the advantage which his present victory gave him,
and to disconcert the cautious measures of the king, by the vehemence
and rigor of his own conduct. Assured of support from Rome, he was
little intimidated by dangers which his courage taught him to despise,
and which, even if attended with the most fatal consequences, would
serve only to gratify his ambition and thirst of glory.

When the suspended and excommunicated prelates arrived at Baieux, where
the king then resided, and complained to him of the violent proceedings
of Becket, he instantly perceived the consequences; was sensible that
his whole plan of operations was overthrown; foresaw that the dangerous
contest between the civil and spiritual powers, a contest which he
himself had first roused, but which he had endeavored, by all his late
negotiations and concessions, to appease, must come to an immediate
and decisive issue; and he was thence thrown into the most violent
commotion. The archbishop of York remarked to him, that so long as
Becket lived, he could never expect to enjoy peace or tranquillity. The
king himself, being vehemently agitated, burst forth into an exclamation
against his servants, whose want of zeal, he said, had so long left him
exposed to the enterprises of that ungrateful and imperious prelate.
Four gentlemen of his household, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de
Traci, Hugh de Moreville, and Richard Brito, taking these passionate
expressions to be a hint for Becket’s death, immediately communicated
their thoughts to each other; and swearing to avenge their prince’s
quarrel secretly withdrew from court. Some menacing expressions which
they had dropped, gave a suspicion of their design; and the king
despatched a messenger after them, charging them to attempt nothing
against the person of the primate; but these orders arrived too late
to prevent their fatal purpose. The four assassins, though they took
different roads to England, arrived nearly about the same time at
Saltwoode, near Canterbury; and being there joined by some assistants,
they proceeded in a great haste to the archiepiscopal palace. They found
the primate, who trusted entirely to the sacredness of his character,
very slenderly attended; and though they threw out many menaces and
reproaches against him, he was so incapable of fear, that, without
using any precautions against their violence, he immediately went to St.
Benedict’s church, to hear vespers. They followed him thither, attacked
him before the altar, and having cloven his head with many blows,
retired without meeting any opposition. This was the tragical end of
Thomas à Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible
spirit, who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself, the
enterprises of pride and ambition, under the disguise of sanctity,
and of zeal for the interests of religion; an extraordinary personage,
surely, had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had
directed the vehemence of his character to the support of law and
justice; instead of being engaged, by the prejudices of the times, to
sacrifice all private duties and public connections to ties which he
imagined, or represented, as superior to every civil and political
consideration. But no man, who enters into the genius of that age, can
reasonably doubt of this prelate’s sincerity. The spirit of superstition
was so prevalent, that it infallibly caught every careless reasoner,
much more every one whose interest, and honor, and ambition were engaged
to support it. All the wretched literature of the times was enlisted on
that side. Some faint glimmerings of common sense might sometimes pierce
through the thick cloud of ignorance, or, what was worse, the illusions
of perverted science, which had blotted out the sun, and enveloped the
face of nature; but those who preserved themselves untainted by the
general contagion, proceeded on no principles which they could pretend
to justify; they were more indebted to their total want of instruction
than to their knowledge, if they still retained some share of
understanding; folly was possessed of all the schools as well as all the
churches; and her votaries assumed the garb of philosophers, together
with the ensigns of spiritual dignities. Throughout that large
collection of letters which bears the name of St. Thomas, we find, in
all the retainers of that aspiring prelate, no less than in himself, a
most entire and absolute conviction of the reason and piety of their own
party, and a disdain of their antagonists; nor is there less cant and
grimace in their style, when they address each other, than when they
compose manifestoes for the perusal of the public. The spirit of
revenge, violence, and ambition which accompanied their conduct, instead
of forming a presumption of hypocrisy, are the surest pledges of their
sincere attachment to a cause which so much flattered these domineering
passions.

Henry, on the first report of Becket’s violent measures, had purposed
to have him arrested, and had already taken some steps towards the
execution of that design; but the intelligence of his murder threw the
prince into great consternation; and he was immediately sensible of
the dangerous consequences which he had reason to apprehend from so
unexpected an event. An archbishop of reputed sanctity assassinated
before the altar, in the exercise of his functions, and on account
of his zeal in maintaining ecclesiastical privileges, must attain the
highest honors of martyrdom; while his murderer would be ranked among
the most bloody tyrants that ever were exposed to the hatred and
detestation of mankind. Interdicts and excommunications, weapons in
themselves so terrible, would, he foresaw, be armed with double force,
when employed in a cause so much calculated to work on the human
passions, and so peculiarly adapted to the eloquence of popular
preachers and declaimers. In vain would he plead his own innocence, and
even his total ignorance of the fact; he was sufficiently guilty, if
the church thought proper to esteem him such; and his concurrence in
Becket’s martyrdom, becoming a religious opinion, would be received with
all the implicit credit which belonged to the most established articles
of faith. These considerations gave the king the most unaffected
concern; and as it was extremely his interest to clear himself from all
suspicion, he took no care to conceal the depth of his affliction. He
shut himself up from the light of day, and from all commerce with his
servants; he even refused, during three days, all food and sustenance;
the courtiers, apprehending dangerous effects from his despair were
at last obliged to break in upon his solitude; and they employed every
topic of consolation, induced him to accept of nourishment, and occupied
his leisure in taking precautions against the consequences which he so
justly apprehended from the murder of the primate.

{1171.} The point of chief importance to Henry was to convince the pope
of his innocence; or rather, to persuade him that he would reap greater
advantages from the submissions of England than from proceeding to
extremities against that kingdom. The archbishop of Rouen, the bishops
of Worcester and Evreux, with five persons of inferior quality, were
immediately despatched to Rome, and orders were given them to perform
their journey with the utmost expedition. Though the name and authority
of the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote countries of Europe,
which were sunk in profound ignorance, and were entirely unacquainted
with its character and conduct, the pope was so little revered at home,
that his inveterate enemies surrounded the gates of Rome itself, and
even controlled his government in that city; and the ambassadors, who,
from a distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or rather
abject submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found the
utmost difficulty to make their way to him and to throw themselves
at his feet. It was at length agreed that Richard Barre, one of their
number, should leave the rest behind, and run all the hazards of the
passage, in order to prevent the fatal consequences which might ensue
from any delay in giving satisfaction to his holiness. He found, on
his arrival, that Alexander was already wrought up to the greatest rage
against the king, that Becket’s partisans were daily stimulating him to
revenge, that the king of France had exhorted him to fulminate the most
dreadful sentence against England, and that the very mention of Henry’s
name before the sacred college, was received with every expression of
horror and execration.

The Thursday before Easter was now approaching, when it is customary for
the pope to denounce annual curses against all his enemies; and it was
expected that Henry should, with all the preparations peculiar to the
discharge of that sacred artillery, be solemnly comprehended in the
number. But Barre found means to appease the pontiff, and to deter him
from a measure which, if it failed of success, could not afterwards be
easily recalled: the anathemas were only levelled in general against all
the actors, accomplices and abettors of Becket’s murder. The abbot of
Valasse, and the archdeacons of Salisbury and Lisieux, with others
of Henry’s ministers, who soon after arrived, besides asserting their
prince’s innocence, made oath before the whole consistory, that he would
stand to the pope’s judgment in the affair, and make every submission
that should be required of him. The terrible blow was thus artfully
eluded; the cardinals Albert and Theodin were appointed legates to
examine the cause, and were ordered to proceed to Normandy for that
purpose; and though Henry’s foreign dominions were already laid under
an interdict by the archbishop of Sens, Becket’s great partisan, and the
pope’s legate in France, the general expectation that the monarch would
easily exculpate himself from any concurrence in the guilt, kept every
one in suspense, and prevented all the bad consequences which might be
dreaded from that sentence.

The clergy, meanwhile, though their rage was happily diverted from
falling on the king, were not idle in magnifying the sanctity of Becket,
in extolling the merits of his martyrdom, and in exalting him above all
that devoted tribe who, in several ages, had, by their blood, cemented
the fabric of the temple. Other saints had only borne testimony by their
sufferings to the general doctrines of Christianity; but Becket had
sacrificed his life to the power and privileges of the clergy; and this
peculiar merit challenged, and not in vain, a suitable acknowledgment to
his memory. Endless were the panegyrics on his virtues; and the miracles
wrought by his relics were more numerous, more nonsensical, and more
impudently attested than those which ever filled the legend of any
confessor or martyr. Two years after his death, he was canonized by Pope
Alexander; a solemn jubilee was established for celebrating his merits;
his body was removed to a magnificent shrine, enriched with presents
from all parts of Christendom; pilgrimages were performed to obtain his
intercession with Heaven, and it was computed, that in one year above
a hundred thousand pilgrims arrived in Canterbury, and paid their
devotions at his tomb. It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those
who are actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last
infirmity of noble minds, that the wisest legislator and most exalted
genius that ever reformed or enlightened the world, can never expect
such tributes of praise an are lavished on the memory of pretended
saints, whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or
contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit
of objects pernicious to mankind. It is only a conqueror, a personage no
less entitled to our hatred, who can pretend to the attainment of equal
renown and glory.

It may not be amiss to remark, before we conclude this subject of Thomas
à Becket, that the king, during his controversy with that prelate,
was on every occasion more anxious than usual to express his zeal for
religion, and to avoid all appearance of a profane negligence on that
head. He gave his consent to the imposing of a tax on all his dominions,
for the delivery of the Holy Land, now threatened by the famous Salad
me: this tax amounted to twopence a pound for one year, and a penny a
pound for the four subsequent.[*] Almost all the princes of Europe
laid a like imposition on their subjects, which received the name of
Saladine’s tax. During this period there came over from Germany about
thirty heretics of both sexes, under the direction of one Gerard,
simple, ignorant people, who could give no account of their faith, but
declared themselves ready to suffer for the tenets of their master. They
made only one convert in England, a woman as ignorant as themselves; yet
they gave such umbrage to the clergy, that they were delivered over to
the secular arm, and were punished by being burned on the forehead,
and then whipped through the streets. They seemed to exult in their
sufferings, and as they went along sung the beatitude, “Blessed are ye,
when men hate you and persecute you.”[**]

     [* Gervase, p. 1399. M. Paris, p. 74.]

     [** Neubr. p. 391. M. Pang, p. 74. Heining. p.
     494.]

After they were whipped, they were thrust out almost naked in the midst
of winter, and perished through cold and hunger; no one daring, or
being willing, to give them the least relief. We are ignorant of the
particular tenets of these people; for it would be imprudent to rely on
the representations left of them by the clergy, who affirm, that they
denied the efficacy of the sacraments and the unity of the church. It is
probable that their departure from the standard of orthodoxy was still
more subtile and minute. They seem to have been the first that ever
suffered for heresy in England.

As soon as Henry found that he was in no immediate danger from the
thunders of the Vatican, he undertook an expedition against Ireland; a
design which he had long projected, and by which he hoped to recover his
credit, somewhat impaired by his late transactions with the hierarchy.



CHAPTER IX.



HENRY II.

{1172.} As Britain was first peopled from Gaul, so was Ireland probably
from Britain; and the inhabitants of all these countries seem to have
been so many tribes of the Celtae, who derive their origin from an
antiquity that lies far beyond the records of any history or tradition.
The Irish, from the beginning of time, had been buried in the most
profound barbarism and ignorance; and as they were never conquered or
even invaded by the Romans, from whom all the western world derived its
civility, they continued still in the most rude state of society, and
were distinguished by those vices alone, to which human nature, not
tamed by education or restrained by laws, is forever subject. The small
principalities into which they were divided, exercised perpetual rapine
and violence against each other: the uncertain succession of their
princes was a continual source of domestic convulsions; the usual title
of each petty sovereign was the murder of his predecessor; courage and
force, though exercised in the commission of crimes, were more honored
than any pacific virtues; and the most simple arts of life, even tillage
and agriculture, were almost wholly unknown among them. They had felt
the invasions of the Danes and the other northern tribes; but these
inroads, which had spread barbarism in other parts of Europe, tended
rather to improve the Irish; and the only towns which were to be found
in the island, had been planted along the coast by the freebooters of
Norway and Denmark. The other inhabitants exercised pasturage in the
open country, sought protection from any danger in their forests and
morasses, and being divided by the fiercest animosities against each
other, were still more intent on the means of mutual injury than on the
expedients for common or even for private interest.

Besides many small tribes, there were in the age of Henry II. five
principal sovereignties in the island, Minister, Leinster Meath, Ulster,
and Connaught; and as it had been usual for the one or the other of
these to take the lead in their wars, there was commonly some prince,
who seemed, for the time, to act as monarch of Ireland. Roderic
O’Connor, king of Connaught, was then advanced to this dignity;[*] but
his government, ill obeyed even within his own territory, could not
unite the people in any measures, either for the establishment of order,
or for defence against foreigners.

     [* Hoveden, p. 527]

The ambition of Henry had, very early in his reign, been moved, by the
prospect of these advantages, to attempt the subjecting of Ireland;
and a pretence was only wanting to invade a people who, being always
confined to their own island, had never given any reason of complaint to
any of their neighbors. For this purpose he had recourse to Rome, which
assumed a right to dispose of kingdoms and empires; and not foreseeing
the dangerous disputes which he was one day to maintain with that see,
he helped, for present, or rather for an imaginary convenience, to give
sanction to claims which were now become dangerous to all sovereigns.
Adrian III., who then filled the papal chair, was by birth an
Englishman; and being on that account the more disposed to oblige Henry,
he was easily persuaded to act as master of the world, and to make,
without any hazard or expense, the acquisition of a great island to his
spiritual jurisdiction. The Irish had, by precedent missions from the
Britons, been imperfectly converted to Christianity; and, what the pope
regarded as the surest mark of their imperfect conversion, they followed
the doctrines of their first teachers, and had never acknowledged any
subjection to the see of Rome. Adrian, therefore, in the year 1156
issued a bull in favor of Henry; in which, after premising that this
prince had ever shown an anxious care to enlarge the church of God on
earth, and to increase the number of his saints and elect in heaven, he
represents his design of subduing Ireland as derived from the same pious
motives: he considers his care of previously applying for the
apostolic sanction as a sure earnest of success and victory; and having
established it as a point incontestable, that all Christian kingdoms
belong to the patrimony of St. Peter, he acknowledges it to be his own
duty to sow among them the seeds of the gospel, which might in the last
day fructify to their eternal salvation: he exhorts the king to invade
Ireland, in order to extirpate the vice and wickedness of the natives,
and oblige them to pay yearly, from every house a penny to the see of
Rome: he gives him entire right and authority over the island, commands
all the inhabitants to obey him as their sovereign, and invests with
full power all such godly instruments as he should think proper to
employ in an enterprise thus calculated for the glory of God and
the salvation of the souls of men.[*] Henry, though armed with this
authority, did not immediately put his design in execution; but being
detained by more interesting business on the continent, waited for a
favorable opportunity of invading Ireland. Dermot Macmorrogh, king of
Leinster, had, by his licentious tyranny, rendered himself odious to his
subjects, who seized with alacrity the first occasion that offered of
throwing off the yoke, which was become grievous and oppressive to them.
This prince had formed a design on Dovergilda, wife of Ororic, prince
of Breffny; and taking advantage of her husband’s absence, who, being
obliged to visit a distant part of his territory, had left his wife
secure, as he thought, in an island surrounded by a bog, he suddenly
invaded the place, and carried off the princess.[**] This exploit,
though usual among the Irish, and rather deemed a proof of gallantry
and spirit,[***] provoked the resentment of the husband; who, having
collected forces, and being strengthened by the alliance of Roderic,
king of Connaught, invaded the dominions of Dermot, and expelled him his
kingdom. The exiled prince had recourse to Henry, who was at this time
in Guienne, craved his assistance in restoring him to his sovereignty,
and offered, on that event, to hold his kingdom in vassalage under the
crown of England. Henry, whose views were already turned towards making
acquisitions in Ireland, readily accepted the offer; but being at that
time embarrassed by the rebellions of his French subjects, as well as
by his disputes with the see of Rome, he declined, for the present,
embarking in the enterprise, and gave Dermot no further assistance than
letters patent, by which he empowered all his subjects to aid the Irish
prince in the recovery of his dominions.[****]

     [* M. Paris, p. 67. Girali. Camltr. Spel. Concil.
     vol. ii. p. 51. Rymer, vol. i. p. 15.]

     [** Girald. Cambr. p. 760]

     [*** Spencer, vol. vi.]

     [**** Girald. Cambr. p. 760]

Dermot, supported by this authority, came to Bristol; and after
endeavoring, though for some time in vain, to engage adventurers in the
enterprise, he at last formed a treaty with Richard, surnamed Strongbow,
earl of Strigul. This nobleman, who was of the illustrious house of
Clare, had impaired his fortune by expensive pleasures; and being ready
for any desperate undertaking, he promised assistance to Dermot, on
condition that he should espouse Eva, daughter of that prince, and be
declared heir to all his dominions. While Richard was assembling his
succors, Dermot went into Wales; and meeting with Robert Fitz-Stephens,
constable of Abertivi, and Maurice Fitz-Gerald he also engaged them in
his service, and obtained their promise of invading Ireland. Being now
assured of succor, he returned privately to his own state; and lurking
in the monastery of Fernes, which he had founded, (for this ruffian
was also a founder of monasteries,) he prepared every thing for the
reception of his English allies.

The troops of Fitz-Stephens were first ready. That gentleman landed in
Ireland with thirty knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred archers;
but this small body, being brave men, not unacquainted with discipline,
and completely armed,--a thing almost unknown in Ireland,--struck a
great terror into the barbarous inhabitants, and seemed to menace them
with some signal revolution. The conjunction of Maurice de Prendergast,
who, about the same time, brought over ten knights and sixty archers,
enabled Fitz-Stephens to attempt the siege of Wexford, a town inhabited
by the Danes; and after gaining an advantage, he made himself master
of the place. Soon after, Fitz-Gerald arrived with ten knights,
thirty esquires, and a hundred archers; and being joined by the former
adventurers, composed a force which nothing in Ireland was able to
withstand. Roderic, the chief monarch of the island, was foiled in
different actions: the prince of Ossory was obliged to submit, and give
hostages for his peaceable behavior; and Dermot, not content with
being restored to his kingdom of Leinster, projected the dethroning of
Roderic, and aspired to the sole dominion over the Irish.

In prosecution of these views, he sent over a messenger to the earl of
Strigul, challenging the performance of his promise, and displaying
the mighty advantages which might now be reaped by a reënforcement of
warlike troops from England. Richard, not satisfied with the general
allowance given by Henry to all his subjects, went to that prince,
then in Normandy, and having obtained a cold or ambiguous permission,
prepared himself for the execution of his designs. He first sent over
Raymond, one of his retinue, with ten knights and seventy archers, who,
landing near Waterford, defeated a body of three thousand Irish that
had ventured to attack him, and as Richard himself, who brought over
two hundred horse and a body of archers, joined, a few days after,
the victorious English, they made themselves masters of Waterford, and
proceeded to Dublin, which was taken by assault. Roderic, in revenge,
cut off the head of Dermot’s natural son, who had been left as a hostage
in his hands; and Richard, marrying Eva, became soon after, by the death
of Dermot, master of the kingdom of Leinster, and prepared to extend his
authority over all Ireland. Roderic, and the other Irish princes, were
alarmed at the danger; and combining together, besieged Dublin with an
army of thirty thousand men; but Earl Richard, making a sudden sally at
the head of ninety knights with their followers, put this numerous
army to rout, chased them off the field, and pursued them with great
slaughter. None in Ireland now dared to oppose themselves to the
English.

Henry, jealous of the progress made by his own subjects, sent orders to
recall all the English, and he made preparations to attack Ireland in
person; but Richard and the other adventurers found means to appease
him, by making him the most humble submissions, and offering to hold
all their acquisitions in vassalage to his crown. That monarch landed in
Ireland at the head of five hundred knights, besides other soldiers;
he found the Irish so dispirited by their late misfortunes, that, in a
progress which he made through the island, he had no other occupation
than to receive the homage of his new subjects. He left most of the
Irish chieftains or princes in possession of their ancient territories;
bestowed some lands on the English adventurers; gave Earl Richard the
commission of seneschal of Ireland; and after a stay of a few months,
returned in triumph to England. By these trivial exploits, scarcely
worth relating, except for the importance of the consequences, was
Ireland subdued, and annexed to the English crown.

The low state of commerce and industry during those ages made it
impracticable for princes to support regular armies, which might retain
a conquered country in subjection; and the extreme barbarism and poverty
of Ireland could still less afford means of bearing the expense.
The only expedient by which a durable conquest could then be made or
maintained, was by pouring in a multitude of new inhabitants, dividing
among them the lands of the vanquished, establishing them in all offices
of trust and authority, and thereby transforming the ancient inhabitants
into a new people. By this policy the northern invaders of old, and of
late the duke of Normandy, had been able to fix their dominions, and
to erect kingdoms which remained stable on their foundations, and were
transmitted to the posterity of the first conquerors. But the state of
Ireland rendered that island so little inviting to the English, that
only a few of desperate fortunes could be persuaded, from time to time,
to transport themselves thither; and instead of reclaiming the natives
from their uncultivated manners, they were gradually assimilated to
the ancient inhabitants, and degenerated from the customs of their
own nation. It was also found requisite to bestow great military and
arbitrary powers on the leaders, who commanded a handful of men amidst
such hostile multitudes; and law and equity, in a little time, became as
much unknown in the English settlements, as they had ever been among the
Irish tribes. Palatinates were erected in favor of the new adventurers;
independent authority conferred; the natives, never fully subdued,
still retained their animosity against the conquerors; their hatred was
retaliated by like injuries; and from these causes the Irish, during the
course of four centuries, remained still savage and untractable: it was
not till the latter end of Elizabeth’s reign, that the island was fully
subdued; nor till that of her successor, that it gave hopes of becoming
a useful conquest to the English nation.

Besides that the easy and peaceable submission of the Irish left Henry
no further occupation in that island, he was recalled from it by another
incident, which was of the last importance to his interest and safety.
The two legates, Albert and Theodin, to whom was committed the trial
of his conduct in the murder of Archbishop Becket, were arrived in
Normandy; and being impatient of delay, sent him frequent letters, full
of menaces, if he protracted any longer making his appearance before
them. He hastened therefore to Normandy, and had a conference with them
at Savigny, where their demands were so exorbitant, that he broke off
the negotiation, threatened to return to Ireland, and bade them do
their worst against him. They perceived that the season was now past
for taking advantage of that tragical incident; which, had it been hotly
pursued by interdicts and excommunications, was capable of throwing
the whole kingdom into combustion. But the time which Henry had happily
gained, had contributed to appease the minds of men; the event could
not now have the same influence as when it was recent; and as the
clergy every day looked for an accommodation with the king, they had not
opposed the pretensions of his partisans, who had been very industrious
in representing to the people his entire innocence in the murder of the
primate, and his ignorance of the designs formed by the assassins. The
legates, therefore, found themselves obliged to lower their terms; and
Henry was so fortunate as to conclude an accommodation with them. He
declared upon oath, before the relics of the saints, that so far from
commanding or desiring the death of the arch bishop, he was extremely
grieved when he received intelligence of it; but as the passion which
he had expressed on account of that prelate’s conduct, had probably been
the occasion of his murder, he stipulated the following conditions as an
atonement for the offence. He promised, that he should pardon all such
as had been banished for adhering to Becket, and should restore them to
their livings; that the see of Canterbury should be reinstated in all
its ancient possessions; that he should pay the templars a sum of money
sufficient for the subsistence of two hundred knights during a year in
the Holy Land; that he should himself take the cross at the Christmas
following, and, if the pope required it, serve three years against the
infidels, either in Spain or Palestine; that he should not insist on the
observance of such customs derogatory to ecclesiastical privileges, as
had been introduced in his own time; and that he should not obstruct
appeals to the pope in ecclesiastical causes, but should content himself
with exacting sufficient security from such clergymen as left his
dominions to prosecute an appeal, that they should attempt nothing
against the rights of his crown. Upon signing these concessions, Henry
received absolution from the legates, and was confirmed in the grant of
Ireland made by Pope Adrian; and nothing proves more strongly the great
abilities of this monarch than his extricating himself on such easy
terms from so difficult a situation. He had always insisted, that the
laws established at Clarendon contained not any new claims, but
the ancient customs of the kingdom; and he was still at liberty,
notwithstanding the articles of this agreement, to maintain his
pretensions. Appeals to the pope were indeed permitted by that treaty;
but as the king was also permitted to exact reasonable securities from
the parties, and might stretch his demands on this head as far as he
pleased, he had it virtually in his power to prevent the pope from
reaping any advantage by this seeming concession. And on the whole, the
constitutions of Clarendon remained still the law of the realm; though
the pope and his legates seem so little to have conceived the king’s
power to lie under any legal limitations, that they were satisfied with
his departing, by treaty, from one of the most momentous articles of
these constitutions, without requiring any repeal by the states of the
kingdom.

Henry, freed from this dangerous controversy with the ecclesiastics and
with the see of Rome, seemed now to have reached the pinnacle of human
grandeur and felicity, and to be equally happy in his domestic situation
and in his political government. A numerous progeny of sons and
daughters gave both lustre and authority to his crown, prevented the
danger of a disputed succession, and repressed all pretensions of
the ambitious barons. The king’s precaution also, in establishing the
several branches of his family, seemed well calculated to prevent all
jealousy among the brothers, and to perpetuate the greatness of his
family. He had appointed Henry, his eldest son, to be his successor
in the kingdom of England, the duchy of Normandy, and the counties of
Anjou, Maine, and Touraine; territories which lay contiguous, and which,
by that means, might easily lend to each other mutual assistance both
against intestine commotions and foreign invasions. Richard, his
second son, was invested in the duchy of Guienne and county of Poictou;
Geoffrey, his third son, inherited, in right of his wife, the duchy of
Brittany, and the new conquest of Ireland was destined for the appanage
of John, his fourth son. He had also negotiated, in favor of this last
prince, a marriage with Adelais, the only daughter of Humbert, count
of Savoy and Maurienne; and was to receive as her dowry considerable
demesnes in Piedmont, Savoy, Bresse, and Dauphiny. But this exaltation
of his family excited the jealousy of all his neighbors, who made those
very sons, whose fortunes he had so anxiously established, the means of
imbittering his future life, and disturbing his government.

Young Henry, who was rising to man’s estate, began to display his
character, and aspire to independence: brave, ambitious, liberal,
munificent, affable: he discovered qualities which give great lustre to
youth; prognosticate a shining fortune; but, unless tempered in mature
age with discretion, are the forerunners of the greatest calamities. It
is said that at the time when this prince received the holy unction, his
father, in order to give greater dignity to the ceremony, officiated at
table as one of the retinue; and observed to his son that never king was
more royally served. “It is nothing extraordinary,” said young Henry to
one of his courtiers, “if the son of a count should serve the son of a
king.” This saying, which might pass only for an innocent pleasantry, or
even for an oblique compliment to his father, was, however, regarded as
a symptom of his aspiring temper; and his conduct soon after justified
the conjecture.

{1173.} Henry, agreeable to the promise which he had given both to the
pope and French king, permitted his son to be crowned anew by the hands
of the archbishop of Rouen, and associated the Princess Margaret, spouse
to young Henry, in the ceremony.[*] He afterwards allowed him to pay
a visit to his father-in-law at Paris, who took the opportunity of
instilling into the young prince those ambitious sentiments to which he
was naturally but too much inclined.

     [* Hoveden, p. 529. Diceto, p. 560. Brompton, p.
     1080. Gervase, 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 fourpence, money of that age.]

Though it had been the constant practice of France, ever since the
accession of the Capetian line, to crown the son during the lifetime
of the father without conferring on him any present participation of
royalty; Lewis persuaded his son-in-law, that, by this ceremony, which
in those ages was deemed so important, he had acquired a title to
sovereignty, and that the king could not, without injustice, exclude
him from immediate possession of the whole, or at least a part of his
dominions. In consequence of these extravagant ideas, young Henry,
on his return, desired the king to resign to him either the crown of
England or the duchy of Normandy; discovered great discontent on the
refusal; spake in the most undutiful terms of his father; and soon
after, in concert with Lewis, made his escape to Paris, where he was
protected and supported by that monarch.

While Henry was alarmed at this incident, and had the prospect of
dangerous intrigues, or even of a war, which, whether successful or
not, must be extremely calamitous and disagreeable to him, he received
intelligence of new misfortunes, which must have affected him in the
most sensible manner. Queen Eleanor, who had disgusted her first husband
by her gallantries, was no less offensive to her second by her jealousy;
and after this manner carried to extremity, in the different periods of
her life, every circumstance of female weakness. She communicated her
discontents against Henry to her two younger sons, Geoffrey and Richard;
persuaded them that they were also entitled to present possession of the
territories assigned to them; engaged them to fly secretly to the court
of France; and was meditating herself an escape to the same court, and
had even put on man’s apparel for that purpose, when she was seized by
orders from her husband, and thrown into confinement. Thus Europe saw
with astonishment the best and most indulgent of parents at war with
his whole family; three boys, scarcely arrived at the age of puberty,
require a great monarch, in the full vigor of his age and height of his
reputation, to dethrone himself in their favor; and several princes not
ashamed to support them in these unnatural and absurd pretensions.

Henry, reduced to this perilous and disagreeable situation, had recourse
to the court of Rome. Though sensible of the danger attending the
interposition of ecclesiastical authority in temporal disputes, he
applied to the pope, as his superior lord, to excommunicate his enemies,
and by these censures to reduce to obedience his undutiful children,
whom he found such reluctance to punish by the sword of the
magistrate.[*] Alexander, well pleased to exert his power in so
justifiable a cause, issued the bulls required of him; but it was soon
found, that these spiritual weapons had not the same force as when
employed in a spiritual controversy; and that the clergy were very
negligent in supporting a sentence which was nowise calculated to
promote the immediate interests of their order. The king, after taking
in vain this humiliating step, was obliged to have recourse to arms,
and to enlist such auxiliaries as are the usual resource of tyrants, and
have seldom been employed by so wise and just a monarch.

The loose government which prevailed in all the states of Europe, the
many private wars carried on among the neighboring nobles, and the
impossibility of enforcing any general execution of the laws, had
encouraged a tribe of banditti to disturb every where the public peace,
to infest the highways, to pillage the open country, and to brave all
the efforts of the civil magistrate, and even the excommunications of
the church, which were fulminated against them. Troops of them were
sometimes enlisted in the service of one prince or baron, sometimes
in that of another: they often acted in an independent manner, under
leaders of their own; the peaceable and industrious inhabitants, reduced
to poverty by their ravages, were frequently obliged for subsistence to
betake themselves to a like disorderly course of life; and a continual
intestine war, pernicious to industry, as well as to the execution
of justice, was thus carried on in the bowels of every kingdom. Those
desperate ruffians received the name sometimes of Brabançons, sometimes
of Routiers or Cottereaux; but for what reason is not agreed by
historians; and they formed a kind of society or government among
themselves, which set at defiance the rest of mankind. The greatest
monarchs were not ashamed, on occasion, to have recourse to their
assistance; and as their habits of war and depredation had given them
experience, hardiness, and courage, they generally composed the most
formidable part of those armies which decided the political quarrels
of princes. Several of them were enlisted among the forces levied by
Henry’s enemies; but the great treasures amassed by that prince enabled
him to engage more numerous troops of them in his service; and the
situation of his affairs rendered even such banditti the only forces on
whose fidelity he could repose any confidence.

     [* Epist. Petri Bles. epist. 136, in Biblioth.
     Patr. tom. xxiv. p. 1048. His words are, “Vestrae
     jurisdictionis est regnum Angliæ, 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.]

His licentious barons, disgusted with a vigilant government,
were more desirous of being ruled by young princes, ignorant of public
affairs, remiss in their conduct, and profuse in their grants; and as
the king had insured to his sons the succession to every particular
province of his dominions, the nobles dreaded no danger in adhering to
those who, they knew, must some time become their sovereigns. Prompted
by these motives, many of the Norman nobility had deserted to his son
Henry; the Breton and Gascon barons seemed equally disposed to embrace
the quarrel of Geoffrey and Richard. Disaffection had crept in among the
English; and the earls of Leicester and Chester in particular had openly
declared against the king. Twenty thousand Brabançons, therefore, joined
to some troops which he brought over from Ireland, and a few barons
of approved fidelity, formed the sole force with which he intended to
resist his enemies.

Lewis, in order to bind the confederates in a closer union, summoned
at Paris an assembly of the chief vassals of the crown, received their
approbation of his measures, and engaged them by oath to adhere to the
cause of young Henry. This prince, in return, bound himself by a like
tie never to desert his French allies; and having made a new great seal,
he lavishly distributed among them many considerable parts of those
territories which he purposed to conquer from his father. The counts of
Flanders, Boulogne, Blois, and Eu, partly moved by the general jealousy
arising from Henry’s power and ambition, partly allured by the prospect
of reaping advantage from the inconsiderate temper and the necessities
of the young prince, declared openly in favor of the latter. William,
king of Scotland, had also entered into this great confederacy; and
a plan was concerted for a general invasion on different parts of the
king’s extensive and factious dominions.

Hostilities were first commenced by the counts of Flanders and Boulogne
on the frontiers of Normandy. Those princes laid siege to Aumale, which
was delivered into their hands by the treachery of the count of that
name: this nobleman surrendered himself prisoner; and on pretence of
thereby paying his ransom, opened the gates of all his other fortresses.
The two counts next besieged and made themselves masters of Drincourt;
but the count of Boulogne was here mortally wounded in the assault; and
this incident put some stop to the progress of the Flemish arms.

In another quarter, the king of France, being strongly assisted by his
vassals, assembled a great army of seven thousand knights and their
followers on horseback, and a proportionable number of infantry;
carrying young Henry along with him he laid siege to Verneuil, which
was vigorously defended by Hugh de Lacy and Hugh de Beauchamp, the
governors. After he had lain a month before the place, the garrison,
being straitened for provisions, were obliged to capitulate; and they
engaged, if not relieved within three days, to surrender the town, and
to retire into the citadel. On the last of these days, Henry appeared
with his army upon the heights above Verneuil. Lewis, dreading an
attack, sent the archbishop of Sens and the count of Blois to the
English camp, and desired that next day should be appointed for a
conference, in order to establish a general peace, and terminate the
difference between Henry and his sons. The king, who passionately
desired this accommodation, and suspected no fraud, gave his consent;
but Lewis, that morning, obliging the garrison to surrender, according
to the capitulation, set fire to the place, and began to retire with his
army. Henry, provoked at this artifice, attacked the rear with vigor,
put them to rout, did some execution, and took several prisoners. The
French army, as their time of service was now expired, immediately
dispersed themselves into their several provinces, and left Henry free
to prosecute his advantages against his other enemies.

The nobles of Brittany, instigated by the earl of Chester and Ralph de
Fougeres, were all in arms; but their progress was checked by a body
of Brabançons, which the king, after Lewis’s retreat, had sent against
them. The two armies came to an action near Dol, where the rebels were
defeated, fifteen hundred killed on the spot, and the leaders, the earls
of Chester and Fougeres, obliged to take shelter in the town of Dol.
Henry hastened to form the siege of that place, and carried on the
attack with such ardor, that he obliged the governor and garrison to
surrender themselves prisoners. By these rigorous measures and happy
successes, the insurrections were entirely quelled in Brittany; and the
king, thus fortunate in all quarters, willingly agreed to a conference
with Lewis, in hopes that his enemies, finding all their mighty efforts
entirely frustrated, would terminate hostilities on some moderate and
reasonable conditions.

The two monarchs met between Trie and Gisofs; and Henry had here the
mortification to see his three sons in the retinue of his mortal enemy.
As Lewis had no other pretence for war than supporting the claims of
the young princes, the king made them such offers as children might be
ashamed to insist on, and could be extorted from him by nothing but his
parental affection, or by the present necessity of his affairs.[*] He
insisted only on retaining the sovereign authority in all his dominions;
but offered young Henry half the revenues of England, with some places
of surety in that kingdom; or, if he rather chose to reside in Normandy,
half the revenues of that duchy, with all those of Anjou. He made a like
offer to Richard in Guienne; he promised to resign Brittany to Geoffrey;
and if these concessions were not deemed sufficient, he agreed to add
to them whatever the pope’s legates, who were present, should require of
him.[**] The earl of Leicester was also present at the negotiation; and
either from the impetuosity of his temper, or from a view of abruptly
breaking off a conference which must cover the allies with confusion, he
gave vent to the most violent reproaches against Henry, and he even put
his hand to his sword, as if he meant to attempt some violence against
him. This furious action threw the whole company into confusion, and put
an end to the treaty.[***]

The chief hopes of Henry’s enemies seemed now to depend oft the state of
affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most imminent
danger. One article of Prince Henry’s agreement with his foreign
confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and all its
other fortresses, into the hands of ihe earl of Flanders:[****] yet so
little national or public spirit prevailed among the independent English
nobility, so wholly bent were they on the aggrandizement each of himself
and his own family, that, notwithstanding this pernicious concession,
which must have produced the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of
them had conspired to make an insurrection, and to support the prince’s
pretensions.

     [* Hoveden, p. 539.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 536. Brompton, p. 1085.]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 536.]

     [**** Hoveden, p. 533. Brompton, p. 1084. Gal.
     Neubr. p. 508.]

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.[*]

     [* Hoveden, p. 537.]

The king of Scotland made an irruption into Northumberland, and
committed great devastations; but being opposed by Richard de Lucy, whom
Henry had left guardian of the realm, he retreated into his own country,
and agreed to a cessation of arms. This truce enabled the guardian to
march southwards with his army, in order to oppose an invasion which
the earl of Leicester, at the head of a great body of Flemings, had made
upon Suffolk. The Flemings had been joined by Hugh Bigod, who made them
masters of his castle of Framlingham; and marching into the heart of the
kingdom, where they hoped to be supported by Leicester’s vassals, they
were met by Lucy, who, assisted by Humphry Bohun, the constable, and the
earls of Arundel, Glocester, and Cornwall, had advanced to Farnham with
a less numerous, but braver army to oppose them. The Flemings, who were
mostly weavers and artificers, (for manufactures were now beginning to
be established in Flanders,) were broken in an instant, ten thousand of
them were put to the sword, the earl of Leicester was taken prisoner,
and the remains of the invaders were glad to compound for a safe retreat
into their own country.

{1174.} This great defeat did not dishearten the malecontents; who,
being supported by the alliance of so many foreign princes, and
encouraged by the king’s own sons, determined to persevere in their
enterprise. The earl of Ferrars, Roger de Moubray, Archetil de Mallory,
Richard de Moreville, Hamo de Mascie, together with many friends of the
earls of Leicester and Chester, rose in arms: the fidelity of the
earls of Clare and Glocester was suspected; and the guardian, though
vigorously supported by Geoffrey, bishop of Lincoln, the king’s natural
son by the fair Rosamond, found it difficult to defend himself, on all
quarters, from so many open and concealed enemies. The more to augment
the confusion, the king of Scotland, on the expiration of the truce,
broke into the northern provinces with a great army[*] of eighty
thousand men; which, though undisciplined and disorderly, and better
fitted for committing devastation, than for executing any military
enterprise, was become dangerous from the present factious and turbulent
spirit of the kingdom.

     [* W. Heming. p. 501.]

Henry, who had baffled all his enemies in France, and had put his
frontiers in a posture of defence, now found England the seat of danger;
and he determined by his presence to overawe the malecontents, or by
his conduct and courage to subdue them. He lauded at Southampton; and
knowing the influence of superstition over the minds of the people,
he hastened to Canterbury, in order to make atonement to the ashes of
Thomas à Becket, and tender his submissions to a dead enemy. As soon as
he came within sight of the church of Canterbury, he dismounted walked
barefoot towards it, prostrated himself before the shrine of the saint,
remained in fasting and prayer during a whole day, and watched all night
the holy relics. Not content with this hypocritical devotion towards
a man whose violence and ingratitude had so long disquieted his
government, and had been the object of his most inveterate animosity, he
submitted to a penance still more singular and humiliating. He assembled
a chapter of the monks, disrobed himself before them, put a scourge of
discipline into the hands of each, and presented his bare shoulders to
the lashes which these ecclesiastics successively inflicted upon him.
Next day he received absolution; and, departing for London, got soon
after the agreeable intelligence of a great victory which his generals
had obtained over the Scots, and which, being gained, as was reported,
on the very day of his absolution, was regarded as the earnest of his
final reconciliation with Heaven and with Thomas a Becket William,
king of Scots, though repulsed before the castle of Prudhow, and other
fortified places, had committed the most horrible depredations upon
the northern provinces; but on the approach of Ralph de Glanville, the
famous justiciary, seconded by Bernard de Baliol, Robert de Stuteville,
Odonel de Umfreville, William de Vesci, and other northern barons
together with the gallant bishop of Lincoln, he thought proper to
retreat nearer his own country, and he fixed his camp at Alnwick. He had
here weakened his army extremely, by sending out numerous detachments in
order to extend his ravages; and he lay absolutely safe, as he imagined,
from any attack of the enemy. But Glanville, informed of his situation,
made a hasty and fatiguing march to Newcastle; and allowing his soldiers
only a small interval for refreshment, he immediately set out towards
evening for Alnwick. He marched that night above thirty miles; arrived
in the morning, under cover of a mist, near the Scottish camp; and
regardless of the great numbers of the enemy, he began the attack with
his small but determined body of cavalry. William was living in such
supine security that he took the English at first for a body of his own
ravagers who were returning to the camp; but the sight of their banners
convincing him of his mistake, he entered on the action with no greater
body than a hundred horse, in confidence that the numerous army which
surrounded him would soon hasten to his relief. He was dismounted on
the first shock, and taken prisoner; while his troops, hearing of this
disaster, fled on all sides with the utmost precipitation. The dispersed
ravagers made the best of their way to their own country; and discord
arising among them, they proceeded even to mutual hostilities, and
suffered more from each other’s sword than from that of the enemy.

This great and important victory proved at last decisive in favor of
Henry, and entirely broke the spirit of the English rebels. The bishop
of Durham, who was preparing to revolt, made his submissions; Hugh
Bigod, though he had received a strong reénforcement of Flemings, was
obliged to surrender all his castles, and throw himself on the king’s
mercy; no better resource was left to the earl of Ferrars and Roger
de Moubray; the inferior rebels imitating the example, all England was
restored to tranquillity in a few weeks; and as the king appeared to
be under the immediate protection of Heaven, it was deemed impious any
longer to resist him. The clergy exalted anew the merits and
powerful intercession of Becket; and Henry, instead of opposing this
superstition, plumed himself on the new friendship of the-saint, and
propagated an opinion which was so favorable to his interests.[*]

     [* 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.[*] The place was
defended with great vigor by the inhabitants;[**] and Lewis, despairing
of success by open force, tried to gain the town by a stratagem, which,
in that superstitious age, was deemed not very honor able. He proclaimed
in his own camp a cessation of arms on pretence of celebrating the
festival of St. Laurence; and when the citizens, supposing themselves in
safety, were so imprudent as to remit their guard, he purposed to
take advantage of their security. Happily, some priests had, from mere
curiosity, mounted a steeple, where the alarm bell hung; and observing
the French camp in motion, they immediately rang the bell, and gave
warning to the inhabitants, who ran to their several stations. The
French, who, on hearing the alarm hurried to the assault, had already
mounted the walls in several places; but being repulsed by the enraged
citizens were obliged to retreat with considerable loss.[***] Next day,
Henry, who had hastened to the defence of his Norman dominions, passed
over the bridge in triumph; and entered Rouen in sight of the French
army. The city was now in absolute safety; and the king, in order to
brave the French, monarch, commanded the gates, which had been walled
up, to be opened; and he prepared to push his advantages against the
enemy. Lewis saved himself from this perilous situation by a new piece
of deceit, not so justifiable. He proposed a conference for adjusting
the terms of a general peace, which he knew would be greedily embraced
by Henry; and while the king of England trusted to the execution of his
promise, he made a retreat with his army into France.

     [* Brompton, p. 1096.]

     [** Diceto, p. 578.]

     [*** Brompton, p. 1096 Gul. Neubr. p. 411. W.
     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. The most material of his concessions were
some pensions which he stipulated to pay them, and some castles which
he granted them for the place of their residence; together with an
indemnity for all their adherents, who were restored to their estates
and honors.[*]

Of all those who had embraced the cause of the young princes, William,
king of Scotland, was the only considerable loser by that invidious and
unjust enterprise. Henry delivered from confinement, without exacting
any ransom, about nine hundred knights, whom he had taken prisoners; but
it cost William the ancient independency of his crown as the price of
his liberty. He stipulated to do homage to Henry for Scotland and all
his other possessions; he engaged that all the barons and nobility of
his kingdom should also do homage; that the bishops should take an
oath of fealty; that both should swear to adhere to the king of England
against their native prince, if the latter should break his engagements;
and that the fortresses of Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, Roxborough, and
Jedborough should be delivered into Henry’s hands, till the performance
of articles.[**] {1175.} This severe and humiliating treaty was executed
in its full rigor. William, being released, brought up all his barons,
prelates, and abbots; and they did homage to Henry in the cathedral
of York, and acknowledged him and his successors for their superior
lord.[***]

     [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 35. Benedict. Abbas, p. 88.
     Hoveden, p. 540 Diceto, p. 583. Brompton, p. 1098. W.
     Heming. p. 505. Chron. Dunst. p. 36.]

     [** 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 Nig. Scac. p. 36.]

     [*** Benedict Abbas, p. 113.]

The English monarch stretched still further the rigor of the conditions
which he exacted. He engaged the king and states of Scotland to make a
perpetual cession of the fortresses of Berwick and Roxborough, and to
allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain in his hands for a limited time
This was the first great ascendant which England obtained over Scotland;
and indeed the first important transaction which had passed between the
kingdoms. Few princes have been so fortunate as to gain considerable
advantages over their weaker neighbors with less violence and injustice
than was practised by Henry against the king of Scots, whom he had taken
prisoner in battle, and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all
the neighbors of that prince, and even his own family, were, without
provocation, combined against him.[*]

Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with
honor from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great danger,
was employed for several years in the administration of justice, in the
execution of the laws, and in guarding against those inconveniencies,
which either the past convulsions of his state, or the political
institutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned. The provisions which
he made, show such largeness of thought as qualified him for being a
legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well for the future as
the present happiness of his kingdom.

{1176.} He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false
coining, arson; and ordained that these crimes should be punished by
the amputation of the right hand and right foot.[**] The pecuniary
commutation for crimes, which has a false appearance of lenity, had
been gradually disused; and seems to have been entirely abolished by the
rigor of these statutes. The superstitious trial by water ordeal, though
condemned by the church,[***] still subsisted; but Henry ordained, that
any man accused of murder, or any heinous felony, by the oath of the
legal knights of the county, should, even though acquitted by the
ordeal, be obliged to abjure the realm.[****]

All advances towards reason and good sense are slow and gradual. Henry,
though sensible of the great absurdity attending the trial by duel or
battle, did not venture to abolish it: he only admitted either of
the parties to challenge a trial by an assize or jury of twelve
freeholders.[*****]

     [* Some Scotch historians pretend, that William
     paid, besides, one hundred thousand pounds of ransom, which
     is quite incredible. The ransom of Richard I., who, besides
     England, possessed so many rich territories in France, was
     only one hundred and fifty thousand marks, and yet was
     levied with great difficulty. Indeed, two thirds of it only
     could be paid before his deliverance.]

     [** Benedict. Abbas, p. 132. Hoveden, p. 549.]

     [*** Seldeni Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 204,]

     [**** Benedict. Abbas, p. 132.]

     [***** Glanv. lib. ii. cap. 7.]

This latter method of trial seems to have been very ancient in England,
and was fixed by the laws of King Alfred: but the barbarous and violent
genius of the age had of late given more credit to the trial by
battle, which had become the general method of deciding all important
controversies. It was never abolished by law in England; and there is
an instance of it so late as the reign of Elizabeth: but the institution
revived by this king, being found more reasonable and more suitable to a
civilized people, gradually prevailed over it.

The partition of England into four divisions, and the appointment of
itinerant justices to go the circuit in each division, and to decide the
causes in the counties, was another important ordinance of this prince,
which had a direct tendency to curb the oppressive barons, and to
protect the inferior gentry and common people in their property.[*]
Those justices were either prelates or considerable noblemen; who,
besides carrying the authority of the king’s commission, were able,
by the dignity of their own character, to give weight and credit to
the laws.

That there might be fewer obstacles to the execution of justice, the
king was vigilant in demolishing all the new erected castles of the
nobility, in England as well as in his foreign dominions; and he
permitted no fortress to remain in the custody of those whom he found
reason to suspect.[**]

But lest the kingdom should be weakened by this demolition of the
fortresses, the king fixed an assize of arms, by which all his subjects
were obliged to put themselves in a situation for defending themselves
and the realm. Every man possessed of a knight’s fee was ordained to
have for each fee, a coat of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance;
every free layman, possessed of goods to the value of sixteen marks,
was to be armed in like manner; every one that possessed ten marks
was obliged to have an iron gorget, a cap of iron, and a lance; all
burgesses were to have a cap of iron, a lance, and a wambais; that is,
a coat quilted with wool, tow, or such like materials.[***] It appears
that archery, for which the English were afterwards so renowned, had
not at this time become very common among them. The spear was the chief
weapon employed in battle.

     [* Hoveden, p. 590].

     [** Benedict. Abbas, p. 202. Diceto p. 585.]

     [*** Benedict, Abbas, p. 305. Annal. Waverl. p.
     181.]

The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation
with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible
with a civilized, and indeed with any species of government. If a
clergyman were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation
only: if he were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but
excommunication and ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned
for by penances and submission.[*] Hence the assassins of Thomas
à Becket himself, though guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and the
most repugnant to the sentiments of that age, lived securely in their
own houses, without being called to account by Henry himself, who was
so much concerned, both in honor and interest, to punish that crime, and
who professed or affected, on all occasions, the most extreme abhorrence
of it. It was not till they found their presence shunned by every one
as excommunicated persons, that they were induced to take a journey to
Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the pontiff, and to submit to
the penances imposed upon them; after which, they continued to possess
without molestation their honors and fortunes, and seem even to have
recovered the countenance and good opinion of the public. But as the
king, by the constitutions of Clarendon, which he endeavored still
to maintain,[**] had subjected the clergy to a trial by the civil
magistrate, it seemed but just to give them the protection of that
power, to which they owed obedience: it was enacted, that the murderers
of clergymen should be tried before the justiciary, in the presence of
the bishop or his official; and besides the usual punishment for murder,
should be subjected to a forfeiture of their estates, and a confiscation
of their goods and chattels.[***]

     [* Petri Bles. epist. 73, apud Bibl. Patr. torn.
     xxiv. p. 992.]

     [** Gervase, p. 1433. ]

     [*** Diceto, p. 592. Gervase, p. 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 Brittany and the statute
took place in all these last-mentioned territories,[*] though totally
unconnected with each other;[**] a certain proof how irregular the
ancient feudal government was, and how near the sovereigns, in some
instances, approached to despotism, though in others they seemed
scarcely to possess any authority. If a prince, much dreaded and
revered like Henry, obtained but the appearance of general consent to
an ordinance which was equitable and just, it became immediately an
established law, and all his subjects acquiesced in it, If the prince
was hated or despised; if the nobles, who supported him, had small
influence; if the humors of the times disposed the people to question
the justice of his ordinance; the fullest and most authentic assembly
had no authority. Thus all was confusion and disorder; no regular idea
of a constitution; force and violence decided every thing.

The success which had attended Henry in his wars, did not much encourage
his neighbors to form any attempt against him; and his transactions with
them, during several years, contain little memorable. Scotland remained
in that state of feudal subjection to which he had reduced it, and
gave him no further inquietude. He sent over his fourth son, John, into
Ireland, with a view of making a more complete conquest of the island;
but the petulance and incapacity of this prince, by which he enraged the
Irish chieftains, obliged the king soon after to recall him.[***]

     [* Benedict. Abbas, p. 248. It was usual for the
     kings of England, after the conquest of Ireland, to summon
     barons and members of thai country to the English
     parliament. Molineux’s case of Ireland, p. 64, 65, 66.]

     [** Spelman 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.]

     [*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 437, etc.]

The king of France had fallen into an abject superstition; and was
induced, by a devotion more sincere than that of Henry, to make a
pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket, in order to obtain his intercession
for the cure of Philip, his eldest son. He probably thought himself
well entitled to the favor of that saint, on account of their ancient
intimacy; and hoped that Becket, whom he had protected while on earth,
would not now, when he was so highly exalted in heaven, forget his old
friend and benefactor. The monks, sensible that their saint’s honor was
concerned in the case, failed not to publish that Lewis’s prayers were
answered, and that the young prince was restored to health by Becket’s
intercession. That king himself was soon after struck with an apoplexy,
which deprived him of his understanding: Philip though a youth of
fifteen, took on him the administration, till his father’s death, which
happened soon after, {1180.} opened his way to the throne; and he proved
the ablest and greatest monarch that had governed that kingdom since
the age of Charlemagne. The superior years, however, and experience of
Henry, while they moderated his ambition, gave him such an ascendant
over this prince, that no dangerous rivalship for a long time arose
between them. The English monarch, instead of taking advantage of
his own situation, rather employed his good offices in composing
the quarrels which arose in the royal family of France; and he was
successful in mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his mother
and uncles. These services were but ill requited by Philip, who, when
he came to man’s estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the royal
family of England, and encouraged Henry’s sons in their ungrateful
and undutiful behavior towards him. Prince Henry, equally impatient
of obtaining power, and incapable of using it, renewed to the king the
demand of his resigning Normandy; and on meeting with a refusal, he fled
with his consort to the court of France: but not finding Philip at
that time disposed to enter into war for his sake, he accepted of his
father’s offers of reconciliation, and made him submissions. It was
a cruel circumstance in the king’s fortune, that he could hope for no
tranquillity from the criminal enterprises of his sons but by their
mutual discord and animosities, which disturbed his family and threw his
state into convulsions. Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne,
and who had displayed his valor and military genius by suppressing the
revolts of his mutinous barons refused to obey Henry’s orders, in doing
homage to his elder brother for that duchy; and he defended himself
against young Henry and Geoffrey, who, uniting their arms, carried war
into his territories.[**]

     [* Ypod. Neust. p. 451.]

     [** Benedict. Abbas, p 383. Diceto, p.617.]

The king with some difficulty composed this difference; but immediately
found his eldest son engaged in conspiracies, and ready to take arms
against himself. While the young prince was conducting these criminal
intrigues, he was seized with a fever at Martel, {1183.} a castle near
Turenne to which he had retired in discontent; and seeing the approaches
of death, he was at last struck with remorse for his undutiful behavior
towards his father. He sent a message to the king, who was not far
distant; expressed his contrition for his faults; and entreated the
favor of a visit, that he might at least die with the satisfaction of
having obtained his forgiveness. Henry, who had so often experienced
the prince’s ingratitude and violence, apprehended that his sickness was
entirely feigned, and he durst not intrust himself into his son’s hands:
but when he soon after received intelligence of young Henry’s death,
and the proofs, of his sincere repentance, this good prince was affected
with the deepest sorrow; he thrice fainted away; he accused his own hard
hearted ness in refusing the dying request of his son; and he lamented
that he had deprived that prince of the last opportunity of making
atonement for his offences, and of pouring out his soul in the bosom of
his reconciled father.[*] This prince died in the twenty-eighth year of
his age.

The behavior of his surviving children did not tend to give the king any
consolation for the loss. As Prince Henry had left no posterity, Richard
was become heir to all his dominions; and the king intended that John,
his third surviving son and favorite, should inherit Guienne as his
appanage; but Richard refused his consent, fled into that duchy, and
even made preparations for carrying on war, as well against his father
as against his brother Geoffrey, who was now put in possession of
Brittany. Henry sent for Eleanor, his queen, the heiress of Guienne, and
required Richard to deliver up to her the dominion of these territories;
which that prince, either dreading an insurrection of the Gascons in her
favor, or retaining some sense of duty towards her, readily performed;
and he peaceably returned to his father’s court. No sooner was this
quarrel accommodated, than Geoffrey, the most vicious perhaps of all
Henry’s unhappy family, broke out into violence; demanded Anjou to be
annexed to his dominions of Brittany; and on meeting with a refusal,
fled to the court of France, and levied forces against his father.[**]
{1185.} Henry was freed from this danger by his son’s death who was
killed in a tournament at Paris.[***]

     [* Benedict. Abbas, p. 393. Hoveden, p. 621.
     Trivet, vol. i. p. 84,]

     [** Gul. Neubr. p. 422.]

     [*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 451. Gervase, p. 1480.]

The widow of Geoffrey, soon after his decease, was delivered of a
son who received the name of Arthur, and was invested in the duchy of
Brittany, under the guardianship of his grandfather, who, is duke of
Normandy, was also superior lord of that territory. Philip, as lord
paramount, disputed some time his title to this wardship; but was
obliged to yield to the inclinations of the Bretons, who preferred the
government of Henry.

But the rivalship between these potent princes, and all their inferior
interests, seemed now to have given place to the general passion for
the relief of the Holy Land and the expulsion of the Saracens.
Those infidels, though obliged to yield to the immense inundation of
Christians in the first crusade, had recovered courage after the
torrent was past; and attacking on all quarters the settlements of the
Europeans, had Deduced these adventurers to great difficulties, and
obliged them to apply again for succors from the west. A second crusade,
under the emperor Conrade, and Lewis VII., king of France, in which
there perished above two hundred thousand men, brought them but a
temporary relief; and those princes, after losing such immense armies,
and seeing the flower of their nobility fall by their side, returned
with little honor into Europe. But these repeated misfortunes, which
drained the western world of its people and treasure, were not yet
sufficient to cure men of their passion for those spiritual adventures;
and a new incident rekindled with fresh fury the zeal of the
ecclesiastics and military adventurers among the Latin Christians.
Saladin, a prince of great generosity, bravery, and conduct, having
fixed himself on the throne of Egypt, began to extend his conquests over
the East; and finding the settlement of the Christians in Palestine an
invincible obstacle to the progress of his arms, he bent the whole force
of his policy and valor to subdue that small and barren, but important
territory. Taking advantage of dissensions which prevailed among the
champions of the cross, and having secretly gained the count of Tripoli,
who commanded their armies, he invaded the frontiers with a mighty power
and, aided by the treachery of that count, gained over them at Tiberiade
a complete victory, which utterly annihilated the force of the already
languishing kingdom of Jerusalem {1187.} The holy city itself fell into
his hands after a feeble resistance; the kingdom of Antioch was almost
entirely subdued and except some maritime towns, nothing considerable
remained of thope boasted conquests, which, near a century before, it
had cost the efforts of all Europe to acquire.

The western Christians were astonished on receiving this dismal
intelligence. Pope Urban III., it is pretended, died of grief; and
his successor, Gregory VIII., employed the whole time of his short
pontificate in rousing to arms all the Christians who acknowledged his
authority. The general cry was, that they were unworthy of enjoying any
inheritance in heaven, who did not vindicate from the dominion of the
infidels the inheritance of God on earth, and deliver from slavery that
country which had been consecrated by the foot-steps of their Redeemer.
{1188.} William, archbishop of Tyre, having procured a conference
between Henry and Philip near Gisors, enforced all these topics; gave a
pathetic description of the miserable state of the eastern Christians;
and employed every argument to excite the ruling passions of the
age, superstition, and jealousy of military honor. The two monarchs
immediately took the cross; many of their most considerable vassals
imitated the example; and as the emperor Frederic I. entered into the
same confederacy, some well-grounded hopes of success were entertained;
and men flattered themselves that an enterprise, which had failed under
the conduct of many independent leaders, or of imprudent princes, might
at last, by the efforts of such potent and able monarchs, be brought to
a happy issue.

The kings of France and England imposed a tax, amounting to the tenth
of all movable goods, on such as remained at home; but as they exempted
from this burden most of the regular clergy, the secular aspired to
the same immunity; pretended that their duty obliged them to assist the
crusade with their prayers alone; and it was with some difficulty they
were constrained to desist from an opposition, which in them who had
been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises, appeared with the
worst grace imaginable. This backwardness of the clergy is perhaps a
symptom that the enthusiastic ardor which had at first seized the people
for crusades, was now by time and ill success considerably abated; and
that the frenzy was chiefly supported by the military genius and love of
glory in the monarchs.

But before this great machine could be put in motion, there were still
many obstacles to surmount. Philip, jealous of Henry’s power, entered
into a private confederacy with young Richard; and working on his
ambitious and impatient temper, persuaded him, instead of supporting
and aggrandizing that monarchy which he was one day to inherit, to seek
present power and independence by disturbing and dismembering it. {1189.}
In order to give a pretence for hostilities between the two kings,
Richard broke into the territories of Raymond, count of Toulouse, who
immediately carried complaints of this violence before the king of
France, as his superior lord. Philip remonstrated with Henry; but
received for answer, that Richard had confessed to the archbishop of
Dublin, that his enterprise against Raymond had been undertaken by the
approbation of Philip himself, and was conducted by his authority. The
king of France, who might have been covered with shame and confusion by
this detection, still prosecuted his design, and invaded the provinces
of Berri and Auvergne, under color of revenging the quarrel of the count
of Toulouse. Henry retaliated by making inroads upon the frontiers of
France and burning Dreux. As this war, which destroyed all hopes of
success in the projected crusade, gave great scandal, the two kings held
a conference at the accustomed place between Gisors and Trie, in order
to find means of accommodating their differences; they separated on
worse terms than before; and Philip, to show his disgust, ordered a
great elm, under which the conferences had been usually held, to be
cut down; as if he had renounced all desire of accommodation, and was
determined to carry the war to extremities against the king of England.
But his own vassals refused to serve under him in so invidious a cause;
and he was obliged to come anew to a conference with Henry, and to offer
terms of peace. These terms were such as entirely opened the eyes of the
king of England, and fully convinced him of the perfidy of his son, and
his secret alliance with Philip, of which he had before only entertained
some suspicion. The king of France required that Richard should be
crowned king of England in the lifetime of his father, should be
invested in all his transmarine dominions, and should immediately
espouse Alice, Philip’s sister, to whom he had been formerly affianced,
and who had already been conducted into England. Henry had experienced
such fatal effects, both from the crowning of his eldest son, and from
that prince’s alliance with the royal family of France, that he rejected
these terms; and Richard, in con sequence of his secret agreement with
Philip, immediately revolted from him, did homage to the king of France
for all the dominions which Henry held of that crown, and received the
investitures, as if he had already been the lawful possessor. Several
historians assert, that Henry himself had become enamored of young
Alice, and mention this as an additional reason for his refusing these
conditions; but he had so many other just and equitable motives for
his conduct, that it is superfluous to assign a cause, which the great
prudence and advanced age of that monarch render somewhat improbable.

Cardinal Albano, the pope’s legate, displeased with these increasing
obstacles to the crusade, excommunicated Richard, as the chief spring
of discord; but the sentence of excommunication, which, when it was
properly prepared and was zealously supported by the clergy, had often
great influence in that age, proved entirely ineffectual in the present
case. The chief barons of Poictou, Guienne, Normandy, and Anjou, being
attached to the young prince, and finding that he had now received the
investiture from their superior lord, declared for him, and made inroads
into the territories of such as still adhered to the king. Henry,
disquieted by the daily revolts of his mutinous subjects, and dreading
still worse effects from their turbulent disposition, had again recourse
to papal authority; and engaged the cardinal Anagni, who had succeeded
Albano in the legateship, to threaten Philip with laying an interdict
on all his dominions. But Philip, who was a prince of great vigor and
capacity, despised the menace, and told Anagni, that it belonged not to
the pope to interpose in the temporal disputes of princes, much less in
those between him and his rebellious vassal. He even proceeded so far
as to reproach him with partiality, and with receiving bribes from the
king of England; while Richard, still more outrageous, offered to draw
his sword against the legate, and was hindered by the interposition
alone of the company, from committing violence upon him.

The king of England was now obliged to defend his dominions by arms,
and to engage in a war with France and with his eldest son, a prince
of great valor, on such disadvantageous terms. Ferte-Bernard fell first
into the hands of the enemy; Mans was next taken by assault; and Henry,
who had thrown himself into that place, escaped with some difficulty;
Amboise, Chaumont, and Château de Loire, opened their gates on the
appearance of Philip and Richard: Tours was menaced; and the king,
who had retired to Saumur, and had daily instances of the cowardice or
infidelity of his governors, expected the most dismal issue to all his
enterprises. While he was in this state of despondency, the duke of
Burgundy, the earl of Flanders, and the archbishop of Rheims interposed
with their good offices; and the intelligence which he received of the
taking of Tours, and which made him fully sensible of the desperate
situation of his affairs, so subdued his spirit, that he submitted to
all the rigorous terms which, were imposed upon him. He agreed that
Richard should marry the princess Alice; that that prince should receive
the homage and oath of fealty of all his subjects both in England and
his transmarine dominions; that he himself should pay twenty thousand
marks to the king of France, as a compensation for the charges of the
war; that his own barons should engage to make him observe this treaty
by force, and in case of his violating it should promise to join Philip
and Richard against him; and that all his vassals, who had entered into
confederacy with Richard, should receive an indemnity for the offence.

But the mortification which Henry, who had been accustomed to give the
law in most treaties, received from these disadvantageous terms, was
the least that he met with on this occasion. When he demanded a list
of those barons to whom he was bound to grant a pardon for their
connections with Richard, he was astonished to find, at the head
of them, the name of his second son, John; who had always been his
favorite, whose interests he had ever anxiously at heart, and who had
even, on account of his ascendant over him, often excited the jealousy
of Richard. The unhappy father, already overloaded with cares and
sorrows, finding this last disappointment in his domestic tenderness,
broke out into expressions of the utmost despair, cursed the day in which
he received his miserable being, and bestowed on his ungrateful and
undutiful children a malediction which he never could be prevailed on
to retract. The more his heart was disposed to friendship and affection,
the more he resented the barbarous return which his four sons had
successively made to his parental care; and this finishing blow, by
depriving him of every comfort in life, quite broke his spirit, and
threw him into a lingering fever, of which he expired, at the castle of
Chinon, near Saumur. His natural son, Geoffrey, who alone had
behaved dutifully towards him, attended his corpse to the nunnery of
Fontervrault; where it lay in state in the abbey church. Next day,
Richard, who came to visit the dead body of his father, and who,
notwithstanding his criminal conduct, was not wholly destitute of
generosity, was struck with horror and remorse at the sight; and as the
attendants observed that, at that very instant, blood gushed from the
mouth and nostrils of the corpse, he exclaimed, agreeably to a vulgar
superstition, that he was his father’s murderer; and he expressed a deep
sense, though too late, of that undutiful behavior which had brought his
parent to an untimely grave.

Thus died, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and thirty-fifth of
his reign, the greatest prince of his time for wisdom, virtue, and
abilities, and the most powerful in the extent of dominion of all those
that had ever filled the throne of England. His character in private,
as well as in public life, is almost without a blemish; and he seems to
have possessed every accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes
a man either estimable or amiable. He was of a middle stature, strong
and well proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his
conversation affable and entertaining; his elocution easy, persuasive,
and ever at command. He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and
conduct in war; was provident without timidity; severe in the execution
of justice without rigor; and temperate without austerity. He preserved
health, and kept himself from corpulency, to which he was somewhat
inclined, by an abstemious diet, and by frequent exercise, particularly
hunting. When he could enjoy leisure, he recreated himself either
in learned conversation or in reading; and he cultivated his natural
talents by study above any prince of his time. His affections, as well
as his enmities, were warm and durable; and his long experience of
the ingratitude and infidelity of men never destroyed the natural
sensibility of his temper, which disposed him to friendship and society.
His character has been transmitted to us by several writers, who were
his contemporaries; and it extremely resembles, in its most remarkable
features, that of his maternal grandfather, Henry I.; excepting only,
that ambition, which was a ruling passion in both, found not in the
first Henry such unexceptionable means of exerting itself, and pushed
that prince into measures which were both criminal in themselves, and
were the cause of further crimes, from which his grandson’s conduct was
happily exempted.

This prince, like most of his predecessors of the Norman line, except
Stephen, passed more of his time on the continent than in this island:
he was surrounded with the English gentry and nobility when abroad: the
French gentry and nobility attended him when he resided in England: both
nations acted in the government as if they were the same people; and, on
many occasions, the legislatures seem not to have been distinguished.
As the king and all the English barons were of French extraction, the
manners of that people acquired the ascendant, and were regarded as the
models of imitation. All foreign improvements, therefore, such as they
were, in literature and politeness, in laws and arts, seem now to have
been, in a good measure, transplanted into England and that kingdom was
become little inferior, in all the fashionable accomplishments, to any
of its neighbors on the continent. The more homely but more sensible
manners and principles of the Saxons, were exchanged for the
affectations of chivalry, and the subtilties of school philosophy: the
feudal ideas of civil government, the Romish sentiments in religion,
had taken entire possession of the people: by the former, the sense of
submission towards princes was somewhat diminished in the barons; by
the latter, the devoted attachment to papal authority was much augmented
among the clergy. The Norman and other foreign families established in
England, had now struck deep root; and being entirely incorporated with
the people, whom at first they oppressed and despised, they no longer
thought that they needed the protection of the crown for the enjoyment
of their possessions, or considered their tenure as precarious. They
aspired to the same liberty and independence which they saw enjoyed
by their brethren on the continent, and desired to restrain those
exorbitant prerogatives and arbitrary practices, which the necessities
of war and the violence of conquest had at first obliged them to indulge
in their monarch. That memory also of a more equal government under the
Saxon princes, which remained with the English, diffused still further
the spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more
independence to themselves and willing to indulge it to the people.
And it was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of
men produced, first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident
alteration in the maxims of government.

The history of all the preceding kings of England since the conquest,
gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal institutions;
the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of rebellion against the
prince and laws, and of animosity against each other: the conduct of the
barons in the transmarine dominions of those monarchs, afforded perhaps
still more flagrant instances of these convulsions; and the history of
France, during several ages, consists almost entirely of narrations
of this nature. The cities, during the continuance of this violent
government, could neither be very numerous nor populous; and there occur
instances which seem to evince that, though these are always the
first seat of law and liberty, their police was in general loose and
irregular, and exposed to the same disorders with those by which the
country was generally infested. It was a custom in London for great
numbers, to the amount of a hundred or more, the sons and relations of
considerable citizens, to form themselves into a licentious confederacy,
to break into rich houses and plunder them, to rob and murder the
passengers, and to commit with impunity all sorts of disorder. By these
crimes it had become so dangerous to walk the streets by night, that
the citizens durst no more venture abroad after sunset, than if they
had been exposed to the incursions of a public enemy. The brother of the
earl of Ferrars had been murdered by some of those nocturnal rioters;
and the death of so eminent a person, which was much more regarded than
that of many thousands of an inferior station, so provoked the king,
that he swore vengeance against the criminals, and became thenceforth
more rigorous in the execution of the laws.

There is another instance given by historians, which proves to what a
height such riots had proceeded, and how open these criminals were in
committing their robberies. A band of them had attacked the house of a
rich citizen, with an intention of plundering it; had broken through a
stone wall with hammers and wedges; and had already entered the house
sword in hand, when the citizen, armed cap-á-pie, and supported by his
faithful servants, appeared in the passage to oppose them: he cut off
the right hand of the first robber that entered, and made such stout
resistance that his neighbors had leisure to assemble and come to his
relief. The man who lost his hand was taken; and was tempted by the
promise of pardon to reveal his confederates; among whom was one John
Senex, esteemed among the richest and best-born citizens in London. He
was convicted by the ordeal; and though he offered five hundred marks
for his life, the king refused the money, and ordered him to be hanged.
It appears, from a statute of Edward I., that these disorders were not
remedied even in that reign. It was then made penal to go out at night
after the hour of the curfew, to carry a weapon, or to walk without a
light or lantern. It is said in the preamble to this law, that both by
night and by day there were continual frays in the streets of London.

Henry’s care in administering justice had gained him so great a
reputation, that even foreign and distant princes made him arbiter, and
submitted their differences to his judgment. Sanchez, king of Navarre,
having some controversies with Alphonso, king of Castile, was contented,
though Alphonso had married the daughter of Henry, to choose this prince
for a referee; and they agreed each of them to consign three castles
into neutral hands, as a pledge of their not departing from his award.
Henry made the cause be examined before his great council, and gave
a sentence, which was submitted to by both parties. These two Spanish
kings sent each a stout champion to the court of England, in order to
defend his cause by arms, in case the way of duel had been chosen by
Henry.

Henry so far abolished the barbarous and absurd practice of confiscating
ships which had been wrecked on the coast, that he ordained if one man
or animal were alive in the ship that the vessel and goods should be
restored to the owners.

The reign of Henry was remarkable also for an innovation which was
afterwards carried further by his successors, and was attended with the
most important consequences. This prince was disgusted with the species
of military force which was established by the feudal institutions, and
which, though it was extremely burdensome to the subject, yet rendered
very little service to the sovereign. The barons, or military tenants,
came late into the field; they were obliged to serve only forty days;
they were unskilful and disorderly in all their operations; and they
were apt to carry into the camp the same refractory and independent
spirit to which they were accustomed in their civil government. Henry,
therefore, introduced the practice of making a commutation of their
military service for money; and he levied scutages from his baronies
and knights’ fees, instead of requiring the personal attendance of his
vassals. There is mention made, in the history of the exchequer, of
these scutages in his second, fifth, and eighteenth year; and other
writers give us an account of three more of them.[*] When the prince had
thus obtained money, he made a contract with some of those adventurers
in which Europe at that time abounded; they found him soldiers of the
same character with themselves, who were bound to serve for a stipulated
time: the armies were less numerous, but more useful, than when composed
of all the military vassals of the crown: the feudal institutions began
to relax: the kings became rapacious for money, on which all their power
depended: the barons, seeing no end of exactions, sought to defend their
property, and as the same causes had nearly the same effects in the
different countries of Europe, the several crowns either lost or
acquired authority, according to their different success in the contest.

This prince was also the first that levied a tax on the movables or
personal estates of his subjects, nobles as well as commons. Their zeal
for the holy wars made them submit to this innovation; and a precedent
being once obtained, this taxation became, in following reigns, the
usual method of supplying the necessities of the crown. The tax of
danegelt, so generally odious to the nation, was remitted in this reign.

     [* Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 466, from the records. 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 rigor of the forest laws, and punished any
     transgressions of them, not capitally, but by fines,
     imprisonments, and other 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.

We are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, that the monks and prior of St.
Swithun threw themselves one day prostrate on the ground and in the mire
before Henry, complaining, with many tears and much doleful lamentation,
that the bishop of Winchester, who was also their abbot, had cut off
three dishes from their table. “How many has he left you?” said the
king. “Ten only,” replied the disconsolate monks. “I myself,” exclaimed
the king, “never have more than three; and I enjoin your bishop to
reduce you to the same number.”

This king left only two legitimate sons, Richard, who succeeded him, and
John, who inherited no territory, though his father had often intended
to leave him a part of his extensive dominions. He was thence commonly
denominated Lackland. Henry left three legitimate daughters; Maud, born
in 1156, and married to Henry, duke of Saxony; Eleanor, born in 1162,
and married to Alphonso, king of Castile: Joan, born in 1165, and
married to William, king of Sicily.

Henry is said by ancient historians to have been of a very amorous
disposition; they mention two of his natural sons by Rosamond, daughter
of Lord Clifford; namely, Richard Longespée, or Longsword, (so called
from the sword he usually wore,) who was afterwards married to Ela, the
daughter and heir of the earl of Salisbury; and Geoffrey, first bishop
of Lincoln, then archbishop of York. All the other circumstances of the
story commonly told of that lady seem to be fabulous.



CHAPTER X.

[Illustration: 123.jpg RICHARD I.]



RICHARD I.

{1189.} The compunction of Richard, for his undutiful behavior towards
his father, was durable, and influenced him in the choice of his
ministers and servants after his accession. Those who had seconded and
favored his rebellion, instead of meeting with that trust and honor
which they expected, were surprised to find that they lay under disgrace
with the new king, and were on all occasions hated and despised by him.
The faithful ministers of Henry, who had vigorously opposed all
the enterprises of his sons, were received with open arms, and were
continued in those offices which they had honorably discharged to their
former master. This prudent conduct might be the result of reflection;
but in a prince like Richard, so much guided by passion, and so little
by policy, it was commonly ascribed to a principle still more virtuous
and more honorable.

Richard, that he might make atonement to one parent for his breach
of duty to the other, immediately sent orders for releasing the queen
dowager from the confinement in which she had long been detained; and he
intrusted her with the government of England, till his arrival in
that kingdom. His bounty to his brother John was rather profuse
and imprudent. Besides bestowing on him the county of Mortaigne, in
Normandy, granting him a pension of four thousand marks a year, and
marrying him to Avisa, the daughter of the earl of Glocester, by whom he
inherited all the possessions of that opulent family, he increased
this appanage, which the late king had destined him, by other extensive
grants and concessions. He conferred on him the whole estate of William
Peverell, which had escheated to the crown: he put him in possession
of eight castles, with all the forests and honors annexed to them:
he delivered over to him no less than six earldoms, Cornwall, Devon,
Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster and Derby. And endeavoring, by
favors, to fix that vicious prince in his duty, he put it too much in
his power, whenever he pleased, to depart from it.

The king, impelled more by the love of military glory than by
superstition, acted, from the beginning of his reign, as if the sole
purpose of his government had been the relief of the Holy Land, and the
recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens. This zeal against infidels,
being communicated to his subjects, broke out in London on the day of
his coronation, and made them find a crusade less dangerous and attended
with more immediate profit. The prejudices of the age had made the
lending of money on interest pass by the invidious name of usury: yet
the necessity of the practice had still continued it, and the greater
part of that kind of dealing fell every where into the hands of the
Jews, who, being already infamous on account of their religion, had no
honor to lose, and were apt to exercise a profession, odious in itself,
by every kind of rigor, and even sometimes by rapine and extortion. The
industry and frugality of this people had put them in possession of all
the ready money which the idleness and profusion common to the English
with other European nations, enabled them to lend at exorbitant and
unequal interest. The monkish writers represent it as a great stain
on the wise and equitable government of Henry, that he had carefully
protected this infidel race from all injuries and insults; but the zeal
of Richard afforded the populace a pretence for venting their animosity
against them. The king had issued an edict, prohibiting their appearance
at his coronation; but some of them, bringing him large presents from
their nation, presumed, in confidence of that merit, to approach the
hall in which he dined: being discovered, they were exposed to the
insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the people pursued them;
the rumor was spread that the king had issued orders to massacre all the
Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an instant on such as fell
into the hands of the populace; those who had kept at home were exposed
to equal danger; the people, moved by rapacity and zeal, broke into
their houses which they plundered, after having murdered the owners;
where the Jews barricadoed their doors, and defended themselves with
vigor, the rabble set fire to their houses and made way through the
flames to exercise the pillage and violence; the usual licentiousness of
London, which the sovereign power with difficulty restrained, broke
out with fury, and continued these outrages; the houses of the richest
citizens, though Christians, were next attacked and plundered; and
weariness and satiety at last put an end to the disorder: yet when the
king empowered Glanville, the justiciary, to inquire into the authors
of these crimes, the guilt was found to involve so many of the most
considerable citizens, that it was deemed more prudent to drop the
prosecution; and very few suffered the punishment due to this enormity.
But the disorder stopped not at London. The inhabitants of the other
cities of England, hearing of this slaughter of the Jews, imitated the
example: in York five hundred of that nation, who had retired into the
castle for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place,
murdered their own wives and children, threw the dead bodies over the
walls upon the populace, and then setting fire to the houses, perished
in the flames. The gentry of the neighborhood, who were all indebted to
the Jews, ran to the cathedral, where their bonds were kept, and made
a solemn bonfire of the papers before the altar. The compiler of the
Annals of Waverley, in relating these events, blesses the Almighty for
thus delivering over this impious race to destruction.

The ancient situation of England, when the people possessed little
riches and the public no credit, made it impossible for sovereigns to
bear the expense of a steady or durable war, even on their frontiers;
much less could they find regular means for the support of distant
expeditions like those into Palestine, which were more the result
of popular frenzy than of sober reason or deliberate policy. Richard
therefore knew that he must carry with him all the treasure necessary
for his enterprise, and that both the remoteness of his own country
and its poverty, made it unable to furnish him with those continued
supplies, which the exigencies of so perilous a war must necessarily
require. His father had left him a treasure of above a hundred thousand
marks; and the king, negligent of every consideration but his present
object, endeavored to augment his sum by all expedients, how pernicious
soever ta the public, or dangerous to royal authority. He put to sale
the revenues and manors of the crown; the offices of greatest trust
and power, even those of forester and sheriff, which anciently were so
important,[*] became venal; the dignity of chief justiciary, in whose
hands was lodged the whole execution of the laws, was sold to Hugh de
Puzas, bishop of Durham, for a thousand marks; the same prelate bought
the earldom of Northumberland for life;[**] many of the champions of the
cross, who had repented of their vow, purchased the liberty of violating
it; and Richard, who stood less in need of men than of money, dispensed,
on these conditions, with their attendance. Elated with the hopes of
fame, which in that age attended no wars but those against the infidels,
he was blind to every other consideration; and when some of his wiser
ministers objected to this dissipation of the revenue and power of the
crown, he replied, that he would sell London itself could he find a
purchaser.[***] Nothing indeed could be a stronger proof how negligent
he was of all future interests in comparison of the crusade, than his
selling, for so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the vassalage of
Scotland, together with the fortresses of Roxborough and Berwick, the
greatest acquisition that had been made by his father during the course
of his victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in
the usual terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in
England.[****] The English of all ranks and stations were oppressed by
numerous exactions: menaces were employed both against the innocent and
the guilty, in order to extort money from them; and where a pretence
was wanting against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his
displeasure, to lend him sums which he knew it would never be in his
power to repay.

     [* 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
     Sheriffs’ Accounts.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 109.]

     [*** W. Hemming, p. 519. Knyghton, p. 2402.]

     [**** Hoveden, p. 562. 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 favorite daughters. “You counsel well,”
 replied Richard; “and I hereby dispose of the first to the Templars, of
the second to the Benedictines, and of the third to my prelates.”

Richard, jealous of attempts which might be made on England during his
absence, laid Prince John, as well as his natural brother Geoffrey,
archbishop of York, under engagements, confirmed by their oaths, that
neither of them should enter the kingdom till his return; though he
thought proper, before his departure, to withdraw this prohibition. The
administration was left in the hands of Hugh, bishop of Durham, and of
Longchamp, bishop of Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and guardians
of the realm. The latter was a Frenchman of mean birth, and of a violent
character; who by art and address had insinuated himself into favor,
whom Richard had created chancellor, and whom he had engaged the pope
also to invest with the legantine authority, that, by centring every
kind of power in his person, he might the better insure the public
tranquillity. All the military and turbulent spirits flocked about the
person of the king, and were impatient to distinguish themselves against
the infidels in Asia; whither his inclinations, his engagements, led
him, and whither he was impelled by messages from the king of France,
ready to embark in this enterprise.

The emperor Frederic, a prince of great spirit and conduct, had already
taken the road to Palestine, at the head of one hundred and fifty
thousand men, collected from Germany and all the northern states. Having
surmounted every obstacle thrown in his way by the artifices of the
Greeks and the power of the infidels, he had penetrated to the borders
of Syria; when, bathing in the cold river Cydnus, during the greatest
heat of the summer season, he was seized with a mortal distemper, which
put an end to his life and his rash enterprise.[*]

     [* Benedict. Abbas, p. 556.]

His army, under the command of his son Conrade, reached Palestine; but
was so diminished by fatigue famine, maladies, and the sword, that it
scarcely amounted to eight thousand men, and was unable to make any
progress against the great power, valor, and conduct of Saladin. These
reiterated calamities attending the crusades, had taught the kings of
France and England the necessity of trying another road to the Holy Land
and they determined to conduct their armies thither by sea, to carry
provisions along with them, and by means of their naval power to
maintain an open communication with then own states, and with the
western parts of Europe. The place of rendezvous was appointed in the
plains of Vezelay, on the borders of Burgundy.[*] {1190.} Philip and
Richard, on their arrival there, found their combined army amount to
one hundred thousand men;[**] a mighty force, animated with glory and
religion, conducted by two warlike monarchs, provided with every thing
which their several dominions couid supply, and not to be overcome but
by their own misconduct, or by the unsurmountable obstacles of nature.

     [* Hoveden, p. 660.]

     [** Vinisnuf, p. 305]

The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises of
cordial friendship, pledged their faith not to invade each other’s
dominions during the crusade, mutually exchanged the oaths of all their
barons and prelates to the same effect, and subjected themselves to the
penalty of interdicts and excommunications, if they should ever violate
this public and solemn engagement. They then separated; Philip took the
road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view of meeting their
fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous in these harbors.
They put to sea; and nearly about the same time were obliged, by stress
of weather, to take shelter in Messina, where they were detained during
the whole winter. This incident laid the foundation of animosities which
proved fatal to their enterprise.

Richard and Philip were, by the situation and extent of their dominions,
rivals in power; by their age and inclinations, competitors for glory;
and these causes of emulation, which, had the princes been employed
in the field against the common enemy, might have stimulated them
to martial enterprises, soon excited, during the present leisure and
repose, quarrels between monarchs of such a fiery character. Equally
haughty, ambitious, intrepid, and inflexible, they were irritated
with the least appearance of injury, and were incapable, by mutual
condescensions, to efface those causes of complaint which unavoidably
rose between them. Richard, candid, sincere, undesigning, impolitic,
violent, laid himself open on every occasion to the designs of his
antagonist; who, provident, interested, intriguing, failed not to take
all advantages against him: and thus, both the circumstances of
their disposition in which they were similar, and those in which they
differed, rendered it impossible for them to persevere in that harmony
which was so necessary to the success of their undertaking.

The last king of Sicily and Naples was William II., who had married
Joan, sister to Richard, and who, dying without issue, had bequeathed
his dominions to his paternal aunt Constantia, the only legitimate
descendant surviving of Roger the first sovereign of those states who
had been honored with the royal title. This princess had, in expectation
of that rich inheritance, been married to Henry VI., the reigning
emperor;[*] but Tancred, her natural brother, had fixed such an interest
among the barons, that, taking advantage of Henry’s absence, he had
acquired possession of the throne, and maintained his claim, by force
of arms, against all the efforts of the Germans.[**] The approach of the
crusaders naturally gave him apprehensions for his unstable government;
and he was uncertain whether he had most reason to dread the presence
of the French or of the English monarch. Philip was engaged in a strict
alliance with the emperor, his competitor: Richard was disgusted by his
rigors towards the queen dowager, whom the Sicilian prince had confined
in Palermo because she had opposed with all her interest his succession
to the crown. Tancred, therefore, sensible of the present necessity,
resolved to pay court to both these formidable princes; and he was not
unsuccessful in his endeavors. He persuaded Philip that it was highly
improper for him to interrupt his enterprise against the infidels by
any attempt against a Christian state: he restored Queen Joan to her
liberty; and even found means to make an alliance with Richard, who
stipulated by treaty to marry his nephew Arthur; the young duke of
Brittany, to one of the daughters of Tancred.[***]

     [* Benedict. Abbas, p. 580.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 663]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 676, 677. Benedict. Abbas, p.
     615.]

But before these terms of friendship were settled. Richard, jealous both
of Tancred and of the inhabitants of Messina, had taken up his quarters
in the suburbs, and had possessed himself of a small fort, which
commanded the harbor; and he kept himself extremely on his guard against
their enterprises. The citizens took umbrage. Mutual insults and attacks
passed between them and the English: Philip, who had quartered his
troops in the town, endeavored to accommodate the quarrel, and held a
conference with Richard for that purpose. While the two kings, meeting
in the open fields, were engaged in discourse on this subject, a body
of those Sicilians seemed to be drawing towards them; and Richard pushed
forwards in order to inquire into the reason of this extraordinary
movement.[*] The English, indolent from their power, and inflamed with
former animosities, wanted but a pretence for attacking the Messinese:
they soon chased them off the field, drove them into the town, and
entered with them at the gates. The king employed his authority to
restrain them from pillaging and massacring the defenceless inhabitants;
but he gave orders, in token of his victory, that the standard of
England should be erected on the walls. Philip, who considered that
place as his quarters, exclaimed against the insult, and ordered some
of his troops to pull down the standard: but Richard informed him by a
messenger, that though he himself would willingly remove that ground of
offence, he would not permit it to be done by others; and if the French
king attempted such an insult upon him, he should not succeed but by the
utmost effusion of blood. Philip, content with this species of haughty
submission, recalled his orders:[**] the difference was seemingly
accommodated, but still left the remains of rancor and jealousy in the
breasts of the two monarchs.

Tancred, who for his own security desired to inflame their mutual
hatred, employed an artifice which might have been attended with
consequences still more fatal. {1191.} He showed Richard a letter,
signed by the French king, and delivered to him, as he pretended, by the
duke of Burgundy; in which that monarch desired Tancred to fall upon the
quarters of the English, and promised to assist him in putting them
to the sword as common enemies. The unwary Richard gave credit to the
information; but was too candid not to betray his discontent to Philip,
who absolutely denied the letter, and charged the Sicilian prince with
forgery and falsehood. Richard either was, or pretended to be, entirely
satisfied.[***]

     [* Benedict. Abbas, p. 608.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 674.]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 688. Benedict. Abbas, p. 642,
     643. Brompton, p. 1125]

Last these jealousies and complaints should multiply between them, it
was proposed that they should, by a solemn treaty, obviate all future
differences, and adjust every point that couid possibly hereafter become
a controversy between them. But this expedient started a new dispute,
which might have proved more dangerous than any of the foregoing, and
which deeply concerned the honor of Philip’s family. When Richard,
in every treaty with the late king, insisted so strenuously on being
allowed to marry Alice of France, he had only sought a pretence for
quarrelling, and never meant to take to his bed a princess suspected
of a criminal amour with his own father. After he became master, he
no longer spake of that alliance: he even took measures for espousing
Berengaria, daughter of Sanchez, king of Navarre, with whom he had
become enamored during his abode in Guienne.[*] Queen Eleanor was daily
expected with that princess at Messina;[**] and when Philip renewed to
him his applications for espousing his sister Alice, Richard was obliged
to give him an absolute refusal. It is pretended by Hoveden and other
historians,[***] that he was able to produce such convincing proofs of
Alice’s infidelity, and even of her having borne a child to Henry, that
her brother desisted from his applications, and chose to wrap up the
dishonor of his family in silence and oblivion. It is certain, from the
treaty itself which remains,[****] that, whatever were his motives, he
permitted Richard to give his hand to Berengaria; and having settled all
other controversies with that prince, he immediately set sail for the
Holy Land. Richard awaited some time the arrival of his mother and
bride, and when they joined him, he separated his fleet into two
squadrons, and set forward on his enterprise. Queen Eleanor returned to
England; but Berengaria, and the queen dowager of Sicily, his sister,
attended him on the expedition.[*****]

     [* Vinisauf, p. 316.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 112. Trivet, p. 102. W. Heming.
     p. 519.]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 688.]

     [**** Bymer, vol. i. p. 69. Chron. Dunst. p. 44.]

     [***** Benedict. Abbas, 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. Isaac, prince of Cyprus, who assumed the
magnificent title of emperor, pillaged the ships that were stranded,
brew the seamen and passengers into prison, and even refused to the
princesses liberty, in their dangerous situation, of entering the harbor
of Limisso. But Richard, who arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on
him for the injury. He disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant, who
opposed his landing; entered Limisso by storm; gained next day a second
victory; obliged Isaac to surrender at discretion; and established
governors over the island. The Greek prince, being thrown into prison
and loaded with irons, complained of the little regard with which he was
treated; upon which Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him;
and this emperor, pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the
generosity of his conqueror.[*] The king here espoused Berengaria, who,
immediately embarking, carried along with her to Palestine the daughter
of the Cypriot prince; a dangerous rival, who was believed to have
seduced the affections of her husband. Such were the libertine character
and conduct of the heroes engaged in this pious enterprise!

The English army arrived in time to partake in the glory of the siege
of Acre or Ptolemais, which had been attacked for above two years by the
united force of all the Christians in Palestine, and had been defended
by the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens. The remains of the
German army, conducted by the emperor Frederic, and the separate bodies
of adventurers who continually poured in from the west, had enabled the
king of Jerusalem to form this important enterprise;[**] but Saladin
having thrown a strong garrison into the place under the command of
Caracos, his own master in the art of war, and molesting the besiegers
with continual attacks and sallies, had protracted the success of the
enterprise, and wasted the force of his enemies.

     [* Benedict. Abbas, p. 650 Ann. Waverl. p. 164.
     Vinisauf, p 328 W. Heming. p. 523.]

     [** Vinisauf. p 269, 271, 279]

The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the Christians;
and these princes acting by concert, and sharing the honor and danger
of every action, gave hopes of a final victory over the infidels. They
agreed on this plan of operations: when the French monarch attacked
the town, the English guarded the trenches: next day, when the English
prince conducted the assault, the French succeeded him in providing for
the safety of the assailants. The emulation between those rival kings
and rival nations produced extraordinary acts of valor: Richard, in
particular animated with a more precipitate courage than Philip, and
more agreeable to the romantic spirit of that age, drew to himself the
general attention, and acquired a great and splendid reputation. But
this harmony was of short duration, and occasions of discord soon arose
between these jealous and haughty princes.

The family of Bouillon, which had first been placed on the throne of
Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, count of Anjou, grandfather
to Henry II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and
transmitted his title to the younger branches of his family. The Anjevan
race ending also in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing Sibylla, the
heiress, had succeeded to the title; and though he lost his kingdom by
the invasion of Saladin, he was still acknowledged by all the Christians
for king of Jerusalem.[*] But as Sibylla died without issue during the
siege of Acre, Isabella, her younger sister, put in her claim to that
titular kingdom, and required Lusignan to resign his pretensions to her
husband, Conrade, marquis of Montferrat. Lusignan, maintaining that
the royal title was unalienable and indefeasible, had recourse to
the protection of Richard, attended on him before he left Cyprus, and
engaged him to embrace his cause.[**] There needed no other reason for
throwing Philip into the party of Conrade; and the opposite views of
these great monarchs brought faction and dissension into the Christian
army, and retarded all its operations. The templars, the Genoese, and
the Germans, declared for Philip and Conrade; the Flemings, the
Pisans, the knights of the hospital of St. John, adhered to Richard and
Lusignan, But notwithstanding these disputes, as the length of the siege
had reduced the Saracen garrison to the last extremity, they surrendered
themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return for their lives, other
advantages to the Christians, such as restoring of the Christian
prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true cross;[***] and this
great enterprise, which had long engaged the attention of all Europe and
Asia, was at last, after the loss of three hundred thousand men, brought
to a happy period.

     [* Vinisauf, p. 281.]

     [** Trivet, p. 104. Vinisauf, p. 342. W. Heming.
     p. 524.]

     [*** 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 further conquest, and of
redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the ascendant
assumed and acquired by Richard, and having views of many advantages
which he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared his resolution
of returning to France; and he pleaded his bad state of health as
an excuse for his desertion of the common cause. He left however, to
Richard ten thousand of his troops, under the command of the duke of
Burgundy; and he renewed his oath never to commence hostilities against
that prince’s dominions during his absence. But he had no sooner reached
Italy than he applied, it is pretended, to Pope Celestine III. for
a dispensation from this vow; and when denied that request, he still
proceeded, though after a covert manner, in a project which the present
situation of England rendered inviting, and which gratified, in an
eminent degree, both his resentment and his ambition.

Immediately after Richard had left England, and begun his march to
the Holy Land, the two prelates whom he had appointed guardians of the
realm, broke out into animosities against each other, and threw the
kingdom into combustion. Longchamp, presumptuous in his nature, elated
by the favor which he enjoyed with his master, and armed with the
legantine commission, could not submit to an equality with the bishop
of Durham: he even went so far as to arrest his colleague, and to extort
from him a resignation of the earldom of Northumberland, and of his
other dignities, as the price of his liberty.[*] The king, informed of
these dissensions, ordered, by letters from Marseilles, that the
bishop should be reinstated in his offices; but Longchamp had still the
boldness to refuse compliance, on pretence that he himself was better
acquainted with the king’s secret intentions.[**] He proceeded to
govern the kingdom by his sole authority; to treat all the nobility
with arrogance; and to display his power and riches with an invidious
ostentation. He never travelled without a strong guard of fifteen
hundred foreign soldiers, collected from that licentious tribe, with
which the age was generally infested: nobles and knights were proud
of being admitted into his train his retinue wore the aspect of royal
magnificence; and when in his progress through the kingdom, he lodged in
any monastery, his attendants, it is said, were sufficient to devour in
one night the revenue of several years.[***]

     [* Hoveden, p. 665. Knyghton, p. 2403.]

     [** W. Heming. p 528,]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 680. Benedict. Abbas, p. 626,
     700. Brompton, p. 1193.]

The king, who was detained in Europe longer than the haughty prelate
expected, hearing of this ostentation, which exceeded even what the
habits of that age indulged in ecclesiastics; being also informed of the
insolent, tyrannical conduct of his minister, thought proper to restrain
his power: he sent new orders, appointing Walter, archbishop of Rouen,
William Mareshal, earl of Strigul, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, William Brie
were, and Hugh Bardolf, counsellors to Longchamp, and commanding him to
take no measure of importance without their concurrence and approbation.
But such general terror had this man impressed by his violent conduct,
that even the archbishop of Rouen and the earl of Strigul durst not
produce this mandate of the king’s: and Longchamp still maintained an
uncontrolled authority over the nation. But when he proceeded so far as
to throw into prison Geoffrey, archbishop of York, who had opposed
his measures, this breach of ecclesiastical privileges excited such a
universal ferment, that Prince John, disgusted with the small share he
possessed in the government, and personally disobliged by Longchamp,
ventured to summon at Reading a general council of the nobility and
prelates, and cite him to appear before them. Longchamp thought it
dangerous to intrust his person in their hands, and he shut himself,
up in the tower of London; but being soon obliged to surrender that
fortress, he fled beyond sea, concealed under a female habit, and was
deprived of his offices of chancellor and chief justiciary, the last of
which was conferred on the archbishop of Rouen, a prelate of prudence
and moderation. The commission of legate, however, which had been
renewed to Longchamp by Pope Celestine, still gave him, notwithstanding
his absence, great authority in the kingdom, enabled him to disturb
the government, and forwarded the views of Philip, who watched every
opportunity of annoying Richard’s dominions. {1192.} That monarch first
attempted to carry open war into Normandy: but as the French nobility
refused to follow him in an invasion of a state which they had sworn to
protect, and as the pope, who was the general guardian of all princes
that had taken the cross, threatened him with ecclesiastical censures,
he desisted from his enterprise, and employed against England the
expedient of secret policy and intrigue. He debauched Prince John from
his allegiance; promised him his sister Alice in marriage; offered to
give him possession of all Richard’s transmarine dominions; and had not
the authority of Queen Eleanor, and the menaces of the English council,
prevailed over the inclinations of that turbulent prince, he was ready
to have crossed the seas, and to have put in execution his criminal
enterprises.

The jealousy of Philip was every moment excited by the glory which the
great actions of Richard were gaining him in the east, and which, being
compared to his own desertion of that popular cause, threw a double
lustre on his rival. His envy, therefore, prompted him to obscure
that fame which he had not equalled; and he embraced every pretence of
throwing the most violent and most improbable calumnies on the king of
England. There was a petty prince in Asia, commonly called the Old Man
of the Mountain, who had acquired such an ascendant over his fanatical
subjects, that they paid the most implicit deference to his commands;
esteemed assassination meritorious when sanctified by his mandate;
courted danger, and even certain death, in the execution of his orders;
and fancied, that when they sacrificed their lives for his sake, the
highest joys of paradise were the infallible reward of their devoted
obedience.[*] It was the custom of this prince, when he imagined
himself injured, to despatch secretly some of his subjects against the
aggressor, to charge them with the execution of his revenge, to instruct
them in every art of disguising their purpose; and no precaution was
sufficient to guard any man, however powerful, against the attempts of
these subtle and determined ruffians. The greatest monarchs stood in awe
of this prince of the assassins, (for that was the name of his people.
whence the word has passed into most European languages,) and it was the
highest indiscretion in Conrade, marquis of Montferrat, to offend
and affront him. The inhabitants of Tyre, who were governed by that
nobleman, had put to death some of this dangerous people: the prince
demanded satisfaction; for as he piqued himself on never beginning any
offence,[**] he had his regular and established formalities in requiring
atonement: Conrade treated his messengers with disdain: the prince
issued the fatal orders: two of his subjects, who had insinuated
themselves in disguise among Conrade’s guards, openly, in the streets
of Sidon, wounded him mortally; and when they were seized and put to the
most cruel tortures, they triumphed amidst their agonies, and rejoiced
that they had been destined by Heaven to suffer in so just and
meritorious a cause.

     [* W. Heming. p. 532. Brompton, p. 1243.]

     [** 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 on the crown of Jerusalem,[*]
Conrade himself, with his dying breath, had recommended his widow to the
protection of Richard;[**] the prince of the assassins avowed the action
in a formal narrative which he sent to Europe; yet, on this foundation,
the king of France thought fit to build the most egregious calumnies,
and to impute to Richard the murder of the marquis of Montferrat,
whose elevation he had once openly opposed. He filled all Europe with
exclamations against the crime; appointed a guard for his own person, in
order to defend himself against a like attempt; and endeavored, by these
shallow artifices, to cover the infamy of attacking the dominions of a
prince whom he himself had deserted, and who was engaged with so much
glory in a war universally acknowledged to be the common cause of
Christendom.

     [* Vinisauf, p. 391.]

     [** Brompton, p. 1248.]

But Richard’s heroic actions in Palestine were the best apology for
his conduct. The Christian adventurers under his command determined,
on opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order
to prepare the way for that of Jerusalem; and they marched along the
sea-coast with that intention. Saladin purposed to intercept their
passage: and he placed himself on the road with an army, amounting to
three hundred thousand combatants. On this occasion was fought one
of the greatest battles of that age; and the most celebrated, for the
military genius of the commanders, for the number and valor of the
troops, and for the great variety of events which attended it. Both
the right wing of the Christians, commanded by D’Avesnes, and the left
conducted by the duke of Burgundy, were, in the beginning of the day,
broken and defeated; when Richard, who led on the main body, restored
the battle; attacked the enemy with intrepidity and presence of mind;
performed the part both of a consummate general and gallant soldier; and
not only gave his two wings leisure to recover from their confusion, but
obtained a complete victory over the Saracens, of whom forty thousand
are said to have perished in the field.[*] Ascalon soon after fell into
the hands of the Christians: other sieges were carried on with equal
success; Richard was even able to advance within sight of Jerusalem, the
object of his enterprise; when he had the mortification to find that he
must abandon all hopes of immediate success, and must put a stop to his
career of victory. The crusaders, animated with an enthusiastic ardor
for the holy wars, broke at first through all regards to safety or
interest in the prosecution of their purpose; and trusting to the
immediate assistance of Heaven, set nothing before their eyes but fame
and victory in this world, and a crown of glory in the next. But long
absence from home, fatigue, disease, want, and the variety of incidents
which naturally attend war, had gradually abated that fury, which
nothing was able directly to withstand; and every one except the king of
England, expressed a desire of speedily returning into Europe. The
Germans and the Italians declared their resolution of desisting from the
enterprise: the French were still more obstinate in this purpose: the
duke of Burgundy, in order to pay court to Philip, took all
opportunities of mortifying and opposing Richard:[**] and there appeared
an absolute necessity of abandoning for the present all hopes of further
conquest, and of securing the acquisitions of the Christians by an
accommodation with Saladin, Richard, therefore concluded a truce with
that monarch; and stipulated that Acre, Joppa, and other seaport towns
of Palestine, should remain in the hands of the Christians, and that
every one of that religion should have liberty to perform his pilgrimage
to Jerusalem unmolested. This truce was concluded for three years, three
months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; a magical number,
which had probably been devised by the Europeans, and which was
suggested by a superstition well suited to the object of the war.

     [* Hovelen, p. 698. Benedict. Abbas, p. 677.
     Diceto, p. 662 Brompton, p. 1214.]

     [** 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.[*]

     [* Hoveden, p. 697. Benedict Abbas, p. 673. M.
     Paris, p. 115. Vinisauf, p. 846. W. Heming. p. 531.]

Saladin died at Damascus soon after concluding this truce with the
princes of the crusade; it is memorable that, before he expired, he
ordered his winding-sheet to be carried as a standard through every
street of the city; while a crier went before, and proclaimed with
a loud voice, “This is all that remains to the mighty Saladin, the
conqueror of the East.” By his last will, he ordered charities to be
distributed to the poor, without distinction of Jew, Christian, or
Mahometan.

There remained, after the truce, no business of importance to detain
Richard in Palestine; and the intelligence which he received, concerning
the intrigues of his brother John, and those of the king of France,
made him sensible that his presence was necessary in Europe. As he
dared not to pass through France, he sailed to the Adriatic; and being
ship-wrecked near Aquileia, he put on the disguise of a pilgrim, with a
purpose of taking his journey secretly through Germany. Pursued by the
governor of Istria, he was forced out of the direct road to England,
and was obliged to pass by Vienna, where his expenses and liberalities
betrayed the monarch in the habit of the pilgrim; and he was arrested by
orders of Leopold, duke of Austria. This prince had served under Richard
at the siege of Acre; but being disgusted by some insult of that haughty
monarch, he was so ungenerous as to seize the present opportunity of
gratifying at once his avarice and revenge; and he threw the king into
prison. {1193.} The emperor, Henry VI., who also considered Richard as
an enemy, on account of the alliance contracted by him with Tancred,
king of Sicily, despatched messengers to the duke of Austria, required
the royal captive to be delivered to him, and stipulated a large sum of
money as a reward for this service. Thus the king of England, who had
filled the whole world with his renown, found himself, during the most
critical state of his affairs, confined in a dungeon, and loaded with
irons, in the heart of Germany,[*] and entirely at the mercy of his
enemies, the basest and most sordid of mankind.

The English council was astonished on receiving this fatal intelligence,
and foresaw all the dangerous consequences which might naturally arise
from that event. The queen dowager wrote reiterated letters to Pope
Celestine; exclaiming against the injury which her son had sustained,
representing the impiety of detaining in prison the most illustrious
prince that had yet carried the banners of Christ into the Holy Land;
claiming the protection of the apostolic see, which was due even to the
meanest of those adventurers; and upbraiding the pope, that, in a cause
where justice, religion, and the dignity of the church, were so much
concerned, a cause which it might well befit his holiness himself to
support by taking in person a journey to Germany, the spiritual thunders
should so long be suspended over those sacrilegious offenders.[**]
The zeal of Celestine corresponded not to the impatience of the queen
mother; and the regency of England were, for a long time, left to
struggle alone with all their domestic and foreign enemies.

The king of France, quickly informed of Richard’s confinement by a
message from the emperor,[***] prepared himself to take advantage of the
incident; and he employed every means of force and intrigue, of war and
negotiation, against the dominions and the person of his unfortunate
rival. He revived the calumny of Richard’s assassinating the marquis of
Montferrat; and by that absurd pretence he induced his barons to violate
their oaths, by which they had engaged that, during the crusade,
they never would, on any account, attack the dominions of the king of
England. He made the emperor the largest offers, if he would deliver
into his hands the royal prisoner, or at least detain him in perpetual
captivity he even formed an alliance by marriage with the king of
Denmark, desired that the ancient Danish claim to the crown of England
should be transferred to him, and solicited a supply of shipping to
maintain it.

     [* Chron. T. Wykes, p. 35.]

     [** Rymer, vol. i. p. 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, etc]

     [*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 70.]

But the most successful of Philip’s negotiations was with Prince
John, who, forgetting every tie to his brother, his sovereign, and his
benefactor, thought of nothing but how to make his own advantage of the
public calamities. That traitor, on the first invitation from the court
of France, suddenly went abroad, had a conference with Philip, and made
a treaty, of which the object was the perpetual ruin of his unhappy
brother. He stipulated to deliver into Philip’s hands a great part of
Normandy:[*] he received, in return, the investiture of all Richard’s
transmarine dominions; and it is reported by several historians, that he
even did homage to the French king for the crown of England.

In consequence of this treaty, Philip invaded Normandy; and by the
treachery of John’s emissaries, made himself master, without opposition,
of many fortresses--Neufchatel, Neaufle, Gisors, Pacey, Ivrée: he
subdued the counties of Eu and Aumale; and advancing to form the siege
of Rouen, he threatened to put all the inhabitants to the sword if they
dared to make resistance. Happily, Robert, earl of Leicester appeared in
that critical moment, a gallant nobleman, who had acquired great honor
during the crusade, and who, being more fortunate than his master in
finding his passage homewards, took on him the command in Rouen, and
exerted himself, by his exhortations and example, to infuse courage into
the dismayed Normans. Philip was repulsed in every attack; the time of
service from his vassals expired; and he consented to a truce with
the English regency, received in return the promise of twenty thousand
marks, and had four castles put into his hands as security for the
payment.[**]

     [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 85.]

     [** 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.[*] The justiciaries, supported by
the general affection of the people, provided so well for the defence
of the kingdom, that John was obliged, after some fruitless efforts,
to conclude a truce with them; and before its expiration, he thought it
prudent to return into France, where he openly avowed his alliance with
Philip.[**]

Meanwhile the high spirit of Richard suffered in Germany every kind of
insult and indignity. The French ambassadors, in their master’s name,
renounced him as a vassal to the crown of France, and declared all his
fiefs to be forfeited to his liege lord. The emperor, that he might
render him more impatient for the recovery of his liberty, and make him
submit to the payment of a larger ransom, treated him with the greatest
severity, and reduced him to a condition worse than that of the meanest
malefactor. He was even produced before the diet of the empire at Worms,
and accused by Henry of many crimes and misdemeanors; of making an
alliance with Tancred, the usurper of Sicily; of turning the arms of the
crusade against a Christian prince, and subduing Cyprus; of affronting
the duke of Austria before Acre; of obstructing the progress of the
Christian arms by his quarrels with the king of France; of assassinating
Conrade, marquis of Montferrat; and of concluding a truce with Saladin,
and leaving Jerusalem in the hands of the Saracen emperor.[***]

     [* Hoveden, p. 724.]

     [** W Heming. p. 556.]

     [*** M. Paris, p. 121. W. Heming. p. 536.]

Richard, whose spirit was not broken by his misfortunes, and whose
genius was rather roused by these frivolous or scandalous imputations,
after premising that his dignity exempted him from answering before any
jurisdiction, except that of Heaven, yet condescended, for the sake of
his reputation, to justify his conduct before that great assembly. He
observed, that he had no hand in Tancred’s elevation, and only concluded
a treaty with a prince whom he found in possession of the throne: that
the king, or rather tyrant, of Cyprus had provoked his indignation by
the most ungenerous and unjust proceedings; and though he chastised
this aggressor, he had not retarded a moment the progress of his chief
enterprise: that if he had at any time been wanting in civility to the
duke of Austria, he had already been sufficiently punished for that
sally of passion; and it better became men, embarked together in so holy
a cause, to forgive each other’s infirmities, than to pursue a slight
offence with such unrelenting vengeance: that it had sufficiently
appeared by the event, whether the king of France or he were most
zealous for the conquest of the Holy Land, and were most likely to
sacrifice private passions and animosities to that great object: that
if the whole tenor of his life had not shown him incapable of a base
assassination, and justified him from that imputation in the eyes
of his very enemies, it was in vain for him, at present, to make his
apology, or plead the many irrefragable arguments which he could produce
in his own favor: and that, however he might regret the necessity, he
was so far from being ashamed of his truce with Saladin, that he rather
gloried in that event; and thought it extremely honorable that, though
abandoned by all the world, supported only by his own courage, and
by the small remains of his national troops, he could yet obtain such
conditions from the most powerful and most warlike emperor that the East
had ever yet produced. Richard, after thus deigning to apologize for his
conduct, burst out into indignation at the cruel treatment which he
had met with; that he, the champion of the cross, still wearing that
honorable badge, should, after expending the blood and treasure of his
subjects in the common cause of Christendom, be intercepted by Christian
princes in his return to his own country, be thrown into a dungeon, be
loaded with irons, be obliged to plead his cause as if he were a
subject and a malefactor, and, what he still more regretted, be thereby
prevented from making preparations for a new crusade, which he had
projected, after the expiration of the truce, and from redeeming the
sepulchre of Christ, which had so long been profaned by the dominion of
infidels. The spirit and eloquence of Richard made such impression on
the German princes, that they exclaimed loudly against the conduct of
the emperor; the pope threatened him with excommunication; and Henry,
who had hearkened to the proposals of the king of France and Prince
John, found that it would be impracticable for him to execute his and
their base purposes, or to detain the king of England any longer in
captivity. He therefore concluded with him a treaty for his ransom, and
agreed to restore him to his freedom for the sum of one hundred and
fifty thousand marks about three hundred thousand pounds of our present
money of which one hundred thousand marks were to be paid before
he received his liberty, and sixty-seven hostages delivered for the
remainder.[*] The emperor, as if to gloss over the infamy of this
transaction, made at the same time a present to Richard of the kingdom
of Arles, comprehending Provence, Dauphiny, Narbonne, and other states,
over which the empire had some antiquated claims; a present which the
king very wisely neglected.

     [* 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
bishop, abbots, and nobles, paid a fourth of their yearly rent; the
parochial clergy contributed a tenth of their tithes; and the requisite
sura being thus collected queen Eleanor, and Walter, archbishop of
Rouen, set out with it for Germany; {1194.} paid the money to the
emperor and the duke of Austria at Mentz; delivered them hostages for
the remainder, and freed. Richard from captivity. His escape was very
critical. Henry had been detected in the assassination of the bishop of
Liege, and in an attempt of a like nature on the duke of Louvaine; and
finding himself extremely obnoxious to the German princes on account
of these odious practices, he had determined to seek support from an
alliance with the king of France; to detain Richard, the enemy of that
prince, in perpetual captivity; to keep in his hands the money which
he had already received for his ransom; and to extort fresh sums from
Philip and prince John, who were very liberal in their offers to him. He
therefore gave orders that Richard should be pursued and arrested; but
the king, making all imaginable haste, had already embarked at the mouth
of the Schelde, and was out of sight of land when the messengers of the
emperor reached Antwerp.

The joy of the English was extreme on the appearance of their monarch,
who had suffered so many calamities, who had acquired so much glory,
and who had spread the reputation of their name into the farthest east,
whither their fame had never before been able to extend. He gave them,
soon after his arrival, an opportunity of publicly displaying their
exultation, by ordering himself to be crowned anew at Winchester; as if
he intended, by that ceremony, to reinstate himself in his throne, and
to wipe off he ignominity of his captivity. Their satisfaction was
not damped, even when he declared his purpose of resuming all those
exorbitant grants which he had been necessitated to make before his
departure for the Holy Land. The barons also, in a great council,
confiscated, on account of his treason, all Prince John’s possessions
in England and they assisted the king in reducing the fortresses which
still remained in the hands of his brother’s adherents.[*] Richard,
having settled every thing in England, passed over with an army into
Normandy; being impatient to make war on Philip, and to revenge himself
for the many injuries which he had received from that monarch.[**] As
soon as Philip heard of the king’s deliverance from captivity, he wrote
to his confederate John in these terms: “Take care of yourself: the
devil is broken loose.”[***]

     [* Hoveden, p, 737. Ann. Waverl. p. 165. W.
     Heming. p. 540.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 740.]

     [*** Hoveden p. 739]

When we consider such powerful and martial monarchs, inflamed with
personal animosity against each other, enraged by mutual injuries,
excited by rivalship, impelled by opposite interests, and instigated by
the pride and violence of their own temper, our curiosity is naturally
raised, and we expect an obstinate and furious war, distinguished by the
greatest events, and concluded by some remarkable catastrophe. Yet are
the incidents which attended those hostilities so frivolous, that scarce
any historian can entertain such a passion for military descriptions as
to venture on a detail of them; a certain proof of the extreme weakness
of princes in those ages, and of the little authority they possessed
over their refractory vassals The whole amount of the exploits on both
sides, is the taking of a castle, the surprise of a straggling party, a
rencounter of horse, which resembles more a rout than a battle. Richard
obliged Philip to raise the siege of Verneuil; he took Loches, a small
town in Anjou; he made himself master of Beaumont, and some other places
of little consequence; and after these trivial exploits, the two kings
began already to hold conferences for an accommodation. Philip insisted
that, if a general peace were concluded, the barons on each side should
for the future be prohibited from carrying on private wars against
each other; but Richard replied, that this was a right claimed by
his vassals, and he could not debar them from it After this fruitless
negotiation, there ensued an action between the French and English
cavalry at Fretteval, in which the former were routed, and the king of
France’s cartulary and records, which commonly at that time attended his
person, were taken. But this victory leading to no important advantages,
a truce for a year was at last, from mutual weakness, concluded between
the two monarchs.

During this war, Prince John deserted from Philip, threw himself at his
brother’s feet, craved pardon for his offences, and by the intercession
of Queen Eleanor was received into favor. “I forgive him,” said the
king, “and hope I shall as easily forget his injuries as he will my
pardon.” John was incapable even of returning to his duty without
committing a baseness. Before he left Philip’s party, he invited to
dinner all the officers of the garrison which that prince had placed in
the citadel of Evreux; he massacred them during the entertainment; fell,
with the assistance of the townsmen, on the garrison, whom he put to the
sword; and then delivered up the place to his brother.

The king of France was the great object of Richard’s resentment and
animosity. The conduct of John, as well as that of the emperor and duke
of Austria, had been so base, and was exposed to such general odium and
reproach, that the king deemed himself sufficiently revenged for
their injuries; and he seems never to have entertained any project of
vengeance against any of them. The duke of Austria, about this time,
having crushed his leg by the fall of his horse at a tournament, was
thrown into a fever; and being struck, on the approaches of death, with
remorse for his injustice to Richard, he ordered by will all the English
hostages in his hands to be set at liberty and the remainder of the debt
due to him to be remitted: his son, who seemed inclined to disobey these
orders, was constrained by his ecclesiastics to execute them.[*] {1195.}
The emperor also made advances for Richard’s friendship, and offered to
give him a discharge of all the debt not yet paid to him, provided he
would enter into an offensive alliance against the king of France; a
proposal which was very acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced
by him. The treaty with the emperor took no effect; but it served to
rekindle the war between France and England before the expiration of the
truce.

     [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 88, 102.]

This war was not distinguished by any more remarkable incidents than the
foregoing. After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few
insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers, and
made an exchange of some territories with each other.[*] {1196.} Their
inability to wage war occasioned the peace; their mutual antipathy
engaged them again in war before two months expired. Richard imagined
that he had now found an opportunity of gaining great advantages over
his rival, by forming an alliance with the counts of Flanders, Toulouse,
Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable vassals of the crown of
France.[**] But he soon experienced the insincerity of those princes;
and; was not able to make any impression on that kingdom, while
governed by a monarch of so much vigor and activity as Philip. The most
remarkable incident of this war was the taking prisoner, in battle, the
bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate who was of the family of Dreux,
and a near relation of the French king. Richard, who hated that bishop,
threw him into prison, and loaded him with irons; and when the pope
demanded his liberty, and claimed him as his son, the king sent to his
holiness the coat of mail which the prelate had worn in battle, and
which was all besmeared with blood; and he replied to him in the terms
employed by Jacob’s sons to that patriarch: “This have we found: know
now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.”[***] This new war between
England and France, though carried on with such animosity that both
kings frequently put out the eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished
by a truce of five years; and immediately after signing this treaty,
the kings were ready, on some new offence, to break out again into
hostilities, when the mediation of the cardinal of St. Mary, the pope’s
legate, accommodated the difference.[****] This prelate even engaged the
princes to commence a treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of
Richard put an end to the negotiation.

     [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 91]

     [** W. Heming, p. 549. Brompton, p. 1273. Rymer,
     vol i. p. 94.]

     [*** Genesis, chap, xxxvii. ver. 32. M. Paris, p;
     128. Brompton, p. 1273]

     [**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 109, 110.]

{1199.} Vidomar, viscount of Limoges, a vassal of the king, had found a
treasure, of which he sent part to that prince as a present. Richard, as
superior lord, claimed the whole; and, at the head of some Brabançons,
besieged the viscount in the castle of Chalus, near Limoges, in order to
make him comply with his demand.[*] The garrison offered to surrender;
but the king replied, that since he had taken the pains to come thither
and besiege the place in person, he would take it by force, and would
hang every one of them. The same day Richard, accompanied by Marcadée,
leader of his Brabançons, approached the castle in order to survey it,
when one Bertrand de Gourdon, an archer, took aim at him, and pierced
his shoulder with an arrow. The king, however, gave orders for the
assault, took the place, and hanged all the garrison, except Gourdon,
who had wounded him, and whom he reserved for a more deliberate and more
cruel execution.[**]

The wound was not in itself dangerous; but the unskilfulness of the
surgeon made it mortal; he so rankled Richard’s shoulder in pulling out
the arrow, that a gangrene ensued; and that prince was now sensible that
his life was drawing towards a period. He sent for Gourdon, and asked
him, “Wretch, what have I ever done to you, to oblige you to seek my
life?” “What have you done to me?” replied coolly the prisoner: “you
killed with your own hands my father, and my two brothers; and you
intended to have hanged myself: I am now in your power, and you may take
revenge by inflicting on me the most severe torments; but I shall endure
them all with pleasure, provided I can think that I have been so happy
as to rid the world of such a nuisance,”[***] Richard, struck with the
reasonableness of this reply, and humbled by the near approach of death,
ordered Gourdon to be set at liberty, and a sum of money to be given
him; but Marcadée, unknown to him, seized the unhappy man, flayed him
alive, and then hanged him. Richard died in the tenth year of his reign,
and the forty-second of his age; and he left no issue behind him.

     [* Hoveden, p. 791. Knyghton, p. 2413.]

     [** Hoveden, p. 791. Knyghton, p. 2413.]

     [*** Hoveden, p. 791. Brompton, p. 1277 Knyghton,
     p. 2413.]

The most shining part of this prince’s character are his military
talents. No man, even in that romantic age, carried personal courage
and intrepidity to a greater height, and this quality gained him the
appellation of the Lion-hearted, “Coeur de Lion.” He passionately loved
glory, chiefly military glory; and as his conduct in the field was not
inferior to his valor, he seems to have possessed every talent
necessary for acquiring it. His resentments also were high; his pride
unconquerable; and his subjects, as well as his neighbors, had therefore
reason to apprehend, from the continuance of his reign, a perpetual
scene of blood and violence. Of an impetuous and vehement spirit, he was
distinguished by all the good, as well as the bad, qualities incident to
that character; he was open, frank, generous, sincere, and brave; he
was revengeful, domineering, ambitious, haughty, and cruel; and was thus
better calculated to dazzle men by the splendor of his enterprises, than
either to promote their happiness, or his own grandeur, by a sound and
well-regulated policy. As military talents make great impression on the
people, he seems to have been much beloved by his English subjects; and
he is remarked to have been the first prince of the Norman line that
bore any sincere regard to them. He passed, however, only four months of
his reign in that kingdom; the crusade employed him near three years; he
was detained about fourteen months in captivity; the rest of his reign
was spent either in war or preparations for war against France; and he
was so pleased with the fame which he had acquired in the East, that
he determined, notwithstanding his past misfortunes, to have further
exhausted his kingdom, and to have exposed himself to new hazards, by
conducting another expedition against the infidels.

Though the English pleased themselves with the glory which the king’s
martial genius procured them, his reign was very oppressive, and
somewhat arbitrary, by the high taxes which he levied on them, and often
without consent of the states or great council. In the ninth year of his
reign, he levied five shillings on each hide of land; and because
the clergy refused to contribute their share, he put them out of the
protection of law, and ordered the civil courts to give them no sentence
for any debts which they might claim.[*] Twice in his reign he ordered
all his charters to be sealed anew, and the parties to pay fees for the
renewal.[**]

     [* Hoveden, p. 743. Tyrrel, vol. ii. p, 563.]

     [** Pryrnne’s Chronol. Vindic. tom. i. p. 1133.]

{1133.} It is said that Hubert, his justiciary, sent him over to France,
in the space of two years, no less a sum than one million one hundred
thousand marks, besides bearing all the charges of the government in
England. But this account is quite incredible, unless we suppose that
Richard made a thorough dilapidation of the demesnes of the crown,
which it is not likely he could do with any advantage after his former
resumption of all grants. A king who possessed such a revenue, could
never have endured fourteen months’ captivity for not paying one hundred
and fifty thousand marks to the emperor, and be obliged at last to leave
hostages for a third of the sum. The prices of commodities in this reign
are also a certain proof that no such enormous sum could be levied on
the people. A hide of land, or about a hundred and twenty acres, was
commonly let at twenty shillings a year, money of that time. As there
were two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides in England,
it is easy to compute the amount of all the landed rents of the kingdom.
The general and stated price of an ox was four shillings; of a laboring
horse, the same; of a sow, one shilling; of a sheep with fine wool,
tenpence with coarse wool, sixpence.[*] These commodities seem not to
have advanced in their prices since the conquest,[**] [19] and to have
still been ten times cheaper than at present.

Richard renewed the severe laws against transgressors in his forests,
whom he punished by castration and putting out their eyes, as in the
reign of his great-grandfather. He established by law one weight and
measure throughout his kingdom;[***] a useful institution, which the
mercenary disposition and necessities of his successor engaged him to
dispense with for money.

     [* Hoveden, p. 745.]

     [** See note S, at the end of the volume.]

     [*** M. Paris, p. 109, 134. Trivet, p. 127. Ann.
     Waverl. p. 165. Hoveden, p. 7.]

The disorders in London, derived from its bad police, had risen to a
great height during this reign; and in the year 1196, there seemed to
be formed so regular a conspiracy among the numerous malefactors, as
threatened the city with destruction. There was one William Fitz-Osbert,
commonly called Longbeard, a lawyer, who had rendered himself extremely
popular among the lower rank of citizens; and by defend ing-them on all
occasions, had acquired the appellation of the advocate or savior of
the poor. He exerted his authority by injuring and insulting the more
substantial citizens, with whom he lived in a state of hostility, and
who were every moment exposed to the most outrageous violences from
him and his licentious emissaries. Murders were daily committed in the
streets; houses were broken open and pillaged in daylight; and it is
pretended, that no less than fifty-two thousand persons had entered into
an association, by which they bound themselves to obey all the orders
of this dangerous ruffian. Archbishop Hubert, who was then chief
justiciary, summoned him before the council to answer for his conduct;
but he came so well attended, that no one durst accuse him, or give
evidence against him; and the primate, finding the impotence of law,
contented himself with exacting from the citizens hostages for their
good behavior. He kept, however, a watchful eye on Fitz-Osbert, and
seizing a favorable opportunity, attempted to commit him to custody;
but the criminal, murdering one of the public officers, escaped with his
concubine to the church of St. Mary le Bow, where he defended himself
by force of arms. He was at last forced from his retreat, condemned, and
executed, amidst the regrets of the populace, who were so devoted to his
memory, that they stole his gibbet, paid the same veneration to it as to
the cross, and were equally zealous in propagating and attesting reports
of the miracles wrought by it.[*] But though the sectaries of this
superstition were punished by the justiciary,[**] it received so little
encouragement from the established clergy whose property was endangered
by such seditious practices, that it suddenly sunk and vanished.

     [* Hoveden, p 765. Diceto, p. 691. Neub. p 192,
     498]

     [** 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 armor, had no
way to make themselves be known and distinguished in battle, but by
the devices on their shields; and these were gradually adopted by
their posterity and families, who were proud of the pious and military
enterprises of their ancestors.

King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry: there even remain
some poetical works of his composition: and he bears a rank among
the Provençal poets or Trobadores, who were the first of the modern
Europeans that distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.



CHAPTER XI.

[Illustration: 132.jpg JOHN]



JOHN.

{1199.} THE noble and free genius of the ancients, which made the
government of a single person be always regarded as a species of tyranny
and usurpation, and kept them from forming any conception of a legal and
regular monarchy, had rendered them entirely ignorant both of the rights
of primogeniture and a representation in succession; inventions so
necessary for preserving order in the lines of princes, for obviating
the evils of civil discord and of usurpation, and for begetting
moderation in that species of government, by giving security to the
ruling sovereign. These innovations arose from the feudal law; which,
first introducing the right of primogeniture, made such a distinction
between the families of he elder and younger brothers, that the son
of the former was thought entitled to succeed to his grandfather,
preferably to his uncles, though nearer allied to the deceased monarch.
But though this progress of ideas was natural, it was gradual. In
the age of which we treat, the practice of representation was indeed
introduced, but not thoroughly established; and the minds of men
fluctuated between opposite principles. Richard, when he entered on the
holy war, declared his nephew Arthur, duke of Brittany, his successor;
and by a formal deed he set aside, in his favor, the title of his
brother John, who was younger than Godfrey, the father of that
prince.[*]

     [* Hoveden, p. 677.]

But John so little acquiesced in that destination that when he gained
the ascendant in the English ministry by expelling Longchamp, the
chancellor and great justiciary, he engaged all the English barons to
swear that they would maintain his right of succession; and Richard, on
his return, took no steps towards restoring or securing the order which
he had at first established. He was even careful, by his last will, to
declare his brother John heir to all his dominions; whether, that he now
thought Arthur, who was only twelve years of age, incapable of asserting
his claim against John’s faction, or was influenced by Eleanor, the
queen mother, who hated Constantia, mother of the young duke, and who
dreaded the credit which that princess would naturally acquire if her
son should mount the throne. The authority of a testament was great in
that age, even where the succession of a kingdom was concerned; and John
had reason to hope, that this title, joined to his plausible right
in other respects, would insure him the succession. But the idea of
representation seems to have made, at this time, greater progress in
France than in England; the barons of the transmarine provinces Anjou,
Maine, and Touraine, immediately declared in favor of Arthur’s title,
and applied for assistance to the French monarch as their superior lord.
Philip, who desired only an occasion to embarrass John, and dismember
his dominions, embraced the cause of the young duke of Brittany, took
him under his protection, and sent him to Paris to be educated along
with his own son Lewis. In this emergency, John hastened to establish
his authority in the chief members of the monarchy; and after sending
Eleanor into Poictou and Guienne, where her right was incontestable, and
was readily acknowledged, he hurried to Rouen, and having secured the
duchy of Normandy, he passed over, without loss of time, to England.
Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, William Mareschal, earl of Strigul,
who also passes by the name of earl of Pembroke, and Geoffrey
Fitz-Peter, the justiciary, the three most favored ministers of the
late king, were already engaged on his side; and the submission or
acquiescence of all the other barons put him, without opposition, in
possession of the throne.

The king soon returned to France, in order to conduct the war against
Philip, and to recover the revolted provinces from his nephew Arthur.
The alliances which Richard had formed with the earl of Flanders, and
other potent French princes, though they had not been very effectual,
still subsisted, and enabled John to defend himself against all the
efforts of his enemy. In an action between the French and Flemings, the
elect bishop of Cambray was taken prisoner by the former; and when the
cardinal of Capua claimed his liberty, Philip, instead of complying,
reproached him with the weak efforts which he had employed in favor of
the bishop of Beauvais, who was in a like condition. The legate, to show
his impartiality, laid at the same time the kingdom of France and the
duchy of Normandy under an interdict; and the two kings found themselves
obliged to make an exchange of these military prelates.

{1200.} Nothing enabled the king to bring this war to a happy issue so
much as the selfish, intriguing character of Philip, who acted, in
the provinces that had declared for Arthur, without any regard to the
interests of that prince. Constantia, seized with a violent jealousy
that he intended to usurp the entire dominion of them, found means to
carry off her son secretly from Paris: she put him into the hands of his
uncle; restored the provinces which had adhered to the young prince; and
made him do homage for the duchy of Brittany, which was regarded as a
rere-fief of Normandy. From this incident, Philip saw that he could not
hope to make any progress against John; and being threatened with an
interdict on account of his irregular divorce from Ingelburga, the
Danish princess whom he had espoused, he became desirous of concluding a
peace with England. After some fruitless conferences, the terms were
at last adjusted; and the two monarchy seemed in this treaty to have an
intention, besides ending the present quarrel, of preventing all future
causes of discord, and of obviating every controversy which could
hereafter arise between them. They adjusted the limits of all their
territories; mutually secured the interests of their vassals, and, to
render the union more durable, John gave his niece, Blanche of Castile,
in marriage to Prince Lewis, Philip’s eldest son, and with her the
baronies of Issoudun and Graçai, and other fiefs in Berri. Nine
barons of the king of England, and as many of the king of France,
were guaranties of this treaty; and all of them swore, that, if their
sovereign violated any article of it, they would declare themselves
against him, and embrace the cause of the injured monarch. John, now
secure, as he imagined, on the side of France indulged his passion for
Isabella, the daughter and heir of Aymar Tailleffer, count of Angouleme,
a lady with whom he had become much enamored. His queen, the heiress of
the family of Glocester, was still alive: Isabella was married to
the count de la Marche, and was already consigned to the care of that
nobleman; though, by reason of her tender years, the marriage had
not been consummated. The passion of John made him overlook all these
obstacles: he persuaded the count of Angouleme to carry off his daughter
from her husband; and having, on some pretence or other, procured a
divorce from his own wife, he espoused Isabella; regardless both of the
menaces of the pope, who exclaimed against these irregular proceedings,
and of the resentment of the injured count, who soon found means of
punishing his powerful and insolent rival.

{1201.} John had not the art of attaching his barons either by affection
or by fear. The count de la Marche, and his brother, the count d’Eu,
taking advantage of the general discontent against him, excited
commotions in Poictou and Normandy, and obliged the king to have
recourse to arms, in order to suppress the insurrection of his vassals.
He summoned together the barons of England, and required them to pass
the sea under his standard, and to quell the rebels: he found that he
possessed as little authority in that kingdom as in his transmarine
provinces. The English barons unanimously replied, that they would not
attend him on this expedition, unless he would promise to restore and
preserve their privileges; the first symptom of a regular association
and plan of liberty among those noblemen. But affairs were not yet fully
ripe for the revolution projected. John, by menacing the barons, broke
the concert; and both engaged many of them to follow him into Normandy,
and obliged the rest, who staid behind, to pay him a scutage of two
marks on each knight’s fee, as the price of their exemption from the
service.

The force which John carried abroad with him, and that which joined him
in Normandy, rendered him much superior to his malecontent barons; and
so much the more, as Philip did not publicly give them any countenance,
and seemed as yet determined to persevere steadily in the alliance
which he had contracted with England. But the king, elated with his
superiority, advanced claims which gave a universal alarm to his
vassals, and diffused still wider the general discontent. As the
jurisprudence of those times required that the causes in the lord’s
court should chiefly be decided by duel, he carried along with him
certain bravos, whom he retained as champions, and whom he destined to
fight with his barons, in order to determine any controversy which he
might raise against them. The count de la Marche and other noblemen
regarded this proceeding as an affront, as well as an injury; and
declared, that they would never draw their swords against men of such
inferior quality. The king menaced them with vengeance; but he had not
vigor to employ against them the force in his hands, or to prosecute the
injustice, by crushing entirely the nobles who opposed it.

This government, equally feeble and violent, gave the injured barons
courage, as well as inclination, to carry further their opposition: they
appealed to the king of France; complained of the denial of justice
in John’s court; demanded redress from him as their superior lord; and
entreated him to employ his authority, and prevent their final ruin and
oppression. Philip perceived his advantage, opened his mind to great
projects, interposed in behalf of the French barons, and began to talk
in a high and menacing style to the king of England. {1202.} John,
who could not disavow Philip’s authority, replied, that it belonged to
himself first to grant them a trial by their peers in his own court; it
was not till he failed in this duty, that he was answerable to his peers
in the supreme court of the French king; and he promised, by a fair
and equitable judicature, to give satisfaction to his barons. When the
nobles, in consequence of this engagement, demanded a safe conduct, that
they might attend his court, he at first refused it: upon the renewal
of Philip’s menaces, he promised to grant their demand; he violated
this promise: fresh menaces extorted from him a promise to surrender
to Philip the fortresses of Tillíeres and Boutavant, as a security for
performance; he again violated this engagement: his enemies, sensible
both of his weakness and want of faith combined still closer in the
resolution of pushing him to extremities; and a new and powerful ally
soon appeared to encourage them in their invasion of this odious and
despicable government.

{1203.} The young duke of Brittany, who was now rising to man’s estate,
sensible of the dangerous character of his uncle, determined to
seek both his security and elevation by a union with Philip and
the malecontent barons. He joined the French army which had begun
hostilities against the king of England: he was received with great
marks of distinction by Philip; was knighted by him; espoused his
daughter Mary; and was invested not only in the duchy of Brittany, but
in the counties of Anjou and Maine, which he had formerly resigned
to his uncle. Every attempt succeeded with the allies. Tillieres and
Boutavant were taken by Philip, after making a feeble defence: Mortimar
and Lyons fell into his hands almost without resistance. That prince
next invested Gournai; and opening the sluices of a lake which lay in
the neighborhood, poured such a torrent of water into the place, that
the garrison deserted it, and the French monarch, without striking a
blow, made himself master of that important fortress. The progress of
the French arms was rapid, and promised more considerable success than
usually in that age attended military enterprises. In answer to every
advance which the king made towards peace, Philip still insisted that
he should resign all his transmarine dominions to his nephew and rest
contented with the kingdom of England; when an event happened, which
seemed to turn the scales in favor of John, and to give him a decisive
superiority over his enemies.

Young Arthur, fond of military renown, had broken into Poictou at the
head of a small army; and passing near Mirebeau, he heard that his
grandmother, Queen Eleanor, who had always opposed his interests, was
lodged in that place and was protected by a weak garrison and ruinous
fortifications. He immediately determined to lay siege to the fortress,
and make himself master of her person; but John, roused from his
indolence by so pressing an occasion, collected an army of English and
Brabançons, and advanced from Normandy with hasty marches to the relief
of the queen mother. He fell on Arthur’s camp, before that prince was
aware of the danger; dispersed his army; took him prisoner together with
the count de la Marche, Geoffrey de Lusignan, and the most considerable
of the revolted barons, and returned in triumph to Normandy. Philip,
who was lying before Arques, in that duchy, raised the siege and retired
upon his approach. The greater part of the prisoners were sent over to
England, but Arthur was shut up in the castle of Falaise.

The king had here a conference with his nephew; represented to him
the folly of his pretensions; and required him to renounce the French
alliance, which had encouraged him to live in a state of enmity with all
his family; but the brave, though imprudent youth, rendered more haughty
from misfortunes, maintained the justice of his cause; asserted his
claim, not only to the French provinces, but to the crown of England;
and, in his turn, required the king to restore the son of his elder
brother to the possession of his inheritance; John, sensible, from these
symptoms of spirit, that the young prince, though now a prisoner, might
hereafter prove a dangerous enemy, determined to prevent all future
peril by despatching his nephew; and Arthur was never more heard of.
The circumstances which attended this deed of darkness were, no
doubt, carefully concealed by the actors, and are variously related by
historians; but the most probable account is as follows: The king, it
is said, first proposed to William de la Braye, one of his servants,
to despatch Arthur; but William replied that he was a gentleman, not
a hangman; and he positively refused compliance. Another instrument of
murder was found, and was despatched with proper orders to Falaise; but
Huber de Bourg, chamberlain to the king, and constable of the castle,
feigning that he himself would execute the king’s mandate, sent back the
assassin, spread the report that the young prince was dead, and publicly
performed all the ceremonies of his interment; but finding that the
Bretons vowed revenge for the murder, and that all the revolted barons
persevered more obstinately in their rebellion, he thought it prudent to
reveal the secret, and to inform the world that the duke of Brittany
was still alive, and in his custody. This discovery proved fatal to the
young prince: John first removed him to the castle of Rouen; and coming
in a boat, during the night time, to that place, commanded Arthur to
be brought forth to him. The young prince, aware of his danger, and now
more subdued by the continuance of his misfortunes, and by the approach
of death, threw himself on his knees before hia uncle, and begged for
mercy: but the barbarous tyrant, making no reply, stabbed him with his
own hands; and fastening a stone to the dead body, threw it into the
Seine.

All men were struck with horror at this inhuman deed; and from that
moment the king, detested by his subjects, retained a very precarious
authority over both the people and the barons in his dominions. The
Bretons, enraged at this disappointment in their fond hopes, waged
implacable war against him; and fixing the succession of their
government, put themselves in a posture to revenge the murder of their
sovereign. John had got into his power his niece, Eleanor, sister to
Arthur, commonly called ‘the damsel of Brittany,’ and carrying her over
to England, detained her ever after in captivity:[*] but the Bretons, in
despair of recovering this princess, chose Alice for their sovereign;
a younger daughter of Constantia, by her second marriage with Gui
de Thouars; and they intrusted the government of the duchy to that
nobleman. The states of Brittany meanwhile carried their complaints
before Philip as their liege lord, and demanded justice for the violence
committed by John on the person of Arthur, so near a relation, who,
notwithstanding the homage which he did to Normandy, was always
regarded as one of the chief vassals of the crown. Philip received their
application with pleasure; summoned John to stand a trial before him;
and on his non-appearance, passed sentence, with the concurrence of the
peers, upon that prince; declared him guilty of felony and parricide;
and adjudged him to forfeit to his superior lord all his seigniories and
fiefs in France.[**]

     [* Trivet, p. 143. T. Wykes, p. 36. Ypod. Neust.
     p. 469.]

     [** W. Heming. p. 455. M. West. p. 264. Knyghton,
     p. 2420]

The king of France, whose ambitious and active spirit had been hitherto
confined, either by the sound policy of Henry, or the martial genius
of Richard, seeing now the opportunity favorable against this base and
odious prince, embraced the project of expelling the English, or rather
the English king, from France, and of annexing to the crown so many
considerable fiefs, which, during several ages, had been dismembered
from it. Many of the other great vassals, whose jealousy might have
interposed, and have obstructed the execution of this project, were not
at present in a situation to oppose it; and the rest either looked
on with indifference or gave their assistance to this dangerous
aggrandizement of their superior lord. The earls of Flanders and Blois
were engaged in the holy war: the count of Champagne was an infant, and
under the guardianship of Philip: the duchy of Brittany, enraged at the
murder of their prince, vigorously promoted all his measures: and the
general defection of John’s vassals made every enterprise easy and
successful against him. Philip, after taking several castles and
fortresses beyond the Loire, which he either garrisoned or dismantled,
received the submissions of the count of Alençon, who deserted John, and
delivered up all the places under his command to the French; upon which
Philip broke up his camp, in order to give the troops some repose after
the fatigues of the campaign. John, suddenly collecting some forces,
laid siege to Alençon; and Philip, whose dispersed army could not
be brought together in time to succor it, saw himself exposed to the
disgrace of suffering the oppression of his friend and confederate.
But his active and fertile genius found an expedient against this evil.
There was held at that very time a tournament at Moret, in the Gatinois;
whither all the chief nobility of France and the neighboring countries
had resorted, in order to signalize their prowess and address. Philip
presented himself before them; craved their assistance in his distress;
and pointed out the plains of Alençon, as the most honorable field in
which they could display their generosity and martial spirit. Those
valorous knights vowed that they would take vengeance on the base
parricide, the stain of arms and of chivalry; and putting themselves,
with all their retinue, under the command of Philip, instantly marched
to raise the siege of Alençon. John, hearing of their approach, fled
from before the place; and in the hurry, abandoned all his tents,
machines, and baggage to the enemy.

This feeble effort was the last exploit of that slothful and cowardly
prince for the defence of his dominions. He thenceforth remained in
total inactivity at Rouen; passing ill his time with his young wife in
pastimes and amusements, as if his state had been in the most profound
tranquillity, or his affairs in the most prosperous condition. If he
ever mentioned war, it was only to give himself vaunting airs, which, in
the eyes of all men, rendered him still more despicable and ridiculous.
“Let the French go on,” said he; “I will retake in a day what it has
cost them years to acquire.”[*] His stupidity and indolence appeared so
extraordinary that the people endeavored to account for the infatuation
by sorcery, and believed that he was thrown into this lethargy by some
magic or witchcraft. The English barons, finding that their time was
wasted to no purpose, and that they must suffer the disgrace of seeing,
without resistance, the progress of the French arms, withdrew from their
colors, and secretly returned to their own country,[**] No one thought
of defending a man who seemed to have deserted himself; and his subjects
regarded his fate with the same indifference, to which in this pressing
exigency, they saw him totally abandoned.

     [* M. Paris, p. 146. M. West. p. 266.]

     [** 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 ardor, proceeded, instead of obeying the pope’s envoys,
to lay siege to Chateau Gaillard, the most considerable fortress which
remained to guard the frontiers of Normandy.

{1204.} Chateau Gaillard was situated partly on an island in the
River Seine, partly on a rock opposite to it; and was secured by every
advantage which either art or nature could bestow upon it. The late
king, having cast his eye on this favorable situation, had spared no
labor or expense in fortifying it; and it was defended by Roger de Laci,
constable of Chester, a determined officer, at the head of a numerous
garrison. Philip, who despaired of taking the place by force proposed
to reduce it by famine; and that he might cut off its communication with
the neighboring country, he threw a bridge across the Seine, while he
himself, with his army blockaded it by land. The earl of Pembroke, the
man of greatest vigor and capacity in the English court, formed a plan
for breaking through the French intrenchments, and throwing relief into
the place. He carried with him an army of four thousand infantry and
three thousand cavalry, and suddenly attacked, with great success,
Philip’s camp in the night time; having left orders that a fleet of
seventy flat-bottomed vessels should sail up the Seine, and fall at the
same instant on the bridge. But the wind and the current of the river,
by retarding the vessels, disconcerted this plan of operations; and it
was morning before the fleet appeared; when Pembroke, though successful
in the beginning of the action, was already repulsed with considerable
loss, and the king of France had leisure to defend himself against these
new assailants, who also met with a repulse. After this misfortune, John
made no further efforts for the relief of Château Gaillard: and Philip
had all the leisure requisite for conducting and finishing the siege.
Roger de Laci defended himself for a twelvemonth with great obstinacy;
and having bravely repelled every attack, and patiently borne all the
hardships of famine, he was at last overpowered by a sudden assault in
the night time, and made prisoner of war, with his garrison.[*] Philip,
who knew how to respect valor, even in an enemy, treated him with
civility, and gave him the whole city of Paris for the place of his
confinement.

     [* Trivet p. 144. Gul. Britto, lib. vii. 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, Moulineux, and Monfort l’Amauri to be demolished. Not daring
to repose confidence in any of his barons whom he believed to be
universally engaged in a conspiracy against him, he intrusted the
government of the province to Arenas Martin and Lupicaire, two mercenary
Brabançons, whom he had retained in his service. Philip, now secure
of his prey, pushed his conquests with vigor and success against
the dismayed Normans. Falaise was first besieged; and Lupicare, who
commanded in this impregnable fortress, after surrendering the place,
enlisted himself with his troops in the service of Philip, and carried
on hostilities against his ancient master. Caen, Coutance, Seez, Evreux,
Baieux, soon fell into the hands of the French monarch, and all
the lower Normandy was reduced under his dominion! To forward his
enterprises on the other division of the province, Gui de Thouars, at
the head of the Bretons, broke into the territory, and took Mount St.
Michael, Avranches, and all the other fortresses in that neighborhood.
The Normans, who abhorred the French yoke and who would have defended
themselves to the last extremity, if their prince had appeared to
conduct them, found no resource but in submission; and every city opened
its gates as soon as Philip appeared before it. Rouen alone, Arques,
and Verneuil determined to maintain their liberties; and formed a
confederacy for mutual defence. {1205.} Philip began with the siege of
Rouen: the inhabitants were so inflamed with hatred to France, that on
the appearance of his army, they fell on all the natives of that country
whom they found within their walls, and put tham to death. But after the
French king had begun his operations with success, and had taken some of
their outworks, the citizens, seeing no resource, offered to capitulate;
and demanded only thirty days to advertise their prince of their danger,
and to require succors against the enemy. Upon the expiration of the
term, as no supply had arrived, they opened their gates to Philip;[*]
and the whole province soon after imitated the example, and submitted to
the victor. Thus was this important territory reunited to the crown of
France, about three centuries after the cession of it by Charles the
Simple to Rollo, the first duke; and the Normans, sensible that this
conquest was probably final, demanded the privilege of being governed
by French laws; which Philip, making a few alterations on the ancient
Norman customs, readily granted them. But the French monarch had too
much ambition and genius to stop in his present career of success. He
carried his victorious army into the western provinces; soon reduced
Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and part of Poictou;[**] and in this manner the
French crown, during the reign of one able and active prince, received
such an accession of power and grandeur, as, in the ordinary course of
things, it would have required several ages to attain.

John, on his arrival in England, that he might cover the disgrace of his
own conduct, exclaimed loudly against his barons, who, he pretended, had
deserted his standard in Normandy; and he arbitrarily extorted from them
a seventh of all their movables, as a punishment for the offence.[***]

     [* Trivet, p. 147. Ypod. Neust. p. 469.]

     [** Trivet, p 149]

     [*** M. Paris, p. 146. M. West. p. 265.]

Soon after he forced them to grant him a scutage of two marks and a half
on each knights’ fee for an expedition into Normandy; but he did not
attempt to execute the service for which he pretended to exact it. Next
year, he summoned all the barons of his realm to attend him on this
foreign expedition, and collected ships from all the seaports; but
meeting with opposition from some of his ministers, and abandoning
his design, he dismissed both fleet and army, and then renewed his
exclamations against the barons for deserting him. He next put to sea
with a small army, and his subjects believed that he was resolved to
expose himself to the utmost hazard for the defence and recovery of his
dominions; but they were surprised, after a few days, to see him
return again into harbor, without attempting anything. {1206.} In the
subsequent season, he had the courage to carry his hostile measures
a step farther. Gui de Thouars, who governed Brittany, jealous of the
rapid progress made by his ally, the French king, promised to join the
king of England with all his forces; and John ventured abroad with a
considerable army, and landed at Rochelle. He marched to Angers, which
he took and reduced to ashes. But the approach of Philip with an army
threw him into a panic; and he immediately made proposals for peace, and
fixed a place of interview with his enemy; but instead of keeping
this engagement, he stole off with his army, embarked at Rochelle,
and returned, loaded with new shame and disgrace, into England. The
mediation of the pope procured him at last a truce for two years
with the French monarch;[*] almost all the transmarine provinces
were ravished from him; and his English barons, though harassed with
arbitrary taxes and fruitless expeditions, saw themselves and their
country baffled and affronted in every enterprise.

     [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 141.]

In an age when personal valor was regarded as the chief accomplishment,
such conduct as that of John, always disgraceful, must be exposed to
peculiar contempt; and he must thenceforth have expected to rule his
turbulent vassals with a very doubtful authority. But the government
exercised by the Norman princes had wound up the royal power to so high
a pitch, and so much beyond the usual tenor of the feudal constitutions,
that it still behoved him to be debased by new affronts and disgraces,
ere his barons could entertain the view of conspiring against him in
order to retrench his prerogatives.

The church, which at that time declined not a contest with the most
powerful and most vigorous monarchs, took first advantage of John’s
imbecility; and, with the most aggravating circumstances of insolence
and scorn, fixed her yoke upon him.

{1207.} The papal chair was then filled by Innocent III., who, having
attained that dignity at the age of thirty-seven years, and being
endowed with a lofty and enterprising genius gave full scope to
his ambition, and attempted, perhaps more openly than any of his
predecessors, to convert that superiority which was yielded him by all
the European princes, into a real dominion over them. The hierarchy,
protected by the Roman pontiff, had already carried to an enormous
height its usurpations upon the civil power; but in order to extend them
farther, and render them useful to the court of Rome, it was necessary
to reduce the ecclesiastics themselves under an absolute monarchy, and
to make them entirely dependent on their spiritual leader. For this
purpose, Innocent first attempted to impose taxes at pleasure upon the
clergy; and in the first year of this century, taking advantage of the
popular frenzy for crusades, he sent collectors over all Europe, who
levied by his authority the fortieth of all ecclesiastical revenues for
the relief of the Holy Land, and received the voluntary contributions
of the laity to a like amount.[*] The same year, Hubert, archbishop of
Canterbury, attempted another innovation, favorable to ecclesiastical
and papal power: in the king’s absence, he summoned, by his legantine
authority, a synod of all the English clergy, contrary to the inhibition
of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the chief justiciary; and no proper censure was
ever passed on this encroachment, the first of the kind, upon the royal
power. But a favorable incident soon after happened, which enabled so
aspiring a pontiff as Innocent to extend still farther his usurpations
on so contemptible a prince as John.

     [* 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.[*] The vanity of Reginald prevailed over his prudence; and he
no sooner arrived in Flanders than he revealed to every one the purpose
of his journey, which was immediately known in England.[**] The king
was enraged at the novelty and temerity of the attempt, in filling so
important an office without his knowledge or consent: the suffragan
bishops of Canterbury, who were accustomed to concur in the choice of
their primate, were no less displeased at the exclusion given them in
this election: the senior monks of Christ-church were injured by the
irregular proceedings of their juniors: the juniors themselves, ashamed
of their conduct, and disgusted with the levity of Reginald, who
had broken his engagements with them, were willing to set aside his
election:[***] and all men concurred in the design of remedying the
false measures which had been taken. But as John knew that this affair
would be canvassed before a superior tribunal, where the interposition
of royal authority in bestowing ecclesiastical benefices was very
invidious; where even the cause of suffragan bishops was not so
favorable as that of monks; he determined to make the new election
entirely unexceptionable, he submitted the affair wholly to the
canons of Christ-church; and departing from the right claimed by his
predecessors, ventured no farther than to inform them, privately, that
they would do him an acceptable service if they chose John de Gray,
bishop of Norwich, for their primate.[****]

     [* M. Paris, p 148. M. West. p. 266.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 148. M. West. p. 266.]

     [*** M. West. p. 266.]

     [**** M. Paris, p. 149. M. West. p. 266.]

The election of that prelate was accordingly made without a
contradictory vote; and the king, to obviate all contests, endeavored
to persuade the suffragan bishops not to insist on their claim of
concurring in the election; but those prelates, persevering in their
pretensions, sent an agent to maintain their cause before Innocent;
while the king, and the convent of Christ-church, despatched twelve
monks of that order to support, before the same tribunal, the election
of the bishop of Norwich.

Thus there lay three different claims before the pope, whom all parties
allowed to be the supreme arbiter in the contest The claim of the
suffragans, being so opposite to the usual maxims of the papal court,
was soon set aside: the election of Reginald was so obviously fraudulent
and irregular, that there was no possibility of defending it: but
Innocent maintained, that though this election was null and invalid, it
ought previously to have been declared such by the sovereign pontiff,
before the monks could proceed to a new election; and that the choice
of the bishop of Norwich was of course as uncanonical as that of his
competitor.[*] Advantage was, therefore taken of this subtlety for
introducing a precedent, by which the see of Canterbury, the most
important dignity, in the church after the papal throne, should ever
after be at the disposal of the court of Rome.

While the pope maintained so many fierce contests, in order to wrest
from princes the right of granting investitures, and to exclude laymen
from all authority in conferring ecclesiastical benefices, he was
supported by the united influence of the clergy; who, aspiring to
independence, fought, with all the ardor of ambition, and all the zeal
of superstition, under his sacred banners. But no sooner was this point,
after a great effusion of blood, and the convulsions of many states,
established in some tolerable degree, than the victorious leader as is
usual, turned his arms against his own community, and aspired to centre
all power in his person. By the invention of reserves, provisions,
commendams, and other devices, the pope gradually assumed the right
of filling vacant benefices; and the plenitude of his apostolic power,
which was not subject to any limitations, supplied all defects of title
in the person on whom he bestowed preferment. The canons which regulated
elections were purposely rendered intricate and involved: frequent
disputes arose among candidates: appeals were every day carried to
Rome: the apostolic see, besides reaping pecuniary advantages from these
contests, often exercised the power of setting aside both the litigants,
and, on pretence of appeasing faction, nominated a third person, who
might be more acceptable to the contending parties.

The present controversy about the election to the see of Canterbury
afforded Innocent an opportunity of claiming this right; and he failed
not to perceive and avail himself of the advantage. He sent for the
twelve monks deputed by the convent to maintain the cause of the bishop
of Norwich; and commanded them, under the penalty of excommunication, to
choose for their primate, Cardinal Langton, an Englishman by birth, but
educated in France, and connected, by his interests and attachments,
with the see of Rome.[**]

     [* M. Paris, p. 155. Chron. de Mailr.p. 182.]

     [** M. Paris, p 155. Ann. Waverl. p. 169. W.
     Heming. p. 553 Knyghton, p. 2415.]

In vain did the monks represent, that they had received from their
convent no authority for this purpose; that an election without a
previous writ from the king, would be deemed highly irregular and that
they were merely agents for another person, whose right they had no
power or pretence to abandon. None of them had the courage to persevere
in this opposition, except one, Elias de Brantefield: all the rest,
overcome by the menaces and authority of the pope, complied with his
orders, and made the election required of them.

Innocent, sensible that this flagrant usurpation would be highly
resented by the court of England, wrote John a mollifying letter;
sent him four golden rings set with precious stones; and endeavored to
enhance the value of the present, by informing him of the many mysteries
implied in it. He begged him to consider seriously the form of the
rings, their number, their matter, and their color. Their form, he said,
being round, shadowed out eternity, which had neither beginning nor end;
and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects
to heavenly, from things temporal to tilings eternal. The number four,
being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either
by adversity or prosperity, fixed forever on the firm basis of the four
cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, being the most precious
of metals, signified wisdom, which is the most valuable of all
accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon to riches, power, and
all exterior attainments. The blue color of the sapphire represented
faith; the verdure of the emerald, hope; the redness of the ruby,
charity; and the splendor of the topaz, good works.[*] By these
conceits, Innocent endeavored to repay John for one of the most
important prerogatives of his crown, which he had ravished from him;
conceits probably admired by Innocent himself. For it is easily possible
for a man, especially in a barbarous age, to unite strong talents for
business with an absurd taste for literature and the arts.

John was inflamed with the utmost rage when he heard of this attempt
of the court of Rome;[**] and he immediately vented his passion on the
monks of Christ-church, whom he found inclined to support the election
made by their fellows at Rome.

     [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 139. M. Paris, p. 155]

     [** Rymer, vol. i. p. 143.]

He sent Fulk de Cantelupe, and Henry de Cornhulle, two knights of his
retinue, men of violent tempers and rude manners, to expel them the
convent, and take possession of their revenues. These knights entered
the monastery with drawn swords, commanded the prior and the monks to
depart the kingdom, and menaced them, that in case of disobedience
they would instantly burn them with the convent.[*] Innocent,
prognosticating, from the violence and imprudence of these measures,
that John would finally sink in the contest, persevered the more
vigorously in his pretensions, and exhorted the king not to oppose God
and the church any longer, nor to persecute that cause for which the
holy martyr St. Thomas had sacrificed his life, and which had exalted
him equal to the highest saints in heaven;[**] a clear hint to John to
profit by the example of his father, and to remember the prejudices and
established principles of his subjects, who bore a profound veneration
to that martyr, and regarded his merits as the subject of their chief
glory and exultation.

Innocent, finding that John was not sufficiently tamed to submission,
sent three prelates, the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to
intimate, that, if he persevered in his disobedience, the sovereign
pontiff would be obliged to lay the kingdom under an interdict.[***]
All the other prelates threw themselves on their knees before him, and
entreated him, with tears in their eyes, to prevent the scandal of this
sentence, by making a speedy submission to his spiritual father, by
receiving from his hands the new elected primate, and by restoring the
monks of Christ-church to all their rights and possessions. He burst out
into the most indecent invectives against the prelates; swore by God’s
teeth, his usual oath, that, if the pope presumed to lay his kingdom
under an interdict, he would send to him all the bishops and clergy of
England, and would confiscate all their estates; and threatened that,
if thenceforth he caught any Romans in his dominions, he would put out
their eyes, and cut off their noses, in order to set a mark upon them,
which might distinguish them from all other nations.[****]

     [* M. Paris, p. 156. Trivet, p. 151. Ann. Waverl.
     p. 169.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 157.]

     [*** M. Paris, p. 157.]

     [**** M. Paris, p. 157.]

Amidst all this idle violence, John stood on such bad terms with his
nobility, that he never dared to assemble the states of the kingdom,
who, in so, just a cause, would probably have adhered to any other
monarch, and have defended with vigor the liberties of the nation
against these palpable usurpations of the court of Rome. Innocent,
therefore, perceiving the king’s weakness, fulminated at last the
sentence of interdict which he had for some time held suspended over
him.[*]

The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of
vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome; was denounced
against sovereigns for the lightest offences; and made the guilt of one
person involve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and eternal
welfare. The execution of it was calculated to strike the senses in
the highest degree, and to operate with irresistible force on the
superstitious minds of the people. The nation was of a sudden deprived
of all exterior exercise of its religion: the altars were despoiled of
their ornaments: the crosses, the relics, the images, the statues of the
saints were laid on the ground; and as if the air itself were profaned,
and might pollute them by its contact, the priests carefully covered
them up, even from their own approach and veneration. The use of bells
entirely ceased in all the churches: the bells themselves were removed
from the steeples, and laid on the ground with the other sacred
utensils. Mass was celebrated with shut doors; and none but the
priests were admitted to that holy institution. The laity partook of no
religious rite, except baptism to new-born infants, and the communion to
the dying: the dead were not interred in consecrated ground: they were
thrown into ditches, or buried in common fields; and their obsequies
were not attended with prayers or any hallowed ceremony Marriage was
celebrated in the churchyards;[**] and that every action in life might
bear the marks of this dreadful situation, the people were prohibited
the use of meat, as in Lent, or times of the highest penance; were
debarred from all pleasures and entertainments; and were forbidden even
to salute each other, or so much as to shave their beards, and give any
decent attention to their person and apparel. Every circumstance carried
symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most immediate apprehension
of divine vengeance and indignation.

The king, that he might oppose the temporal to their spiritual terrors,
immediately, from his own authority, confiscated the estates of all the
clergy who obeyed the interdict;[***] banished the prelates, confined
the monks in their convents, and gave them only such a small allowance
from their own estates, as would suffice to provide them with food and
raiment.

     [* M. Paris, p. 157. Trivet, p. 152. Ann. Waverl.
     p. 170. M. West. p. 268.]

     [** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 51.]

     [*** Ann. Waverl. p. 170]

He treated with the utmost rigor all Langton’s adherents, and every one
that showed any disposition to obey the commands of Rome: and in order
to distress the clergy in the tenderest point, and at the same time
expose them to reproach and ridicule, he threw into prison all their
concubines, and required high fines as the price of their liberty.[*]

After the canons which established the celibacy of the clergy were, by
the zealous endeavors of Archbishop Anselrn, more rigorously executed in
England, the ecclesiastics gave, almost universally and avowedly, into
the use of concubinage and the court of Rome, which had no interest in
prohibiting this practice, made very slight opposition to it. The custom
was become so prevalent, that, in some cantons of Switzerland, before
the reformation, the laws not only permitted, but, to avoid scandal,
enjoined the use of concubines to the younger clergy;[**] and it was
usual every where for priests to apply to the ordinary, and obtain from
him a formal liberty for this indulgence. The bishop commonly took
care to prevent the practice from degenerating into licentiousness: he
confined the priest to the use of one woman, required him to be constant
to her bed, obliged him to provide for her subsistence and that of her
children; and, though the offspring was, in the eye of the law, deemed
illegitimate, this commerce was really a kind of inferior marriage, such
as is still practised in Germany among the nobles; and may be regarded
by the candid, as an appeal from the tyranny of civil and ecclesiastical
institutions, to the more virtuous and more unerring laws of nature.

     [* M. Paris, p. 158. Ann. Waverl. p. 170.]

     [** Padre Paolo, Hist. Cone. Prid. 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:[*] and he commonly prevailed, more from the weakness
of his enemies than from his own vigor or abilities. Meanwhile, the
danger to which hia government stood continually exposed from the
discontents of the ecclesiastics, increased his natural propension to
tyranny; and he seems to have even wantonly disgusted all orders of
men, especially his nobles, from whom alone he could reasonably expect
support and assistance. He dishonored their families by his licentious
amours; he published edicts, prohibiting them from hunting feathered
game, and thereby restrained them from their favorite occupation and
amusement;[**] he ordered all the hedges and fences near his forests to
be levelled, that his deer might have more ready access into the
fields for pasture; and he continually loaded the nation with arbitrary
impositions.

     [* W. Heming. p. 556. Ypod. Neust p. 450.
     Knyghton, p. 2420 M. West p. 268.]

{1208.} Conscious of the general hatred which he had incurred, he
required his nobility to give him hostages for security of their
allegiance; and they were obliged to put in his hands their sons,
nephews, or near relations. When his messengers came with like orders
to the castle of William de Braouse, a baron of great note, the lady
of that nobleman replied, that she would never intrust her son into the
hands of one who had murdered his own nephew, while in his custody. Her
husband reproved her for the severity of this speech; but, sensible
of his danger, he immediately fled with his wife and son into Ireland,
where he endeavored to conceal himself. Tha king discovered the unhappy
family in their retreat; seized the wife and son, whom he starved to
death in prison; and the baron himself narrowly escaped, by flying into
France.

{1209.} The court of Rome had artfully contrived a gradation of
sentences; by which it kept offenders in awe; still afforded them an
opportunity of preventing the next anathema by submission; and, in case
of their obstinacy, was able to refresh the horror of the people against
them, by new denunciations of the wrath and vengeance of Heaven. As the
sentence of interdict had not produced the desired effect on John,
and as his people, though extremely discontented had hitherto been
restrained from rising in open rebellion against him, he was soon
to look for the sentence of excommunication; and he had reason to
apprehend, that, notwithstanding all his precautions, the most dangerous
consequences might ensue from it. He was witness of the other scenes
which at that very time were acting in Europe, and which displayed the
unbounded and uncontrolled power of the papacy. Innocent, far from being
dismayed at his contests with the king of England, had excommunicated
the emperor Otho, John’s nephew;[*] and soon brought that powerful
and haughty prince to submit to his authority. He published a crusade
against the Albigenses, a species of enthusiasts in the south of France,
whom he denominated heretics; because, like other enthusiasts, they
neglected the rites of the church, and opposed the power and influence
of the clergy: the people from all parts of Europe, moved by their
superstition and their passion for wars and adventures, flocked to his
standard: Simon de Montfort, the general of the crusade, acquired to
himself a sovereignty in these provinces: the count of Toulouse, who
protected, or perhaps only tolerated, the Albigenses, was stripped of
his dominions: and these sectaries themselves, though the most innocent
and inoffensive of mankind, were exterminated with all the circumstances
of extreme violence and barbarity. Here were therefore both an army and
a general, dangerous from their zeal and valor, who might be directed
to act against John; and Innocent, after keeping the thunder long
suspended, gave at last authority to the bishops of London, Ely, and
Worcester, to fulminate the sentence of excommunication against
him.[**] These prelates obeyed; though their brethren were deterred from
publishing, as the pope required of them, the sentence in the several
churches of their dioceses.

No sooner was the excommunication known, than the effects of it
appeared. Geoffrey, archdeacon of Norwich, who was intrusted with a
considerable office in the court of exchequer, being informed of it
while sitting on the bench observed to his colleagues the danger of
serving under an excommunicated king; and he immediately left his chair,
and departed the court. John gave orders to seize him, to throw him
into prison, to cover his head with a great leaden cope, and by this and
other severe usage, he soon put an end to his life:[***] nor was there
any thing wanting to Geoffrey, except the dignity and rank of Becket, to
exalt him to an equal station in heaven with that great and celebrated
martyr.

     [* M. Paris, p. 160. Trivet, p. 154. M, West. p.
     269.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 159. M. West. p. 270.]

     [*** M. Paris, p. 159.]

Hugh de Wells, the chancellor, being elected by the king’s appointment
bishop of Lincoln, upon a vacancy in that see, desired leave to go
abroad, in order to receive consecration from the archbishop of Rouen;
but he no sooner reached France, than he hastened to Pontigny, where
Langton then resided, and paid submissions to him as his primate. The
bishops, finding themselves exposed either to the jealousy of the king
or hatred of the people, gradually stole out of the kingdom; and at
last there remained only three prelates to perform the functions of the
episcopal office.[*] Many of the nobility, terrified by John’s tyranny,
and obnoxious to him on different accounts, imitated the example of
the bishops; and most of the others, who remained, were with reason
suspected of having secretly entered into a confederacy against him.[**]
John was alarmed at his dangerous situation; a situation which prudence,
vigor, and popularity might formerly have prevented, but which no
virtues or abilities were now sufficient to retrieve. He desired a
conference with Langton at Dover; offered to acknowledge him as primate,
to submit to the pope, to restore the exiled clergy, even to pay them
a limited sum as a compensation for the rents of their confiscated
estates. But Langton, perceiving his advantage, was not satisfied with
these concessions: he demanded that full restitution and reparation
should be made to all the clergy; a condition so exorbitant, that the
king, who probably had not the power of fulfilling it, and who foresaw
that this estimation of damages might amount to an immense sum, finally
broke off the conference.[***]

{1212.} The next gradation of papal sentences was to absolve John’s
subjects from their oaths of fidelity and allegiance, and to declare
every one excommunicated who had any commerce with him, in public or
in private; at his table, in his council, or even in private
conversation:[****] and this sentence was accordingly, with all
imaginable solemnity, pronounced against him. But as John still
persevered in his contumacy, there remained nothing but the sentence of
deposition; which, though intimately connected with the former had been
distinguished from it by the artifice of the court of Rome; and Innocent
determined to dart this last thunderbolt against the refractory monarch.

     [* Ann. Waverl. p. 170. Ann. Marg. p. 14.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 162. M. West p. 270, 271.]

     [*** Ann. Waverl. p. 171.]

     [**** M. Paris, p. 161. M. West. p. 270.]

But as a sentence of this kind required an armed force to execute it,
the pontiff, casting his eyes around, fixed at last on Philip, king of
France, as the person into whose powerful hand he could most properly
intrust that weapon, the ultimate resource of his ghostly authority.
And he offered the monarch, besides the remission of all his sins, and
endless spiritual benefits, the property and possession of the kingdom
of England, as the reward of his labor.[*]

{1213.} It was the common concern of all princes to oppose these
exorbitant pretensions of the Roman pontiff, by which they themselves
were rendered vassals, and vassals totally dependent, of the papal
crown: yet even Philip, the most able monarch of the age, was seduced by
present interest, and by the prospect of so tempting a prize, to accept
this liberal offer of the pontiff, and thereby to ratify that authority
which, if he ever opposed its boundless usurpations, might next day
tumble him from the throne. He levied a great army; summoned all the
vassals of the crown to attend him at Rouen; collected a fleet of one
thousand seven hundred vessels, great and small, in the seaports of
Normandy and Picardy; and partly from the zealous spirit of the age,
partly from the personal regard universally paid him, prepared a force
which seemed equal to the greatness of his enterprise. The king, on
the other hand, issued out writs, requiring the attendance of all his
military tenants at Dover, and even of all able-bodied men, to defend
the kingdom in this dangerous extremity. A great number appeared; and
he selected an army of sixty thousand men; a power invincible, had they
been united in affection to their prince, and animated with a becoming
zeal for the defence of their native country.[**]

     [* M. Paris, p. 162. M. West, p. 271.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 162. M. West, p. 271.]

But the people were swayed by superstition, and regarded their king with
horror, as anathematized by papal censures: the barons, besides lying
under the same prejudices, were all disgusted by his tyranny, and were,
many of them, suspected of holding a secret correspondence with the
enemy: and the incapacity and cowardice of the king himself, ill fitted
to contend with those mighty difficulties, made men prognosticate the
most fatal effects from the French invasion.

Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to
head this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for
a secret conference with his master, and had asked him, whether, if the
king of England, in this desperate situation, were willing to submit
to the apostolic see, the church should, without the consent of Philip,
grant him any terms of accommodation.[*] Innocent, expecting from his
agreement with a prince so abject both in character and fortune, more
advantages than from his alliance with a great and victorious monarch,
who, after such mighty acquisitions, might become too haughty to be
bound by spiritual chains, explained to Pandolf the conditions on which
he was willing to be reconciled to the king of England. The legate,
therefore, as soon as he arrived in the north of France, sent over two
knights templars to desire an interview with John at Dover, which
was readily granted: he there represented to him in such strong, and
probably in such true colors, his lost condition, the disaffection of
his subjects, the secret combination of his vassals against him, the
mighty armament of France, that John yielded at discretion,[**] and
subscribed to all the conditions which Pandolf was pleased to impose
upon him. He promised, among other articles, that he would submit
himself entirely to the judgment of the pope; that he would acknowledge
Langton for primate; that he would restore all the exiled clergy and
laity who had been banished on account of the contest; that he would
make them full restitution of their goods, and compensation for all
damages, and instantly consign eight thousand pounds, in part of
payment; and that every one outlawed or imprisoned for his adherence to
the pope, should immediately be received into grace and favor.[***] Four
barons swore, along with the king, to the observance of this ignominious
treaty.[****]

     [* M. Paris, p. 162.]

     [** M. West. p. 271.]

     [*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 166. M. Paris, p. 163.
     Annal Burt. p. 288.]

     [**** 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 hia own sins and those of his
family, resigned England and Ireland to God, to St. Peter and St. Paul,
and to Pope Innocent and his successors in the apostolic chair: he
agreed to hold these dominions as feudatory of the church of Rome, by
the annual payment of a thousand marks; seven hundred for England, three
hundred for Ireland: and he stipulated, that, if he or his successors
should ever presume to revoke or infringe this charter, they should
instantly, except upon admonition they repented of their offence,
forfeit all right to their dominions.[*]

     [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 176. M. Paris, p. 165.]

In consequence of this agreement, John did homage to Pandolf as the
pope’s legate, with all the submissive rites which the feudal law
required of vassals before their liege lord and superior. He came
disarmed into the legate’s presence, who was seated on a throne; he
flung himself on his knees before him; he lifted up his joined hands,
and put them within those of Pandolf; he swore fealty to the pope;
and he paid part of the tribute which he owed for his kingdom as the
patrimony of St. Peter. The legate, elated by this supreme triumph of
sacerdotal power, could not forbear discovering extravagant symptoms of
joy and exultation: he trampled on the money, which was laid at his feet
as an earnest of the subjection of the kingdom; an insolence of which,
however offensive to all the English, no one present, except the
archbishop of Dublin, dared to take any notice. But though Pandolf had
brought the king to submit to these base conditions, he still refused
to free him from the excommunication and interdict, till an estimation
should be taken of the losses of the ecclesiastics, and full
compensation and restitution should be made them.

John, reduced to this abject situation under a foreign power, still
showed the same disposition to tyrannize over his subjects, which had
been the chief cause of all his misfortunes. One Peter of Pomfret, a
hermit, had foretold that the king, this very year, should lose his
crown; and for that rash prophecy, he had been thrown into prison in
Corfe castle. Johfi now determined to bring him to punishment as an
impostor; and though the man pleaded that his prophecy was fulfilled,
and that the king had lost the royal and independent crown which he
formerly wore, the defence was supposed to aggravate his guilt: he was
dragged at horses’ tails to the town of Warham, and there hanged on a
gibbet with his son.[*]

When Pandolf, after receiving the homage of John, returned to France,
he congratulated Philip on the success of his pious enterprise; and
informed him that John, moved by the terror of the French arms, had now
come to a just sense of his guilt; had returned to obedience under
the apostolic see; had even consented to do homage to the pope for
his dominions; and having thus made his kingdom a part of St. Peter’s
patrimony, had rendered it impossible for any Christian prince, without
the most manifest and most flagrant impiety, to attack him.[**] Philip
was enraged on receiving this intelligence: he exclaimed, that having,
at the pope’s instigation, undertaken an expedition which had cost him
above sixty thousand pounds sterling, he was frustrated of his purpose,
at the time when its success was become infallible: he complained that
all the expense had fallen upon him; all the advantages had accrued to
Innocent: he threatened to be no longer the dupe of these hypocritical
pretences: and assembling his vassals, he laid before them the ill
treatment which he had received, exposed the interested and fraudulent
conduct of the pope, and required their assistance to execute his
enterprise against England, in which he told them, that notwithstanding
the inhibitions and menaces of the legate, he was determined to
persevere. The French barons were in that age little less ignorant and
superstitious than the English: yet, so much does the influence of those
religious principles depend on the present dispositions of men! they
all vowed to follow their prince on his intended expedition, and were
resolute not to be disappointed of that glory and those riches which
they had long expected from this enterprise. The earl of Flanders alone,
who had previously formed a secret treaty with John, declaring
against the injustice and impiety of the undertaking, retired with his
forces;[***] and Philip, that he might not leave so dangerous an enemy
behind him, first turned his arms against the dominions of that prince.

     [* M. Paris, p. 165. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 56.]

     [** Trivet, p. 160.]

     [*** M. Paris, p. 166.]

Meanwhile the English fleet was assembled under the earl of Saltsbury,
the king’s natural brother; and, though inferior in number, received
orders to attack the French in their harbors. Salisbury performed this
service with so much success that he took three hundred ships; destroyed
a hundred more;[*] and Philip, finding it impossible to prevent the rest
from falling into the hands of the enemy, set fire to them himself, and
thereby rendered it impossible for him to proceed any farther in his
enterprise.

John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past disgrace,
was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less than
invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces which
the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him. He
proposed this expedition to the barons, who were already assembled
for the defence of the kingdom. But the English nobles both hated and
despised their prince: they prognosticated no success to any enterprise
conducted by a such a leader: and, pretending that their time of service
was elapsed, and all their previsions exhausted, they refused to
second his undertaking.[**] The king, however, resolute in his purpose,
embarked with a few followers, and sailed to Jersey, in the foolish
expectation that the barons would at last be ashamed to stay
behind.[***] But finding himself disappointed, he returned to England;
and raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance on all his nobles
for their desertion and disobedience. The archbishop of Canterbury, who
was in a confederacy with the barons here interposed; strictly inhibited
the king from thinking of such an attempt; and threatened him with a
renewal of the sentence of excommunication if he pretended to levy war
upon any of his subjects before the kingdom were freed from the sentence
of interdict.[****]

     [* M. Paris, p. 166. Chron. Dunst. vci i. p. 59.
     Trivet, p. 157]

     [** M. Paris, p. 166.]

     [*** M. Paris, p. 166.]

     [**** M. Paris, 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.[*] The primate, seeing
these marks of sincere penitence, led him to the chapter-house of
Winchester, and there administered an oath to him, by which he again
swore fealty and obedience to Pope Innocent and his successors; promised
to love, maintain, and defend holy church and the clergy; engaged that
he would reestablish the good laws of his predecessors, particularly
those of St. Edward, and would abolish the wicked ones; and
expressed his resolution of maintaining justice and right in all his
dominions.[**] The primate next gave him absolution in the requisite
forms, and admitted him to dine with him, to the great joy of all the
people. The sentence of interdict, however, was still upheld against the
kingdom. A new legate, Nicholas, bishop of Frescati, came into England
in the room of Pandolf; and he declared it to be the pope’s intentions
never to loosen that sentence till full restitution were made to the
clergy of every thing taken from them, and ample reparation for all
damages which they had Sustained. He only permitted mass to be said
with a low voice in the churches, till those losses and damages could
be estimated to the satisfaction of the parties. Certain barons were
appointed to take an account of the claims; and John was astonished
at the greatness of the sums to which the clergy made their losses to
amount. No less than twenty thousand marks were demanded by the monks of
Canterbury alone; twenty-three thousand for the see of Lincoln; and the
king, finding these pretensions to be exorbitant and endless, offered
the clergy the sum of a hundred thousand marks for a final acquittal,
The clergy rejected the offer with disdain; but the pope, willing to
favor his new vassal, whom he found zealous in his declarations of
fealty, and regular in paying the stipulated tribute to Rome, directed
his legate to accept of forty thousand. The issue of the whole was, that
the bishops and considerable abbots got reparation beyond what they
had any title to demand; the inferior clergy were obliged to sit down
contented with their losses: and the king, after the interdict was taken
off, renewed, in the most solemn manner, and by a new charter sealed
with gold, his professions of homage and obedience to the see of Rome.

     [* M. Paris, p. 166. Ann. Waverl. p. 178.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 166.]

{1214.} When this vexatious affair was at last brought to a conclusion,
the king, as if he had nothing further to attend but triumphs
and victories, went over to Poictou, which still acknowledged his
authority;[*] and he carried war into Philip’s dominions.

     [* Queen Eleanor died in 1203 or 1204.]

He besieged a castle near Angiers; but the approach of Prince Lewis,
Philip’s son, obliged him to raise the siege with such precipitation,
that he left his tents, machines, and baggage behind him; and he
returned to England with disgrace. About the same time, he heard of the
great and decisive victory gained by the king of France at Bovines over
the emperor Otho, who had entered France at the head of one hundred and
fifty thousand Germans; a victory which established forever the glory
of Philip, and gave full security to all his dominions. John could,
therefore, think henceforth of nothing further than of ruling peaceably
his own kingdom; and his close connections with the pope, which he was
determined at any price to maintain, insured him, as he imagined the
certain attainment of that object. But the last and most grievous scene
of this prince’s misfortunes still awaited him; and he was destined to
pass through a series of more humiliating circumstances than had ever
yet fallen to the lot of any other monarch.

The introduction of the feudal law into England by William the Conqueror
had much infringed the liberties, however imperfect, enjoyed by the
Anglo-Saxons in their ancient government, and had reduced the whole
people to a state of vassalage under the king or barons, and even the
greater part of them to a state of real slavery, the necessity, also,
of intrusting great power in the hands of a prince, who was to maintain
military dominion over a vanquished nation, had engaged the Norman
barons to submit to a more severe and absolute prerogative than that
to which men of their rank, in other feudal governments, were commonly
subjected. The power of the crown, once raised to a high pitch, was not
easily reduced; and the nation, during the course of a hundred and fifty
years, was governed by an authority unknown, in the same degree, to all
the kingdoms founded by the northern conquerors. Henry I., that he might
allure the people to give an exclusion to his elder brother Robert,
had granted them a charter, favorable in many particulars to their
liberties; Stephen had renewed the grant; Henry II. had confirmed it:
but the concessions of all these princes had still remained without
effect; and the same unlimited, at least in regular authority, continued
to be exercised both by them and their successors. The only happiness
was, that arms were never yet ravished from the hands of the barons and
people: the nation, by a great confederacy, might still vindicate its
liberties: and nothing was more likely than the character, conduct, and
fortunes of the reigning prince, to produce such a general combination
against him. Equally odious and contemptible, both in public and
private life, he affronted the barons by his insolence, dishonored their
families by his gallantries, enraged them by his tyranny, and
gave discontent to all ranks of men by his endless exactions and
impositions.[*] The effect of these lawless practices had already
appeared in the general demand made by the barons of a restoration of
their privileges; and after he had reconciled himself to the pope,
by abandoning the independence of the kingdom, he appeared to all his
subjects in so mean a light, that they universally thought they might
with safety and honor insist upon their pretensions.

But nothing forwarded this confederacy so much as the concurrence of
Langton, archbishop of Canterbury; a man whose memory, though he was
obtruded on the nation by a palpable encroachment of the see of Rome,
ought always to be respected by the English. This prelate, whether he
was moved by the generosity of his nature and his affection to public
good; or had entertained an animosity against John, on account of the
long opposition made by that prince to his election; or thought that an
acquisition of liberty to the people would serve to increase and secure
the privileges of the church; had formed the plan of reforming the
government, and had prepared the way for that great innovation, by
inserting those singular clauses above mentioned, in the oath which he
administered to the king, before he would absolve him from the sentence
of excommunication. Soon after, in a private meeting of some principal
barons at London, he showed them a copy of Henry I.’s charter, which,
he said, he had happily found in a monastery; and he exhorted them to
insist on the renewal and observance of it: the barons swore that
they would sooner lose their lives than depart from so reasonable a
demand.[**]

     [* Chron. Mailr. p. 188. T. Wykes, p. 36. Ann.
     Waverl. p. 181 W. Heming. p. 657.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 167.]

The confederacy began now to spread wider, and to comprehend almost all
the barons in England; and a new and more numerous meeting was summoned
by Langton at St. Edmondsbury, under color of devotion. He again
produced to the assembly the old charter of Henry; renewed his
exhortations of unanimity and vigor in the prosecution of their purpose;
and represented in the strongest colors the tyranny to which they had
so long been subjected, and from which it now behoved them to free
themselves and their posterity.[*] The barons, inflamed by his
eloquence, incited by the sense of their own wrongs, and encouraged by
the appearance of their power and numbers, solemnly took an oath, before
the high altar, to adhere to each other, to insist on their demands, and
to make endless war on the king till he should submit to grant them.[**]
They agreed that, after the festival of Christmas, they would prefer in
a body their common petition; and in the mean time they separated,
after mutually engaging that they would put themselves in a posture
of defence, would enlist men and purchase arms, and would supply their
castles with the necessary provisions.

{1215.} The barons appeared in London on the day appointed, and demanded
of the king, that, in consequence of his own oath before the primate,
as well as in deference to their just rights, he should grant them
a renewal of Henry’s charter, and a confirmation of the laws of St.
Edward. The king, alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as with
their power, required a delay; promised that, at the festival of Easter,
he would give them a positive answer to their petition; and offered
them the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Ely, and the earl
of Pembroke, the mareschal, as sureties for his fulfilling this
engagement.[***] The barons accepted of the terms, and peaceably
returned to their castles.

     [* M. Paris, p. 175.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 176,]

     [*** M Paris, p 176. M. West. p. 273]

During this interval, John, in order to break or subdue the league of
his barons, endeavored to avail himself of the ecclesiastical power, of
whose influence he had, from his own recent misfortunes, had such fatal
experience. He granted to the clergy a charter, relinquishing forever
that important prerogative for which his father and all his ancestors
had zealously contended; yielding to them the free election on all
vacancies; reserving only the power to issue a conge d’élire and to
subjoin a confirmation of the election; and declaring that, if either of
these were withheld, the choice should nevertheless be deemed just
and valid.[*] He made a vow to lead an army into Palestine against the
infidels, and he took on him the cross, in hopes that he should receive
from the church that protection which she tendered to every one that had
entered into this sacred and meritorious engagement.[**] And he sent
to Rome his agent, William de Mauclere, in order to appeal to the pope
against the violence of his barons, and procure him a favorable sentence
from that powerful tribunal.[***] The barons, also, were not negligent
on their part in endeavoring to engage the pope in their interests: they
despatched Eustace de Vescie to Rome; laid their case before Innocent
as their feudal lord; and petitioned him to interpose his authority
with the king, and oblige him to restore and confirm all their just and
undoubted privileges.[****]

Innocent beheld with regret the disturbances which had arisen in
England, and was much inclined to favor John in his pretensions. He had
no hopes of retaining and extending his newly-acquired superiority over
that kingdom, but by supporting so base and degenerate a prince, who was
willing to sacrifice every consideration to his present safety: and he
foresaw, that if the administration should fall into the hands of those
gallant and high-spirited barons, they would vindicate the honor,
liberty, and independence of the nation, with the same ardor which they
now exerted in defence of their own. He wrote letters, therefore, to
the prelates, to the nobility, and to the king himself. He exhorted the
first to employ their good offices in conciliating peace between the
contending parties, and putting an end to civil discord: to the second
he expressed his disapprobation of their conduct in employing force to
extort concessions from their reluctant sovereign: the last lie advised
to treat his nobles with grace and indulgence, and to grant them such of
their demands as should appear just and reasonable.

     [* Rymer, vol. i. p. 197.]

     [** Rymer, vol. i. p. 200. Trivet, p. 162. T.
     Wykes, p. 37. M West. p. 273.]

     [*** Rymer, vol i. p. 184]

     [**** Rymer, vol i. p. 184]

The barons easily saw, from the tenor of these letters, that they must
reckon on having the pope, as well as the king, for their adversary; but
they had already advanced too far to recede from their pretensions, and
their passions were so deeply engaged, that it exceeded even the power
of superstition itself any longer to control them. They also foresaw,
that the thunders of Rome, when not seconded by the efforts of the
English ecclesiastics, would be of small avail against them and they
perceived that the most considerable of the prelates, as well as all
the inferior clergy, professed the highest approbation of their cause.
Besides that these men were seized with the national passion for laws
and liberty, blessings of which they themselves expected to partake,
there concurred very powerful causes to loosen their devoted attachment
to the apostolic see. It appeared, from the late usurpations of the
Roman pontiff, that he pretended to reap alone all the advantages
accruing from that victory, which under his banners, though at their own
peril, they had every where obtained over the civil magistrate. The
pope assumed a despotic power over all the churches; their particular
customs, privileges, and immunities were treated with disdain; even the
canons of general councils were set aside by his dispensing power; the
whole administration of the church was centred in the court of Rome;
all preferments ran, of course, in the same channel; and the provincial
clergy saw, at least felt, that there was a necessity for limiting these
pretensions. The legate, Nicholas, in filling those numerous vacancies
which had fallen in England during an interdict of six years, had
proceeded in the most arbitrary manner; and had paid no regard, in
conferring dignities, to personal merit, to rank, to the inclination of
the electors, or to the customs of the country. The English church was
universally disgusted; and Langton himself, though he owed his elevation
to an encroachment of the Romish see, was no sooner established in his
high office, than he became jealous of the privileges annexed to it, and
formed attachments with the country subjected to his jurisdiction. These
causes, though they opened slowly the eyes of men, failed not to produce
their effect: they set bounds to the usurpations of the papacy; the tide
first stopped, and then turned against the sovereign pontiff; and it is
otherwise inconceivable, how that age, so prone to superstition, and so
sunk in ignorance, or rather so devoted to a spurious erudition, could
have escaped falling into an absolute and total slavery under the court
of Rome.

About the time that the pope’s letters arrived in England, The
malevolent barons, on the approach of the festival of Easter, when they
were to expect the king’s answer to their petition, met by agreement at
Stamford; and they assembled a force, consisting of above two thousand
knights, besides then retainers and inferior persons without number.
Elated with their power, they advanced in a body to Brackley, within
fifteen miles of Oxford, the place where the court then resided; and
they there received a message from the king, by the archbishop of
Canterbury and the earl of Pembroke, desiring to know what those
liberties were which they so zealously challenged from their sovereign.
They delivered to these messengers a schedule, containing the chief
articles of their demands; which was no sooner shown to the king, than
he burst into a furious passion, and asked why the barons did not also
demand of him his kingdom; swearing that he would never grant them such
liberties as must reduce himself to slavery.[*]

No sooner were the confederated nobles informed of John’s reply, than
they chose Robert Fitz-Walter their general, whom they called “the
mareschal of the army of God and of holy church;” and they proceeded
without further ceremony to levy war upon the king. They besieged the
castle of Northampton during fifteen days, though without success:[**]
the gates of Bedford castle were willingly opened to them by William
Beauchamp, its owner: they advanced to Ware in their way to London,
where they held a correspondence with the principal citizens: they were
received without opposition into that capital: and finding now the great
superiority of their force, they issued proclamations, requiring the
other barons to join them, and menacing them, in case of refusal or
delay, with committing devastation on their houses and estates.[***] In
order to show what might be expected from their prosperous arms,
they made incursions from London, and laid waste the king’s parks and
palaces; and all the barons, who had hitherto carried the semblance
of supporting the royal party, were glad of this pretence for openly
joining a cause which they always had secretly favored. The king was
left at Odiham, in Hampshire, with a poor retinue of only seven knights;
and after trying several expedients to elude the blow, after offering to
refer all differences to the pope alone, or to eight barons, four to be
chosen by himself, and four by the confederates,[****] he found himself
at last obliged to submit at discretion.

     [* M. Paris, p. 176.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 177.]

     [*** M. Paris, p. 177. ]

     [**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.]

A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at Runnemede,
between Windsor and Staines; a place which has ever since been extremely
celebrated on account of this great event. The two parties encamped
apart, like open enemies; and after a debate of a few days, the king,
with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed the charter
which was required of him. This famous deed, commonly called the
_Great Charter_, either granted or secured very important liberties and
privileges to every order of men in the kingdom; to the clergy, to the
barons, and to the people.

The freedom of elections was secured to the clergy: the former charter
of the king was confirmed, by which the necessity of a royal conge
d’élire and confirmation was superseded: all check upon appeals to Rome
was removed, by the allowance granted every man to depart the kingdom
at pleasure: and the fines to be imposed on the clergy, for any offence,
were ordained to be proportional to their lay estates, not to their
ecclesiastical benefices.

The privileges granted to the barons were either abatements in the rigor
of the feudal law, or determinations in points which had been left
by that law, or had become, by practice, arbitrary and ambiguous. The
reliefs of heirs succeeding to a military fee were ascertained;
an earl’s and baron’s at a hundred marks, a knight’s at a hundred
shillings. It was ordained by the charter that, if the heir be a minor,
he shall, immediately upon his majority, enter upon his estate, without
paying any relief: the king shall not sell his wardship; he shall levy
only reasonable profits upon the estate, without committing waste, or
hurting the property: he shall uphold the castles, houses, mills,
parks, and ponds, and if he commit the guardianship of the estate to the
sheriff or any other, he shall previously oblige them to find surety to
the same purpose. During the minority of a baron, while his lands are
in wardship, and are not in his own possession, no debt which he owes
to the Jews shall bear any interest. Heirs shall be married without
disparagement; and before the marriage be contracted, the nearest
relations of the person shall be informed of it. A widow, without paying
any relief, shall enter upon her dower, the third part of her husband’s
rents: she shall not be compelled to marry, so long as she chooses to
continue single; she shall only give security never to marry without her
lord’s consent. The king shall not claim the wardship of any minor who
holds lands by military tenure, of a baron, on pretence that he also
holds lands of the crown, by soccage or any other tenure. Scutages shall
be estimated at the same rate as in the time of Henry I.; and no scutage
or aid, except in the three general feudal cases, the king’s captivity,
the knighting of his eldest son, and the marrying of his eldest
daughter, shall be imposed but by the great council of the kingdom;
the prelates, earls, and great barons, shall be called to this great
council, each by a particular writ; the lesser barons by a general
summons of the sheriff. The king shall not seize any baron’s land for a
debt to the crown if the baron possesses as many goods and chattels as
are sufficient to discharge the debt. No man shall be obliged to perform
more service for his fee than he is bound to by his tenure. No governor
or constable of a castle shall oblige any knight to give money for
castle guard, if the knight be willing to perform the service in
person, or by another able-bodied man; and if the knight be in the field
himself, by the king’s command, he shall be exempted from all other
service of this nature. No vassal shall be allowed to sell so much of
his land as to incapacitate himself from performing his service to his
lord.

These were the principal articles, calculated for the interest of
the barons; and had the charter contained nothing further, national
happiness and liberty had been very little promoted by it, as it would
only have tended to increase the power and independence of an order of
men who were already too powerful, and whose yoke might have become
more heavy on the people than even that of an absolute monarch. But the
barons, who alone drew and imposed on the prince this memorable charter,
were necessitated to insert in it other claused of a more extensive and
more beneficent nature: they could not expect the concurrence of the
people without comprehending, together with their own, the interest of
inferior ranks of men; and all provisions, which the barons, for
their own sake, were obliged to make, in order to insure the free and
equitable administration of justice, tended directly to the benefit of
the whole community. The following were the principal clauses of this
nature.

It was ordained that all the privileges and immunities above mentioned,
granted to the barons against the king, should be extended by the barons
to their inferior vassals. The king bound himself not to grant any writ,
empowering a baron to levy aids from his vassals, except in the three
feudal cases. One weight and one measure shall be established throughout
the kingdom. Merchants shall be allowed to transact all business without
being exposed to any arbitrary tolls and impositions; they and all
free men shall be allowed to go out of the kingdom and return to it
at pleasure: London, and all cities and burghs, shall preserve their
ancient liberties, immunities, and free customs: aids shall not be
required of them but by the consent of the great council: no towns or
individuals shall be obliged to make or support bridges but by ancient
custom: the goods of every freeman shall he disposed of according to his
will: if he die intestate, his heirs shall succeed to them. No officer
of the crown shall take any horses, carts, or wood, without the consent
of the owner. The king’s courts of justice shall be stationary, and
shall no longer follow his person: they shall be open to every one; and
justice shall no longer be sold, refused, or delayed by them. Circuits
shall be regularly held every year: the inferior tribunals of justice,
the county court, sheriff’s turn, and court-leet shall meet at their
appointed time and place: the sheriffs shall be incapacitated to hold
pleas of the crown; and shall not put any person upon his trial, from
rumor or suspicion alone, but upon the evidence of lawful witnesses.
No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed of his free
tenement and liberties, or outlawed, or banished, or anywise hurt or
injured, unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the
land; and all who suffered otherwise in this or the two former reigns,
shall be restored to their rights and possessions. Every freeman shall
be fined in proportion to his fault; and no fine shall be levied on him
to his utter ruin; even a villain or rustic shall not by any fine be
bereaved of his carts, ploughs, and implements of husbandry. This was
the only article calculated for the interests of this body of men,
probably at that time the most numerous in the kingdom.

It must be confessed that the former articles of the Great Charter
contain such mitigations and explanations of the feudal law as are
reasonable and equitable; and that the latter involve all the chief
outlines of a legal government, and provide for the equal distribution
of justice, and free enjoyment of property; the great objects for which
political society was at first founded by men, which the people have
a perpetual and unalienable right to recall, and which no time, nor
precedent, nor statute, nor positive institution, ought to deter them
from keeping ever uppermost in their thoughts and attention. Though the
provisions made by this charter might, conformably to the genius of the
age, be esteemed too concise, and too bare of circumstances to maintain
the execution of its articles, in opposition to the chicanery of
lawyers, supported by the violence of power, time gradually ascertained
the sense of all the ambiguous expressions; and those generous barons,
who first extorted this concession, still held their swords in their
hands, and could turn them against those who dared, on any pretence, to
depart from the original spirit and meaning of the grant. We may now,
from the tenor of this charter, conjecture what those laws were of
King Edward which the English nation, during so many generations, still
desired, with such an obstinate perseverance, to have recalled and
established. They were chiefly these latter articles of Magna Charta;
and the barons who, at the beginning of these commotions, demanded
the revival of the Saxon laws, undoubtedly thought that they had
sufficiently satisfied the people by procuring them this concession,
which comprehended the principal objects to which they had so long
aspired. But what we are most to admire is, the prudence and moderation
of those haughty nobles themselves, who were enraged by injuries,
inflamed by opposition, and elated by a total victory over their
sovereign. They were content, even in this plenitude of power, to depart
from some articles of Henry I.’s charter, which they made the foundation
of their demands, particularly from the abolition of wardships, a matter
of the greatest importance; and they seem to have been sufficiently
careful not to diminish too far the power and revenue of the crown. If
they appear, therefore, to have carried other demands to too great
a height, it can be ascribed only to the faithless and tyrannical
character of the king himself, of which they had long had experience,
and which they foresaw would, if they provided no further security,
lead him soon to infringe their new liberties, and revoke his own
concessions. This alone gave birth to those other articles, seemingly
exorbitant, which were added as a rampart for the safeguard of the Great
Charter.

The barons obliged the king to agree that London should remain in their
hands, and the Tower be consigned to the custody of the primate,
till the 15th of August ensuing, or till the execution of the several
articles of the Great Charter. The better to insure the same end, he
allowed them to choose five-and-twenty members from their own body,
as conservators of the public liberties; and no bounds were set to the
authority of these men either in extent or duration. If any complaint
were made of a violation of the charter, whether attempted by the king,
justiciaries, sheriffs, or foresters, any four of these barons might
admonish the king to redress the grievance: if satisfaction were not
obtained, they could assemble the whole council of twenty-five; who,
in conjunction with the great council, were empowered to compel him to
observe the charter, and, in case of resistance, might levy war against
him, attack his castles, and employ every kind of violence, except
against his royal person, and that of his queen and children. All men
throughout the kingdom were bound, under the penalty of confiscation, to
swear obedience to the twenty-five barons; and the freeholders of each
county were to choose twelve knights, who were to make report of such
evil customs as required redress, conformably to the tenor of the Great
Charter.[*] The names of those conservators were, the earls of Clare,
Albemarle, Glocesteer, Winchester, Hereford, Roger Bigod, earl of
Norfolk, Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, William Mareschal the younger,
Robert Fitz-Walter, Gilbert de Clare, Eustace de Vescey, Gilbert
Delaval, William de Moubray, Geoffrey de Say, Roger de Mombezon, William
de Huntingfield, Robert de Ros, the constable of Chester, William de
Aubenie, Richard de Perci, William Malet, John Fitz-Robert, William de
Lanvalay, Hugh de Bigod, and Roger de Montfichet. These men were, by
this convention, really invested with the sovereignty of the kingdom:
they were rendered coordinate with the king, or rather superior to him,
in the exercise of the executive power; and as there was no circumstance
of government which, either directly or indirectly, might not bear a
relation to the security or observance of the Great Charter, there could
scarcely occur any incident in which they might not lawfully interpose
their authority.

     [* 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.]

John seemed to submit passively to all these regulations, however
injurious to majesty: he sent writs to all the sheriffs, ordering them
to constrain every one to swear obedience to the twenty-five barons: he
dismissed all his foreign force; he pretended, that his government was
thenceforth to run in a new tenor, and be more indulgent to the liberty
and independence of his people. But he only dissembled till he should
find a favorable opportunity for annulling all his concessions. The
injuries and indignities which he had formerly suffered from the pope
and the king of France, as they came from equals or superiors, seemed
to make but small impression on him; but the sense of this perpetual
and total subjection under his own rebellious vassals, sunk deep in his
mind; and he was determined, at all hazards, to throw off so ignominious
a slavery. He grew sullen, silent, and reserved: he shunned the society
of his courtiers and nobles: he retired into the Isle of Wight, as
if desirous of hiding his shame and confusion; but in this retreat he
meditated the most fatal vengeance against all his enemies. He secretly
sent abroad his emissaries to enlist foreign soldiers, and to invite the
rapacious Brabançons into his service, by the prospect of sharing
the spoils of England, and reaping the forfeitures of so many opulent
barons, who had incurred the guilt of rebellion, by rising in arms
against him. And he despatched a messenger to Rome, in order to lay
before the pope the Great Charter, which he had been compelled to sign,
and to complain, before that tribunal, of the violence which had been
imposed upon him.

Innocent, considering himself as feudal lord of the kingdom, was
incensed at the temerity of the barons, who, though they pretended to
appeal to his authority, had dared, without waiting for his consent, to
impose such terms on a prince, who, by resigning to the Roman pontiff
his crown and independence, had placed himself immediately under the
papal protection. He issued, therefore, a bull, in which, from the
plenitude of his apostolic power, and from the authority which God had
committed to him, to build and destroy kingdoms, to plant and overthrow,
he annulled and abrogated the whole charter, as unjust in itself,
as obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to the dignity of the
apostolic see. He prohibited the barons from exacting the observance of
it: he even prohibited the king himself from paying any regard to it:
he absolved him and his subjects from all oaths which they had been
constrained to take to that purpose; and he pronounced a general
sentence of excommunication against every one who should persevere in
maintaining such treasonable and iniquitous pretensions.

The king, as his foreign forces arrived along with this bull now
ventured to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the pope’s decree,
recalled all the liberties which he had granted to his subjects, and
which he had solemnly sworn to observe. But the spiritual weapon was
found upon trial to carry less force with it than he had reason from
his own experience to apprehend. The primate refused to obey the pope
in publishing the sentence of excommunication against the barons; and
though he was cited to Rome, that he might attend a general council
there assembled, and was suspended, on account of his disobedience to
the pope, and his secret correspondence with the king’s enemies; though
a new and particular sentence of excommunication was pronounced by name
against the principal barons; John still found that his nobility and
people, and even his clergy, adhered to the defence of their liberties,
and to their combination against him: the sword of his foreign
mercenaries was all he had to trust to for restoring his authority.

The barons, after obtaining the Great Charter, seem to have been lulled
into a fatal security, and to have taken no rational measures, in case
of the introduction of a foreign force, for reassembling their armies.
The king was, from the first, master of the field; and immediately laid
siege to the castle of Rochester, which was obstinately defended by
William de Albiney, at the head of a hundred and forty knights with
their retainers, but was at last, reduced by famine. John, irritated
with the resistance, intended to have hanged the governor and all the
garrison; but on the representation of William de Mauleon, who suggested
to him the danger of reprisals, he was content to sacrifice, in this
barbarous manner, the inferior prisoners only. The captivity of William
de Albiney, the best officer among the confederated barons, was
an irreparable loss to their cause; and no regular opposition was
thenceforth made to the progress of the royal arms. The ravenous and
barbarous mercenaries, incited by a cruel and enraged prince were let
loose against the estates, tenants, manors, houses, parks of the barons,
and spread devastation over the face of the kingdom. Nothing was to
be seen but the flames of villages, and castles reduced to ashes, the
consternation and misery of the inhabitants, tortures exercised by the
soldiery to make them reveal their concealed treasures, and reprisals no
less barbarous, committed by the barons and their partisans on the royal
demesnes, and on the estates of such as still adhered to the crown.
The king, marching through the whole extent of England, from Dover to
Berwick, laid the provinces waste on each side of him; and considered
every estate, which was not his immediate property, as entirely hostile,
and the object of military execution. The nobility of the north in
particular, who had shown greatest violence in the recovery of their
liberties, and who, acting in a separate body, had expressed their
discontent even at the concessions made by the Great Charter, as they
could expect no mercy, fled before him with their wives and families,
and purchased the friendship of Alexander, the young king of Scots, by
doing homage to him.

The barons, reduced to this desperate extremity, and menaced with
the total loss of their liberties, their properties, and their lives,
employed a remedy no less desperate; and making applications to the
court of France, they offered to acknowledge Lewis, the eldest son of
Philip, for their sovereign, on condition that he would afford them
protection from the violence of their enraged prince. Though the sense
of the common rights of mankind, the only rights that are entirely
indefeasible, might have justified them in the deposition of their king,
they declined insisting before Philip on a pretension which is commonly
so disagreeable to sovereigns, and which sounds harshly in their royal
ears. They affirmed that John was incapable of succeeding to the crown,
by reason of the attainder passed upon him during his brother’s reign;
though that attainder had been reversed, and Richard had even, by his
last will, declared him his successor. They pretended, that he was
already legally deposed by sentence of the peers of France, on account
of the murder of his nephew; though that sentence could not possibly
regard any thing but his transmarine dominions, which alone he held in
vassalage to that crown. On more plausible grounds, they affirmed, that
he had already deposed himself by doing homage to the pope, changing the
nature of his sovereignty, and resigning an independent crown for a fee
under a foreign power. And as Blanche of Castile, the wife of Lewis,
was descended by her mother from Henry II., they maintained, though many
other princes stood before her in the order of succession, that they
had not shaken off the royal family, in choosing her husband for their
sovereign.

Philip was strongly tempted to lay hold on the rich prize which
was offered to him. The legate menaced him with interdicts and
excommunications, if he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, or attacked
a prince who was under the immediate protection of the holy see; but as
Philip was assured of the obedience of his own vassals, his principles
were changed with the times, and he now undervalued as much all papal
censures, as he formerly pretended to pay respect to them. His chief
scruple was with regard to the fidelity which he might expect from the
English barons in their new engagements, and the danger of intrusting
his son and heir into the hands of men who might, on any caprice or
necessity, make peace with their native sovereign, by sacrificing
a pledge of so much value. He therefore exacted from the barons
twenty-five hostages of the most noble birth in the kingdom; and having
obtained this security, he sent over first a small army to the relief
of the confederates; then more numerous forces, which arrived with Lewis
himself at their head.

The first effect of the young prince’s appearance in England was
the desertion of John’s foreign troops, who, being mostly levied in
Flanders, and other provinces of France, refused to serve against the
heir of their monarchy. The Gascons and Poictevins alone, who were
still John’s subjects, adhered to his cause; but they were too weak to
maintain that superiority in the field which they had hitherto supported
against the confederated barons. Many considerable noblemen deserted
John’s party, the earls of Salisbury, Arundel, Warrenne, Oxford,
Albemarle, and William Mareschal the younger: his castles fell daily
into the hands of the enemy; Dover was the only place which, from the
valor and fidelity of Hubert de Burgh, the governor, made resistance
to the progress of Lewis; and the barons had the melancholy prospect
of finally succeeding in their purpose, and of escaping the tyranny of
their own king, by imposing on themselves and the nation a foreign yoke.
But this union was of short duration between the French and English
nobles; and the imprudence of Lewis, who on every occasion showed too
visible a preference to the former, increased that jealousy which it was
so natural for the latter to entertain in their present situation. The
viscount of Melun, too, it is said, one of his courtiers, fell sick at
London; and finding the approaches of death, he sent for some of his
friends among the English barons, and warning them of their danger,
revealed Lewis’s secret intentions of exterminating them and their
families as traitors to their prince, and of bestowing their estates
and dignities on his native subjects, in whose fidelity he could more
reasonably place confidence. This story, whether true or false,
was universally reported and believed; and, concurring with other
circumstances, which rendered it credible, did great prejudice to the
cause of Lewis. The earl of Salisbury and other noblemen deserted
again to John’s party; and as men easily change sides in a civil war,
especially where their power is founded on an hereditary and independent
authority, and is not derived from the opinion and favor of the people,
the French prince had reason to dread a sudden reverse of fortune. The
king was assembling a considerable army, with a view of fighting one
great battle for his crown; but passing from Lynne to Lincolnshire, his
road lay along the sea-shore, which was overflowed at high water; and
not choosing the proper time for his journey, he lost in the inundation
all his carriages, treasure, baggage, and regalia. The affliction for
this disaster, and vexation from the distracted state of his affairs,
increased the sickness under which he then labored; and though he
reached the castle of Newark, he was obliged to halt there, and his
distemper soon after put an end to his life, in the forty-ninth year
of his age, and eighteenth of his reign; and freed the nation from
the dangers to which it was equally exposed by his success or by his
misfortunes.

The character of this prince is nothing but a complication of vices,
equally mean and odious; ruinous to himself and destructive to
his people. Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity licentiousness,
ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty all these qualities appear
too evidently in the several incidents of his life, to give us room to
suspect that the disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by
the prejudices of the ancient historians. It is hard to say whether his
conduct to his father, his brother, his nephew, or his subjects, was
most culpable; or whether his crimes, in these respects, were not even
exceeded by the baseness which appeared in his transactions with the
king of France, the pope, and the barons. His European dominions, when
they devolved to him by the death of his brother, were more extensive
than have ever, since his time, been ruled by any English monarch: but
he first lost by his misconduct the flourishing provinces in France, the
ancient patrimony of his family: he subjected his kingdom to a shameful
vassalage under the see of Rome: he saw the prerogatives of his crown
diminished by law, and still more reduced by faction; and he died at
last, when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign power, and
of either ending his life miserably in prison, or seeking shelter as a
fugitive from the pursuit of his enemies.

The prejudices against this prince were so violent, that he was believed
to have sent an embassy to the Miramoulin, or emperor of Morocco, and
to have offered to change his religion and become Mahometan, in order to
purchase the protection of that monarch. But though this story is told
us, on plausible authority, by Matthew Paris,* it is in itself utterly
improbable; except that there is nothing so incredible but may be
believed to proceed from the folly and wickedness of John.

The monks throw great reproaches on this prince for his impiety, and
even infidelity; and as an instance of it, they tell us that, having
one day caught a very fat stag, he exclaimed, “How plump and well fed
is this animal! and yet I dare swear he never heard mass.” This sally of
wit upon the usual corpulency of the priests, more than all his enormous
crimes and iniquities, made him pass with them for an atheist.

John left two legitimate sons behind him, Henry, born on the first of
October, 1207, and now nine years of age; and Richard, born on the
sixth of January, 1209; and three daughters, Jane, afterwards married
to Alexander, king of Scots; Eleanor, married first to William Mareschal
the younger, earl of Pembroke, and then to Simon Mountfort earl of
Leicester; and Isabella, married to the emperor Frederic II. All these
children were born to him by Isabella of Angouleme, his second wife.
His illegitimate children were numerous; but none of them were anywise
distinguished.

It was this king who, in the ninth year of his reign, first gave by
charter to the city of London, the right of electing annually a mayor
out of its own body, an office which was till now held for life. He gave
the city also power to elect and remove its sheriffs at pleasure, and
its common-council men annually. London bridge was finished in this
reign: the former bridge was of wood. Maud, the empress, was the first
that built a stone bridge in England.



APPENDIX II.



THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.

The feudal law is the chief foundation both of the political government
and of the jurisprudence established by the Normans in England. Our
subject therefore requires that we should form a just idea of this law,
in order to explain the state, as well of that kingdom, as of all other
kingdoms of Europe, which during those ages were governed by similar
institutions. And though I am sensible that I must here repeat many
observations and reflections which have been communicated by others, yet
as every book, agreeably to the observation of a great historian, should
be as complete as possible within itself, and should never refer for
any thing material to other books, it will be necessary in this place
to deliver a short plan of that prodigious fabric, which for several
centuries preserved such a mixture of liberty and oppression, order and
anarchy, stability and revolution, as was never experienced in any other
age or any other part of the world.

After the northern nations had subdued the provinces of the Roman
empire, they were obliged to establish a system of government which
might secure their conquests, as well against the revolt of their
numerous subjects who remained in the provinces, as from the inroads
of other tribes, who might be tempted to ravish from them their new
acquisitions. The great change of circumstances made them here depart
from those institutions which prevailed among them while they remained
in the forests of Germany; yet was it still natural for them to retain,
in their present settlement, as much of their ancient customs as was
compatible with their new situation.

The German governments, being more a confederacy of independent warriors
than a civil subjection, derived their principal force from many
inferior and voluntary associations which individuals formed under a
particular head or chieftain, and which it became the highest point
of honor to maintain with inviolable fidelity. The glory of the chief
consisted in the number, the bravery, and the zealous attachment of his
retainers; the duty of the retainers required that they should accompany
their chief in all wars and dangers, that they should fight and perish
by his side, and that they should esteem his renown or his favor a
sufficient recompense for all their services.[*] The prince himself was
nothing but a great chieftain, who was chosen from among the rest on
account of his superior valor or nobility; and who derived his power
from the voluntary association or attachment of the other chieftains.

     [* 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 emergency, the
interest and honor of the community.

We are not to imagine, that all the conquered lands were seized by
the northern conquerors, or that the whole of the land thus seized was
subjected to those military services. This supposition is confuted by
the history of all the nations on the continent. Even the idea given us
of the German manners by the Roman historian, may convince us, that
that bold people would never have been content with so precarious a
subsistence, or have fought to procure establishments which were only
to continue during the good pleasure of their sovereign. Though the
northern chieftains accepted of lands which, being considered as a kind
of military pay, might be resumed at the will of the king or general,
they also took possession of estates which, being hereditary and
independent, enabled them to maintain their native liberty, and support,
without court favor, the honor of their rank and family.

But there is a great difference, in the consequences, between the
distribution of a pecuniary subsistence, and the assignment of lands
burdened with the condition of military service. The delivery of the
former, at the weekly, monthly, or annual terms of payment, still
recalls the idea of a voluntary gratuity from the prince, and reminds
the soldier of the precarious tenure by which he holds his commission.
But the attachment, naturally formed with a fixed portion of land,
gradually begets the idea of something like property, and makes the
possessor forget his dependent situation, and the condition which was
at first annexed to the grant. It seemed equitable, that one who had
cultivated and sowed a field, should reap the harvest: hence fiefs,
which were at first entirely precarious were soon made annual. A man
who had employed his money in building, planting, or other improvements,
expected to reap the fruits of his labor or expense: hence they were
next granted during a term of years. It would be thought hard to expel a
man from his possessions who had always done his duty, and performed the
conditions on which he originally received them: hence the chieftains,
in a subsequent period, thought themselves entitled to demand the
enjoyment of their feudal lands during life. It was found, that a man
would more willingly expose himself in battle, if assured that his
family should inherit his possessions, and should not be left by his
death in want and poverty; hence fiefs were made hereditary in families,
and descended, during one age to the son, then to the grandson, next to
the brothers, and afterwards to more distant relations.[*] The idea of
property stole in gradually upon that of military pay; and each century
made some sensible addition to the stability of fiefs and tenures.

     [* Lib. Feud. lib. i. tit. i.]

In all these successive acquisitions, the chief was supported by his
vassals; who, having originally a strong connection with him, augmented
by the constant intercourse of good offices, and by the friendship
arising from vicinity and dependence, were inclined to follow their
leader against all his enemies, and voluntarily, in his private
quarrels, paid him the same obedience to which, by their tenure, they
were bound in foreign wars. While he daily advanced new pretensions to
secure the possession of his superior fief, they expected to find the
same advantage in acquiring stability to their subordinate ones;
and they zealously opposed the intrusion of a new lord, who would be
inclined, as he was fully entitled, to bestow the possession of their
lands on his own favorites and retainers. Thus the authority of the
sovereign gradually decayed; and each noble, fortified in his own
territory by the attachment of his vassals, became too powerful to be
expelled by an order from the throne; and he secured by law what he had
at first acquired by usurpation.

During this precarious state of the supreme power, a difference would
immediately be experienced between those portions of territory which
were subjected to the feudal tenures, and those which were possessed by
an allodial or free title. Though the latter possessions had at first
been esteemed much preferable, they were soon found, by the progressive
changes introduced into public and private law, to be of an inferior
condition to the former. The possessors of a feudal territory, united by
a regular subordination under one chief, and by the mutual attachments
of the vassals, had the same advantages over the proprietors of the
other, that a disciplined army enjoys over a dispersed multitude; and
were enabled to commit with impunity all injuries on their defenceless
neighbors Every one, therefore, hastened to seek that protection which
he found so necessary; and each allodial proprietor, resigning his
possessions into the hands of the king, or of some nobleman respected
for power or valor, received them back with the condition of feudal
services,[*] which, though a burden somewhat grievous, brought, him
ample compensation, by connecting him with the neighboring proprietors,
and placing him under the guardianship of a potent chieftain. The decay
of the political government thus necessarily occasioned the extension of
the feudal: the kingdoms of Europe were universally divided into
baronies, and these into inferior fiefs; and the attachment of vassals
to their chief, which was at first an essential part of the German
manners, was still supported by the same causes from which it at first
arose; the necessity of mutual protection, and the continued
intercourse, between the head and the members, of benefits and services.

     [* 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 subtile principles, applied to a variety
of cases by profound reasonings from analogy. An officer, though he
had passed his life in the field, was able to determine all legal
controversies which could occur within the district committed to his
charge; and his decisions were the most likely to meet with a prompt and
ready obedience, from men who respected his person, and were accustomed
to act under his command. The profit arising from punishments, Which
were then chiefly pecuniary, was another reason for his desiring to
retain the judicial power; and when his fief became hereditary, this
authority, which was essential to it, was also transmitted to his
posterity. The counts and other magistrates, whose power was merely
official, were tempted, in imitation of the feudal lords, whom they
resembled in so many particulars, to render their dignity perpetual
and hereditary; and in the decline of the regal power, they found no
difficulty in making good their pretentions. After this manner the vast
fabric of feudal subordination became quite solid and comprehensive; it
formed every where an essential part of the political constitution; and
the Norman and other barons, who followed the fortunes of William, were
so accustomed to it, that they could scarcely form an idea of any other
species of civil government.[*]

The Saxons who conquered England, as they exterminated the ancient
inhabitants, and thought themselves secured by the sea against new
invaders, found it less requisite to maintain themselves in a military
posture: the quantity of land which they annexed to offices seems to
have been of small value; and for that reason continued the longer in
its original situation, and was always possessed during pleasure by
those who were intrusted with the command. These conditions were too
precarious to satisfy the Norman barons, who enjoyed more independent
possessions and jurisdictions in their own country; and William was
obliged, in the new distribution of land, to copy the tenures which
were now become universal on the continent. England of a sudden became a
feudal kingdom,[**] and received all the advantages, and was exposed to
all the inconveniences, incident to that species of civil polity.

According to the principles of the feudal law, the king wa the supreme
lord of the landed property: all possessors, who enjoyed the fruits or
revenue of any part of it, held those privileges, either mediately or
immediately, of him; and their property was conceived to be, in some
degree, conditional.[***] The land was still apprehended to be a species
of benefice, which was the original conception of a feudal property; and
the vassal owed, in return for it, stated services to his baron, as the
baron himself did for his land to the crown. The vassal was obliged to
defend his baron in war; and the baron, at the head of his vassal, was
bound to fight in defence of the king and kingdom. But besides these
military services, which were casual, there were others imposed of a
civil nature, which were more constant and durable.

     [* The ideas of the feudal government were so
     rooted, that even lawyers in those ages could not form a
     notion of any either constitution. Regnum (says Braeton,
     lib. ii. cap. 34) quod ex comitatibus et baronibus dicitur
     esse constitutum.]

     [** Coke, Comm. on Lit. p. 1, 2, ad sect. 1.]

     [*** Somner of Gavelk. p. 109, Smith de Rep. lib.
     iii. cap. 10.]

The northern nations had no idea that any man trained up to honor and
inured to arms, was ever to be governed, without his own consent, by the
absolute will of another; or that the administration of justice was ever
to be exercised by the private opinion of any one magistrate, without
the concurrence of some other persons, whose interest might induce them
to check his arbitrary and iniquitous decisions. The king, therefore,
when he found it necessary to demand any service of his barons or chief
tenants, beyond what was due by their tenures, was obliged to assemble
them, in order to obtain their consent; and when it was necessary to
determine any controversy which might arise among the barons themselves,
the question must be discussed in their presence, and be decided
according to their opinion or advice. In these two circumstances of
consent and advice, consisted chiefly the civil services of the ancient
barons; and these implied all the considerable incidents of government.
In one view, the barons regarded this attendance as their principal
privilege; in another, as a grievous burden. That no momentous affairs
could be transacted without their consent and advice, was in general
esteemed the great security of their possessions and dignities; but as
they reaped no immediate profit from their attendance at court, and were
exposed to great inconvenience and charge by an absence from their
own estates, every one was glad to exempt himself liom each particular
exertion of this power; and was pleased both that the call for that duty
should seldom return upon him, and that others should undergo the burden
in his stead. The king, on the other hand, was usually anxious, for
several reasons, that the assembly of the barons should be full at every
stated or casual meeting: this attendance was the chief badge of their
subordination to his crown, and drew them from that independence which
they were apt to affect in their own castles and manors; and where the
meeting was thin or ill attended, its determinations had less authority,
and commanded not so ready an obedience from the whole community.

The case was the same with the barons in their courts, as with the king
in the supreme council of the nation. It was requisite to assemble the
vassals, in order to determine by their vote any question which regarded
the barony; and they sat along with the chief in all trials,
whether civil or criminal, which occurred within the limits of their
jurisdiction. They were; bound to pay suit and service at the court
of their baron; and as their tenure was military, and consequently
honorable, they were admitted into his society, and partook of his
friendship. Thus, a kingdom was considered only as a great barony, and
a barony as a small kingdom. The barons were peers to each other in the
national council, and in some degree companions to the king; the vassals
were peers to each other in the court of barony, and companions to their
baron.[*]

     [* Du Cange, Gloss, in verb. Par. Cujac. Commun.
     in Lib, Feud lib. I, tit i. p. 18, Spelm. 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 connection or acquaintance with the
prince, and added every day new force to his authority over the
vassals of the barony. They received from him education in all military
exercises; his hospitality invited them to live and enjoy society in his
hall; their leisure, which was great, made them perpetual retainers on
his person, and partakers of his country sports and amusements; they
had no means of gratifying their ambition but by making a figure in
his train; his favor and countenance was their greatest honor; his
displeasure exposed them to contempt and ignominy; and they felt every
moment the necessity of his protection, both in the controversies which
occurred with other vassals, and, what was more material, in the daily
inroads and injuries which were committed by the neighboring barons.
During the time of general war, the sovereign, who marched at the head
of his armies, and was the great protector of the state, always acquired
some accession to his authority, which he lost during the intervals
of peace and tranquillity; but the loose police incident to the feudal
constitutions, maintained a perpetual, though secret hostility, between
the several members of the state; and the vassals found no means of
securing themselves against the injuries to which they were continually
exposed, but by closely adhering to their chief, and falling into a
submissive dependence upon him.

If the feudal government was so little favorable to the true liberty
even of the military vassal, it was still more destructive of the
independence and security of the other members of the state, or what in
a proper sense we call the people. A great part of them were serfs,
and lived in a state of absolute slavery or villainage; the other
inhabitants of the country paid then rent in services, which were in a
great measure arbitrary; and they could expect no redress of injuries in
a court of barony from men who thought they had a right to oppress and
tyrannize over them: the towns were situated either within the demesnes
of the king, or the lands of the great barons, and were almost entirely
subjected to the absolute will of their master. The languishing state of
commerce kept the inhabitants poor and contemptible; and the political
institutions were calculated to render that poverty perpetual. The
barons and gentry, living in rustic plenty and hospitality, gave
no encouragement to the arts, and had no demand for any of the more
elaborate manufactures: every profession was held in contempt but
that of arms; and if any merchant or manufacturer rose by industry and
frugality to a degree of opulence, he found himself but the more exposed
to injuries, from the envy and avidity of the military nobles.

These concurring causes gave the feudal governments so strong a bias
towards aristocracy, that the royal authority was extremely eclipsed
in all the European states; and, instead of dreading the growth of
monarchical power, we might rather expect, that the community would
every where crumble into so many independent baronies, and lose the
political union by which they were cemented. In elective monarchies,
the event was commonly answerable to this expectation; and the barons,
gaining ground on every vacancy of the throne, raised themselves almost
to a state of sovereignty, and sacrificed to their power both the rights
of the crown and the liberties of the people. But hereditary monarchies
had a principle of authority which was not so easily subverted; and
there were several causes which still maintained a degree of influence
in the hands of the sovereign.

The greatest baron could never lose view entirely of those principles of
the feudal constitution which bound him, as, a vassal, to submission and
fealty towards his prince; because he was every moment obliged to have
recourse to those principles, in exacting fealty and submission from his
own vassals The lesser barons, finding that the annihilation of royal
authority left them exposed without protection to the insults and
injuries of more potent neighbors, naturally adhered to the crown, and
promoted the execution of general and equal laws. The people had still a
stronger interest to desire the grandeur of the sovereign; and the king,
being the legal magistrate, who suffered by every internal convulsion or
oppression, and who regarded the great nobles as his immediate rivals,
assumed the salutary office of general guardian or protector of the
commons. Besides the prerogatives with which the law invested him, his
large demesnes and numerous retainers rendered him, in one sense, the
greatest baron in his kingdom; and where he was possessed of personal
vigor and abilities, (for his situation required these advantages,) he
was commonly able to preserve his authority, and maintain his station as
head of the community, and the chief fountain of law and justice.

The first kings of the Norman race were favored by another circumstance,
which preserved them from the encroachments of their barons. They
were generals of a conquering army, which was obliged to continue in
a military posture, and to maintain great subordination under their
leader, in order to secure themselves from the revolt of the numerous
natives, whom they had bereaved of all their properties and privileges.
But though this circumstance supported the authority of William and his
immediate successors, and rendered them extremely absolute, it was lost
as soon as the Norman barons began to incorporate with the nation, to
acquire a security in their possessions, and to fix their influence over
their vassals, tenants, and slaves. And the immense fortunes which the
Conqueror had bestowed on his chief captains, served to support their
independence, and make them formidable to the sovereign.

He gave, for instance, to Hugh de Abrincis, his sister’s son, the whole
county of Chester, which he erected into a palatinate, and rendered by
his grant almost independent of the crown.[*] Robert, earl of Mortaigne,
had nine hundred and seventy-three manors and lordships: Allan, earl
of Brittany and Richmond, four hundred and forty-two: Odo, bishop of
Baieux, four hundred and thirty-nine:[**] Geoffrey, bishop of Coutance,
two hundred and eighty:[***] Walter Giffard, earl of Buckingham, one
hundred and seven.

     [* Camd. in Chesh. Spel. Gloss, in verb. Comes
     Palatinus.]

     [** Brady’s Hist. p. 198, 200.]

     [*** Order Vitalia.]

William, earl Warrenne, two hundred and ninety-eight, besides
twenty-eight towns or hamlets in Yorkshire: Todenei, eighty-one: Roger
Bigod, one hundred and twenty-three: Robert, earl of Eu, one hundred and
nineteen: Roger Mortimer, one hundred and thirty-two, besides several
hamlets: Robert de Stafford, one hundred and thirty: Walter de Eurus,
earl of Salisbury, forty-six Geoffrey de Mandeville, one hundred
and eighteen Richard de Clare, one hundred and seventy-one: Hugh de
Beauchamp, forty-seven: Baldwin de Rivers, one hundred and sixty-four:
Henry de Ferrers, two hundred and twenty? two: William de Percy, one
hundred and nineteen:[*] Norman d’Arcy, thirty-three.[**] Sir Henry
Spelman computea that, in the large county of Norfolk, there were not,
in the Conqueror’s time, above sixty-six proprietors of land.[***] Men
possessed of such princely revenues and jurisdictions could not long
be retained in the rank of subjects. The great Earl Warrenne, in a
subsequent reign, when he was questioned concerning his right to the
lands which he possessed, drew his sword, which he produced as his
title; adding, that William the bastard did not conquer the kingdom
himself; but that the barons, and his ancestor among me rest, were joint
adventurers in the enterprise.[****]

     [* Dugdale’s Baronage, from Domesday-book, vol. i.
     p. 60, 74; iii. 112, 132, 136, 138, 156, 174, 200, 207, 223,
     254, 257, 269.]

     [** Ibid. p. 319. It is remarkable that this
     family of D’Arcy seema 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.]

     [*** Spel. Gloss, hi verb. Domesday.]

     [**** Dug. Bar. vol. i. p. 79. Ibid. Origines
     Juridicales p. 13,]

     [***** Spel. Glos. it verb. Baro.] 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.

The supreme legislative power of England was lodged in the king and
great council, or what was afterwards called the parliament. It is not
doubted but the archbishops, bishops, and most considerable abbots were
constituent members of this council. They sat by a double title: by
prescription, as having always possessed that privilege, through the
whole Saxon period, from the first establishment of Christianity; and
by their right of baronage, as holding of the king in capite by
military service. These two titles of the prelates were never accurately
distinguished. When the usurpations of the church had risen to such a
height, as to make the bishops affect a separate dominion, and regard
their seat in parliament as a degradation of their episcopal dignity,
the king insisted that they were barons, and, on that account, obliged,
by the general principles of the feudal law, to attend on him in his
great councils. Yet there still remained some practices, which supposed
their title to be derived merely from ancient possession.

The barons were another constituent part of the great council of the
nation These held immediately of the crown by a military tenure: they
were the most honorable members of the state, and had a right to be
consulted in all public deliberations: they were the immediate vassals
of the crown, and owed as a service their attendance in the court of
their supreme lord. A resolution taken without their consent was likely
to be but ill executed: and no determination of any cause or controversy
among them had any validity, where the vote and advice of the body did
not concur. The dignity of earl or count was official and territorial,
as well as hereditary; and as ali the earls were also barons, they
were considered as military vassals of the crown, were admitted in that
capacity into the general council, and formed the most honorable and
powerful branch of it.

But there was another class of the immediate military tenants of the
crown, no less, or probably more numerous than the barons, the tenants
in capite by knights’ service and these, however inferior in power or
property, held by a tenure which was equally honorable with that of the
others. A barony was commonly composed of several knightsr fees:
and though the number seems not to have been exactly defined, seldom
consisted of less than fifty hides of land:[*] but where a man held of
the king only one or two knight’s fees, he was still an immediate vassal
of the crown, and as such had a title to have a seat in the general
councils. But as this attendance was usually esteemed a burden, and
one too great for a man of slender fortune to bear constantly, it is
probable that, though he had a title, if he pleased, to be admitted,
he was not obliged by any penalty, like the barons, to pay a regular
attendance.

     [* 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. Spel. Gloss,
     in verb. Feodum. There were two hundred and forty-three
     thousand six hundred hides in England, and sixty thousand
     two hundred and fifteen knights’ fees; whence it is evident
     that there were a little more than four hides in each
     knight’s fee.]

All the immediate military tenants of the crown amounted not fully to
seven hundred, when Domesday-book was framed; and as the membeirs were
well pleased, on any pretext, to excuse themselves from attendance, the
assembly was never likely to become too numerous for the despatch of
public business.

So far the nature of a general council or ancient parliament is
determined without any doubt or controversy, The only question seems to
be with regard to the commons, or the representatives of counties and
boroughs; whether they were also, in more early times, constituent parts
of parliament. This question was once disputed in England with great
acrimony; but such is the force of time and evidence, that they can
sometimes prevail even over faction; and the question seems, by general
consent, and even by their own, to be at last determined against the
ruling party. It is agreed, that the commons were no part of the great
council till some ages after the conquest; and that the military tenants
alone of the crown composed that supreme and legislative assembly.

The vassals of a baron were by their tenure immediately dependent on
him, owed attendance at his court, and paid all their duty to the king,
through that dependence which their lord was obliged by his tenure to
acknowledge to his sovereign and superior. Their land, comprehended in
the barony, was represented in parliament by the baron himself, who was
supposed, according to the fictions of the feudal law, to possess the
direct property of it; and it would have been deemed incongruous to give
it any other representation. They stood m the same capacity to him, that
he and the other barons did to the king: the former were peers of the
barony; the latter were peers of the realm: the vassals possessed a
subordinate rank within their district: the baron enjoyed a superior
dignity in the great assembly: they were in some degree his companions
at home; he the king’s companion at court: and nothing can be
more evidently repugnant to all feudal ideas, and to that gradual
subordination which was essential to those ancient institutions, than to
imagine that the king would apply either for the advice or consent of
men who were of a rank so much inferior, and whose duty was immediately
paid to the mesne lord that was interposed between them and the
throne.[*]

     [* Spel. Gloss, in verb. Baro.]

If it be unreasonable to think that the vassals of a barony, though
their tenure was military, and noble, and honorable, were ever summoned
to give their opinion in national councils, much less can it be supposed
that the tradesmen or inhabitants of boroughs, whose condition was so
much inferior, would be admitted to that privilege. It appears from
Domesday, that the greatest boroughs were, at the time of the conquest,
scarcely more than country villages; and that the inhabitants lived
in entire dependence on the king or great lords, and were of a
station little better than servile.[*] They were not then so much as
incorporated; they formed no community; were not regarded as a body
politic; and being really nothing but a number of low, dependent
tradesmen, living, without any particular civil tie, in neighborhood
together, they were incapable of being represented in the states of the
kingdom. Even in France, a country which made more early advances in
arts and civility than England, the first corporation is sixty years
posterior to the conquest under the duke of Normandy; and the erecting
of these communities was an invention of Lewis the Gross, in order
to free the people from slavery under the lords, and to give
them protection by means of certain privileges and a separate
jurisdiction.[**] An ancient French writer calls them a new and wicked
device, to procure liberty to slaves, and encourage them in shaking off
the dominion of their masters.[***] The famous charter, as it is called,
of the Conqueror to the city of London, though granted at a time when he
assumed the appearance of gentleness and lenity, is nothing but a letter
of protection, and a declaration that the citizens should not be treated
as slaves.[****] By the English feudal law, the superior lord
was prohibited from marrying his female ward to a burgess or a
villain;[*****] so near were these two ranks esteemed to each other,
and so much inferior to the nobility and gentry. Besides possessing the
advantages of birth, riches, civil powers and privileges, the nobles
and gentlemen alone were armed a circumstance which gave them a mighty
superiority, in an age when nothing but the military profession
was honorable, and when the loose execution of laws gave so much
encouragement to open violence, and rendered it so decisive in all
disputes and controversies.[*****]

     [* “Liber homo” anciently signified a gentleman:
     for scarce any one beside was entirely free. Spel. Gloss, in
     verbo.]

     [** Du Gauge’s Gloss, in verb. Commune,
     Communitas.]

     [*** Guibertus, de vita sua, lib. iii. cap. 7.]

     [**** Stat. of Merton, 1235, esp. 6.]

     [***** Holingshed. vol. iii. p. 15.]

     [****** Madox, 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.[**] 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.[***]

     [** Norman, du Chesnil, p. 1066. Du Cange, Gloss,
     in verb. Commune.]

     [*** Sometimes the historians mention the people,
     “populus,” as a 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.]

If in the long period of two hundred years, which elapsed between
the conquest and the latter end of Henry III., and which abounded
in factions, revolutions, and convulsions of all kinds, the house of
commons never performed one single legislative act so considerable as
to be once mentioned by any of the numerous historians of that age, they
must have been totally insignificant: and in that case, what reason can
be assigned for their ever being assembled? Can it be supposed that men
of so little weight or importance possessed a negative voice against the
king and the barons? Every page of the subsequent histories discovers
their existence; though these histories are not written with greater
accuracy than the preceding ones, and indeed scarcely equal them in that
particular. The Magna Charta of King John provides that no scutage or
aid should be imposed, either on the land or towns, but by consent
of the great council; and for more security it enumerates the persons
entitled to a seat in that assembly, the prelates and immediate tenants
of the crown, without any mention of the commons; an authority so full,
certain, and explicit, that nothing but the zeal of party could ever
have procured credit to any contrary hypothesis.

It was probably the example of the French barons, which first imboldened
the English to require greater independence from their sovereign: it
is also probable that the boroughs and corporations of England were
established in imitation of those of France. It may, therefore, be
proposed as no unlikely conjecture, that both the chief privileges of
the peers in England and the liberty of the commons were originally the
growth of that foreign country.

In ancient times, men were little solicitous to obtain a place in
the legislative assemblies; and rather regarded their attendance as
a burden, which was not compensated by any return of profit or
honor, proportionate to the trouble and expense. The only reason for
instituting those public councils was, on the part of the subject, that
they desired some security from the attempts of arbitrary power; and on
the part of the sovereign, that he despaired of governing men of such
independent spirits without their own consent and concurrence. But the
commons, or the inhabitants of boroughs, had not as yet reached such a
degree of consideration, as to desire security against their prince, or
to imagine that, even if they were assembled in a representative body,
they had power or rank sufficient to enforce it. The only protection
which they aspired to, was against the immediate violence and injustice
of their fellow-citizens; and this advantage each of them looked for
from the courts of justice, or from the authority of some great lord, to
whom, by law or his own choice, he was attached. On the other hand, the
sovereign was sufficiently assured of obedience in the whole community
if he procured the concurrence of the nobles; nor had he reason to
apprehend that any order of the state could resist his and their united
authority. The military sub-vassals could entertain no idea of opposing
both their prince and their superiors: the burgesses and tradesmen
could much legs aspire to such a thought: and thus, even if history were
silent on the head, we have reason to conclude, from the known situation
of society during those ages, that the commons were never admitted as
members of the legislative body.

The executive power of the Anglo-Norman government was lodged in the
king. Besides the stated meetings of the national council at the
three great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide,[*] he was
accustomed, on any sudden exigence to summon them together. He could at
his pleasure command the attendance of his barons and their vassals,
in which consisted the military force of the kingdom; and could employ
titem, during forty days, either in resisting a foreign enemy, or
reducing his rebellious subjects. And what was of great importance, the
whole judicial power was ultimately in his bands, and was exercised by
officers and ministers of his appointment.

The general plan of the Anglo-Norman government was, that the court of
barony was appointed to decide such controversies as arose between the
several vassals or subjects of the same barony: the hundred court and
county court, which were still continued as during the Saxon times,[**]
to judge between the subjects of different baronies;[***] and the
curia regis, or king’s court, to give sentence among the barons
themselves.[****]

     [* Dugd. Orig. Jurid, p. 1.5 Spel. Gloss, in verbo
     Parliamentum.]

     [** Ang. Sacra, vol. i., p. 334, etc. Dugd. Orig.
     Jurid., p. 27, 29. Madox, Hist, of the Exch., p. 75, 76.
     Spel. Gloss, in verbo Hundred:]

     [*** 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 sheriff in these
     courts, and to assist them in the administration of justice.
     By this 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.]

     [**** Brady, Tref. p. 143.]

Circumstances which, being derived from a very extensive authority
assumed by the conqueror, contributed to increase the royal prerogative;
and, as long as the state was not disturbed by arms, reduced every order
of the community to some degree of dependence and subordination.

The king himself often sat in his court, which always attended his
person:[**] he there heard causes and pronounced judgment;[***] and
though he was assisted by the advice of the other members, it is not to
be imagined that a decision could easily be obtained, contrary to his
inclination or opinion. In his absence the chief justiciary presided,
who was the first magistrate in the state, and a kind of viceroy, on
whom depended all the civil affairs of the kingdom.[****] The other
chief officers of the crown, the constable, mareschal, seneschal
chamberlain, treasurer, and chancellor,[*****] were members, together
with such feudal barons as thought proper to attend, and the barons of
the exchequer, who at first were also feudal barons appointed by the
king.[******] This court, which was sometimes called the king’s court,
sometimes the court of exchequer, judged in all causes, civil and
criminal, and comprehended the whole business which is now shared out
among four courts the chancery, the king’s bench, the common pleas, and
the exchequer.[*******]

Such an accumulation of powers was itself a great source of authority,
and rendered the jurisdiction of the court formidable to all the
subjects; but the turn which judicial trials took soon after the
conquest, served still more to increase its authority, and to augment
the royal prerogatives. William, among the other violent changes
which he attempted and effected, had introduced the Norman law into
England,[********] had ordered all the pleadings to be in that tongue,
and had interwoven with the English jurisprudence all the maxims and
principles which the Normans, more advanced in cultivation and naturally
litigious, were accustomed to observe in the distribution of justice.

     [** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 103.]

     [*** Bracton, lib. iii. cap. 9, sect. 1; cap. 10,
     sect. 1.]

     [**** Spel. Gloss, in verbo Justiciarii.]

     [***** Madox, Hist. Exch. p. 27, 29, 83, 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.]

     [****** Madox, Hist, of the Exch. p. 134, 135.
     Gerv. Dorob. p, 1387,]

     [******* Madox. Hist. of the Exch. p. 56, 70.]

     [******** Dial, de Scac. p. 30, apud Madox, Hist,
     of the Exch.]

Law now became a science, which at first fell entirely into the hands of
the Normans; and which, even after it was communicated to the English,
required so much study and application, that the laity in those ignorant
ages were incapable of attaining it, and it was a mystery almost solely
confined to the clergy, and chiefly to the monks[*] The great officers
of the crown, and the feudal barons, who were military men, found
themselves unfit to penetrate into those obscurities; and though they
were entitled to a seat in the supreme judicature, the business of the
court was wholly managed by the chief justiciary and the law barons, who
were men appointed by the king, and entirely at his disposal.[**] This
natural course of things was forwarded by the multiplicity of business
which flowed into that court, and which daily augmented by the appeals
from all the subordinate judicatures of the kingdom.

In the Saxon times, no appeal was received in the king’s court, except
upon the denial or delay of justice by the inferior courts; and the same
practice was still observed in most of the feudal kingdoms of Europe.
But the great power of the Conqueror established at first in England an
authority which the monarchs in France were not able to attain till the
reign of St. Lewis, who lived near two centuries after: he empowered his
court to receive appeals both from the courts of barony and the
county courts, and by that means brought the administration of justice
ultimately into the hands of the sovereign.[***] And, lest the expense
or trouble of a journey to court should discourage suitors, and make
them acquiesce in the decision of the inferior judicatures, itinerant
judges were afterwards established, who made their circuits throughout
the kingdom, and tried all causes that were brought before them.[****]

     [* Malms, lib. iv. p. 123.]

     [** Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 25.]

     [*** Madox, Hist. of the Exch, p.65. Glanv. lib.
     xii. cap. 1, 7. LL. Hen. I. sect. 31, apud Wilkins, p. 248.
     Fitz-Stephens, p. 36. Coke’s Comment, on the Statute of
     Mulbridge, cap. 20.]

     [**** 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 English. (p. 6.)]

By this expedient the courts of barony were kept in awe: and if they
still preserved some influence, it was only from the apprehensions which
the vassals might entertain of disobliging their superior, by appealing
from his jurisdiction. But tha county courts were much discredited; and
as the freeholders were found ignorant of the intricate principles and
forms of the new law, the lawyers gradually brought all business
before the king’s judges, and abandoned the ancient simple and popular
judicature. After this manner the formalities of justice, which, though
they appear tedious and cumbersome, are found requisite to the support
of liberty in all monarchical governments, proved at first, by a
combination of causes, very advantageous to royal authority in England.

The power of the Norman kings was also much supported by a great
revenue; and by a revenue that was fixed, perpetual, and independent
of the subject. The people, without betaking themselves to arms, had no
check upon the king, and no regular security for the due administration
of justice. In those days of violence, many instances of oppression
passed unheeded; and soon after were openly pleaded as precedents, which
it was unlawful to dispute or control. Princes and ministers were
too ignorant to be themselves sensible of the advantages attending
an equitable administration; and there was no established council or
assembly which could protect the people, and, by withdrawing supplies,
regularly and peaceably admonish the king of his duty, and insure the
execution of the laws.

The first branch of the king’s stated revenue was the royal demesnes, or
crown lands, which were very extensive, and comprehended, beside a
great number of manors, most of the chief cities of the kingdom. It was
established by law, that the king could alienate no part of his demesne,
and that he himself, or his successor, could at any time resume such
donations:[*] but this law was never regularly observed; which happily
rendered, in time, the crown somewhat more dependent.

     [* [*Feta], lib. i. cap. 8, sect. 17; lib. iii.
     cap. 6, sect. 3. Bracton, lib ii. cap. 5.]

The rent of the crown-lands, considered merely as so much riches, was a
source of power: the influence of the king over his tenants and the
inhabitants of his towns increased this power: but the other numerous
branches of his revenue, besides supplying his treasury, gave, by their
very nature, a great latitude to arbitrary authority, and were a support
of the prerogative; as will appear from an enumeration of them.

The king was never content with the stated rents, but levied heavy
talliages at pleasure on the inhabitants both of town and, country who
lived within his demesne. All bargains of sale, in order to prevent
theft, being prohibited, except in boroughs and public markets,[*] he
pretended to exact tolls on all goods whist were there sold.[**] He
seized two hogsheads, one before and one behind the mast, from every
vessel that imported wine. All goods paid to his customs a proportional
part of their value:[***] passage over bridges and on rivers was loaded
with tolls at pleasure:[****] and though the boroughs by degrees bought
the liberty of farming these impositions, yet the revenue profited
by these bargains, new sums were often exacted for the renewal and
confirmation of their Charters,[*****] and the people were thus held in
perpetual dependence.

Such was the situation of the inhabitants within the royal demesnes. But
the possessors of land, or the military tenants, though they were better
protected, both by law and by the great privilege of carrying arms,
were, from the nature of their tenures, much exposed to the inroads of
power, and possessed not what we should esteem in our age a very durable
security. The Conqueror ordained that the barons should be obliged to
pay nothing beyond their stated services,[******] except a reasonable
aid to ransom his person if he were taken in war, to make his eldest
son a knight, and to marry his eldest daughter. What should on these
occasions be deemed a reasonable aid, was not determined; and the
demands of the crown were so far discretionary.

The king could require in war the personal attendance of his vassals,
that is, of almost all the landed proprietors; and if they declined the
service, they were obliged to pay him a composition in money, which
was called a scutage. The sum was, during some reigns, precarious and
uncertain; it was sometimes levied without allowing the vassal the
liberty of personal service;[*******] and it was a usual artifice of the
king’s to pretend an expedition, that he might be entitled to levy the
scutage from his military tenants.

     [* LL. Will. i. cap. 61.]

     [** Madox, p. 530.]

     [*** Madox, p. 529. This author says a fifteenth.
     But it is not easy to reconcile this account to other
     authorities.]

     [**** Madox, p. 529.]

     [***** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 275, 276, 277,
     etc.]

     [****** LL. Will. Conq. sect. 55.]

     [******* Gervase de Tilbury, p. 25.]

Danegelt was another species of land-tax levied by the early Norman
kings, arbitrarily, and contrary to the laws of the Conqueror.[*]
Moneyage was also a general land-tax of the same nature, levied by the
two first Norman kings, and abolished by the charter of Henry I.[**] It
was a shilling paid every three years by each hearth, to induce the king
not to use his prerogative in debasing the coin. Indeed, it appears from
that charter, that though the Conqueror had granted his military tenants
an immunity from all taxes and talliages, he and his son William had
never thought themselves bound to observe that rule, but had levied
impositions at pleasure on all the landed estates of the kingdom. The
utmost that Henry grants is, that the land cultivated by the military
tenant himself shall not be so burdened; but he reserves the power of
taxing the farmers: and as it is known that Henry’s charter was never
observed in any one article, we may be assured that this prince and his
successors retracted even this small indulgence, and levied arbitrary
impositions on all the lands of all their subjects. These taxes were
sometimes very heavy; since Malmsbury tells us that, in the reign of
William Rufus, the farmers, on account of them, abandoned tillage, and a
famine ensued.[***]

     [* Madox, Hist, of the Exch. p. 475.]

     [** M. Paris, p. 38.]

     [*** 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.[*] If he denied his tenure, or refused
his service, he was exposed to the same penalty.[**] If he sold his
estate without license from his lord,[***] or if he sold it upon any
other tenure or title than that by which he himself held it,[****]
he lost all right to it. The adhering to his lord’s enemies,[*****]
deserting him in war,[******] betraying his secrets,[*******] debauching
his wife or his near relations,[********] or even using indecent
freedoms with them,[*********] might be punished by forfeiture. The
higher crimes, rapes, robbery, murder, arson, etc., were called felony;
and being interpreted want of fidelity to his lord, made him lose his
fief.[**********] Even where the felon was vassal to a baron, though his
immediate lord enjoyed the forfeiture, the king might retain possession
of his estate during a twelvemonth, and had the right of spoiling
and destroying it, unless the baron paid him a reasonable
composition.[***********] We have not here enumerated all the species
of felonies, or of crimes by which forfeiture was incurred: we have said
enough to prove that the possession of feudal property was anciently
somewhat precarious, and that the primary idea was never lost, of its
being a kind of fee or benefice.

     [* Hottom. de Feud. Disp. cap. 38, col. 886.]

     [** Lib. Feud. lib. iii. tit. 1; lib. iv. tit. 21,
     39.]

     [*** Lib. Feud. lib. i. tit. 21.]

     [**** Lib. Feud. lib. iv. tit. 44.]

     [***** Lib. Feud. lib. iii. tit. 1.]

     [****** Lib. Feud. lib. iv. tit. 14, 21]

     [******* Lib. Feud. lib. iv. tit. 14.]

     [******** Lib. Feud. lib. i. tit. 14, 21.]

     [********* Lib. Feud. lib. i. tit. 1.]

     [********** Spel. Gloss, in verbo Felonia]

     [*********** Spel. Glos. Glanville, lib. vii. 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
familius were thereby held in perpetual dependence. When the king
granted the wardship of a rich heir to any one, he had the opportunity
of enriching a favorite or minister: if he sold it, he thereby levied
a considerable sum of money. Simon de Mountfort paid Henry III. ten
thousand marks, an immense sum in those days, for the wardship of
Gilbert de Umfreville.[*] Geoffrey de Mandeville paid to the same prince
the sum of twenty thousand marks, that he might marry Isabel, countess
of Glocester, and possess all her lands and knights’ fees. This sum
would be equivalent to three hundred thousand, perhaps four hundred
thousand pounds in our time.[**]

If the heir were a female, the king was entitled to offer her any
husband of her rank he thought proper; and if she refused him, she
forfeited her land. Even a male heir could not marry without the royal
consent; and it was usual for men to pay large sums for the liberty of
making their own choice in marriage.[**] No man could dispose of his
land, either by sale or will, without the consent of his superior. The
possessor was never considered as full proprietor; he was still a kind
of beneficiary; and could not oblige his superior to accept of any
vassal that was not agreeable to him.

Fines, amerciaments, and oblatas, as they were called, were another
considerable branch of the royal power and revenue. The ancient records
of the exchequer, which are still preserved, give surprising accounts of
the numerous fines anc amerciaments levied in those days,[****] and of
the strange inventions fallen upon to exact money from the subject.

     [* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 223.]

     [** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 322.]

     [*** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 320.]

     [**** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 272.]

It appears that the ancient kings of England put themselves entirely on
the footing of the barbarous Eastern princes, whom no man must approach
without a present, who sell all their good offices, and who intrude
themselves into every business, that they may have a pretence for
extorting money. Even justice was avowedly bought and sold; the king’s
court itself, though the supreme judicature of the kingdom, was open
to none that brought not presents to the king; the bribes given for the
expedition, delay,[*] suspension, and, doubtless, for the perversion of
justice, were entered in the public registers of the royal revenue, and
remain as monuments of the perpetual iniquity and tyranny of the times.
The barons of the exchequer, for instance, the first nobility of the
kingdom, were not ashamed to insert, as an article in their records,
that the county of Norfolk paid a sum that they might be fairly dealt
with;[**] the borough of Yarmouth, that the king’s charters, which they
have for their liberties, might not be violated;[***] Richard, son
of Gilbert, for the king’s helping him to recover his debt from the
Jews;[****] Serlo, son of Terlavaston, that he might be permitted to
make his defence, in case he were accused of a certain homicide;[*****]
Waiter de Burton, for free law, if accused of wounding another;[******]
Robert de Essart, for having an Liquest to find whether Roger the
butcher, and Wace and Humphrey, accused him of robbery and theft out
of envy and ill will, or not;[*******] William Buhurst, for having an
inquest to find whether he were accused of the death of one Goodwin
out of ill will, or for just cause.[********] I have selected these few
instances from a great number of a like kind, which Madox had selected
from a still greater number, preserved in the ancient rolls of the
exchequer.[*********]

Sometimes the party litigant offered the king a certain portion, a half,
a third, a fourth, payable out of the debts which he, as the executor
of justice, should assist him in recovering.[**********] Theophania de
Westland agreed to pay the half of two hundred and twelve marks, that
she might recover that sum against James de Fughleston;[*] Solomon the
Jew engaged to pay one mark out of every seven that he should recover
against Hugh dè la Hose;[************] Nicholas Morrel promised to pay
sixty pounds, that the earl of Flanders might be distrained to pay him
three hundred and forty-three pounds, which the earl had taken from
him; and these sixty pounds were to be paid out of the first money that
Nicholas should recover from the earl.[*************]

     [* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 274, 309.]

     [** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 295]

     [*** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 295.]

     [**** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 296. He paid
     two hundred marks, a great sum in those days.]

     [***** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 296.]

     [****** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 296.]

     [******* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p 298.]

     [******** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 302.]

     [********* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. chap. xii.]

     [********** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 311.]

     [*********** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 311.]

     [************ Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 79,
     312.]

     [************* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. 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.[**] Hugh Oisel
paid four hundred marks for liberty to trade in England:[***] Nigel de
Havene gave fifty marks for the partnership in merchandise which he
had with Gervase de Hanton:[****] the men of Worcester paid one hundred
shillings, that they might have the liberty of selling and buying
dyed cloth, as formerly;[*****] several other towns paid for a like
liberty.[******] The commerce indeed of the kingdom was so much under
the control of the king, that he erected guilds, corporations, and
monopolies wherever he pleased; and levied sums for these exclusive
privileges.[*******]

There were no profits so small as to be below the king’s attention.
Henry, son of Arthur, gave ten dogs, to have a recognition against
the countess of Copland for one knight’s fee.[********] Roger, son of
Nicholas, gave twenty lampreys and twenty shads for an inquest to find
whether Gilbert, son of Alured, gave to Roger two hundred muttons to
obtain his confirmation for certain lands, or whether Roger took
them from him by violence;[*********] Geoffrey Fitz-Pierre, the chief
justiciary, gave two good Norway hawks, that Walter le Madine might
have leave to export a hundred weight of cheese out ot the king’s
dominions.[**********]

It is really amusing to remark the strange business in which the king
sometimes interfered, and never without a present; the wife of Hugh
de Nevile gave the king two hundred hens, that she might lie with her
husband one night;[***********] and she brought with her two sureties,
who answered each for a hundred hens.

     [** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 323.]

     [*** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 323.]

     [**** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 323.]

     [***** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 324.]

     [****** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 324.]

     [******* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 232, 233,
     etc.]

     [******** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 298.]

     [********* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 305.]

     [*0: Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 325.]

     [*1: Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 326 ]

     [*2: Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p 326]

It is probable that her husband was a prisoner, which debarred her from
having access to him. The abbot of Rucford paid ten marks for leave
to erect houses and place men upon his land near Welhang, in order to
secure his wood there from being stolen; Hugh, archdeacon of Wells, gave
one tun of wine for leave to carry six hundred summs of corn whither he
would; Peter de Perariis gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes as
Peter Chevalier used to do.

It was usual to pay high fines, in order to gain the king’s good will
or mitigate his anger. In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert, the son of
Fergus, fines in nine hundred and nineteen pounds nine shillings, to
obtain that prince’s favor; William de Chataignes, a thousand marks,
that he would remit his displeasure. In the reign of Henry III., the
city of London fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on the
same account.

The king’s protection and good offices of every kind were bought and
sold. Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would
help him against the earl of Mortaigne in a certain plea: Robert de
Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him to an
accord with the bishop of Lincoln; Ralph de Bréckham gave a hawk, that
the king would protect him; and this is a very frequent reason for
payments; John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have the king’s
request to the king of Norway to let him have his brother Godard’s
chattels; Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to obtain the king’s
request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him for a husband; Roger
Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys to have the king’s letter to Roger
Bertram’s mother, that she should marry him; Eling the dean paid one
hundred marks, that his whore and his children might be let out upon
bail; the bishop of Winchester gave one tun of good wine for his not
putting the king in mind to give a girdle to the countess of Albemarle;
Robert de Veaux gave five of the best palfreys, that the king would
hold his tongue about Henry Pinel’s wife. There are in the records of
exchequer many other singular instances of a like nature.[*] It will,
however, be just to remark, that the same ridiculous practices and
dangerous abuses prevailed in Normandy, and probably in all the other
states of Europe.[**] England was not in this respect more barbarous
than its neighbors.

These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known, that,
on the death of Hugh Bigod, in the reign of Henry II., the best and most
just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this nobleman
came to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the king, each
of them to acquire possession of that rich inheritance. The king was so
equitable as to order the cause to be tried by the great council!
But, in the mean time, he seized all the money and treasure of the
deceased,[***] Peter, of Blois, a judicious, and even an elegant writer,
for that age, gives a pathetic description of the reign of Henry; and he
scruples not to complain to the king himself of these abuses.[****]

     [* We 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 color,
     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 of 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 Neuhm 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
     give 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 Mareschal, that he would grant him
     the manor of Langeford at Ferm. The burgesses of Glocester
     promised three hundred lampreys, that they might not be
     distrained to find the prisoners of Poictou with
     necessaries, unless they pleased. Madox, p. 352. Jordan, sen
     of Reginald, paid twenty marks, to have the king’s request
     to William Panier, that he would grant him the land of Mill
     Nierenuit, and the custody of his heirs; and if Jordan
     obtained the same, he was to pay the twenty marks, otherwise
     not. Madox, p. 333,]

     [** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p, 359.]

     [*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 180, 181.]

     [**** Petri Bless. Epist. 95, apud Bibl. Patrum,
     tom. 24, p. 2014.]

We may judge what the case would be under the government of worse
princes. The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of sheriffs,
which Henry promulgated in 1170, show the great power as well as the
licentiousness of these officers.[**]

Amerciaments or fines for crimes and trespasses were an ether
considerable branch of the royal revenue.[***] Most crimes were atoned
for by money; the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or statute;
and frequently occasioned the total ruin of the person, even for the
slightest trespasses. The forest laws, particularly, were a great source
of oppression The king possessed sixty-eight forests, thirteen
chases, and seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different parts of
England;[****] and, considering the extreme passion of the English and
Normans for hunting, these were so many snares laid for the people, by
which they were allured into trespasses and brought within the reach of
arbitrary and rigorous laws, which the king had thought proper to enact
by his own authority.

But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised
against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were
extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to
the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers. Besides many
other indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears
that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six
thousand marks exacted for their liberty:[*****] at another time, Isaac
the Jew paid, alone, five thousand one hundred marks[******] Brim, three
thousand marks;[*******] Jurnet, two thousand; Bennet, five hundred: at
another, Licorica, widow of David the Jew, of Oxford, was required to
pay six thousand marks; and she was delivered over to six of the
richest and discreetest Jews in England, who were to answer for the
sum.[********]

     [** Hoveden, Chron. Gerv. p. 1410.]

     [*** Madox, chap. xiv.]

     [**** Spel. Gloss, in verbo Forests.]

     [***** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 151. This
     happened in the reign of King John.]

     [****** Madox, Hist. of the Exch, p. 151]

     [******* Madox, Hist. of the Exch, p. 153.]

     [******** Madox, Hist. of the Exch, p, 168.]

Henry III borrowed five thousand marks from the earl of Cornwall; and
for his repayment consigned over to him all the Jews in England. The
revenue arising from exactions upon this nation was so considerable,
that there was a particular court of exchequer set apart for managing
it.

We may judge concerning the low state of commerce among the English,
when the Jews, notwithstanding these oppressions, could still find
their account in trading among them, and lending them money. And as
the improvements of agriculture were also much checked by the immense
possessions of the nobility, by the disorders of the times, and by the
precarious state of feudal property, it appears that industry of no kind
could then have place in the kingdom.

It is asserted by Sir Harry Spelman,[*] as an undoubted truth, that,
during the reigns of the first Norman princes, every edict of the king,
issued with the consent of his privy council, had the full force of
law. But the barons surely were not so passive as to intrust a power,
entirely arbitrary and despotic, into the hands of the sovereign. It
only appears, that the constitution had not fixed any precise boundaries
to the royal power; that the right of issuing proclamations on any
emergence, and of exacting obedience to them,--a right which was always
supposed inherent in the crown,--is very difficult to be distinguished
from a legislative authority; that the extreme imperfection of the
ancient laws, and the sudden exigencies which often occurred in such
turbulent governments, obliged the prince to exert frequently the
latent powers of his prerogative; that he naturally proceeded, from the
acquiescence of the people, to assume, in many particulars of moment,
an authority from which he had excluded himself by express statutes,
charters, or concessions, and which was, in the main, repugnant to the
general genius of the constitution; and that the lives; the personal
liberty, and the properties of all his subjects were less secured by law
against the exertion of his arbitrary authority than by the independent
power and private connections of each individual.

     [* We learn from the extracts given us of Domesday
     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 Domesday was framed. * Gross. in
     verb. Justicium 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.]

It appears from the Great Charter itself, that not only John, a
tyrannical prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father, Henry,
under whose reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the least to be
suspected, were accustomed, from their sole authority, without process
of law, to imprison, banish, and attaint the freemen of their kingdom.

A great baron, in ancient times, considered himself as a kind of
sovereign within his territory; and was attended by courtiers and
dependants more zealously attached to him than the ministers of state
and the great officers were commonly o their sovereign. He often
maintained in his court the parade of royalty, by establishing
a justiciary, constable, mareschal, chamberlain, seneschal, and
chancellor, and assigning to each of these officers a separate
province and command He was usually very assiduous in exercising his
jurisdiction, and took such delight in that image of sovereignty, that
it was found necessary to restrain his activity, and prohibit him by law
from holding courts too frequently.[*] It is not to be doubted but the
example set him by the prince, of a mercenary and sordid extortion,
would be faithfully copied; and that all his good and bad offices, his
justice and injustice, were equally put to sale. He had the power, with
the king’s consent, to exact talliages even from the free citizens who
lived within his barony; and as his necessities made him rapacious, his
authority was usually found to be more oppressive and tyrannical than
that of the sovereign.[**] He was ever engaged in hereditary or
personal animosities or confederacies with his neighbors, and often
gave protection to all desperate adventurers and criminals, who could be
useful in serving his violent purposes. He was able alone, in times
of tranquillity, to obstruct the execution of justice within his
territories; and by combining with a few malecontent barons of high rank
and power, he could throw the state into convulsions. And, on the whole,
though the royal authority was confined within bounds, and often within
very narrow ones, yet the check was Irregular, and frequently the source
of great disorders; nor was it derived from the liberty of the people,
but from the military power of many petty tyrants, who were equally
dangerous to the prince and oppressive to the subject.

     [* Dugd. Jurid. Orig. p. 26.]

     [** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 520.]

The power of the church was another rampart against royal authority; but
this defence was also the cause of many mischiefs and inconveniencies.
The dignified clergy, perhaps, were not so prone to immediate violence
as the barons; but as they pretended to a total independence on the
state, and could always cover themselves with the appearances of
religion, they proved, in one respect, an obstruction to the settlement
of the kingdom, and to the regular execution of the laws. The policy
of the Conqueror was in this particular liable to some exception. He
augmented the superstitious veneration for Rome, to which that age was
so much inclined, and he broke those bands of connection which, in the
Saxon times, had preserved a union between the lay and the clerical
orders. He prohibited the bishops from sitting in the county courts; he
allowed ecclesiastical causes to be tried in spiritual courts only;[**]
and he so much exalted the power of the clergy, that of sixty thousand
two hundred and fifteen knights’ fees, into which he divided England,
he placed no less than twenty-eight thousand and fifteen under the
church.[**]

The right of primogeniture was introduced with the feudal law; an
institution which is hurtful by producing and maintaining an unequal
division of private propeny; but is advantageous in another respect, by
accustoming the people to a preference in favor of the eldest son, and
thereby preventing a partition or disputed succession in the monarchy.
The Normans introduced the use of surnames, which tend to preserve the
knowledge of families and pedigrees. They abolished none of the old,
absurd methods of trial by the cross or ordeal; and they added a new
absurdity--the trial by single combat--[***] which became a regular
part of jurisprudence, and was conducted with all the order, method,
devotion, and solemnity imaginable.[****] The ideas of chivalry also
seem to have been imported by the Normans: no traces of those fantastic
notions are to be found among the plain and rustic Saxons.

     [* Char. Will, apud Wilkms, p. 230. Spel. Concil.
     vol. ii p. 14.]

     [** Spel. 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.]

     [*** LL. Will. cap. 68.]

     [**** Spel. Gloss, in verbo Campus. The last
     instance of these duels was in the 16th of Eliz. So long did
     that absurdity remain.]

The feudal institutions, by raising the military tenants to a kind of
sovereign dignity, by rendering personal strength and valor requisite,
and by making every knight and baron his own protector and avenger,
begat that martial pride and sense of honor which, being cultivated
and embellished by the poets and romance writers of the age, ended in
chivalry. The virtuous knight fought not only in his own quarrel, but in
that of the innocent, of the helpless, and, above all, of the fair, whom
he supposed to be forever under the guardianship of his valiant arm.
The uncourteous knight who, from his castle, exercised robbery on
travellers, and committed violence on virgins, was the object of his
perpetual indignation; and he put him to death, without scruple, or
trial, or appeal, wherever he met with him. The great independence
of men made personal honor and fidelity the chief tie among them,
and rendered it the capital virtue of every true knight, or genuine
professor of chivalry. The solemnities of single combat, as established
by law, banished the notion of every thing unfair or unequal in
rencounters, and maintained an appearance of courtesy between the
combatants till the moment of their engagement. The credulity of the
age grafted on this stock the notion of giants, enchanters, dragons,
spells,[*] and a thousand wonders, which still multiplied during the
times of the crusades; when men, returning from so great a distance,
used the liberty of imposing every fiction on their believing audience.
These ideas of chivalry infected the writings, conversation, and
behavior of men, during some ages; and even after they were, in a great
measure, banished by the revival of learning, they left modern gallantry
and the point of honor, which still maintain their influence, and are
the genuine off-spring of those ancient affectations.

     [* 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 common-wealth, and no
innovation in the political or public law of the kingdom. It only
guarded, and that merely by verbal clauses, against such tyrannical
practices as are incompatible with civilized government, and, if
they become very frequent, are incompatible with all government.
The barbarous license of the kings, and perhaps of the nobles, was
thenceforth somewhat more restrained: men acquired some more security
for their properties and their liberties; and government approached a
little nearer to that end for which it was originally instituted--the
distribution of justice, and the equal protection of the citizens. Acts
of violence and iniquity in the crown, which before were only deemed
injurious to individuals, and were hazardous chiefly in proportion to
the number, power, and dignity of the persons affected by them, were now
regarded, in some degree, as public injuries, and as infringements of a
charter calculated for general security. And thus the establishment of
the Great Charter, without seeming anywise to innovate in the
distribution of political power, became a kind of epoch in the
constitution.



NOTES.


[Footnote 1: NOTE A, p. 9. This question has been disputed With as great
zeal, and even acrimony, between the Scotch and Irish antiquaries, as if
the honor of their respective countries were the most deeply concerned
in the decision. We shall not enter into any detail on so uninteresting
a subject, but shall propose our opinion in a few words. It appears more
than probable, from the similitude of language and manners, that Britain
either was originally peopled, or was subdued, by the migration of
inhabitants from Gaul, and Ireland from Britain: the position of the
several countries is an additional reason that favors this conclusion.
It appears also probable, that the migrations of that colony of Gauls
or Celts, who peopled or subdued Ireland, was originally made from the
north-west parts of Britain; and this conjecture (if it do not merit
a higher name) is founded both on the Irish language which is a very
different dialect from the Welsh, and from the language anciently
spoken in South Britain, and on the vicinity of Lancashire, Cumberland,
Galloway, and Argyleshire, to that island. These events, as they passed
along before the age of history and records, must be known by reasoning
alone, which, in this case, seems to be pretty satisfactory. Caesar and
Tacitus, not to mention a multitude of other Greek and Roman authors,
were guided by like inferences. But, besides these primitive facts, which
lie in a very remote antiquity, it is a matter of positive and undoubted
testimony, that the Roman province of Britain, during the time of the
lower empire, was much infested by bands of robbers or pirates, whom
the provincial Britons called Scots or Scuits; a name which was probably
used as a term of reproach, and which these bandits themselves did not
acknowledge or assume. We may infer, from two passages in Claudian,
and from one in Orosius, and another in Isidore, that the chief seat
of these Scots was in Ireland. That some part ot the Irish freebooters
migrated back to the north-west parts of Britain, whence their ancestors
had probably been derived in a more remote age, is positively asserted
by Bede, and implied in Gildas. I grant, that neither Bede nor Gildas
are Caesars or Tacituses; but such as they are, they remain the sole
testimony on the subject, and therefore must be relied on for want of
better: happily, the frivolousness of the question corresponds to the
weakness of the authorities. Not to mention, that, if any part of the
traditional history of a barbarous people can be relied on, it is the
genealogy of nations, and even sometimes that of families. It is in vain
to argue against these facts, from the supposed warlike disposition of
the Highlanders, and unwarlike of the ancient Irish. Those arguments are
still much weaker than the authorities. Nations change very quickly
in these particulars. The Britons were unable to resist the Picts and
Scots, and invited over the Saxons for their defence, who repelled those
invaders; yet the same Britons valiantly resisted, for one hundred
and fifty years, not only this victorious band of Saxons, but infinite
numbers more, who poured in upon them from all quarters. Robert Bruce,
in 1322, made a peace, in which England, after many defeats, was
constrained to acknowledge the independence of his country; yet in no
more distant period than ten years after, Scotland was totally subdued
by a small handful of English, led by a few private noblemen. All
history is full of such events. The Irish Scots, in the course of two or
three centuries, might find time and opportunities sufficient to settle
in North Britain, though we can neither assign the period nor causes
of that revolution. Their barbarous manner of life rendered them much
fitter than the Romans for subduing these mountaineers. And, in a
word, it is clear, from the language of the two countries, that the
Highlanders and the Irish are the same people, and that the one are a
colony from the other. We have positive evidence, which, though from
neutral persons, is not perhaps the best that may be wished for, that
the former, in the third or fourth century, sprang from the latter; we
have no evidence at all that the latter sprang from the former. I shall
add, that the name of Erse, or Irish, given by the low country Scots
to the language of the Scotch Highlanders, is a certain proof of the
traditional opinion delivered from father to son, that the latter people
came originally from Ireland.]


[Footnote 2: NOTE B, p. 90. There is a seeming contradiction in ancient
historians with regard to some circumstances in the story of Edwy and
Elgiva. It is agreed, that this prince had a violent passion for his
second or third cousin, Elgiva, whom he married, though within the
degrees prohibited by the canons. It is also agreed, that he was
dragged from a lady on the day of his coronation, and that the lady was
afterwards treated with the singular barbarity above mentioned. The only
difference is, that Osborne and some others call her his strumpet, not
his wife, as she is said to be by Malmsbury. But this difference is
easily reconciled for if Edwy married her contrary to the canons, the
monks would be sure to deny her to be his wife, and would insist that
she could be nothing but his strumpet: so that, on the whole, we may
esteem this representation of the matter as certain; at least, as by far
the most probable. If Edwy had only kept a mistress, it is well known,
that there are methods of accommodation with the church, which would
have prevented the clergy from proceeding to such extremities against
him: but his marriage, contrary to the canons, was an insult on their
authority, and called for their highest resentment.]


[Footnote 3: NOTE C, p. 91. Many of the English historians make Edgar’s
ships amount to an extravagant number, to three thousand or three
thousand six hundred. See Hoveden, p. 426. Flor. Wigorn, p. 607. Abbas
Rieval, p. 360. Brompton (p. 869) says that Edgar had four thousand
vessels. How can these accounts be reconciled to probability, and to
the state of the navy in the time of Alfred? W. Thorne makes the whole
number amount only to three hundred, which is more probable. The fleet
of Ethelred, Edgar’s son, must have been short of a thousand ships; yet
the Saxon Chronicle (p. 137) says it was the greatest navy that ever had
been seen in England.]


[Footnote 4: NOTE D, p. 109. Almost all the ancient historians speak of
this massacre of the Danes as if it had been universal, and as if every
individual of that nation throughout England had been put to death.
But the Danes were almost the sole inhabitants in the kingdoms of
Northumberland and East Anglia, and were very numerous in Mercia. This
representation, therefore, of the matter is absolutely impossible. Great
resistance must have been made, and violent wars ensued; which was not
the case. This account given by Wallingford, though he stands single,
must be admitted as the only true one. We are told that the name
Lurdane, Lord Dane, for an idle, lazy fellow, who lives at other
people’s expense, came from the conduct of the Danes who were put to
death. But the English princes had been entirely masters for several
generations, and only supported a military corps of that nation. It
seems probable, therefore, that it was these Danes only that were put to
death.]


[Footnote 5: NOTE E, p. 129. The ingenious author of the article Godwin,
in the Biographia Britannica, has endeavored to clear the memory of
that nobleman, upon the supposition that all the English annals had been
falsified by the Norman historians after the conquest. But that this
supposition has not much foundation appears hence, that almost all these
historians have given a very good character of his son Harold, whom it
was much more the interest of the Norman cause to blacken.]


[Footnote 6: Note F, p. 137. The whole story of the transactions between
Edward, Harold, and the duke of Normandy, is told so differently by the
ancient writers, that there are few important passages of the English
history liable to so great uncertainty. I have followed the account
which appeared to me the most consistent and probable. It does not seem
likely that Edward ever executed a will in the duke’s favor; much less
that he got it ratified by the states of the kingdom, as is affirmed by
some. The will would have been known to all, and would have been pro-*
*duced by the Conqueror, to whom it gave so plausible, and really so
just, a title; but the doubtful and ambiguous manner in which he seems
always to have mentioned it, proves that he could only plead the known
intentions of that monarch in his favor, which he was desirous to call
a will. There is indeed a charter of the Conqueror preserved by Dr.
Hickes, (vol. i.) where he calls himself “rex hereditarius,” meaning
heir by will; but a prince possessed of so much power, and attended with
so much success, may employ what pretence he pleases; it is sufficient
to refute his pretences to observe, that there is a great difference
and variation among historians with regard to a point which, had it been
real, must have been agreed upon by all of them.

Again, some historians, particularly Malmsbury and Matthew of
Westminster, affirm that Harold had no intention of going over to
Normandy, but that taking the air in a pleasure boat on the coast, he
was driven over by stress of weather to the territories of Guy, count of
Ponthieu: but besides that this story is not probable in itself, and is
contradicted by most of the ancient historians, it is contradicted by a
very curious and authentic monument lately discovered. It is a tapestry,
preserved in the ducal palace of Rouen, and supposed to have been
wrought by orders of Matilda, wife to the emperor; at least it is
of very great antiquity. Harold is there represented as taking his
departure from King Edward, in execution of some commission, and
mounting his vessel with a great train. The design of redeeming his
brother and nephew, who were hostages, is the most likely cause that can
be assigned; and is accordingly mentioned by Eadmer, Hoveden, Brompton,
and Simeon of Durham. For a further account of this piece of tapestry,
see Histoire de l’Académie de Littérature, tom. ix. p. 535.]


[Footnote 7: NOTE G, p. 155. It appears from the ancient translations of
the Saxon annals and laws, and from King Alfred’s translation of
Bede, as well as from all the ancient historians, that comes in Latin,
alderman in Saxon, and earl in Dano-Saxon, were quite synonymous. There
is only a clause in a law of King Athetetan’s, (see Spel. Concil. p.
406,) which has stumbled some antiquaries, and has made them imagine
that an earl was superior to an alderman. The weregild, or the price of
an earl’s blood, is there fixed at fifteen thousand thrimsas, equal to
that of an archbishop; whereas that of a bishop and alderman is only
eight thousand thrimsas. To solve this difficulty, we must have recourse
to Selden’s conjecture, (see his Titles of Honor, chap. v. p. 603, 604,)
that the term of earl was in the age of Athelstan just beginning to be
in use in England, and stood at that time for the atheling or prince of
the blood, heir to the crown. This he confirms by a law of Canute, sect.
55, where an atheling and an archbishop are put upon the same footing.
In another law of the same Athelstan, the weregild of the prince or
atheling, is said to be fifteen thousand thrimsas. See Wilkins, p. 71 He
is therefore the same who is called earl in the former law.]


[Footnote 8: NOTE H, p. 194. There is a paper or record of the family
of Slarneborne, which pretends that that family, which was Saxon, was
restored upon proving their innocence, as well as other Saxon families
which were in the same situation. Though this paper was able to impose
on such great antiquaries as Spelman (see Gloss, in verbo Drenges) and
Dugdale, (see Baron, vol. i. p. 118,) it is proved by Dr. Brady (see
Answer to Petyt, p. 11, 12) to have been a forgery; and is allowed as
such by Tyrrel, though a pertinacious defender of his party notions:
(see his history, vol. ii. introd. p. 51, 73.) Ingulf (p. 70) tells us,
that very early Hereward, though absent during the time of the conquest,
was turned out of all his estate, and could not obtain redress, William
even plundered the monasteries. Flor. Wigorn. p. 636 Chron. Abb. St.
Petri de Burgo, p. 48. M. Paris, p. 5. Sim. Dun p. 200. Diceto, p. 482.
Brompton, p. 967. Knyghton, p. 2344. Alured. Beverl. p. 130. We are told
by Ingulf, that Ivo de Taillebois plundered the monastery of Croylaud of
a great part of its land, and no redress could be obtained.]


[Footnote 9: NOTE I, p. 195. The obliging of all the inhabitants to
put out their fires and lights it certain hours, upon the sounding of a
bell, called the Courfeu, is represented by Polydore Virgil, lib. ix.,
as a mark of the servitude of the English. But this was a law of police,
which William had previously established in Normandy. See Du Moulin,
Hist de Normandie, p. 160. The same law had place in Scotland. LL.
Burgor. cap. 86.]


[Footnote 11: NOTE K, p. 200. What these laws were of Edward the
Confessor, which the English, every reign during a century and a
half, desire so passionately to have restored, is much disputed by
antiquaries, and our ignorance of them seems one of the greatest defects
in the ancient English history. The collection of laws in Wilkins, which
pass under the name of Edward, are plainly a posterior and an ignorant
compilation. Those to be found in Ingulf are genuine; but so imperfect,
and contain so few clauses favorable to the subject, that we see no
great reason for their contending for them so vehemently. It is probable
that the English meant the common law, as it prevailed during the
reign of Edward; which we may conjecture to have been more indulgent to
liberty than the Norman institutions. The most material articles of it
were afterwards comprehended in Magna Charta.]


[Footnote 12: NOTE L, p. 218. Ingulf p. 70. H. Hunt. p. 370, 372. M.
West. p. 225. Gul. Neub. p. 357. Alured. Beverl. p. 124. De Gest, Angl.
p. 333. M Paris, p. 4. Sim. Dun. p. 206. Brompton, p. 962, 980, 1161.
Gervase. lib. i. cap. 16. Textus Roffensis apud Seld. Spieileg. ad Eadm.
p. 197. Gul. Pict. p. 206. Ordericus Vitalis, p. 521, 666, 853., Epist.
St. Thom, p. 801. Gul. Malms, p. 52, 57. Knyghton, p. 2354. Eadmer, p.
110. Thorn. Rudborne in Ang. Sacra, vol. i p. 248. Monach. Roff. in Ang.
Sacra, vol. ii. p. 276. Girald. Camb. in eadem, vol. ii. p. 413. Hist.
Elyensis, p. 516.

The words of this last historian, who is very ancient, are remarkable,
and worth transcribing. Rex itaque factus, Willielmus, quid in principes
Anglorum, qui tantæ cladi superesse poterant, fecerit, dicere, cum nihil
prosit, omitto. Quid enim prodesset, si nec unum in toto regno de
illis dicerem pristina potestate uti permissum, sed omnes aut in gravem
paupertatis ærumnam detrusos, aut exhæredatos, patria pulsos, aut
effossia, oculis, vel cæteris amputatis membris, opprobrium hominum
factos, aut certe miserrime afflictos, vita privatos. Simili modo
utilitate carere existimo dicere quid in minorem populum, non solum ab
esed[**] a suis actum sit, cum id dictu sciamus difficile et ob immanem
crudelitatem fortassis incredibile.]


[Footnote 13: NOTE M, p. 263 Henry, by the feudal customs, was entitled
to levy a tax for the marrying of his eldest daughter, and he exacted
three shillings a hide on all England. H. Hunting, p. 379. Some
historians (Brady, p. 270, and Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 182) heedlessly make
this sum amount to above eight hundred thousand pounds of our present
money; but it could not exceed one hundred and thirty-five thousand.
Five hides, sometimes less, made a knight’s fee, of which there were
about sixty thousand in England, consequently near three hundred
thousand hides; and at the rate of three shillings a hide, the sum would
amount to forty-five thousand pounds, or one hundred and thirty-five
thousand of our present money. See Rudborne, p. 257. In the Saxon
times there were only computed two hundred and forty-three thousand six
hundred hides in England.]


[Footnote 14: NOTE N, p. 266. The legates a latere, as they were called,
were a kind of delegates, who possessed the full power of the pope
in all the provinces committed to their charge, and were very busy
in extending, as well as exercising it. They nominated to all vacant
benefices, assembled synods, and were anxious to maintain ecclesiastical
privileges, which never could be fully protected without encroachments
on the civi[**] power. If there were the least concurrence or
opposition, it was always supposed that the civil power was to give
way; every deed, which had the least pretence of holding of any thing
spiritual, as marriages, testaments, promissory oaths, were brought
into the spiritual court, and could not be canvassed before a civil
magistrate. These were the established laws of the church; and where a
legate was sent immediately from Rome, he was sure to maintain the papal
claims with the utmost rigor; but it was an advantage to the king
to have the archbishop of Canterbury appointed legate, because the
connections of that prelate with the kingdom tended to moderate
his measures. William of Newbridge, p. 383, (who is copied by later
historians), asserts that Geoffrey had some title to the counties of
Maine and Anjou. He pretends that Count Geoffrey, his father, had left
his these dominions by a secret will, and had ordered that his body
should not be buried till Henry should swear to the observance of it,
which he, ignorant of the contents, was induced to do. But besides that
this story is not very likely in itself, and savers of monkish fiction,
it is found in no other ancient writer, and is contradicted by some of
them, particularly the monk of Marmoutier, who had better opportunities
than Newbridge of knowing the truth. See Vita Gauf Duc. Norman, p. 103.]


[Footnote 16: NOTE P, p. 293. The sum scarcely appears credible; as it
would amount to much above half the rent of the whole land. Gervase is
indeed a contemporary author; but churchmen are often guilty of strange
mistakes of that nature, and are commonly but little acquainted with
the public revenues. This sum would make five hundred and forty thousand
pounds of our present money. The Norman Chronicle (p. 995) lays, that
Henry raised only sixty Angevin shillings on each knight’s fee in his
foreign dominions: this is only a fourth of the sum which Gervase says
he levied on England, an inequality nowise probable. A nation may by
degrees be brought to bear a tax of fifteen shillings in the pound; but
a sudden and precarious tax can never be imposed to that amount without
a very visible necessity, especially in an age so little accustomed to
taxes. In the succeeding reign the rent of a knight’s fee was computed
at four pounds a year. There were sixty thousand knights fees in
England.]


[Footnote 17: NOTE Q, p. 295. Fitz-Stephen, p. 18. This conduct appears
violent and arbitrary; but was suitable to the strain of administration
in those days. His father Geoffrey, though represented as a mild prince,
set him an example of much greater violence. When Geoffrey was master of
Normandy, the chapter of Sens presumed, without his consent, to proceed
to the election of a bishop; upon which he ordered all of them with the
bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their testicles be brought
him in a platter. Fitz-Steph. p. 44. In the war of Toulouse, Henry laid
a heavy and an arbitrary tax on all the churches within his dominions.
See Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.]


[Footnote 18: NOTE R, p. 307. I follow here the narrative of
Fitz-Stephens, who was secretary to Becket; though, no doubt, he may be
suspected of partiality towards his patron. Lord Lyttleton chooses to
follow the authority of a manuscript letter, or rather manifesto of
Folliot, bishop of London, which is addressed to Becket himself; at
the time when the bishop appealed to the pope from the excommunication
pronounced against him by his primate. My reasons why I give the
preference to Fitz-Stephens are, 1. If the friendship of Fitz-Stephens
might render him partial to Becket even after the death of that prelate,
the declared enmity of the bishop must, during his lifetime, have
rendered him more partial on the other side. 2. The bishop was moved
by interest, as well as enmity, to calumniate Becket. He had himself
to defend against the sentence of excommunication, dreadful to all,
especially to a prelate; and no more effectual means than to throw all
the blame on his adversary. 3. He has actually been guilty of palpable
calumnies in that letter. Among these, I reckon the following. He
affirms that when Becket subscribed the Constitutions of Clarendon, he
said plainly to all the bishops of England, “It is my master’s pleasure,
that I should forswear myself, and at present I submit to it, and do
resolve to incur a perjury, and repent afterwards as I may.” However
barbarous the times, and however negligent zealous churchmen were then
of morality, these are not words which a primate of great sense and of
much seeming sanctity would employ in an assembly of his suffragans: he
might act upon these principles, but never surely would publicly avow
them. Folliot also says, that all the bishops were resolved obstinately
to oppose the Constitutions of Clarendon, but the primate himself
betrayed them from timidity, and led the way to their subscribing.
This is contrary to the testimony of all the historians, and directly
contrary to Beeket’s character, who surely was not destitute either of
courage or of zeal for ecclesiastical immunities. 4. The violence and
injustice of Henry, ascribed to him by Fitz-Stephens, is of a piece
with the rest of the prosecution. Nothing could be more iniquitous than,
after two years’ silence, to make a sudden and unprepared demand upon
Becket to the amount of forty-four thousand marks, (equal to a sum of
near a million in our time,) and not allow him the least interval to
bring in his accounts. If the king was so palpably oppressive in one
article, he may be presumed to be equally so in the rest. 5. Though
Folliot’s letter, or rather manifesto, be addressed to Becket himself,
it does not acquire more authority on that account. We know not what
answer was made by Becket; the collection of letters cannot be supposed
quite complete. But that the collection was not made by one (whoever
he were) very partial to that primate, appears from the tenor of them,
where there are many passages very little favorable to him, insomuch
that the editor of them at Brussels, a Jesuit, thought proper to publish
them with great omissions, particularly of this letter of Folliot’s.
Perhaps Becket made no answer at all, as not deigning to write to ah
excommunicated person, whose very commerce would contaminate him; and
the bishop, trusting to this arrogance of his primate, might calumniate
him the more freely. 6. Though the sentence pronounced on Becket by the
great council, implies that he had refused to make any answer to the
king’s court, this does not fortify the narrative of Folliot. For if his
excuse was rejected as false and frivolous, it would be treated as no
answer. Becket submitted so far to the sentence of confiscation of goods
and chattels, that he gave surety, which is a proof that he meant not at
that time to question the authority of the king’s courts. 7. It may be
worth observing, that both the author of Historia Quadrapartita, Gervase,
contemporary writers, agree with Fitz-Stephens; and the latter is not
usually very partial to Becket. All the ancient historians give the same
account.]


[Footnote 19: NOTE S, p. 392. Madox, in his Baronia Anglica, (cap. 14,)
tells us, that in the thirtieth year of Henry II., thirty-three cows and
two bulls cost but eight pounds seven shillings, money of that age; five
hundred sheep, twenty-two pounds ten shillings, or about tenpence three
farthings per sheep; sixty-six oxen, eighteen pounds three shillings;
fifteen breeding mares, two pounds twelve shillings and sixpence; and
twenty-two hogs, one pound two shillings. Commodities seem then to have
been about ten times cheaper than at present; all except the sheep,
probably on account of the value of the fleece. The same author, in his
Formulare Anglicanum, (p. 17,) says, that in the tenth year of Richard
I., mention is made of ten per cent, paid for money; but the Jews
frequently exacted much higher interest.]





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