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Title: Henry II
Author: L. F. Salzman
Release date: December 8, 2025 [eBook #77429]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914
Credits: Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY II ***
Kings and Queens of England
EDITED BY
ROBERT S. RAIT M.A. AND WILLIAM PAGE F.S.A.
HENRY II
[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF HENRY AS KING
(Obverse 1/1)]
HENRY II
BY
L. F. SALZMANN B.A. F.S.A.
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1914
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. HENRY FITZ-EMPRESS 1
II. HENRY II., KING OF ENGLAND 14
III. THE WELSH WARS 26
IV. FOREIGN AFFAIRS 40
V. THE STRUGGLE WITH BECKET 50
VI. IRISH AFFAIRS 101
VII. THE REBELLION OF THE YOUNG KING 122
VIII. HENRY AND HIS SONS--HIS DOWNFALL AND
DEATH 145
IX. LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF
THE REIGN 175
X. FINANCE 194
XI. THE ENGLISH NATION UNDER HENRY II 212
BIBLIOGRAPHY 236
APPENDIX
ITINERARY OF HENRY II 241
INDEX 253
ILLUSTRATIONS
GREAT SEAL OF HENRY AS KING (_Obverse_) _frontispiece_
PAGE
SEALS OF HENRY AS DUKE OF NORMANDY _facing_ 6
GREAT SEAL OF HENRY AS KING (_Reverse_) " 14
MAP ILLUSTRATING THE CAMPAIGNS OF
HENRY II. IN FRANCE " 40
SEAL OF LOUIS VII. " 44
SEAL OF ROGER, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK " 56
HENRY II. DISPUTING WITH BECKET " 64
SEAL OF THE “YOUNG KING” HENRY " 90
THE MURDER OF BECKET " 98
IRISHWOMAN PLAYING A ZITHER } " 104
IRISHMEN ROWING IN A CORACLE }
IRISH AXEMEN " 110
SEAL OF WILLIAM THE LION " 140
SEALS OF GEOFFREY, SON OF HENRY II., AND
CONSTANCE OF BRITTANY, HIS WIFE " 144
SEAL OF JOAN, DAUGHTER OF HENRY II. " 150
SEAL OF THOMAS BECKET, ARCHBISHOP OF }
CANTERBURY } " 156
}
SEAL OF HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN }
SEAL OF GEOFFREY THE BASTARD, AS }
BISHOP-ELECT OF LINCOLN } " 170
}
SEAL OF JOHN AS COUNT OF MORTAIN }
TOMB OF HENRY II. AT FONTEVRAULT " 174
SILVER PENNIES " 208
HENRY II
CHAPTER I
HENRY FITZ-EMPRESS
When the _White Ship_ went down on 25th November 1120, carrying with her
the only legitimate son of Henry I., the succession to the English
throne became a question of great moment. Henry’s daughter, Maud, had
been married to Henry V., Emperor of Germany, in 1114; it was clearly
impossible for England and Normandy to be ruled in conjunction with the
Empire, and Maud had no children to whom her father’s crown might pass.
The king’s unruly brother, Robert of Normandy, was still alive, but a
prisoner in England; and his son William, the most formidable candidate
for the throne, was destined to die in Flanders in 1128. But before
death had removed this dangerous and unpopular competitor, a fresh
solution of the difficulty had become possible. Maud’s husband, the
emperor, had died in 1125,[1] and on 1st January 1127, King Henry
declared Maud his heir, and caused the peers to swear to accept her as
his successor in England and in Normandy. There was no precedent for
female sovereignty in either country, and it was probably not
anticipated that she should reign alone, but rather that she should by
marriage bestow the crown upon some fitting partner. The important
matter of this marriage Henry had virtually undertaken to submit to the
decision of his barons, but at the end of May 1127 he betrothed her,
with an absence of preparation that amounted almost to secrecy, to
Geoffrey, son of Count Fulk of Anjou, a boy of fourteen, eleven years
the junior of his bride. The marriage, as Henry had foreseen, was
unpopular, though the addition of the neighbouring provinces of Anjou
and Maine to Normandy made the King of England the most powerful of all
the feudatories of France.
The marriage of Geoffrey, now Count of Anjou, and Maud took place in
June 1129, but within a few weeks the quick-tempered count and his
haughty bride had quarrelled and separated, and it was not until the
autumn of 1131 that they came together again. Their reunion was made by
Henry the occasion for causing his barons to renew their oath of
allegiance to Maud as his successor, thereby quashing any objection that
might have been made to the previous oath as invalidated by her
marriage. The king was now more than sixty years old, and his anxiety
for the future of his country and his dynasty must have been greatly
relieved by the birth of a son to Geoffrey and Maud on the 25th March
1133. The boy was called Henry, after his grandfather, and it is
significant of the predominance attaching to his mother, as heiress of
England and Normandy, that the title by which he was most commonly known
to his contemporaries was that of Henry Fitz-Empress.
The death of Henry I., on 1st December 1135, seems to have taken the
empress and her partisans by surprise. She went almost at once into
Normandy to press her claims, half-heartedly and with little success;
but in the meanwhile her cousin, Stephen of Blois, nephew of the late
king, had crossed into England, and, with the assistance of his brother,
Henry, Bishop of Winchester, had caused himself to be crowned king on
22nd December. The Norman barons accepted Stephen, and the final blow
was given to Maud’s cause by the Pope’s declaration in favour of her
rival. Her half-brother, however, Earl Robert of Gloucester, was not
long in forming a party to support the claims of Maud and her son in
England, and in 1139 Maud herself crossed the Channel with a small body
of troops. With the varying fortunes of the long-continued war between
the empress and Stephen we are not concerned, but it was when Maud’s
cause was almost at its worst, in the winter of 1142, that her young son
Henry, then in his tenth year, came over in charge of his uncle, Earl
Robert, and was settled at Bristol. There he remained for four years
under the tuition of a certain Master Matthew, who cultivated in him
that love for learning which made him in later days the most literary
prince of his time and a worthy successor of his scholarly grandfather.
During those four years Henry’s father, Geoffrey of Anjou, had been
strengthening his position on the Continent, though apparently making no
effort to assist his wife in her struggle with Stephen. By the end of
1143 he had secured control of the greater part of Normandy, and early
in 1144 Rouen surrendered and Geoffrey was recognised as Duke of
Normandy. Having established himself securely he now sent for his son to
join him, and accordingly, late in 1146, or at the beginning of the next
year, Earl Robert of Gloucester escorted young Henry to Wareham and
there bade farewell to him. Uncle and nephew were destined to meet no
more, for on 31st October 1147 Earl Robert died. Immediately the earl’s
death was known, Earl Gilbert of Pembroke, whose castle of Pevensey was
then undergoing a siege, urged Henry’s return. He considered that the
only hope for the empress’s cause, now that its mainstay had departed,
lay in the presence of Henry in England. The boy--he was only
fourteen--hurriedly crossed with a few companions, landed at one of the
western ports, and made feeble attacks on Cricklade and Bourton, in
Gloucestershire, from which he was easily driven off. His forces
dwindled rather than increased, and his scanty supply of money soon came
to an end. An application to his mother for further funds proved
ineffectual, as she was in the same straits herself. He then turned to
the Earl of Gloucester for assistance; but Earl William was very
different from his father; he cared little for war, had no enthusiasm
for the cause of his cousin, and saw no reason why he should waste his
treasure on a desperate and hopeless enterprise. Unable for lack of
funds either to continue his injudicious venture or to leave the
country, the humiliated prince had to apply for help to the rival whom
he had so rashly attacked. Stephen, always chivalrous and good-natured
even to weakness, in spite of the opposition and remonstrances of his
advisers, at once supplied Henry with the necessary means of returning
to his father’s court, where, in the early spring of 1148, he was joined
by his mother, the empress.[2]
Geoffrey, now that he was firmly established in Normandy, seems to have
begun to plan the aggrandisement of his son, in whose right he had
obtained the duchy. And so, in April 1149, Henry was sent to England to
receive the honour of knighthood from King David of Scotland, his
mother’s uncle. Landing, probably, at Wareham, he made a brief stay at
Devizes, where we find in his company Roger, Earl of Hereford, Patrick,
Earl of Salisbury, William Beauchamp, John St. John, Roger Berkeley,
Hubert de Vaux, Henry Hussey, Manser Bisset and others.[3] Thence he
passed peacefully northwards, the whole of western England being in the
hands of magnates, such as the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, who were
friendly to his cause or at least hostile to that of Stephen. To
Carlisle he was brought by Earl Ralph of Chester, and there he was
received by King David and his son Henry, Earl of Northumberland, and on
Whitsunday, 22nd May, was duly invested with the insignia of knighthood.
Henry and his ally of Scotland now persuaded the powerful Earl of
Chester to join forces with them against Stephen, but before this scheme
could be carried out King Stephen had outbid his rivals and bought the
support of the earl by a bestowal of fiefs so lavish as to render him
almost king of northern England.
Returning to his father in January 1150, Henry was invested with the
dukedom of Normandy. But a little more than a year later Stephen’s son,
Eustace, persuaded King Louis of France, with whom Geoffrey
[Illustration: (1)]
[Illustration: (2)
SEALS OF HENRY AS DUKE OF NORMANDY (3/4)]
had quarrelled, to assist him in regaining Normandy. The allies advanced
as far as Arques, where they were opposed by the forces under the young
duke. Henry here exhibited that scrupulous respect for his feudal
overlord, the King of France, which he displayed so conspicuously in
later years, and acted on the defensive, refusing to attack his
suzerain. Eustace was a man of warlike spirit, but King Louis, who,
though not averse to war, seems to have had a profound distaste for
fighting, did not care to risk a battle and retired for the time. Later
in the year he despatched another force to operate against Mantes, but
Geoffrey now came to terms and agreed to surrender the Vexin, the
borderland between France and Normandy, on condition that Louis should
confirm Henry in the possession of the rest of the Norman duchy, and
these terms the French king gladly accepted.
Henry had now established his claim to half of his grandfather’s
dominions, and began to plan the recovery of the remainder by an
invasion of England. His plans, however, were interfered with by the
sudden death of his father on 7th September 1151. The recovery of
England was postponed, but a great accession of territory was obtained
by Henry in the following spring. Louis VII. had married Eleanor, the
heiress of Aquitaine, in 1137, but relations between the able and
energetic queen and her feeble husband had gradually become strained to
breaking, and at last, early in 1152, they discovered that they ought
never to have married, being related to one another, distantly but
within the degrees theoretically prohibited by the Church.[4] A divorce
was granted on 18th March, and Eleanor, avoiding the too pressing
attentions of Count Theobald of Blois and Geoffrey of Anjou, Henry’s
younger brother, intimated her willingness to bestow her hand and great
possessions upon the Duke of Normandy. Henry, now nineteen, but with a
reputation that many an older man might have envied, hastened at once to
meet Eleanor at Poitiers, and they were married in May. By this marriage
Henry became master of Aquitaine and Poitou, in addition to Anjou,
Maine, and Normandy, and his rule reached from the Channel to the
Pyrenees.
He now once more prepared for the invasion of England, and was
assembling his forces at Barfleur in June when he found himself called
upon to face the combined forces of Eleanor’s late husband, King Louis,
and her disappointed suitors, Count Theobald and Geoffrey of Anjou.
Henry displayed the energy and rapidity of movement which in later years
made the French king declare that he must be able to fly, dashed down to
Pacey and prepared to attack the French forces, but Louis, with his
usual discretion, retired at once. Henry promptly turned north to crush
the rebellious Richer of L’Aigle and destroy his robbers’ castle of
Bonmoulins. The Norman frontier had been secured before the end of
August, and the duke was free to turn his hand against his brother
Geoffrey, which he did very effectually, reducing Montsoreau and
compelling Geoffrey to sue for peace. A truce patched up between Henry
and Louis was speedily renounced by the latter, but Henry, estimating
his adversary’s military abilities at a low rate, continued his
preparations for the invasion of England, and eventually crossed about
the second week in January 1153, with a fleet of thirty-six ships.
It was probably at Wareham that Henry landed with his hundred and forty
men-at-arms and three thousand infantry, and he would seem to have gone
straight to Bristol, where he was joined by those magnates who had
supported his cause in the past, or who considered that it would be to
their advantage to do so in the future. Operations were at once begun
against Malmesbury Castle, and the outer works were speedily carried,
but the massive keep was too strong to be stormed and could only be
reduced by starvation. Meanwhile Stephen had collected his forces and
was marching to the rescue; after halting for the night at Cirencester
he advanced to the relief of Malmesbury, but found the little Avon
swollen and impassable, while a bitter wind and blinding rain and sleet,
driving in the faces of his men, made it impossible for him to advance
or to retain his position. Abandoning his enterprise, the king marched
back to London, and the castellan Jordan had no choice but to
surrender. Enheartened by the capture of Malmesbury, Henry now directed
his energies to the particular business which had brought him over--the
relief of Wallingford. During the past five or six years, although the
country as a whole had been at peace, some of the more restless spirits
had carried on a sort of war on their own account, and of these one of
the most prominent had been Brian Fitz-Count of Wallingford. In 1152 he
had managed to destroy the castles set up at Brightwell and Reading to
keep him in check, and Stephen had been obliged to besiege Wallingford
Castle and blockade it by the erection of counter-works at Crowmarsh.
Finding themselves in difficulties, the garrison had sent over to Henry
for assistance, and he now came to the rescue and invested Crowmarsh. An
outlying portion of the royalist siege works on Wallingford Bridge had
already fallen into his hands, when Stephen once more offered fight.
Henry, for his part, was very willing to give battle and drew out his
forces, but the desire of the prelates to avoid further bloodshed, and
the fear of the barons that a decisive victory might destroy the balance
of power between the two parties and so render their own services less
marketable, resulted in secret negotiations, and compelled the rivals to
agree to a truce for five days, though suggestions for a more permanent
cessation of hostilities, made at a private interview between Henry and
Stephen, came to nothing. The terms of the truce were highly favourable
to Henry, the king being obliged to withdraw his garrison from
Crowmarsh and allow the fortifications to be dismantled.
Wallingford having been relieved, and the royalists under William
Cheyney and Richard de Lucy having been defeated in a cavalry action
near Oxford, Henry seems to have recruited his forces in the western
counties, visiting Evesham and Warwick, where the Countess Gundreda
handed over to him the castle, from which she had ejected Stephen’s
garrison. Then, turning eastwards, he besieged and captured Stamford
Castle about the same time that Stephen reduced Ipswich. The duke next
plundered Nottingham, but did not attempt to take the castle. By this
time the peace party were beginning to gain the upper hand, and the
efforts of Archbishop Theobald and Bishop Henry of Winchester gained
strength by the removal of their chief opponent, the king’s son, Eustace
of Boulogne. That bellicose ruffian, enraged at the tame conclusion of
the Wallingford affair, had gone off on a ravaging expedition in the
eastern counties. After plundering Cambridgeshire he paid a similar
attention to the lands of Bury St. Edmunds, rashly pillaging the
monastic lands on St. Laurence’s Day (10th August). The offended saints
were not slow to avenge the outrage, and within a week Eustace lay dead.
With his death died Stephen’s hopes of founding a dynasty, for his
younger son, William, had borne no part in the civil war and possessed
neither the desire nor the ability to contest the crown with Henry.
After some weeks of negotiation a compromise was at last arrived at by
which Stephen was to retain the crown for life on condition of
acknowledging Henry as his heir, and on 6th November 1153 this agreement
was ratified by the peers in council at Winchester; the rivals were
reconciled and the barons of both parties did homage to the king and his
successor. From Winchester the double court moved to London, where the
news of the termination of the long and ruinous struggle was received
with the greatest enthusiasm; and after Christmas king and duke met once
more, at Oxford, on 13th January 1154, just a year since Henry had
landed in England. A little later, when they met again, at Dunstable,
Henry reproached Stephen for not having fulfilled one of the conditions
of the treaty of peace, which was that the castles built since the death
of Henry I. should be destroyed. The task was no small one, as these
so-called adulterine castles had sprung up all over the country and were
estimated by Robert of Torigny, usually an accurate authority, to number
eleven hundred and fifteen. Stephen resented the charge of ill-faith,
but the quarrel, if it deserve the name, was soon made up, and the two
princes went down to Dover together in February to meet the Count and
Countess of Flanders. While there it is said that Stephen’s Flemish
mercenaries, without his knowledge but with the connivance of his son
William, planned to murder Henry. Whether a rumour of the plot reached
his ears or whether he considered that affairs in Normandy required his
presence, Henry soon afterwards parted from the king and returned to
Normandy, where he spent the next five months strengthening his
position. With King Louis he was now on good terms; and he was actually
engaged in a military expedition on that king’s behalf when the throne
of England fell to him by the death of Stephen on 25th October 1154.
CHAPTER II
HENRY II., KING OF ENGLAND
Henry ascended the throne of England in singularly favourable
circumstances. Still young, his character had been formed and his
reputation had been established on the battle-fields of England and
Normandy. Far inferior to his predecessor in personal character, he was
as far his superior in kingcraft, possessing just those talents
necessary for his position which the chivalrous, kindly, and erratic
Stephen lacked. Something of this, which was to be demonstrated by the
history of his reign, was already obvious, and the bulk of his English
subjects were strongly prepossessed in his favour. The Church was on his
side; the greater barons cared little who was king so long as their
titles and their revenues were assured to them; the lesser lords and the
peasantry, exhausted and impoverished by the twenty years of anarchy,
welcomed a ruler strong enough to curb the lawless feuds of
semi-independent chieftains, while, above all, there was no other
claimant to the throne, the only possible rival, Stephen’s son, William,
Earl of Warenne and Surrey, being, fortunately for himself, quite
unambitious of regal honours. Possessing great powers of physical
endurance, Henry was as active
[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF HENRY AS KING
(Reverse 1/1)]
in mind as in body, a well-read scholar and an accomplished linguist;
short, sturdy, with coarse hands and freckled face, unkempt and careless
in his dress, he overcame the disadvantages of an unattractive
appearance by his courtesy and the charm of his manner, which made him
formidable in diplomacy or love. Although inheriting the volcanic temper
of his Angevin forefathers and liable to outbursts of diabolic rage, he
ruled his hot blood with a cool head, practically never allowing his
feelings to dictate his policy and but rarely indulging in acts of
cruelty or revenge. He was non-religious rather than irreligious,
non-moral rather than immoral; though he made no attempt to bridle his
lust, there is no reason to suppose that any of his numerous mistresses
were unwilling victims; and though his irreverence and contempt of the
Church’s sacraments shocked his contemporaries, he admired and chose for
his friends such men as St. Hugh of Lincoln. Clear-sighted and
self-centred, Henry was emphatically a strong man; and it is the irony
of fate that the weak spot which was to prove his ruin lay in his most
unselfish and amiable trait, his affection for his family.
Not the least of Henry’s qualifications for the kingship was his ability
to select the right men for his ministers. It is possible that
Archbishop Theobald may have had some influence in the appointment of
the brilliant young Archdeacon of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, to the high
office of Chancellor, but the king may be given the credit for choosing
Robert, Earl of Leicester, and Richard of Lucy as Justiciars. All three
appointments proved to have been well made, and the first two were
probably made before the coronation.[5] At this ceremony, on 19th
December, besides the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whose see belonged
the privilege of crowning the king, there were present the Archbishops
of York and of Rouen, fourteen English bishops and the bishops of
Bayeux, Lisieux, and Avranches, numbers of foreign noblemen, including
Dietrich, Count of Flanders, and a multitude of English and Norman
lords. There were the king’s two brothers--Geoffrey, with whom he was
shortly to be at war for the second time, and William, for whose benefit
he was no doubt already planning the conquest of Ireland; there were the
royal officers Henry of Essex, Constable of England, Richard de Humet,
Constable of Normandy, Warin Fitz-Gerald, the Chamberlain, and Hugh,
Earl of Norfolk, hereditary High Steward; and there amongst the
brilliant crowd would be such great lords as Reynold, Earl of Cornwall,
son of King Henry I., and William, Earl of Arundel, the confirmation of
whose privileges and estates was one of the new king’s first acts.
Abbots, royal chaplains, clerks of the Chancery and Exchequer, wealthy
merchants and burgesses, and the ladies of the court with their
attendants, whose gay robes formed but the highest tone in an assembly
blazing with colour, complete the picture. Yet of all those in whose
presence Henry swore to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, to
maintain the good laws of the realm and to abate the bad, very few were
English and few even spoke the English tongue. The governing classes in
Church and State were Norman by lineage, language, and sympathy, and at
a time when an Englishman sat in St. Peter’s chair[6] scarce any of his
compatriots held offices of trust in their native country. The fusion of
English and Norman, which had already spread so far in the lower ranks
of society, only began to affect the higher ranks in the course of the
reign of Henry, who, by the ultimate failure of his life-long policy,
was to give the English nation its individuality.
The affairs of the kingdom could not be neglected for coronation
festivities, and at his Christmas court, held at Bermondsey, Henry took
the first step for ensuring peace by the expulsion of the lawless
Flemish mercenaries. Their leader, William of Ipres, was allowed to
retain the large revenues from lands in Kent granted to him by Stephen
and well earned by his loyalty and skill, and some few of his followers
were sent to join the colony of Flemings established on the borders of
Wales, but the bulk of the “Flemish wolves” were packed off to satisfy
their appetite for war and plunder on the Continent. Having thus
disposed of these alien robbers, the king had next to deal with those
of his own subjects who had abused their own powers and the weakness of
the central government during the anarchy to extend their possessions at
the expense of the royal demesnes and to strengthen their position by
the erection of castles. The destruction of the “adulterine” castles,
erected without royal licence, had been promised, and to some extent
performed, by Stephen in the last months of his reign,[7] but Henry now
determined to complete the work and at the same time to revoke the
grants of royal demesne whether made by King Stephen or by the empress.
In thus recovering the Crown lands the king was no doubt partly
influenced by the desire to increase the very scanty royal revenues, and
partly by his deliberate anti-feudal policy. It did not require the
acute intelligence which Henry possessed to learn from the events of the
last twenty years that it would be wise to clip the wings of the great
barons, who threatened to overshadow the throne itself, and to play for
popular support. It was clearly to his interest that the people should
be prosperous, contented, and loyal, and he was not slow to adopt
measures which would render the nobles less able alike to oppose the
Crown and to oppress the people. Throughout his reign he acted on these
anti-feudal principles. Although Henry had a distinct appreciation of
justice, it may be doubted if the legal reforms, which were in many
ways the most important features of his reign, would ever have seen the
light had they not tended towards the elevation of the smaller men and
the consequent depression of the greater. With a few exceptions it will
be found that when Henry required, as he usually did, to increase his
revenues by means of doubtful legality, he preferred to extort large
sums from the wealthy rather than an equivalent multitude of small
amounts from the poorer classes. So also the frequent substitution of
money payments for military service helped to discourage the maintenance
of large bands of armed retainers, kept nominally for the king’s service
but liable to be used for the furthering of their lord’s ambition. Yet
in all cases Henry acted with a wise moderation, which, leaving the
great lords in possession of their titles and estates, left them in the
position of having more to lose than gain by rebellion.
The king’s orders were as a whole acquiesced in with little resistance,
the estates wrested from the Crown were restored, the castles
demolished, life and property were once more secure, commerce revived,
the merchants came forth to find customers and the Jews to seek their
debtors. But William of Aumâle, Earl of Yorkshire, who, under Stephen,
had enjoyed a semi-regal independence, hesitated to conform to the new
state of affairs, and prepared to offer armed resistance to the king’s
demands. Henry left Oxford, whither he had gone at the beginning of the
new year, 1155, and moved slowly northwards, halting apparently at
Northampton to re-create Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, his charter taking
the form of a re-creation rather than a confirmation, possibly as a hint
to the shifty earl that his dignities were not secure beyond all risk.
By the time that the king reached York Earl William, finding himself
unsupported, had reconsidered his position and wisely submitted to the
royal demands, surrendering his fortress of Scarborough. A precipitous
bluff projecting into the sea, whose waves washed it on three sides,
joined to the mainland only on the west by a narrow neck, the rock of
Scarborough presented an ideal spot for the rearing of a castle, and
here accordingly the earl had set his great stronghold, surrounding the
spacious plateau on the top of the cliff with a wall, digging a well,
and building a keep four-square upon the narrow neck by which alone
access was possible. Nestling against the western base of the rock lay
the little town of Scarborough, itself surrounded with a wall and thus
forming an outwork of the castle. The position was too formidable to be
left in the hands of a subject, and King Henry took care to retain it
for the remainder of his reign; and when in the course of a few years
the earl’s keep fell into decay, it was rebuilt and enlarged at a cost
equivalent to some £10,000 of modern money, the work beginning in 1159
and spreading over the next three years.[8]
On his way either to or from York Henry appears to have visited Lincoln,
the priory of Spalding, and the great abbeys of Peterborough, Thorney,
and Ramsey. The news of the king’s approach to Nottingham so stirred the
guilty conscience of William Peverel, burdened with the murder of the
Earl of Chester, that he sought to save body and soul at the expense of
his possessions by becoming a monk in a priory of which he was himself
patron at Lenton. It was no doubt while in the neighbourhood of
Nottingham that the king received information of the birth of his second
son, Henry, on 28th February, and shortly afterwards he returned to
London, where he held a council at the end of March. During the previous
three months Roger, Earl of Hereford, had been contemplating resistance
to the king’s demands for the surrender of his castles, but the
arguments of his kinsman, Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, supported
by the success of Henry’s expedition into Yorkshire, brought him to a
wiser mind, and he placed the castles of Hereford and Gloucester in the
king’s hands. Hugh de Mortimer, however, the great lord of the Welsh
Marches, who had been the chief instigator of Earl Roger’s disaffection,
maintained his attitude of opposition and fortified his castles of
Cleobury, Wigmore, and Bridgnorth. Henry accordingly moved west,
halting at Wallingford, where on 10th April he held a council at which
the nobles swore allegiance to his elder son William, or in the event of
his death, which occurred the following year, to the infant Henry.
Mortimer’s strongholds were invested and, after some resistance,
reduced, he himself making his peace with the king at Bridgnorth early
in July.
With the collapse of Mortimer’s rebellion all active opposition to the
king ceased. Henry, Bishop of Winchester, brother of the late King
Stephen, having possibly displayed his sympathy with the defeated party
too prominently, deemed it prudent to retire to the Continent, leaving
his castles to share the fate of other private fortresses. Peace being
thus ensured in England, King Henry was at liberty to look abroad, and
at a council held in Winchester at Michaelmas he broached the subject of
the conquest of Ireland, proposing to subdue that turbulent and
uncivilised country and place it under the rule of his brother William.
To strengthen his position and justify his action he sent John of
Salisbury to represent to the pope the urgent need for reform,
ecclesiastical and political, in Ireland. The pope at this time, Adrian
IV., was an Englishman, his father being a poor clerk of Langley, who
entered the monastery of St. Albans shortly after his son’s birth: the
young Nicholas Brakespere, endeavouring to follow his father’s example,
was rejected by the authorities at St. Albans and went out of England to
Provence, where he rose to be abbot of St. Ruphus; his monks,
regretting their election of a foreigner, appealed to the pope to depose
him, and he again prospered by rejection, as he was at once promoted to
the bishopric of Albano and made papal legate to Scandinavia, where his
success was so great that, upon the death of Pope Eugenius III., in
December 1154, he was elected to the papacy, taking the title of Adrian
IV. Pope Adrian heartily approved of Henry’s project, and sent back John
of Salisbury with a letter commending the proposed crusade and an
emerald ring symbolic of the sovereignty of Ireland, with which he
invested Henry by virtue of the alleged supremacy of the popes over all
islands.[10] Feeling in England, however, does not seem to have been in
favour of the expedition, and the empress, doubtless foreseeing that
William would find the Irish throne an insecure position of little glory
and less profit, strongly opposed the project. Her influence with her
son was sufficient to cause him to abandon the idea, or at least to
postpone it until a more favourable opportunity.
Henry kept Christmas at Westminster, and early in January 1156 sailed
from Dover for Normandy, his last act before leaving being to re-create
Aubrey de Vere, who the previous year had paid 500 marks to be High
Chamberlain of England,[11] Earl of Oxford. At the beginning of the
next month he met Louis VII. on the borders of France and Normandy and
did homage to him for all his continental possessions, including Anjou
and Maine, which his brother Geoffrey claimed under his father’s will.
Geoffrey, persisting in his claims and refusing Henry’s offers of
compensation, garrisoned his castles of Loudun, Chinon, and Mirabeau. By
the beginning of July the two latter were in the king’s hands, and
Geoffrey had agreed to be content with retaining Loudun and a money
pension. Shortly afterwards the people of Nantes and Lower Brittany
expelled their ruler, Count Hoel, and elected Geoffrey in his place.
Henry gladly assented to the election, and upon Geoffrey’s death in 1158
successfully enforced his own claims, as heir to his brother, against
Conan, Earl of Richmond and Count of Upper Brittany.
The king’s first daughter, Maud, had been born at London early in the
summer, and towards the end of August Queen Eleanor crossed from England
and joined her husband in Anjou. The court returned to England in April
1157, and a short tour was made through the eastern counties, the king
wearing his crown in state at Bury St. Edmunds on 19th May and staying
the following week at Colchester. In continuation of his former policy
he now caused William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, to surrender the
castles of Norwich and Pevensey, which he had hitherto retained,
apparently compensating him by further additions to his great estates
in Norfolk.[12] Earl Hugh of Norfolk was also deprived of his castles,
and in Essex one of Earl Geoffrey’s strongholds was destroyed.
Henry was now so firmly established on the throne that he could insist
upon a far more important resumption of territory, and accordingly he
demanded from the young King Malcolm of Scotland the cession of
Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Cumberland. Malcolm, unable to offer
any effective resistance to his demands, travelled south through
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to the castle of the Peak. Meanwhile Henry,
after holding a council on 17th July at Northampton, where he left the
queen, was moving westwards. The two kings met at the Peak and passed on
together to Chester, where Malcolm formally restored the northern
counties, receiving in exchange the earldom of Huntingdon, for which he
did homage to Henry. The Scottish king then returned to his own country
to repress the rebellion raised by his nobles in indignation at his
surrender to the English demands, while Henry completed his arrangements
for the invasion of North Wales.
CHAPTER III
THE WELSH WARS
The Welsh, who had been brought into at least nominal subjection by the
strong hand of Henry I., were not slow to avail themselves of England’s
weakness under Stephen to regain their liberty. Unfortunately the chief
result of the removal of foreign control was the increase of those
internal disputes which had always formed so large a part of the
nation’s history.[13] Prince warred with prince, brother against
brother, and cousin against cousin; treachery was met with treachery,
and in the end the inevitable appeal of a disappointed claimant for
foreign assistance against his successful rival brought an English army
into Welsh soil once more. Owain Gwynedd, king of North Wales, had
exiled his brother Cadwalader and seized his possessions, and it was on
the pretext of restoring Cadwalader that Henry assembled his forces at
Chester and prepared for the invasion of Wales in the summer of 1157.
The task was formidable alike from the nature of the country and the
inhabitants. Wales was divided into three parts--North Wales or
Venedotia, South Wales or Demetia, and Powys, but, save that the lance
was the weapon of the northern Welsh and the bow of the southern, the
divisions were arbitrary and artificial, and unconnected with any
differences in the character of the population. With the exception of
the Brabantine mercenaries, a race apart, a tribe of professional
Ishmaelites, ready to turn their hands against any man for pay, no
nation was so thoroughly permeated by the martial spirit as the Welsh.
With the English and Normans war was the business of the gentry, but
throughout Wales the young men of all classes, gentle and peasant alike,
devoted their leisure to the practice of military exercises and strove
to perfect themselves in the art of war. Possessing a country whose
woods and mountains, intersected by torrents and marshy valleys, were
admirably adapted for the ambuscade and other tricks of guerilla
warfare, the Welsh had cultivated those qualities which enabled them to
make best use of these natural advantages. Simple in their requirements
for food or dress, they were hardy, active, and endowed with wonderful
powers of endurance. Of defensive armour they made practically no use,
yet they did not hesitate to encounter any foe, however well equipped;
their first attack, delivered to an accompaniment of yells and braying
trumpets, was furious, but, as is inevitable when light armed troops
engage with heavy, if it did not prove immediately successful, they soon
broke and fled, always ready, however, to resume the fight if
opportunity offered. They did not disdain to strengthen their position
with fortifications, and the whole land bristled with castles,[14]
hardly a year passing without record of the erection, capture,
recapture, or destruction of one or more castles in the course of the
incessant wars waged either between local chieftains or with the Norman
barons of the Marches; yet it was emphatically in the strategical use
which they made of the natural advantages of their country that the
Welsh were pre-eminent.
It is possible that the straightforward pitched battle between troops
contending stubbornly under the open sky tends to promote the honourable
traditions of chivalry, while the ambush, surprise, and night attack
foster treachery and deceit. Certain it is that the Welsh were notorious
amongst their contemporaries as liars and perjurers, men to whom the
most solemn oaths were not binding; and their Norman neighbours, the
lords Marchers, were not slow to follow their example, so that the
history of the border warfare is constantly stained with treachery and
broken oaths. The corollary to “Taffy was a Welshman” that “Taffy was a
thief” was already recognised as an axiom at the time of the Domesday
Survey, when the customs of the Herefordshire Welsh contained provisions
for correcting this reprehensible propensity. Yet in spite of this
tendency to enrich themselves at the expense of their neighbours the
Welsh were open-handed and generous; none need beg for a meal, nor need
the wayfarer fear to lack a resting-place. Hospitality was not so much a
duty as a commonplace of life amongst this people, and exercised without
hesitation. The food was simple, for though orgies of gluttony and
drunkenness were only too common after a successful plundering raid, yet
the habitual excess prevalent in England was here unknown; but this
simplicity was more than atoned for by the charms of female society and
the delights of music. In music the Welsh surpassed even the Irish; in
every house a harp was to be found, and it is noteworthy that they
shared with the men of Yorkshire the peculiarity of singing not in
unison but in parts. In their rhythmical chanted songs the nation’s
exceptional powers of rhetoric found their highest form of expression,
and their bards were held in such honour that in 1157, when Morgan, son
of King Owain Gwynedd, was murdered, it is expressly noted that with him
was slain Gwrgant ap Rhys, “the best poet.” Thus with music and eloquent
conversation were passed the restful hours of the day, the remainder of
which would be devoted to military exercise, hunting, the tending of
flocks and herds, or, more rarely, agriculture, for which the poor soil
and the inclinations of the people were alike unsuited. They were thus
perilously dependent upon England for much of their food supply and
therefore liable to be starved into surrender in the event of war.
The antagonism existing between the peoples of England and Wales found
some echo in the relations between the two branches of the Church. The
Welsh Church, possessing a far longer continuous history than that of
England, was less completely under the influence of Rome, and retained
many primitive customs which were strange and even abhorrent to the more
orthodox. Their clergy continued to marry, with the result that many
benefices had become hereditary, descending from father to son like
secular property. But if the marriage of the clergy was a primitive
condition no longer canonical, the marriage customs of the laity were
still more shocking to the orthodox, being in many cases not merely
uncanonical but clearly survivals from pagan times, indefensible on any
grounds except those of crude common-sense. The English Church, having
control of the four sees of St. David’s, Llandaff, Bangor, and St.
Asaph, should have been able to execute the necessary reforms, but
unfortunately Norman prejudice forbade the appointment of a Welshman to
any post of authority in Wales, and the sees were consequently occupied
by foreigners who, for the most part, could not speak the language of
their flocks, and only too frequently used their power to increase their
slender revenues at the expense of their clergy. Despised by the Norman
clergy as corrupt and by the nobles as barbarous, it is possible that
the Welsh appeared to Henry less formidable opponents than they really
were. Moreover, he disregarded the advice of the lords of the Marches,
whose whole lives were spent in fighting their Welsh neighbours, and
determined to conduct his expedition on the most approved continental
lines. Owain had entrenched himself at Basingwerk, and Henry accordingly
advanced along the coast for some distance, and then, meditating a
flanking movement, led a detachment of his forces through the woods of
Consillt. This gave the Welsh the opportunity for which they had been
waiting, and no sooner were the Normans entangled in the woods than the
forces under Owain’s sons, David and Cynan, fell upon them, inflicting
heavy losses. Caught at a disadvantage the invaders were thrown into
confusion; two of their leaders, Eustace Fitz-John and Robert de Courcy,
were slain, and a cry was raised that the king had been killed. Panic
ensued, and it was afterwards said that Henry of Essex, the Constable of
England, had thrown down the royal standard and fled. If the Constable
really displayed cowardice on this occasion the fact must have been
hushed up, for nothing is heard of it for six years, until in 1163
Robert de Montfort made it the subject of a formal accusation. Such an
accusation could have only one outcome, and accordingly a duel was
fought between the two parties at Reading in the king’s presence, when
Henry of Essex, rashly abandoning a successful defence for the
offensive, was defeated and left for dead on the ground, but being
nursed back to life by the monks of Reading, joined their community and
spent the remainder of his days in their abbey. It is noteworthy that
the challenger, Robert de Montfort, was a connection of his opponent’s
and not improbably a rival claimant to the constableship, which Henry
had inherited through the heiress of Hugh de Montfort.[15] On the whole
it would seem more probable that Robert should have made his accusation
as a taunt based on some flying rumour and that the result of the duel
was unjust, than that King Henry should have condoned the Constable’s
cowardice and allowed him to continue in honour at his court.
However Henry of Essex may have behaved, it is clear that the Normans
had suffered a severe defeat, and Henry in a furious rage drew off his
troops and rejoined the main body of his army, with which he advanced
unopposed to Rhuddlan, Owain having withdrawn from Basingwerk to Conway.
Meanwhile the fleet, which was acting in unison with the land forces,
had been despatched to Anglesea, to ravage that fertile island, the
granary of North Wales. But here bad discipline was the cause of a
severe check; the attractions of looting churches and monasteries proved
too great for the royal forces and delivered them into the hands of the
ever vigilant natives. The sailors lost their commander, William
Trenchemer, and most of their officers, while amongst the men of note
who fell was Henry, the king’s half-uncle, son of Henry I. by the famous
Welsh princess Nest. In spite of these two initial successes Owain felt
himself in a position of danger, and preferring to make terms rather
than to have them forced upon him, made peace and gave hostages to
Henry. Cadwalader was restored to his possessions, and homage was done
by Owain to the English king, and the English frontier was once more
pushed as far forward as Rhuddlan, where, as also at Basingwerk, Henry
restored the castle. The campaign, therefore, might be regarded as
fairly successful, although the only two engagements recorded had been
disastrous.
Although Owain Gwynedd and the other princes had come to terms with King
Henry, the redoubtable Rhys, son of Gruffudd of South Wales, proposed to
continue the war. Finding, however, that he would receive no support
from any other native princes, he was persuaded to make his peace with
the king, who in return promised to grant him a complete _cantref_ of
land. The spirit of the agreement was broken by the grant of the land in
scattered portions instead of in a continuous block, but Rhys accepted
the gift and remained quiet until he found that the king would not do
him justice against Walter Clifford, when he took the law into his own
hands and made a series of successful attacks upon the strongholds of
the Norman barons in Cardigan. About the same time, in 1158, Yvor the
Little, a noble of Glamorgan, being deprived of his lands by Earl
William of Gloucester, made a daring night attack upon the castle of
Cardiff, and in spite of its strength and the imposing numbers of its
garrison, said to have numbered 120 men-at-arms, besides archers and
others, carried off the earl with his countess and their son, who were
only released after more than full restitution had been made to Yvor.
Meanwhile Rhys, encouraged by his successes in Cardigan, attacked
Caermarthen, and Henry, who was preparing for a great expedition into
the south of France, was obliged to send a force under the Earls of
Cornwall, Gloucester, and Clare to relieve the castle. This they did,
and they were also successful in bringing Rhys to accept terms of peace.
Peace, so far as it ever existed on the Welsh borders, continued for a
short time, but when Henry returned to England in 1163, he found the
country in so disturbed a state that he was obliged to lead an army
against Rhys. The latter offered little or no active opposition, and the
expedition took the form of a military progress through Glamorgan and
Gower towards Caermarthen and as far as Pencader, returning by the
mountains of Plinlimmon to Radnor. It is said that during this progress
the invading host came to a stream called Nant Pencarn, where the
natives anxiously waited to see whether Henry would fulfil in his own
person a traditional prophecy that the crossing of the ancient ford by a
brave man with a freckled face should foreshadow the defeat of the
Welsh. When they saw the king ride past the old ford and set his horse
to cross by one newer and better known, the Welsh set up such a blare of
horns and trumpets that his horse took fright, and the king, turning
round, made for the older ford and dashed across, this time without any
orchestral welcome.
As a result of this campaign Rhys, with Owain of North Wales and other
princes, attended Henry’s court at Woodstock and did homage to him there
in July 1163. The king, apparently meditating the confiscation of his
estates or possibly the extortion of a ransom, sent a knight to visit
Dynevor, the capital of South Wales, and to report upon the nature of
the country; the priest, however, who acted as guide, while professing
to go by the best route, took the unsuspecting knight by all the worst
and most impassable tracks, and so contrived to impress him with the
utter poverty of the land and the inhabitants that the king, on the
strength of his report, abandoned his first intention and released Rhys,
only taking from him hostages for his good behaviour. Hardly had Rhys
returned than he renewed the struggle, recapturing the whole district of
Cardigan, invading Pembrokeshire and despoiling the Norman and Flemish
settlers. His example was speedily followed by Owain Gwynedd and his
sons, who ravaged the district round Rhuddlan. In October 1164 Henry had
issued orders for a force to be raised against Rhys, and on his return
to England in the following May, he found this force ready and with it
pushed hastily forward to Rhuddlan. Having relieved pressure in this
district for the time being he returned to England to collect a larger
army, furiously vowing to destroy the whole nation of Welsh. The border
fortresses were set in order from Abergavenny, Grosmont, Llantilis, and
Skenfrith in the south to Montgomery, Shrawardine, and Chirk in the
north; foreign mercenaries were brought over and provided with arms,
Ernald the armourer providing 300 bucklers for their use; lances and
arrows were bought in Oxford and elsewhere and despatched to the
frontier; and, above all, large sums of money were extorted from the
cities, prelates, and nobles for the conduct of the war.[16] Operations
on a small scale seem to have been carried on from Abergavenny, but the
king, with the main part of his imposing army, advanced from Shrewsbury
to Oswestry and so into Powys. For once the Welsh were united; Rhys of
South Wales, Owain Gwynedd and Cadwalader his brother, the former ally
of the English, the two sons of Madog of Powys, lesser princes such as
Owain Cyveliog and Jorwerth the Red, all with their whole following were
assembled to oppose the invader.
Henry advanced down the valley of the Ceiriog and, mindful of former
disaster, endeavoured to protect his flanks by cutting down the woods.
Indecisive skirmishing took place, resulting in heavy losses to both
sides, but the Welsh avoided a pitched battle and retired before the
royal forces until the latter had penetrated as far as the mountains of
Berwyn in Merionethshire. Here they encamped, ravaging the country round
and plundering the churches, to the intense anger of the Welsh, who
always scrupulously observed the sanctity of churches. Punishment
speedily overtook the impious host: tremendous storms of rain,
exceptionally vehement even for Wales, coupled with a shortage of
provisions, drove the English back in a disorderly and disastrous
retreat to Chester, where Henry waited for the arrival of a fleet from
Ireland. When the ships came they proved to be insufficient for the
conduct of further operations against the Welsh. The king, furious at
his ill-success, took a mean revenge by barbarously mutilating the sons
of Rhys and Owain and a score of other hostages in his power.[17]
Hardly had the English army retired from Wales when Rhys stormed the
castle of Cardigan and captured its lord, Robert Fitz-Stephen. Next
year, in 1165, the Normans and Flemings of Pembroke made two
unsuccessful attempts to retake Cardigan, while in the north Owain
Gwynedd destroyed Basingwerk. Internal dissensions led to the ejection
from their lands of Jorwerth the Red and Owain Cyveliog,[18] and the
latter, in 1166, assisted the Normans to gain a small success in the
capture of the castle of Caereinion, but this was more than
counterbalanced by the action of Rhys and Owain Gwynedd, who, after a
three months’ siege, captured the castles of Rhuddlan and Prestatyn. The
development of Irish affairs now made friendly relations with Wales
important, the main route to Ireland being by way of South Wales and the
ports of Pembrokeshire. Accordingly we find Henry becoming reconciled to
Rhys in 1171, and from henceforth treating him with an honourable
courtesy which the Welsh prince reciprocated. Peace, therefore, varied
with occasional border skirmishes, continued between England and Wales
until the end of Henry’s reign, and the Welsh, deprived of the pleasure
of molesting the foreigner, turned with the greater zest to the task of
cutting one another’s throats.
The invariable failure of Henry’s military policy in Wales was due to
his persistent disregard of the local lords of the marches and reliance
upon men famous in continental warfare but totally ignorant of the very
different conditions prevailing in the mountains and forests of Wales.
Such a man as Gerald de Barri could have given the king far more useful
advice in the conduct of a Welsh campaign than any of his great Norman
barons. That acute historian afterwards set out at length the measures
necessary for the conquest of his native country. No expedition should
be undertaken hastily, but careful preparations should be made, allies
secured, and internal divisions carefully fostered; castles should be
built along the frontier, trade with England, especially in provisions,
stopped, and the coasts blockaded. This would, as a rule, be sufficient
to bring them to terms, but if military operations were needful then an
advance should be made in the early spring before the trees came into
leaf; the troops should be light armed, and preferably men of the border
used to the country rather than Flemish or Brabantines, good as the
latter were on their own ground. The operations should be conducted by
counsel of the lords marchers, and heavy losses must be expected and
borne with equanimity, for while mercenaries are easily replaced the
Welsh could not replace their men. Once subdued the natives should be
treated with justice and kindness so long as they remain quiet, but
their rulers should be ever watchful and should punish rebellion with
severity. To diminish the chance of revolt the intervals of peace ought
to be used for the building of roads and of castles, and at the same
time the English border towns along the Severn might well have special
privileges granted them to facilitate their growth, and in return they
should be bound to maintain a fitting provision of arms and horses and
to practise universal military training. “Yet for all this the nation
shall not perish utterly, and at the last great Day of Judgment this
little spot of land shall be answered for by the Welsh race, still
speaking in their ancient tongue.”
CHAPTER IV
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
After the ingloriously successful Welsh campaign of 1157 Henry seems to
have returned to Woodstock and there rejoined the queen, who had given
birth on 8th September to a third son, Richard. The remainder of the
autumn was no doubt spent in hunting, but at the end of the year the
court moved northwards to Lincoln, where Christmas was kept. A local
tradition, or superstition, forbade the wearing of the royal crown
within the city walls. Stephen, it is true, had defied this tradition in
1146, but the fortunes of Stephen were not such as to make his action an
encouraging precedent, and Henry, preferring to be on the safe side,
caused the ceremonial of coronation to take place in the church of St.
Mary of Wigford outside the walls. From Lincoln the king moved on, at
the beginning of 1158, to Carlisle to meet Malcolm of Scotland. The
result of the meeting was unsatisfactory, and Henry abandoned his
original intention of bestowing upon the young king that honour of
knighthood which he had himself once received at the hands of Malcolm’s
predecessor, David.
Easter in that year fell on 20th April, when the
[Illustration: Map illustrating the Campaigns of Henry II in FRANCE
(_The portion of France under Henry’s sovereignty is tinted._)]
court was at Worcester, and Henry and Eleanor celebrated the festival by
observing, for the last time, the elaborate ritual of coronation. When
the service was over they laid their crowns upon the altar and vowed to
wear them no more. There would seem to have been no deeper reason for
this renunciation than Henry’s dislike of ceremony. To the restless
king, who never sat except on the saddle and who whispered and scribbled
notes to relieve the boredom of Mass, the elaborate ceremonial of the
crown-wearing must have been distasteful and wearisome. The outward pomp
and circumstance of royalty were nothing to the man whose rule extended
from the Pennines to the Pyrenees, and the glitter of a crown was no
enhancement to the clearest head in Europe, throbbing full with
political problems, national and international. The kings of Wales and
Scotland had done homage; Godred, King of Man and the Isles, was in
attendance at Worcester; embassies had been received or were on their
way from the kings of Norway, the King of Jerusalem, and the Emperor
Frederic; and Henry was scheming for the further aggrandisement of his
family and the extension of his continental dominions.
Louis VII. had by his second wife, Constance of Castille, a daughter
Margaret, at this time a baby of a few months old, and Henry determined
to forestall other possible aspirants for the hand of this very youthful
heiress. Accordingly, in the summer of 1158, he despatched his
chancellor, Thomas Becket, to demand the hand of Margaret for his
eldest surviving son, Henry, who was now rather more than two years old.
If the king was inclined to underrate the value of display and outward
magnificence, his chancellor was very far from falling into the same
error. Becket, the king’s trusted minister and most intimate friend,
presented a curious contrast in every way to his royal master. He was
tall, of commanding presence, with clean-cut features and shapely hands;
in his splendour he was a prototype of Cardinal Wolsey, but stood out
the more prominently, as the sober court of Henry II. made a better foil
than the magnificence of Henry VIII. Intensely self-centred, whatever he
took up he threw himself into heart and soul, and as he was to prove the
most ecclesiastical of ecclesiastics, so now that he was the greatest
officer in the land he saw to it that his dignity was becomingly
supported. Lavish in his expenditure, he kept open house and enriched
his friends with open-handed generosity. Yet, though luxury and
ostentation formed the note of his household, it is to his honour that
in an age when views on morals were more than lax he was known
pre-eminently as a man of clean life.
The embassy to the French court presented Becket with an admirable
opportunity for gratifying his taste for pageantry, and the splendour of
his cavalcade struck amazement into the minds of the natives and
impressed them with the greatness of the English king. In front of the
procession came the serving men and lackeys on foot in groups of ten or
a dozen singing English songs, and some way behind them came huntsmen
leading dogs and with their greyhounds in leash; then there rattled over
the stones six great covered waggons containing the baggage of the
chancellor’s household, and two other waggons loaded solely with the
very best English ale as a present for the French. Each of these carts
was drawn by five magnificent horses, each attended by its own groom,
and as guard to each cart was a great mastiff. Next came the pack horses
with their drivers, and as a picturesque touch there sat upon the back
of each horse an ape or monkey. After these came the squires, some
carrying the shields of their masters and leading their chargers, others
bearing hawks and falcons; then the officers of the household, and the
knights and clerks riding two and two, and finally the chancellor
himself with his friends. Becket did not allow the effect of his arrival
to be diminished by any failure to maintain his state during his stay in
Paris, and the extravagance and luxury of his household at the Temple,
which had been assigned for his accommodation, became proverbial. And
when the business of his mission had been successfully settled he
distributed all his gold and silver plate, his furs and gorgeous robes,
horses and the other magnificent appointments of his establishment in
lavish largesse.
Henry followed close on the heels of his splendid ambassador to complete
the negotiations for the proposed matrimonial alliance. The two kings
met first on the borders of France and Normandy, near Gisors, and Henry
then paid a formal visit to Louis in Paris, where his unassuming
courtesy and refusal of all ceremonial honours made an impression quite
as favourable as the magnificence of his chancellor had done. Not only
did Louis fall in with the suggestion for the betrothal of Margaret to
the young Henry, but he also agreed to assist the English king in his
claim on the territory of Nantes and Lower Brittany. Geoffrey, Henry’s
younger brother, had held this province for life by the election of the
inhabitants, but upon his death in July 1158, Conan, Count of Brittany,
claimed that it should revert to him. In face of the united forces of
England and France Conan could only submit, surrendering Nantes in
return for a confirmation of his rights in the remainder of Brittany.
After taking over Nantes Henry led a brilliant little expedition against
Thouars, in Poitou, capturing that strong position and its rebellious
lord with surprising rapidity, and then, turning north, met King Louis
at Le Mans, accompanied him on a pilgrimage to St. Michael’s Mount, and
entertained him for some time at Rouen. Thanks to the French king’s good
offices several favourable arrangements were made for the surrender of
border castles to Henry, and it was with satisfaction that Henry could
look back upon the recent results of his diplomacy when he celebrated
the feast of Christmas that year at Cherbourg with Queen Eleanor, who
[Illustration: SEAL OF LOUIS VII (1/1)]
had given birth to her fourth son, Geoffrey, in the previous September.
His policy having so far met with such remarkable success Henry now
decided to revive his wife’s ancient and shadowy claim to the important
province of Toulouse. This province had been sold by one of Queen
Eleanor’s ancestors to his brother, Raymond of St. Gilles, but the
legality of the sale had been questioned on more than one occasion, and
Louis VII., at the time that Eleanor was his wife, had prepared to
enforce his claim, but had come to an amicable agreement with the Count
of St. Gilles, giving him to wife his sister Constance, widow of King
Stephen’s son Eustace. Henry now made warlike preparations on an
unprecedented scale, securing as an ally Raymond Berenger, virtual King
of Arragon and Duke of Provence but proudly content to be known by his
humbler ancestral title of Count of Barcelona, and calling on all his
fiefs, English and continental, for aids of men and money. In the
imposing army which marched upon Toulouse in July 1159, practically all
the great barons of England and Normandy were present with their
retinues, the chancellor as usual outshining his peers in the number and
splendour of his knights. Malcolm of Scotland came with a band of his
young nobles, and was rewarded by Henry with the coveted honour of
knighthood, and there was one of the Welsh princes; but the main body of
the troops consisted of Welsh and other mercenaries, hired with the
money wrung from the great prelates, the larger towns, and the Jews and
other wealthy non-combatants. Such a force could easily have captured
Toulouse, but King Louis had hastened to the aid of his brother-in-law
and was within the town. For Henry to attack would therefore mean a
direct assault upon the man who, as King of France, was technically his
over-lord and suzerain, a breach of feudal law which Henry, to the
disgust of Becket and other less scrupulous men, refused to commit. The
only alternative was a blockade, and this proving futile and ineffectual
the great army withdrew at the end of September, having achieved
practically nothing but the capture of Cahors. On his way north,
however, Henry was able to induce the Count of Evreux to hand over the
castles of Montfort, Epernon, and Rochfort, and Louis, finding his lines
of communication thus cut, hastily concluded peace.
During this war Pope Adrian had died, and Cardinal Roland Bandinelli had
been elected by a majority of the electoral college, and, after a little
hesitation, had accepted the papacy under the title of Alexander III.;
the party of the Emperor Frederic, however, taking advantage of Roland’s
hesitation, had declared their candidate, Octavian, elected, and had
consecrated him pope as Victor III. The question of which pope should be
recognised was discussed at councils held by Henry at Neufmarché in
Normandy and by Louis at Beauvais, and in each case the decision was
given in favour of Alexander, Victor being renounced as schismatic.
This result was largely due to the eloquence of Alexander’s legate,
Cardinal William of Pavia. He, with Cardinal Henry of Pisa, was at the
English king’s court at the end of October 1160, when the news arrived
that Louis, within a fortnight of his wife’s death, had, in his
eagerness to obtain an heir to his throne, married a sister of Theobald,
Count of Blois. Henry at once persuaded the cardinals to celebrate the
marriage between his son Henry, not yet five years old, and the French
king’s daughter Margaret, then in her third year; the marriage having
thus been performed with the consent of the Church, as stipulated in his
treaty with Louis, Henry was entitled to demand as Margaret’s marriage
portion the surrender of the Norman Vexin and its castles of Gisors,
Néaufles, and Neufchâtel, which he accordingly received from the three
Templars who were acting as trustees of the settlement.
This piece of sharp practice roused the resentment of Louis, but Henry’s
defences were too strong for any effective military operations, and,
after some desultory skirmishing on the borders, peace was patched up in
the summer of 1162 and continued without actual breach for some five
years. At the end of that time, in June 1167, Henry’s interference in
the affairs of Auvergne afforded Louis excuse for a fresh campaign,
whose prospects of success were the greater from its coincidence, no
doubt designed, with a rising on an unusually large scale amongst the
unruly Breton nobles. The French accordingly ravaged the Norman border,
but Henry virtually brought the campaign to an end by a single brilliant
stroke. Knowing the provisions and munitions of the French army had been
stored at Chaumont, he marched against that town, and while his
men-at-arms engaged the garrison outside the walls his light-armed Welsh
levies swam down the river and, gaining access to the town by that
unexpected quarter, set it on fire. The whole town was destroyed, many
of its defenders slain or captured, and the rest driven into the castle,
where Henry left them unmolested, content with the destruction of the
stores. Although this practically put an end to hostilities, no peace
could be arranged until the French king’s impotent rage had been
appeased, and the brilliant suggestion was therefore made by the Empress
Maud that he should be allowed to burn some unfortified Norman town. Les
Andelys was selected as the victim; the inhabitants were duly warned by
Henry to leave the place, and the French army solemnly marched on the
deserted town and burnt it. Having cheaply regained his honour by this
puerile act of revenge, Louis agreed, in August 1168, to a six months’
truce. This gave Henry time to suppress the rising in Brittany and
another in Poitou, while the refractory counts of Ponthieu and Perche
received their chastisement during the ensuing negotiations, varied with
occasional fighting, which resulted at last in a definite treaty of
peace being concluded between the two kings in January 1169. By this
treaty it was agreed that Henry’s son, Richard, should be betrothed to
the French king’s daughter, Alais, and should hold Poitou and Guienne,
while Geoffrey, who had married Count Conan’s daughter in 1166, should
hold Brittany under his elder brother Henry.
Henry’s two eldest sons were thus married or betrothed to daughters of
King Louis and his third son married to the heiress of Brittany; the
youngest, John, having only been born on Christmas Eve, 1166, was not
yet provided for, but the king’s eldest daughter, Maud, had sailed from
Dover in the autumn of 1167, under the escort of the Archbishop-elect of
Cologne, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and such lesser lords as
Reynold de Warenne and William Cheyney, to marry Henry, Duke of Saxony.
Thus by the power of the sword and the bond of marriage did Henry
strengthen his position on the Continent
CHAPTER V
THE STRUGGLE WITH BECKET
During the time that Henry was campaigning on the Norman borders, in
April 1161, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury died. For nearly a year
the king kept the primacy vacant, but at last, in the spring of 1162, he
declared his wish that Becket should take the archiepiscopate. The
appointment, not unforeseen, of the courtly chancellor seems to have
been distasteful to many of the clergy, but the only man who had the
courage to brave the king’s wrath by opposing the election of his
favourite was Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, whose opposition was
probably increased in vehemence but diminished in effect by the fact
that he was himself Becket’s most dangerous rival in the race for the
primacy. Foliot’s protest was supported by the Empress Maud, who, as a
devoted daughter of the Church, doubtless considered Becket too lax and
worldly for the post; but for once Henry disregarded his mother’s
opinion. Becket himself must have seen in his promotion the chance of
satisfying his ambition; as chancellor he was the second man in the
realm, subject only to the king; but, subject to him, often directing
the royal policy, but always liable to be checked by an expression of
the royal will; as archbishop, with the divine authority of the Church
behind him, it would be for him to dictate and for the king to obey. Yet
knowing, as he alone knew, the ultra-clerical course which he intended
to take, he foresaw that it must sooner or later bring him into
collision with Henry, and forebodings for the future, more particularly
regret for the inevitable disruption of the ancient bonds of friendship
which bound him to the king, made him hesitate to grasp the prize for
which he longed. At last the insistence of the king, coupled with the
persuasions of Cardinal Henry of Pisa, overcame Becket’s half-hearted
resistance, and in May 1162 he sailed for England for consecration.
Besides the business attendant on his elevation to the primacy, the
chancellor was charged with the carrying out of arrangements for an
expedition against the Welsh and also with the performance of fealty to
the king’s eldest son, Henry. The prince, who was at this time eight
years old, had been entrusted by his father to Becket’s care, and a very
genuine feeling of affection existed between the boy and his guardian,
which was to continue, unaffected by the events of later years, until
the archbishop’s death. It was therefore not unsuitable that the last
recorded act of Becket in his official capacity as chancellor was to
head the assembled peers at Westminster in taking the oath of fealty to
the young Henry. On the occasion of this ceremony, which seems to have
included an informal coronation--for a golden crown and regalia were
made for the prince[19]--Becket was formally elected to the see of
Canterbury. The right of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, to
appoint the archbishop, who was also nominally their abbot, was so far
recognised that they were directed by the king’s messengers, the Bishops
of Chichester, Exeter, and Rochester, Richard de Lucy and his brother
the Abbot of Battle, to hold an election, but they were told definitely
that their choice must fall on the chancellor. This formality over,
there arose the question of consecration. The right to perform this
ceremony was disputed between Roger, Archbishop of York, as primate, the
Bishop of Rochester as Vicar of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Winchester
as Precentor of Canterbury, while a claim was also put in by the bishop
of one of the Welsh sees as the senior member of the episcopal bench.
The see of London, whose bishop, as Dean of Canterbury, would have had
the best claim to officiate, was vacant, but the dean and canons
appointed Henry, Bishop of Winchester, to act for them, and to him
eventually was assigned the honour of officiating.
On Saturday, 2nd June, Becket, who was still in deacons’ orders, was
ordained priest, and on the following day he was consecrated
archbishop. To commemorate the occasion he ordained that the Sunday
following Whitsunday should in future be kept as a great festival in
honour of the Holy Trinity,[20] and even the zeal of the Reformers
against the cult of Thomas of Canterbury did not blot out from the
calendar of the English Church Trinity Sunday.
The consecration of Thomas as Archbishop of Canterbury was indeed an
event worthy of commemoration, forming as it did the prelude to the
struggle between clerical and lay power which was to occupy the next ten
years of Henry’s reign. This struggle presents a curious problem of
historical perspective. Seen through the atmosphere of the contemporary
chronicle or through the rarified medium of history the Becket
controversy presents very different features. To contemporaries it
seemed of overpowering importance, eclipsing all other events of the
time and entailing issues of enormous weight. To us the points at issue
seem of slight significance, while the results appear almost negligible
in comparison with the energy and heat expended to produce them.
Whichever view, if either, is correct, there can be no doubt of the
great part played by this episode, for though in the end the contending
parties were left very much where they started the casual results of
the struggle influenced the history of the country most powerfully, so
that in this controversy the incidents are of greater importance than
the main matter of contention.
It is easy to be wise after the event, and Henry is constantly blamed by
modern writers for having promoted Becket to the primacy and not having
foreseen the consequences. Yet little reflection is required to show
that nothing short of the gift of prophecy would have enabled Henry to
foresee the position which Thomas was to take up. The chancellor had
habitually neglected his duties as Archdeacon of Canterbury, calling
down upon himself the rebukes of Archbishop Theobald, and had on several
occasions shown very slight regard for the privileges of the Church. At
the time of his appointment Gilbert Foliot scoffingly remarked that the
king had performed a miracle, for he had converted a knightly courtier
into a holy archbishop. Events proved Foliot’s jest a truth, and though
it was Becket who wrought the marvellous metamorphosis himself, it
remained a miracle unforeshadowed in the past life or character of the
man.
Thomas, who was born on 21st December 1118, was the son of Gilbert
Becket by Maud his wife. His parents, who were both of Norman
extraction[21] but had settled in London before his birth, belonged to
the middle class and were comfortably off, and by them he was sent to
the school of the canons of Merton Priory. While he was still quite
young his mother died, and not long afterwards his father, who was in
very reduced circumstances owing to losses by fire, followed her.
Fortunately for himself Thomas, who was a good-looking boy of much
promise, had attracted the attention of a powerful baron, Richer of
L’Aigle, who had been in the habit of putting up at the Beckets’ house
whenever he came up to London. Richer interested himself in the orphan,
sending him to school in London and allowing him to spend his holidays
with him in the country, presumably at his Sussex castle of Pevensey.
Here Thomas practised hunting, hawking, and other manly sports, on one
occasion nearly losing his life in the endeavour to rescue his falcon
from a mill-stream. His patron appears to have sent him to study in
Paris, and on his return he entered the service of his kinsman, Osbern
Huitdeniers, one of the leading citizens of London. After some three
years of official life in the city he determined to try a field more
promising for his ambitions. Once again his father’s hospitality proved
the means of his advancement, two of Gilbert’s former guests, the
Archdeacon Baldwin and his brother, Master Eustace, introducing him to
the notice of Archbishop Theobald. The archbishop, finding that the
young man’s father had come from his own native town of Thierceville,
gladly enrolled him in his household and took a kindly interest in him.
There were at this time at the archbishop’s court many men of
distinction and learning, and one of these, Roger of Pont l’Evêque,
afterwards Archbishop of York, jealous of the favour shown to Thomas,
whose powers lay in the direction of showy brilliance rather than sound
scholarship, did all that he could to injure and annoy him. Twice Roger
persuaded the archbishop to dismiss the young man, but on each occasion
Theobald’s brother, Walter, Archdeacon of Canterbury, took up his cause
and secured his restoration to favour. As early as 1143, when he was in
his twenty-fifth year, Thomas rendered his patron good service at the
papal court in the matter of annulling the legatine commission formerly
granted to Bishop Henry of Winchester. About this date he appears to
have attended the famous law schools at Bologna, and afterwards at
Auxerre. By this time he was beginning to become a person of importance;
the churches of St. Mary-le-Strand and Otford, and prebends in St.
Paul’s and Lincoln had been bestowed upon him, and in March 1148 he,
with his rival, Roger of Pont-l’Evêque, attended the archbishop on his
venturesome sail across the Channel to the Council of Rheims. Three
years later, in 1151, Becket achieved a further diplomatic success in
defeating Stephen’s efforts to obtain papal recognition for his son
Eustace, and in 1154, when Roger of Pont-l’Evêque became Archbishop of
York, Thomas succeeded him as Archdeacon of Canterbury.
[Illustration: SEAL OF ROGER, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK (1/1)]
On the accession of Henry II., as we have seen, Thomas was made
chancellor by the advice of Archbishop Theobald, with the generous
support of Bishop Henry of Winchester, whose claims he had once been
instrumental in defeating. Of the splendour and luxury displayed in his
household as chancellor something has already been said. The means to
satisfy his taste for magnificence and display were furnished not only
by the emoluments, regular and irregular,[22] of his office, but by
multitudinous extra preferments bestowed upon him, such as the
provostship of Beverley, the custody of the Tower of London, which he
restored and strengthened, and the honours of Eye and Berkhamstead. He
still retained his youthful love of sport and also displayed
considerable military ability; during the expedition to Toulouse he was
left in command at Cahors, and justified his appointment by leading his
troops in person to the capture of three other castles, while somewhat
later he overthrew a French knight in single combat. The king could
appreciate a man of spirit and a good sportsman, and the two men became
fast friends. Henry, on his way to or from the hunt, would often drop in
at the chancellor’s house and take a glass of wine with him, or,
vaulting the table, sit down and eat, noting with amusement the luxury
for which his friend was so famous. The story is well known how, as
king and chancellor were riding together through the streets of London
one bitter winter’s day, they saw a poor old man clad in rags. Turning
to his friend the king said, “Would it not be a meritorious act to give
that poor old man a warm cloak?” The chancellor agreeing that it would
indeed, Henry exclaimed, “You shall have the merit of this worthy act!”
and seizing Becket’s magnificent fur-lined cloak, after a short struggle
secured it and flung it to the beggar.
The intimate friend of the king, a courtier, sportsman, and warrior,
whose only interest in the Church seemed to be to draw the revenues of
his many benefices and to extract money from its prelates for his royal
master, no one could have foreseen Becket’s conversion into the most
ultra-clerical of archbishops.
Almost the first act of the newly consecrated archbishop was to resign
the chancellorship. As Becket must have been fully aware that the king
expected him to continue in office and would never have bestowed the
primacy upon him if he had declared his intention of resigning, his
action was surprising and unjustifiable. Henry, though deeply annoyed,
accepted the situation and displayed no ill-feeling towards Thomas. In
fact when he landed at Southampton in January 1163, having been detained
at Cherbourg over Christmas by bad weather, he greeted the archbishop
with all the warmth of affection which he had formerly bestowed upon the
chancellor. These good relations continued for some months, Thomas
supporting the king’s request to the pope for the translation of Gilbert
Foliot from Hereford to the vacant see of London,[23] and Henry visiting
the archbishop at Canterbury on his way down to Dover to meet the Count
of Flanders in March. But Becket was now throwing himself with his usual
thoroughness into the work appropriate to his position as head of the
English Church. His taste for display continued unabated, but found new
outlets. As archbishop he was the recognised patron of the younger sons
of nobles as the king was of their elder sons, while amongst the crowd
of high-born youths serving as his esquires was the heir to the throne;
his household was as magnificent and his table as well-appointed as
ever, but the clerks, who had formerly received little consideration,
had now supplanted the knights in the place of honour, while a somewhat
ostentatious prominence was given to the daily distribution of alms and
feeding of large numbers of poor persons. Thomas himself presided
gracefully over the splendid feasts, and, though far from practising the
stern asceticism of Gilbert Foliot, observed a strict moderation
suitable to the monastic habit which he had assumed; and although there
was no lack of gaiety and animation at his table the jesters and
minstrels of former days were now replaced by readers of the Holy
Scripture.
Soon the erstwhile pluralist chancellor began to attack the bestowal of
multiple benefices upon the king’s clerks, laymen in all but name, whose
sole connection with their benefices was to draw their revenues. So long
as Becket confined himself to this legitimate course of reform the king
raised no objections, only insisting that the physician should first
heal himself by surrendering the archdeaconry of Canterbury, which he
had most inconsistently retained with the archbishopric. But soon Thomas
passed from correcting the faults of his clergy to protecting their
vices. The complaints of the laity against the extortions and injustice
of the archdeacons and their officials had been brought to Henry’s
notice in the time of Archbishop Theobald, and one particular case
reported from Scarborough roused the king to declare that these clerical
officers wrung more money from the people every year than the revenues
of the crown. Had not matters of importance obliged Henry to leave
England just at this time it is not improbable that he would have
carried out, with the assistance of Thomas the Chancellor, some of those
measures for the control of the clerical courts which Thomas the
Archbishop devoted his life to opposing. The bishops ordained candidates
without regard to their fitness, and, contrary to the canons, bestowed
orders upon men who had no title. Inevitably the country was overrun
with men of low character, without definite means of subsistence, who
could laugh alike at the lay courts, which had no jurisdiction over
them, and at the ecclesiastical courts, whose proceedings were only too
often a farce; for the clerk who held no church deprivation had no
terrors, and it was well known that the bishops would rather a guilty
clerk were acquitted than that they should be burdened with the cost of
his keep in the episcopal prisons. Murders and other crimes were
committed by these bastard sons of the Church, and any attempt to bring
the offenders to book was foiled by the prelates. Becket, who as
chancellor had imprisoned a clerk in the Tower for seduction, now threw
the mantle of the Church over an unworthy clerk who had been guilty of a
peculiarly atrocious murder and adultery. The king felt strongly in the
matter, but it would seem that for a time his old affection kept him
from pressing his anti-clerical measures to the point of an actual
breach with the archbishop. Other matters, however, more personal, now
arose to increase the estrangement between the former friends.
On his return from the Welsh expedition in July 1163, Henry appears to
have found his affairs rather involved and to have proposed to increase
his revenue by appropriating the annual payment known as the “Sheriff’s
aid”; the exact points in dispute are obscure and will be discussed in a
later chapter, but it is known that the king swore “by the eyes of
God”[24] that the payment should be made part of the Crown revenues and
that the archbishop vowed “by his reverence for those same eyes” that no
penny of it should be paid from his lands while he lived. In the end
Henry had to give way, and he was again defeated by Becket about the
same time in another matter still nearer to his heart. During the
retreat from Toulouse in 1159 King Stephen’s son, William, Count of
Boulogne, and, in right of his wife, Earl of Surrey and Warenne, had
died, leaving no children. To prevent the county of Boulogne falling
into the hands of any adherent of the King of France, Henry took
William’s sister, Mary, out of the nunnery of Romsey, where she was
abbess, and married her to Matthew, son of the Count of Flanders, in
spite of Becket’s very proper protests. Earl William’s widow, Isabel de
Warenne, being still unmarried, the king decided that her heritage would
form a suitable provision for his brother William, for whom he had once
proposed to conquer Ireland. He therefore began to push the marriage
forward, but was stopped by the action of the archbishop, who forbade it
on the ground that the contracting parties were related within the
prohibited degrees.[25] A papal dispensation had been available for the
marriage of Abbess Mary, but the opposition of Thomas the Archbishop
proved so much more potent than the protests of Thomas the Chancellor
that the projected marriage had to be abandoned. The young William took
the matter so much to heart that he retired to the court of his mother,
the empress, at Rouen, where he shortly afterwards sickened and died on
30th January 1164.
Becket had deprived the king’s clerks of their benefices, protected
criminals from the king’s justice, opposed the king’s financial schemes,
and thwarted the king’s plans for his brother’s advance. He had also
aggressively asserted the rights of Canterbury against the Earl of Clare
and others of the king’s barons and had excommunicated the king’s
tenant, William of Eynesford, in a dispute over the advowson of a
church, the decision of which was claimed as belonging to the king’s
court. Even if he had been entirely in the right in every one of these
questions it would not have been extraordinary if the king, a violently
self-willed man, had become completely estranged. And now the question
of clerical immunities reached a climax. A long list of crimes committed
by clerks was presented to the king by his justices, and one of these
justices, Simon Fitz-Peter, made a special complaint against Philip de
Broi, a canon of Bedford. The canon had been accused of the murder of a
knight and had cleared himself by his oath before the Bishop of Lincoln,
but Simon Fitz-Peter, who was holding assizes at Dunstaple, apparently
considering that the verdict of the ecclesiastical court was contrary to
evidence, ordered him to stand his trial before himself; Philip
refused, and in course of argument used insulting expressions towards
the justice, which the latter reported to the king. Henry, enraged at
the insult to his representative, demanded that Philip should be retried
on both charges, of murder and contempt of court, before a lay tribunal.
This claim Becket successfully combated, and the king had to be content
with a trial before an ecclesiastical court. The prelates who formed the
court decided that the question of the murder had been finally disposed
of by the acquittal before the Bishop of Lincoln and could not be
re-opened, but for the insult to the king’s officer they commanded that
Philip de Broi should forfeit his prebend and go into exile for two
years, and should also make a public apology to Simon Fitz-Peter clad in
penitential garb. Henry declared that the sentence was absurdly light,
and determined to bring the whole question of clerical and lay
jurisdiction to a definite issue.
An opportunity soon offered, and at a council held at Westminster in
October 1163, Henry definitely demanded that the bishops should swear to
obey the ancient customs of the realm, which, he claimed, allowed a
clerk to be indicted before a lay tribunal, sent for trial to the
ecclesiastical court, and, if found guilty, degraded and, being no
longer a clerk, sent back to the lay court to receive sentence. There
was no question of trying clerks before lay judges, but the bishops,
headed by Becket, took up the line that the Church’s sentence must of
necessity be just,
[Illustration: HENRY II DISPUTING WITH BECKET
(From Cott. M.S. Claud. Dii)]
and that to inflict a further punishment after degradation would be to
punish a man twice for one offence; they would therefore only consent to
the “ancient customs,” of which they denied the antiquity and legality,
“saving the rights of their order,” or in other words reserving the
liberty to interpret them as they pleased. The king at once broke up the
council, deprived Becket of the custody of the honours of Eye and
Berkhamstead, and withdrew the young Prince Henry from his care. An
interview between the king and the archbishop outside Northampton did
not mend affairs, but by the advice of Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux, Henry
adopted the policy of detaching the bishops from Becket and gradually
isolating him. Bishop Hilary of Chichester had from the first been
willing to accept the customs, and Gilbert Foliot of London, and Roger,
Archbishop of York, lent their aid, more from dislike of the primate
than from approval of the king’s schemes. Finding himself almost
unsupported the archbishop listened to the arguments of the papal
nuncio, Philip, Abbot of Aumône, and Robert of Melun, Bishop-elect of
Hereford, and agreed to withdraw the obnoxious reservation and accept
the customs. Not content with the verbal promise thus made before him at
Oxford, Henry determined to have the acceptance of the customs formally
and publicly ratified, and accordingly he summoned a great council to
meet at Clarendon in January 1164.
At this Council of Clarendon were present the peers, both spiritual and
lay, in full force; the Earls of Cornwall, Leicester, Hertford, Essex
and Chester, Arundel, Salisbury and Ferrers; the Counts of Brittany and
Eu; Richard de Lucy, the justiciar; Richer of l’Aigle, Becket’s old
patron; Simon Fitz-Peter, the insulted justice, and the representatives
of such great families as Bohun, Mowbray, Braose, Warenne, Cheyney,
Beauchamp, and Dunstanville, all of whom gave their assent to the code
of laws now presented on the king’s behalf as embodying the customs of
the realm concerning the Church prevalent in the time of his
grandfather, Henry I. The prelates had apparently expected that they
would be called upon to promise obedience to certain vague and undefined
“ancient customs,” which could be subsequently eluded by denying that
any particular regulation which infringed their privileges rightly
belonged to that category. When they heard the very definite and exact
claims advanced by the Crown they met the demand for their assent with
an absolute and united refusal, as was indeed to be expected.
The details of these Constitutions of Clarendon will be discussed
elsewhere, but the main points were, briefly, as follows. The claim,
already referred to, that clerks might be accused before a lay judge,
and if condemned and degraded by the ecclesiastical court, the
proceedings in which were to be watched by one of the king’s justices,
might be sentenced as laymen. That appeals might be made from the
bishop’s court to that of the archbishop and from the latter to the
king, without whose leave no appeal should be made to the Pope; to
strengthen this latter provision it was ordained that no ecclesiastic
should leave the kingdom without the royal licence. That no
tenant-in-chief should be excommunicated or his lands interdicted
without the king’s leave; that pleas touching advowsons should belong to
the king’s courts; and that the sons of villeins should not be ordained
without the permission of their lords. Becket, as leader of the Church
party, rejected the customs completely. He reasserted the finality of
sentences passed in ecclesiastical courts, and declared that the
proposed sentencing of the condemned clerk by the lay court would be “to
bring Christ before Pilate a second time.” The prohibition of papal
appeals he denounced as contrary to the consecration oaths of the
bishops, by which they were bound to allow such appeals, and the
restriction on the passage of the clergy across the seas he declared
would place them in a position of inferiority as compared with laymen
and would discourage pious pilgrimages. Finally, on the whole question
he took up the uncompromising attitude that the Church was the giver of
laws and the ruler of kings, and that human laws which interfered with
its privileges were of no effect.
Negotiations were opened on the king’s behalf by the Bishops of Norwich
and Salisbury, who pointed out to Becket the probable consequences for
all the prelates of inflaming the king’s anger, which consequences they
themselves would be the first to feel, as they were out of favour with
Henry. Their representations proving of no effect, the Earls of Cornwall
and Leicester besought him to consider the difficult position in which
they and other peers, faithful sons of the Church, would be placed if
the king persisted in his demands to the point of ordering the arrest
and trial of the archbishop. Finding him obdurate they withdrew, and the
next attempt at effecting a compromise was made by two knights of the
Order of the Temple, Richard de Hastings, the English Grand Master, and
Otes de St. Omer. Combining in themselves the attributes of knights and
ecclesiastics, they were well suited to act as arbitrators, and their
arguments appear to have had some effect; so that when at last the
impatient crowds of courtiers began to threaten and show signs of
violence, the wearied archbishop broke down under the strain and
condescended to an unworthy act of casuistry. Turning to his astonished
fellow prelates he exclaimed, “If the king insists upon my perjuring
myself I must do so, and must hope to purge the sin by future penance.”
Proceeding to the king’s council chamber he declared his acceptance of
the customs, “honestly, in good faith and without deceit,” and at his
command the bishops also signified their consent. Henry at once demanded
that Becket should swear to observe the customs, and should affix his
seal to a written copy thereof. To the first demand Becket replied that
a priest’s word was as good as an oath, while the question of sealing
he managed to waive for the time being, accepting a copy of the customs
by way of protest. Following up his victory, Henry caused both
archbishops, of Canterbury and York, to write to the pope desiring him
to confirm the customs. This they did, to please the king, knowing well
that the pope would refuse to sanction any such infringement of the
Church’s privileges. At the same time Henry desired the pope to appoint
the Archbishop of York legate for all England. Alexander, while refusing
to confirm the customs, granted the legation to Archbishop Roger, but by
exempting Becket and the church of Canterbury deprived the grant of its
point. Henry indignantly returned the letters of legation and refused a
further offer of the legation for himself.
Becket left Clarendon deeply humiliated at his own weakness, and even
went so far as to suspend himself from the performance of divine service
for a time. A letter to the pope explaining and lamenting his action
received a sympathetic reply virtually absolving him from the promise
which he had made but had never intended to keep. Not content with this,
however, he determined to visit the papal court, at this time
established at Sens, in person, and actually set sail from Romney with
that intention, but was foiled in his attempt to cross the Channel by
contrary winds, coupled with the boatmen’s fear of incurring the king’s
anger. This infringement of one of the articles of the Clarendon
Constitutions was reported to Henry, and served to embitter him yet
more against Becket and to precipitate the crisis which now arose. One
of the king’s officers, John the Marshal, having brought an action in
the archbishop’s court touching an estate held of the manor of Pagham in
Sussex, being defeated in his claim availed himself of the section in
the Constitutions which permitted an appeal to the king, and made such
an appeal, taking oath that justice had not been done to him. The
archbishop was accordingly ordered to attend and answer the plea at
Westminster on 14th September 1164. On that day Becket was unwell, and
sent four knights with letters from himself and from the sheriff of Kent
testifying that he was ill, and alleging that John’s case ought to be
set aside as he had deceitfully sworn upon a tropiary, or hymn-book,
instead of upon the Gospels. The king vowed that Becket’s plea of
illness was false, stormed at the knights, refused to listen to them,
and named a fresh day, 6th October, for hearing the suit at Northampton.
By this time the breach between the once inseparable friends had so
widened that the king would not send even formal documents direct to the
archbishop, as to do so would involve addressing him with a polite
formula of salutation which was very far from expressing his real
feelings. For the council to be held at Northampton, therefore, Becket,
instead of receiving the personal summons due to his rank, was summoned
through the sheriff, and when he greeted the king at Northampton he was
refused the kiss of welcome.
John the Marshal was absent on the king’s business at the Exchequer on
the first day of the council, but next day he duly appeared in court,
and Becket was ready to answer him. Henry, however, swept aside Becket’s
arguments and pleadings, accused him of contempt of court for not having
appeared in person on the previous occasion, and demanded sentence
against him. The court, fearing the king and considering that Becket had
been guilty of contempt, condemned him to be “at the king’s mercy.”
Theoretically this meant that he forfeited all his chattels to the king,
but in practice the forfeiture was commutable for a fixed sum, which
varied in different parts of the country: for a citizen of London the
fine was a hundred shillings, for a man of the privileged county of Kent
only forty shillings. In this case, however, the court arbitrarily
departed from the established custom and pronounced sentence of complete
forfeiture. To decide on the verdict was one thing, to pronounce
sentence against the head of the English Church was another; the barons
declined to do so, and said it was clearly a task for the spiritual
peers; the latter retorted that they could not be expected to sentence
their own head; but finally by the king’s order sentence was pronounced
by the aged Bishop Henry of Winchester, a thorough supporter of Becket’s
ecclesiastical policy. Hardly had this been done when Henry demanded of
the archbishop an account of three hundred pounds owing for the honours
of Eye and Berkhamstead which he had held of the king’s grant. Thomas
very rightly replied that he had had no notice of any such demand, and
further stated that he had laid out the whole amount, and more, in
building operations on the king’s behalf. So far as Berkhamstead is
concerned, the Pipe Rolls seem to show that all arrears due to the king
had been paid the previous year; but as the honour of Eye was not
accounted for while Becket held it as chancellor, it is possible that
there might have been some foundation for the claim, though nothing
could justify the way in which it was advanced. Whatever the rights of
the case the verdict was, of course, against Becket, and when he
protested against the indignity of being called upon to find sureties
for payment he was told that his goods having been declared forfeit he
was no longer a man of substance. Accordingly, the Archdeacon of
Canterbury became his surety for one hundred pounds, and the Earl of
Gloucester, the Count of Eu, and William of Eynesford for one hundred
marks apiece.[26]
Next day Henry renewed his attack upon the same lines, demanding back
five hundred marks which he had lent Thomas as chancellor at the time of
the Toulouse expedition, and calling for an account of all the issues of
vacant sees and abbeys which had been in his custody during the period
of his chancellorship. The king’s intention of breaking the archbishop
by fair means or foul was now so clear that the time-serving lords who
had till lately been proud to pay court to Becket now avoided him; his
old friend and supporter the Bishop of Winchester advised him to resign
his see, and Hilary of Chichester urged the same course, which other
counsellors as strongly discountenanced. Worn out by the strain, Becket
fell ill and was unable to appear in court on the sixth day, Monday,
12th October; Henry again disbelieved his excuse, and sent a number of
barons to see him and report. Thomas undertook to come next morning even
if he had to be carried in a litter. He now determined to bring matters
to a crisis and prepared to face the worst. His preparations were
significant, if somewhat theatrical. Early in the morning he went into
the chapel of St. Andrew’s Priory, where he was lodging, and going to
the altar of St. Stephen celebrated the mass of the proto-martyr. After
this his intention had been to proceed to the court in full canonicals,
barefooted and carrying his own cross; from such an ostentatious
defiance to the king to do his worst his friends managed to dissuade
him, and he rode in the usual way to the castle. But when he had
dismounted at the entrance to the hall he took the processional cross
from the hands of Alexander Llewellyn, his Welsh cross-bearer, and
insisted upon carrying it himself. Such a plain challenge to the king,
signifying his appeal to the protection of the Cross from the royal
injustice and violence, horrified his followers. The Archdeacon of
Lisieux besought the Bishop of London to prevent it; Foliot replied, “My
good friend, he always was a fool and always will be!” Nevertheless he
attempted to dissuade the archbishop from his fatal course, claiming the
right to carry the cross himself, as Dean of Canterbury, and even
endeavouring to wrest it from Becket by force. Finding his efforts of no
avail he desisted, contenting himself with the remark that if the king
now drew his sword they would make a fine pair. Becket then entered and
seated himself apart, holding his cross and attended by Herbert of
Bosham and William Fitz-Stephen. Meanwhile the bishops had been called
in to speak with the king, and Becket’s old enemy, Roger, Archbishop of
York, had availed himself of the opportunity to insult his fallen rival
by having his archiepiscopal cross carried before him, a deliberate
infringement of the privileges of the see of Canterbury, within whose
province Northampton lay.[27] While the course that events would take
was still uncertain, Becket’s attendants were giving him very
contradictory advice: Herbert of Bosham, the fiery theologian,
counselled him to hurl the thunders of excommunication against his
enemies if they dared to offer violence to his person, but the cautious
and level-headed lawyer, William Fitz-Stephen, deprecated such a course
and urged him to imitate the saints of old and suffer wrong with
meekness and patience.
The archbishop having inhibited the bishops from sitting in judgment
upon him for any plea touching matters prior to his consecration, and
having also appealed to Rome against the excessive and unprecedented
sentence of forfeiture, Gilbert Foliot at once lodged a counter appeal
and Bishop Hilary of Chichester protested against Becket’s breach of the
Constitutions, which he, and at his suggestion all the bishops, had so
recently promised on their priestly word to obey “honestly, in good
faith and without deceit.” Becket’s defence was to the effect that the
very qualifying words which Hilary quoted justified his action, for
nothing could be observed in good faith that was contrary to the
Christian faith, or honestly which was against the Church’s honour;
adding that if they had shown weakness at Clarendon it was the more
necessary that they should be strong now. Finding all hope of compromise
gone, the king sent the Earl of Leicester to pronounce sentence upon the
archbishop. The sentence would most probably have involved imprisonment,
but it was never pronounced, for Becket indignantly ordered the earl to
desist from uttering sentence against his spiritual father, further
declaring with justice that he had been summoned to answer only in the
case of John the Marshal and could not be called upon to account for
all his doings as chancellor without summons, especially as at the time
of his consecration the king’s ministers had expressly undertaken that
he should not be called to account for any of his acts as chancellor.
The earl retired abashed, and after a decent interval Becket rose and,
still carrying his cross, left the hall. As he went he stumbled against
a faggot, and Randulf de Broc cried out that he stumbled like the
traitor that he was. The taunt of traitor was taken up and repeated in
particular by Hamelin, the king’s illegitimate brother, now Earl of
Surrey and Warenne by his marriage with the Countess Isabel. Turning
angrily on the earl, Becket exclaimed, “If it were not for my cloth I
would show you whether I am a traitor or not!” The clamour reached the
king’s ears, and he at once sent a messenger to proclaim that no one was
to insult or molest the archbishop. He accordingly reached his quarters
at St. Andrew’s safely, and while seated at supper meditating upon his
further course of action he received an omen which confirmed the
intention, already half formed in his mind, of flight, for in the
evening lection occurred the passage, “If men persecute you in one city,
flee unto another.” As he heard this phrase read out, Thomas looked
across significantly at Herbert of Bosham, and as soon as he had an
opportunity of speaking to him in private he bade him hasten to
Canterbury, obtain as much money as possible from the archiepiscopal
estates, and then cross to the monastery of St. Bertin at St. Omer and
await his coming. Then he expressed his intention of keeping vigil
throughout the night in the church, refusing the proffered company of
the monks; and a little before daybreak he stole away in disguise under
the guidance of a canon of Sempringham, with only two other companions.
When Henry heard next morning of the archbishop’s flight he sent orders
to Dover and other ports to prevent his crossing, and then turned with
some relief to the business of the approaching expedition against the
Welsh. Meanwhile Thomas, knowing that search would be made for him in
Kent, had turned north, reaching Grantham on the first day, and then on
to Lincoln, where he stayed at the house of a fuller. From Lincoln he
went by water to Sempringham Priory and so to Boston. Probably finding
that that port was watched, he turned south, and after visiting
Haverholme proceeded by unfrequented paths into Kent, travelling chiefly
at night, and for a week lay hidden at Eastry, until on the evening of
2nd November circumstances enabled him to set sail. After a rough voyage
he landed in Flanders near Gravelines; but he was not yet in safety, for
Henry, whose embassy to the papal court had just crossed the Channel,
had warned the Count of Flanders of the possibility of Becket’s landing
in his territory, and the count bore the archbishop ill-will for the
opposition which he had offered to the marriage of the Abbess Mary of
Boulogne to the count’s brother. Worn out by the hardships of the sea
voyage Thomas found himself unable to walk, and the only means of
conveyance obtainable proved to be a pack-horse. Laying their garments
in place of the lacking saddle his companions lifted the weary
archbishop on to the horse, and in this humble guise he, whose gorgeous
cavalcade had once been a nine days’ wonder, entered Gravelines. Yet,
though in poor dress, treated by his companions with a careful absence
of ceremony and passing as “Brother Christian,” there were little
distinctions between him and his friends which nothing could efface, and
which did not escape the notice of the innkeeper at whose house he put
up. The man and his servant, who also recognised the archbishop, proved
honest, and Thomas safely accomplished the remainder of his journey to
St. Omer. Here he met not only his faithful Herbert of Bosham but also
the justiciar, Richard de Luci. The justiciar having vainly endeavoured
to persuade Becket to return to England, promising him his own good
services with the king, formally renounced all allegiance to him and
departed.
To follow the course of the struggle between king and archbishop during
the six years of Becket’s exile in detail is a wearisome and
unprofitable task. Constant efforts at mediation, incessant appeals and
counter-appeals to Rome, broadcast excommunications involving the most
prominent men at Henry’s court and all who had dealings with them, till
hardly a person of eminence stood outside the Church’s ban, mutual
recriminations, and anything and everything except reason and
compromise. The king’s absolute insistence upon the Constitutions of
Clarendon was met by Becket with a blank refusal. So far as we can judge
Henry might have been persuaded to accept a compromise had the
archbishop shown the least inclination to meet him half-way, and such a
course would certainly have had powerful support from the wiser and more
temperate royal officers. As it was, it is remarkable that, while a
considerable number of prominent ecclesiastics were in opposition to
Becket, he does not seem to have had the support of a single English or
Norman layman of any eminence.
Henry, in a moment of anger at Becket’s flight, had sent an imperious
letter to King Louis demanding the return of Thomas, “late Archbishop of
Canterbury”; Louis inquired, with some justice, who had deposed the
archbishop, adding that he in his kingdom could not displace the meanest
clerk; the request for the return of Thomas he refused, going out of his
way to offer the fugitive cordial hospitality. Henry’s embassy to the
pope at Sens, consisting of the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of
Chichester, London, and Worcester, the Earl of Arundel and others, met
with equal unsuccess. The archbishop and the Bishops of London and
Chichester all spoke with great vehemence against Becket, but the papal
court was more amused at certain slips of accent and construction in
their Latin than convinced by their argument, and it was only the calm
and reasoned speech of the Earl of Arundel, who spoke in his native
French, that produced any impression. The pope refused to do anything
until Becket had come to state his own case, and the embassy, having
strict orders to return at once, withdrew. Thomas on his arrival
produced his copy of the Constitutions, which the pope had not
previously seen. They were, naturally, declared to be intolerable
infringements of the rights of the Church and St. Peter, and the pope
sternly rebuked Thomas for ever having given his consent to them. At
this time, apparently, Becket surrendered the primacy into the pope’s
hands, receiving it back again from him. By so doing he was not only
confirmed in full possession of the see but was in the position to deny
that he owed his archbishopric to the king. Pope Alexander was now very
awkwardly placed, for while his position as head of the Church compelled
him to uphold Becket, his recognition as pope had been largely due to
Henry’s support, and if that support were withdrawn and given to the
schismatic antipope, Alexander’s hold on the papacy would be dangerously
weakened. The reality of this danger was soon made clear, when, in May
1165, Henry’s ambassadors, Richard of Ilchester, Archdeacon of
Poictiers, and John of Oxford, who were present at the Emperor
Frederic’s council at Wurzburg nominally on business touching the
proposed marriage of Henry’s daughter Maud, virtually pledged their
royal master to support the emperor and the antipope against Alexander.
Feeling, however, ran too strongly against Henry in this matter, and he
had to repudiate the action of his ambassadors.
The pope, cautiously avoiding a complete breach with Henry, declared
that certain of the Constitutions were quite inadmissible but that
others were tolerable, and, by refraining from any definite
pronouncement as to any particular sections, left an opening for
negotiations. At the same time he attempted to bring the king to reason
through the mediation of the Bishops of London and Hereford, Archbishop
Rotrou of Rouen, and the Empress Maud. But matters had already gone too
far for any friendly arrangement to be possible. Becket, who after his
interview with the pope had established himself, in December 1164, at
the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, was determined to yield nothing, and
had already commenced the campaign of letters, argumentative, mandatory,
supplicatory and threatening, with which he disturbed the peace of
Western Europe for the next five years; and Henry, at his Christmas
council at Marlborough, had retorted by confiscating the property of the
see of Canterbury. Not content with this legitimate seizure of the
archbishop’s revenues, the king extended his attack to all persons
connected with Becket by family or official ties, and all his poor
relations and such of his clerks as had proved themselves faithful to
his cause were stripped of their possessions and sent into exile under
a vow to join their patron. This step, designed to worry Becket and to
strain his already straitened finances, seems to have owed its full
rigour if not its inception to Ranulf de Broc, into whose hands the
property of the see had been committed, and was opposed by Bishop Hilary
of Chichester on the ground that, while so manifestly unjust an act
would put the king in the wrong, the chief effect would be to strengthen
Becket by surrounding him with a crowd of faithful servants.
During the year 1165 little worthy of note occurred, but with the spring
of 1166 Becket began to adopt more vigorous measures. Assured in his own
mind of the support of the pope, who on 24th April appointed the
archbishop Legate of England, Thomas wrote three successive letters to
King Henry, couched in language of increasing severity, warning and
threatening him. The king, who was at Chinon, could only tie Becket’s
hands by an appeal to Rome against his threatened action, and
accordingly sent the Bishops of Séez and Lisieux to Pontigny to give
notice of his appeal. On their arrival at Pontigny on Ascension Day, 2nd
June, they found that Thomas had gone to Soissons to visit the shrine of
St. Drausius, a favourite resort of persons about to fight a judicial
duel. Invigorated by his visit to the combative saint, Becket went on to
the abbey of Vézelay, and on Whitsunday, 22nd June, to the astonishment
and dismay of his unsuspecting companions, publicly excommunicated
Richard de Luci and Joscelin de Bailliol as authors of the Clarendon
Constitutions, Richard of Ilchester and John of Oxford for taking part
with the schismatics at Wurzburg, John of Oxford being further condemned
for accepting the Deanery of Salisbury in spite of prohibition, and
Randulf de Broc and others for usurping the possessions of the church of
Canterbury, while the king himself was threatened with a similar fate.
The sentences created little excitement outside the circle of Becket’s
own audience; most of those against whom they were fulminated were
becoming seasoned to excommunication, and the king was sustained by the
comfortable knowledge that the pope would support him. In the previous
May Henry had given orders for a levy throughout his dominions on behalf
of the Crusade, and some months earlier he had shown further evidence of
his zeal for the Church by presiding at Oxford over a council which
condemned a little band of German or Flemish heretics who had settled in
England. These heretics, humble weavers under the leadership of one
Gerard, seem to have held opinions similar to those of the Waldensian
Protestants; they met with little or no success in their missionary
efforts, and, having refused to recant, were branded and scourged and
turned out into the snow, to perish of cold and hunger. Fortified with
the knowledge of his good services to the Church, Henry did not even
hesitate to appoint the excommunicate John of Oxford as envoy, with John
Cumin and Ralph of Tamworth, to the papal court. On their arrival Pope
Alexander gave them a friendly welcome, absolved John of Oxford and
confirmed him in possession of the Deanery of Salisbury, quashed
Becket’s sentences and ordered him to refrain from molesting the king,
at the same time promising to appoint commissioners to arbitrate between
the king and the archbishop.
Towards the end of the year 1166 Henry had been successful in procuring
Becket’s removal from Pontigny by threats against the Cistercian order.
His star was distinctly in the ascendant, and he could afford to await
with equanimity the long-delayed arrival of the papal commissioners, the
cardinals Otto and William of Pavia. Becket, on the other hand, was
angered by the pope’s action and especially by the appointment of
Cardinal William, and expressed himself with a vehemence which even his
friend John of Salisbury considered excessive. The enormous mass of
correspondence concerned with the Becket controversy which has been
preserved is throughout remarkable rather for vigour than elegance. In
letters which are a mosaic of quotations and reminiscences from the
Vulgate, with an occasional phrase from a classical poet, the writer’s
adversaries are compared to the most notorious villains of Scripture,
while contempt is poured on them by means of sarcastic puns, Richard de
Luci, the great justiciar, becoming “Luscus”--the one-eyed or
half-blind--and the Archdeacon of Canterbury figuring as the
“archdemon.” The whole correspondence breathes a spirit of intolerance
which augured ill for the efforts of would-be mediators. Of these
mediators the one of whom most might have been hoped, Henry’s mother,
the Empress Maud, died at Rouen on 10th September 1167. As a devoted
daughter of the Church she had condemned the excessive severity of her
son’s anti-clerical legislation, though as “a daughter of tyrants” she
had approved the general trend of the Clarendon Constitutions. Her
influence with Henry was great, and if compromise had been possible it
would no doubt have been exerted to that end, but, as it was, she could
do nothing beyond such moderating measures as interfering on behalf of
an imprisoned and tortured bearer of papal letters.
When the papal legates at last opened negotiations in November 1167, by
an interview with the archbishop at Planches on the borders of France
and Normandy, they found him resolute to agree to nothing without the
addition of the disputed phrase “saving the liberty of the Church,” and
all their arguments were useless. When they made their report to Henry
he dismissed them angrily with some uncomplimentary remarks on the
subject of cardinals. A renewed appeal by the English bishops tied
Becket’s hands till November 1168, and in May of that year the pope
remonstrated with him and ordered him to take no action against the king
until the beginning of Lent, 5th March 1169. At the same time Alexander
made an effort to bring matters to a settlement by appointing two monks,
the Prior of Mont Dieu and Simon de Coudre of Grammont, as
commissioners. They did not act until 7th January 1169, when Henry and
Louis met at Montmirail to negotiate a treaty. Becket was with the
French king, and when the commissioners had presented to Henry a letter
from the pope urging him to a speedy reconciliation, the archbishop came
forward with every appearance of humility and expressed his desire for
peace. Henry was willing to receive him back into favour if he would
undertake to act loyally, but Becket would only pledge himself to
obedience “saving the honour of God,” or in other words “the liberty of
the Church.” In vain Henry offered him every right and possession that
his predecessors in the see of Canterbury had held, provided that he
would obey the laws that they, many of them saints, had obeyed. A
suggestion that Thomas should return to his post without any definite
mention being made of the Constitutions, with a tacit understanding that
the more objectionable sections should be modified, was also rejected,
and the conference broke up.
Shortly after this the commissioners presented to Henry letters from the
pope couched in stern language and warning him of the consequences if he
did not soon come to terms with Becket. Nevertheless Alexander was not
prepared to take extreme measures, and accordingly he appointed yet
other mediators, the Cardinals Gratian and Vivian, and wrote to Becket
ordering him to take no action against the king or his supporters until
they had performed their mission. Before this order reached the
archbishop at Sens, where he had fixed his headquarters since his
expulsion from Pontigny, he had availed himself of the expiration of the
term of inaction previously set him, and early in March excommunicated
the Bishop of Salisbury, Earl Hugh of Norfolk, and other offenders,
laymen and clerks, following this up on Palm Sunday, 13th April, with
the excommunication of the Bishop of London and the announcement of a
similar fate in store for Geoffrey Ridel, archdeacon of Canterbury,
Richard of Ilchester, Richard de Luci, and others. Anticipating his
action the two bishops had already made provisional appeals to the pope,
while precautions were taken to prevent the delivery of the notice of
excommunication. But on Ascension Day, 29th May, during the celebration
of mass in St. Paul’s, a young Frenchman, Berenger by name, under
pretence of making an oblation, handed to the priest celebrant the
archbishop’s letters, charging him to deliver them to the Bishop of
London and publicly denouncing the latter excommunicate. Bishop Foliot,
while accepting the sentence as valid, renewed his appeal to the pope,
who strongly disapproved of Becket’s action and ordered him to suspend
his sentences until the nuncios had seen the king.
Gratian and Vivian reached Damfront on 23rd August, and next day had an
interview with the king, in which he endeavoured to dictate to them,
insisting that the excommunicates should be absolved at once. For a week
no progress was made, but on 31st August, at Bayeux, Henry undertook
that if the excommunicates were absolved at once he would receive back
the archbishop and his friends and allow him to hold his church and
former possessions “to the honour of God, of the Church, of the king and
of the king’s sons.” Next day, however, he insisted upon the further
significant addition of the phrase “saving the dignity of my realm.”
Even to get so far as this had proved a difficult task. The meeting had
been held in the open air, and twice Henry had mounted his horse and
turned to ride off in a rage, expressing his contempt for the nuncios
and their threats of excommunication and interdict. A proposal to
counterbalance the “dignity of the realm” with “the liberty of the
Church” having failed, negotiations were broken off. Becket, as papal
legate for England, having threatened to lay England under the dread
sentence of interdict, by which all public services and religious
ministrations were suspended, Henry issued orders that the bearer of
such a sentence and any persons who obeyed it should be held guilty of
high treason, at the same time prohibiting all monks and clergy from
crossing the seas without his leave, and ordering the search of all
laymen coming into England from foreign countries. He further consented
to another meeting with the archbishop at Montmartre, whither he had
gone to visit King Louis.
The negotiations at Montmartre in November 1169 turned chiefly upon the
question of the restoration of Becket’s estates. While the king was
willing to restore him to the possession of what he held when he left
the country, Thomas insisted upon full payment of all arrears, the
surrender of certain disputed estates and the displacement of such
clergy as had been presented by the king to Canterbury livings during
his exile. Offers of arbitration were refused by Becket; and, while
Henry consented that he should have all that his predecessors had on the
same terms by which they held, his promise of due service to the king
was qualified by the obnoxious phrase, “saving the honour of God.” Henry
therefore refused Becket the “kiss of peace,” and the conference broke
up. The terms offered by Henry appear to have made a favourable
impression upon Pope Alexander, and he determined to make a final effort
for a settlement on those lines. Accordingly, in the early spring of
1170, the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Nevers were appointed to
negotiate; the Canterbury estates were to be restored in full, but the
question of arrears might be waived; there was to be no reference to the
Constitutions, and the kiss of peace was to be given by either the king
or his son. If Henry refused to come to terms sentence of interdict
should be laid upon his continental domains.
Negotiations remained for some little time in abeyance, as Henry had
crossed to England, for the first time for four years, landing at
Portsmouth on 3rd March, after a stormy passage during which at least
one of his forty ships was lost. The chief matter necessitating the
king’s return to England was his intention of establishing the
succession to the throne beyond all doubt by the coronation of his
eldest son, Henry, now sixteen years old. The need for this coronation
of the heir during his father’s lifetime, for which precedents could be
found on the Continent but not in England, is far from clear, and its
ultimate results were to prove disastrous. The most immediate result was
the creation of a fresh grievance for Becket. It would seem that the
pope, willing to please Henry and not knowing that the right to crown
kings was a privilege of the Archbishops of Canterbury, had granted
permission for the Archbishop of York to crown the young Henry, or else
such permission had been granted during the vacancy of Canterbury in
1162. When the news of the proposed coronation reached Becket he wrote
letters to Archbishop Roger and the English bishops in general
prohibiting them from officiating, and similar letters were sent by the
pope; but none of these appear to have been delivered, and on Sunday,
14th June, the younger Henry was crowned at Westminster by Archbishop
Roger, the Bishops of London, Durham, Salisbury, and Rochester
assisting. For some reason the young king’s wife, Margaret,
[Illustration: SEAL OF THE “YOUNG KING” HENRY (1/1)]
had not been crowned with him, although a royal outfit had been provided
for her,[28] and she had been ordered to hold herself in readiness at
Caen, where the queen was in residence. The omission was taken by
Margaret’s father, King Louis, as a deliberate insult, and was possibly
so intended; but it is far more probable that Henry had intended her to
be crowned with her husband, but had been obliged to hasten the
coronation in order to avoid the publication of the prohibitory papal
letters.
Returning to Normandy, Henry met the papal commissioners at Falaise and
agreed to accept the terms which they proposed. They then had an
interview with Becket and persuaded him to come to Fréteval, where the
French and English kings were to hold a conference. On 22nd July,
therefore, Thomas rode out to meet Henry. The king was in an excellent
temper, and as soon as he saw the archbishop he pressed forward, doffing
his cap and saluting him affectionately. The two then withdrew and held
a long private consultation. Becket began by reproaching Henry for his
action in regard to the coronation. The king defended himself, pleading
historical precedents, which Becket rejected as unsound, and producing
papal letters granting leave for the Archbishop of York to crown the
young Henry; these letters, however, dated from 1162, when, as we have
seen, some such coronation was mooted if not actually performed, and
were issued during the vacancy of the see of Canterbury. In the end
Henry promised to do justice in the matter, and added some ambiguous
remarks to the effect that he would punish all who played either him or
the archbishop false. No word was said about the Constitutions, but the
king promised to restore to Becket all that he had held three months
before the date of his exile and to receive him and his friends back
into favour. Becket dismounted and knelt before the king, but the latter
leapt from his horse, raised the archbishop and held his stirrup while
he remounted. The two old friends, once more united, rode back together
and announced the conclusion of peace, to the amazement of all; and even
a passage of arms between the excommunicate Archdeacon of Canterbury and
Becket, due to the latter’s refusal to reciprocate the king’s general
amnesty by absolving the excommunicates, was not allowed to disturb the
serenity of the atmosphere. The only cloud was the king’s persistent
refusal of the kiss of peace, based on the rash oath which he had sworn
in the presence of the French that he would never give it. On this Henry
was resolute, though he expressed his willingness to kiss “his mouth,
and his hands, and his feet a hundred times” when he returned to
England. So much importance did Becket attach to this symbolic act that
he endeavoured to obtain the kiss by a ruse at Amboise in October. For
this purpose he came to the chapel where Henry was going to hear mass,
in the course of which service the king would be obliged to give the
ceremonial kiss; but, warned by the much excommunicated Nigel de
Sackville, Henry ordered the celebration of a mass for the dead, in
which the ceremony of the _pax_ is omitted.
About this time Henry wrote to the young king and the regency council in
England announcing the conclusion of peace between himself and the
archbishop, and ordering the restoration of the former possessions of
the see and the holding of a judicial inquiry into the question of the
honour of Saltwood. Early in November the king sent a message to Becket
regretting that military affairs in Auvergne prevented his meeting him
at Rouen, but urging him to delay his departure no longer, and
appointing John of Oxford, Dean of Salisbury, to accompany him. Becket
accordingly proceeded to Witsand, whence he was to cross to England.
During the previous three months he had been busy corresponding with the
pope, and had procured from him letters suspending and excommunicating
the Archbishop of York, the bishops who had taken part with him, and the
inevitable Archdeacon of Canterbury. The sentence against York, London,
and Salisbury, Becket despatched from Witsand to Dover, where those
prelates happened to be, before his own departure. At last, on 1st
December 1170, the archbishop set sail, and, avoiding Dover, landed at
Sandwich. Here he was met by Randulf de Broc, Reynold de Warenne, and
Gervase of Cornhill, sheriff of Kent. Their threats of violence were
restrained by John of Oxford, and after reproaching the archbishop for
coming into the realm with fire and sword they suffered him to proceed
to Canterbury, where he was joyfully welcomed by the clergy and
populace.
The messengers whom he had sent over after the conclusion of peace
between himself and the king had warned him that the estates of the see
had been plundered, and their appeal to the royal officers for the
promised restoration of property had been postponed long enough to
enable the actual holders to secure the rents payable at Michaelmas.
Becket now found that most of the Christmas rents had been anticipated,
and the manors so thoroughly pillaged that nothing but empty barns and
ruinous houses remained. He had, however, other matters to occupy his
mind: the representatives of the censured prelates came to him desiring
him to absolve their masters. So far as Archbishop Roger was concerned
Becket professed inability, the pope having reserved his case to
himself, but he was ready to absolve the Bishops of London and
Salisbury, conditionally on their undertaking to submit to the pope’s
demands. This they were willing to do, but they were dissuaded by
Archbishop Roger, and all three went over to Normandy to make complaint
to the king. Becket, anxious from personal affection as well as from
policy to pay his respects to the young king, sent Richard, Prior of St.
Martin’s, to Winchester to announce his intention, and presented Henry
with three magnificent chargers gaily caparisoned. The king, or rather
his council, declined the archbishop’s proffered visit, but undeterred
he started for Winchester, intending after his visit to the court to
make a tour of visitation throughout his province. The first night he
spent at Rochester and the next at the Bishop of Winchester’s house in
Southwark, but here he was met by Joscelin of Arundel, brother of Queen
Adelisa, who ordered him to return to Canterbury. This he did, taking
with him a small escort of some five or six men-at-arms. The existence
of this escort was magnified by his enemies into a charge of riding
about with a great army to capture the king’s castles, but it was
certainly necessary, for threats were being openly made against his
life, and the Brocs at Saltwood were indulging in a regular campaign of
outrage and insult. They seized his wine, they hunted in his preserves,
poached his deer and stole his hounds, and as a culminating insult cut
off the tail of his pack-horse.
Becket was not a man to suffer insult patiently, and on Christmas Day he
preached in the cathedral, and, after alluding to the probability of his
murder, delivered a furious denunciation of his enemies, and
excommunicated Robert de Broc and a number of other offenders. The news
of his action was at once conveyed to King Henry, who was keeping
Christmas at Bur-le-Roi, near Bayeux. Infuriated by this fresh breach of
the peace, Henry uttered a wild tirade against the upstart priest and
against his courtiers who sat idle and allowed their master to be
insulted without avenging him. Four knights, William de Tracy, Hugh de
Moreville, Reynold Fitz-Urse, and Richard le Breton, determined to gain
the king’s favour by the murder of the archbishop. Taking horse at once
they made for the coast, and favoured by the wind reached Saltwood
Castle on Monday, 28th December. Meanwhile Henry, while refusing to go
so far as Engelger de Bohun and William Mauvoisin, who urged the
archbishop’s execution, had determined on his arrest. Richard de Humet
was sent to England to Hugh de Gundeville and William Fitz-John, the
young king’s guardians, while Earl William de Mandeville and Saer de
Quincy watched the continental ports in case Becket should try to
escape. The four knights, openly proclaiming that the king had decreed
Becket’s death, collected a considerable force from the garrisons of the
neighbouring castles, and on Tuesday, 29th December, rode into
Canterbury. Failing to persuade the town authorities to assist them,
they warned them not to interfere and rode on to the palace. Striding
into the room where the archbishop and his attendants were sitting, the
four knights, without a word of greeting, sat down in front of him.
After a pause Reynold Fitz-Urse ordered him, in the king’s name, to
absolve the excommunicates and afterwards to stand his trial before the
young king at Winchester. Before they delivered their ultimatum, Becket,
understanding that they had a private message from the king, had caused
his attendants to withdraw, but he now recalled them and delivered a
calm and dignified reply justifying his action and explaining his
position. To their threats he replied that the king had granted him his
peace, but that in any case he would never yield or waver in his
obedience to God and the pope for fear of death.
The knights had entered the archbishop’s presence unarmed, and they now
withdrew, uttering threats and defiance, to bring the argument of steel
to bear where words had proved unavailing. The Brocs and others of their
associates had seized the gatehouse of the palace and placed it in
charge of Simon de Crioill and William Fitz-Nigel, the archbishop’s
steward, who had joined the conspirators; Becket’s own esquire, Robert
Legge, was forced by Reynold Fitz-Urse to assist in arming him, and one
of the archbishop’s knights, Ralph Morin, was placed under arrest. As
the armed crowd pressed forward the great door of the archbishop’s
apartments was shut and bolted and for a moment they were foiled, but
Robert de Broc knew the palace well, and, snatching up an axe left on
the stairs by a workman, attacked a wooden partition that would give
access to their victim’s room. Hearing the crash and splintering of the
woodwork the monks and clerks, powerless against the mail-clad
assassins, seized Becket, and in spite of his protests and resistance
hurried him by a private entrance into the church. Contrary to his
wishes the door was shut behind him, but when the pursuers began to
thunder upon it he insisted upon its being opened, that the church might
not seem to be turned into a fortress. The four knights and their
followers rushed in, headed by Reynold Fitz-Urse, who flung down the axe
with which he had attacked the door and brandished his sword. Hugh de
Moreville faced the terrified people clustered in the body of the
church, while his comrades searched for their victim. In the pillared
gloom of the dim evening Becket was not at first visible, and he could
easily have escaped into the darkness of the crypt or by the
neighbouring stairway to the safety of the roof, but hearing cries of
“Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?” he stepped forward,
saying, “Here am I, no traitor but the priest of God. And I marvel that
you are come into the church of God in such guise. What will ye with
me?” To their threats of instant death he replied by commending his soul
to God, St. Mary, St. Denis, and St. Elphage, and their endeavours to
drive or drag him out of the church he resisted with all his strength,
striking William Tracy a blow which almost felled him to the ground.
Tracy replied with a cut at his head, but Edward Grim, one of the only
three clerks who had remained with their master, intercepted the blow
with his arm. Although most of the force of the stroke was spent on
Edward Grim it drew blood from the archbishop’s head. A second blow,
from Reynold’s sword, drove Becket
[Illustration: THE MURDER OF BECKET
(From Harl. MS. 5102)]
to his knees, and with the third he fell with his arms stretched out
towards the altar of St. Benedict. As he fell Richard le Breton struck
him again with such violence that his sword broke upon the pavement,
crying, “Take that for the love of my lord William, the king’s brother,”
Richard having served the young William, whose early death was
attributed to the foiling of his matrimonial schemes by Becket. As the
assassins turned to leave the church, one Hugh Mauclerc, whose name is
unknown to history save for this infamy, thrust his sword into Becket’s
gaping skull and scattered his brains upon the pavement. Thus fell
Thomas Becket, the obstinate and imperious archbishop, and thus rose
from his dead body Thomas of Canterbury, martyr and virtual patron saint
of England.
Having wreaked their vengeance on the archbishop the murderers turned to
the plunder of his palace. Everything of value they seized, sending off
a parcel of papal bulls and similar documents to their royal master.
Then they rode off, the four knights soon afterwards retiring to
Moreville’s castle of Knaresborough, while the Brocs remained at
Saltwood, whence they threatened to return to Canterbury and outrage the
martyr’s body. Hearing of their threats the monks of Canterbury, by the
advice of the Abbot of Boxley and the Prior of Dover, proceeded at once
to bury the body, which, after lying for some time neglected during the
panic which followed the murder, had been reverently placed before the
high altar. Accordingly the martyred archbishop was laid in a marble
tomb in the crypt, clad in the penitential hair-shirt, which, to the
surprise of all, he was found to have worn beneath his other garments,
and in the vestments worn at the time of his ordination and preserved by
him against his burial. The church having been polluted by bloodshed,
Mass could not be said in it, and so without the rites and services of
the Church were laid to rest the remains of him whose shrine was to be
for future generations the great national centre of prayer and
pilgrimage.
CHAPTER VI
IRISH AFFAIRS
When news of Becket’s murder reached Henry at Argentan on 1st January
1171, he was terribly perturbed, and, retiring to his apartments,
remained for three days in solitude, fasting and reviewing the
situation. It must have seemed at first as if the officious knights by
their rash action had wrecked his whole policy. The murder was bound to
alienate many whose sympathy would otherwise have been with the king; it
would put a fresh weapon in the hands of his enemies; and, above all, it
would practically force the pope into that position of direct antagonism
which he had hitherto skilfully contrived to evade. To extract himself
from his position without complete loss of dignity and surrender of all
for which he had fought was a task worthy of Henry’s diplomatic genius.
It was necessary to be cautious but prompt, for his enemies were losing
no time; before Henry had resumed public life the Archbishop of Sens,
legate of France, King Louis and the Count of Blois had all written to
Pope Alexander denouncing Henry as the murderer, and three weeks later
the Archbishop of Sens had proclaimed an interdict upon the king’s
continental dominions on the strength of a papal letter addressed to
himself and the Archbishop of Rouen ordering such a course to be adopted
in the event of the arrest or imprisonment of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Against this action the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishops
of Worcester, Evreux, and Lisieux at once appealed, and the interdict
was temporarily suspended. About the end of January, when the appellants
and the king’s special envoys started for the papal court at Frascati,
news of the murder reached the pope. Accordingly when Richard Barre, the
Archdeacons of Salisbury and Lisieux, and the other royal envoys reached
Frascati they could not at first obtain a hearing, and it was generally
believed that on Maundy Thursday, 25th March, the pope would
excommunicate Henry and lay England under interdict. The efforts of the
envoys, however, backed with the powerful argument of English gold,
averted this danger, and the dreaded day brought forth only an
excommunication of the actual murderers and their abettors. A month
later, after hearing the appeal of the Bishops of Worcester and Evreux,
Pope Alexander confirmed the sentence of interdict published by the
Archbishop of Sens, but exempted the king and gave orders for the
absolution of the Bishops of London and Salisbury. At the same time he
announced his intention of sending legates to Henry to settle the terms
of his absolution.
Henry meanwhile was preparing to carry into effect the plan which he had
had to abandon in 1155 for an invasion of Ireland. The scheme possessed
several attractions. To begin with, affairs in that island really called
for his active interference; there was also the advantage that in
Ireland he would be more completely out of reach of any unwelcome papal
messengers than he would be in almost any other spot in the civilised
world; and finally, by undertaking the reform of the Irish Church, which
had been urged upon him by Pope Adrian IV., he would give to his
expedition something of the nature of a crusade and would earn the
gratitude of the pope.
Prior to 1166 Ireland had been practically exempt from English
interference and had settled its own affairs by primitive methods of
violence. Resembling their nearest neighbours, the Welsh, in many
respects, the Irish were even more quarrelsome and less advanced in the
social scale. Utterly lacking in political unity, their score of kings
and princelets acknowledged the theoretical supremacy of their Head
King, or Ard-Righ, for just so long as he could maintain his position by
power of the battle-axe. The battle-axe, that excellent weapon for
quick-tempered men, doing its work with complete finality in less time
than a man can unsheathe sword or notch arrow to bow, was the constant
companion of the Irishman and the arbiter of all his politics. By a not
unusual combination the Irish were at the same time utter barbarians and
consummate artists. Their poetry was of a high standard; in music no
nation but the Welsh could compare with them; and in metal work,
carving, and painting such fragments as have come down to us show a
complete mastery of the beauties of line and colour. Commerce they left
to the Scandinavian settlers along their seaboard. Possessing a fertile
soil and a favourable climate they lacked the industry and stability for
agriculture, but grazed great quantities of cattle, which served alike
for the standard of exchange, coined money not being in use, and for the
objective of raids during their incessant hostilities. When St. Patrick
banished the reptiles and vermin it would seem that they must have left
their venom and vice behind for the use of the inhabitants of the
island, for never was there a race so prone to anger, so ungrateful and
so treacherous, and even the miracles recorded of their saints were more
often concerned with vengeance wrought upon sacrilegious offenders than
with rewards bestowed upon faithful devotees.
In this race of Ishmaelites there was one man of evil pre-eminence whose
hand was against all men and all men’s against him. Dermot MacMurrogh,
King of Leinster, since the beginning of his reign in 1121 had had even
more than his share of fighting; his voice had grown hoarse with the
shouting of his battle-cry; his borders had been enlarged at the expense
of his neighbours, and the envy and hatred of rival chieftains had been
incurred without gaining him the affection of his own subjects. In 1152
[Illustration: IRISH WOMAN PLAYING A ZITHER]
[Illustration: IRISHMEN ROWING IN A CORACLE
(From Royal MS. 13 B.viii)]
he had carried off Dervorgille, the beautiful but middle-aged wife of
Tiernan O’Rourke, King of Breifny; as the lady was well past forty and
Dermot some ten years older the elopement would seem to have been less a
matter of romantic passion than a studied insult to Tiernan. Dermot was
speedily forced by Turlogh O’Conor, then Ard-Righ, to give up
Dervorgille, but escaped for the time any serious consequences.
O’Rourke, however, did not forget, and at last, in 1166, found an
opportunity to head a formidable combination against Dermot. Finding
himself isolated Dermot seems to have looked to England for help, for
“the chancellor of the Irish king” came to this country in 1166, and
certain Irishmen appear to have visited Henry’s court at Woodstock early
in the same year.[29] No assistance being obtained and resistance being
impossible, Dermot, with some sixty followers, crossed to England and
settled for a time at Bristol under the protection of the wealthy Robert
Fitz-Harding.
In the spring of 1167 Dermot crossed to Normandy and had an interview
with King Henry. The latter had his hands too full to meddle with Irish
affairs, but the opportunity for getting some sort of footing in Ireland
which might be useful in the future was too good to be missed; he
therefore took Dermot’s homage and issued a general licence in vague
terms encouraging any of his subjects to assist the exiled king. With
this Dermot returned to Bristol, and after vain attempts to obtain
assistance in England crossed into Wales, where he succeeded in
interesting Richard of Clare, Earl of Pembroke, in his cause. The earl,
whose extravagance had seriously impaired his finances, was attracted by
the hope of plunder and broad lands and by the promise of Dermot’s
daughter Eva in marriage, with the ultimate prospect of the throne of
Leinster; he was, however, too cautious to risk his English and Welsh
estates by embarking on this enterprise before he had obtained leave
from King Henry. Dermot therefore turned to King Rhys of South Wales,
who not only gave him a small force of soldiers but undertook to allow
his prisoner, Robert Fitz-Stephen of Cardigan, to collect troops and
cross over to Ireland. At last Dermot landed in his country once more
with a small force, part of which was commanded by Richard Fitz-Godebert
of Pembrokeshire. After a little fighting Dermot came to terms with his
adversaries and dismissed his mercenaries.
For a short time Dermot remained quiet, but about the end of 1168 he
despatched his interpreter, Morice Regan, to remind Robert Fitz-Stephen
of his promise and to obtain other assistance. Fitz-Stephen accordingly
crossed to Ireland early in May 1169. With him came Meiler Fitz-Henry,
grandson of Henry I., and Miles, son of the Bishop of St. David’s,
Maurice Prendergast and Hervey de Montmorency, the needy uncle of Earl
Richard, and Robert de Barri, a nephew of Fitz-Stephen and brother of
the historian Gerald. These adventurers landed with some three hundred
followers at Bannow near Wexford, and here they were welcomed by Dermot
and his son Donnell Kavanagh. An assault on Wexford was repelled with
loss, but next day the city surrendered and was granted to Fitz-Stephen.
This success was followed by an expedition against the King of Ossory,
in which the English, by skilful manœuvring, drew the Irish out into
open ground, where they were able to use their cavalry with deadly
effect; the flying natives were further punished by an ambuscade of
archers, and at the end of the day two hundred heads were laid before
Dermot for that savage king to gloat upon. MacKelan of Offelan and
O’Toole of Glendalough were defeated and plundered, but Roderic O’Conor,
the Ard-Righ, was able to force Dermot to acknowledge his supremacy and
to surrender his son as hostage. Tired of the somewhat unprofitable
fighting, Maurice Prendergast and his two hundred men proposed to return
to Wales, but Dermot refused to let them sail from Wexford. Maurice at
once transferred his services to the King of Ossory and assisted his
former enemy against his former friends until such time as he discovered
that the jealous men of Ossory were plotting his destruction, when he
withdrew his contingent secretly by night to Waterford and thence
crossed into Wales.
About the time that Maurice Prendergast left Ireland Maurice
Fitz-Gerald, a half-brother of Robert Fitz-Stephen, had landed with some
hundred and forty soldiers, and not long afterwards, in the early
summer of 1170, the Earl of Pembroke obtained leave from King Henry to
undertake the Irish adventure. He first sent a small force under the
redoubtable Raymond the Big, who threw up a temporary fort at Dundonuil,
where they had hard work to defend themselves. By the ingenious device
of driving a herd of cattle before them the invaders shattered the Irish
ranks and, profiting by the confusion, slew many and captured seventy
prisoners. By the advice of Hervey de Montmorency the prisoners were
butchered, the business of beheading them being entrusted to a
bloodthirsty Welsh girl whose lover had been killed in that battle.
Shortly afterwards Earl Richard landed with Maurice Prendergast, Miles
de Cogan, and other barons and fifteen hundred men. Two days later, on
25th August, the attack on Waterford began, and its capture was
celebrated by the marriage of the earl and Eva, daughter of King Dermot.
The king and his English allies next marched against Dublin, avoiding
the great host assembled against them under the Ard-Righ on Clondalkin
moor. The city was not prepared to offer armed resistance, and the terms
of surrender were being discussed between Morice Regan, Dermot’s
representative, and the saintly Archbishop Laurence O’Toole and Hasculf
Torkil’s son, the Scandinavian lord of Dublin, when suddenly, without
warning, Miles de Cogan, who had no intention of being deprived of his
anticipated loot by the peaceful surrender of the city, raised his war
cry and stormed the walls. Hasculf and such of the inhabitants as were
fortunate enough to gain the ships escaped by water, but very many were
slain and the city was given over to plunder. Miles was rewarded for his
treacherous act by the grant of the custody of the city, while Earl
Richard retired to Waterford and Dermot to his capital at Ferns, where
on 1st January, 1171, he died.
By the death of Dermot MacMurrogh, Earl Richard became virtual King of
Leinster. But the success of the earl and his companion adventurers was
by no means a cause of satisfaction to King Henry, who had no intention
of allowing a warlike and independent kingdom to grow up so close to his
own realm. He accordingly made his feelings on this subject obvious by
seizing the Earl of Pembroke’s English estates, and the earl hastened to
clear himself from the charge of disloyalty by sending his lieutenant,
Raymond the Big, to place all his conquests at the king’s disposal.
Henry, who had gone so far as to forbid the sending of any assistance in
men or munitions to Ireland and to order the immediate return of the
adventurers on pain of perpetual banishment, was not appeased, though he
determined to profit by the earl’s submission. Raymond seems to have
returned to his lord with an order for the latter’s personal appearance
before the king. Matters, however, were too involved to permit of Earl
Richard’s immediate departure. Under pressure from Archbishop Laurence
O’Toole King Roderic O’Conor had summoned a great force for the siege
of Dublin, and all the native chiefs had rallied round him, glad of an
opportunity of revenging the wrongs they had suffered at the hands of
the foreign invaders. Provisions soon began to fail in the city, and an
attempt to come to terms having failed, the Ard-Righ insisting upon the
surrender of all the conquered territory except the three towns of
Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford, the only course open was to risk all in
an attack upon the besieging host. The attempt might well seem desperate
in view of the disparity of numbers, but its very boldness proved its
salvation. Leaving a small garrison to guard the city, some six hundred
picked men marched out in three columns, under Miles de Cogan, Raymond
the Big, and the earl himself. The surprise was completely successful;
secure in the knowledge of their numbers the Irish had neglected
outposts or guards and were caught quite unprepared; many of them were
actually bathing when the English cavalry dashed into their camp.
Discouraged by this severe defeat, in which they lost very heavily, the
Irish forces broke up and drifted away. Earl Richard was now free to
attempt the relief of Robert Fitz-Stephen, who, after dangerously
depleting his own forces to strengthen the garrison of Dublin, had been
gallantly standing a siege in his castle of Carrick near Wexford. The
earl’s forces, after a desperate action in the pass of Odrone, in which
Meiler Fitz-Henry particularly distinguished himself, reached Wexford to
find the
[Illustration: IRISH AXEMEN
(From Royal MS. B.viii)]
town in flames, Carrick Castle fallen and Fitz-Stephen a prisoner. The
earl now turned to Waterford and prepared for an expedition against
MacDonnchadh, King of Ossory, but the latter offered to come in and make
terms if his old ally Maurice Prendergast would obtain him a safe
conduct. This Maurice did, but when MacDonnchadh came before the earl,
King O’Brien of Munster, who was acting at this time with the English,
urged his arrest and execution, and it was only by the vigorous action
of Prendergast, who brought his men-at-arms on the scene, that the
barons were prevented from thus treacherously breaking their oaths.
Leinster was now pacified and a further imperative summons from King
Henry, already on his way towards Pembroke, necessitated the departure
of Earl Richard. Hardly had he gone when Hasculf, the former lord of
Dublin, landed with an army raised from Norway, the Isles, and Man,
under the command of a man known from the berserk fury of his valour as
John the Wode, or the Mad. These well-armed Scandinavians were foes of a
different type from the wild Irish, but Miles de Cogan boldly charged
upon them from the east gate, while his brother Richard, with a small
force of thirty men-at-arms, rode secretly out of the west gate to take
them in the rear. John the Wode, wielding his great axe with fearful
effect, forced back the English, and had even gained footing within the
gate when Richard’s attack threw his men into confusion. Rallying his
forces Miles charged again upon the Northmen, who broke and fled; John
the Wode was killed fighting gallantly, and Hasculf was captured and
beheaded. Another assault on the city, early in September, by the forces
of Tiernan O’Rourke, ended disastrously for the Irish, and Dublin was
left in peace.
Henry had landed at Portsmouth on 2nd August, and after a visit to the
aged Bishop Henry of Winchester, then on his deathbed, had marched
towards Bristol. At Newnham, in Gloucestershire, he was met by Earl
Richard, who surrendered to him the cities of Dublin, Waterford, and
Wexford, receiving in return the royal favour and a grant in fee of the
residue of his conquests. About 8th September, when the English army was
approaching the borders of Wales, King Rhys ap Gruffudd came to meet
Henry with the offer of a tribute of horses and oxen. This tribute Henry
soon afterwards respited, taking only thirty-six horses as a token of
friendship; at the same time he restored to Rhys his son Howel, who had
long been held as hostage. Rhys showed his appreciation of the king’s
friendship next year by sending Howel to the English court to serve King
Henry. The peaceful passage of the English army in Pembrokeshire, where
the fleet was assembling at Milford Haven, had been secured by this
tactful conciliation of King Rhys, and a troublesome chieftain, Jorwerth
ap Owain, was reduced to order by the capture of his castle of
Caerleon-on-Usk before Henry reached Pembroke. For some three weeks the
English host lay weather-bound at Pembroke, part of the time being spent
by Henry in a pilgrimage to St. David’s, where he offered in the
cathedral and visited the bishop, David Fitz-Gerald. At last, on 16th
October, the wind shifted and the fleet of some two hundred vessels
crossed over to Crook, near Waterford. For a fortnight Henry remained at
Waterford, the government of which town he had entrusted to Robert
Fitz-Bernard. Here he received the submission of the kings and
chieftains of Ireland, with the exception of the lords of Ulster and
Roderic O’Conor, the Ard-Righ. Hither also the men of Wexford, in
accordance with an undertaking given to Henry at Pembroke by their
envoys, brought Robert Fitz-Stephen and his fellow-prisoners; and Henry,
whose personal intervention in Ireland had been influenced in some
degree by complaints of the tyranny of some of the adventurers, thought
it politic to appease the natives by committing Robert to prison for a
short time. If he was mindful of the demands of justice he was still
more mindful of his proposed reformation of the Irish Church, and having
received the homage of the Irish bishops he summoned a council or synod
at Cashel in November.
At this Council of Cashel canons were passed for the observance of the
degrees of affinity in marriage, the performance of baptisms by priests
in the church--the local custom being for the father of the child
immediately after its birth to plunge it three times into water, or into
milk if the family were noble or wealthy--the payment of tithes, and
the immunity of clerks and church property from secular exactions. As
soon as it was over Henry sent an account of the proceedings, and of the
submission tendered to him by the bishops and princes of Ireland, to the
pope by the hands of the Archdeacon of Llandaff. It would seem that he
also endeavoured to obtain from Alexander a confirmation of Pope
Adrian’s commendatory letter issued in 1155, at the time when the
conquest of Ireland was first proposed. Alexander did not grant this
confirmation, but wrote letters to Henry, to the bishops and to the
kings of Ireland, expressing his satisfaction at the steps taken to
remedy the monstrous irregularities of which the Irish had been guilty,
and his hope that Henry’s supremacy would make for the peace and better
government of the island. These letters must have reached England some
time in the summer of 1172. Henry, however, does not seem to have been
satisfied with these expressions of papal approval; possibly he had in
the first instance obtained the submission of the Irish prelates by
representing himself as commissioned by Pope Alexander to reform their
Church; however this may be, it would seem that a synod was held at
Waterford to which William Fitz-Audelin brought probably Alexander’s
letters and certainly the letter of Adrian (that famous centre of
controversy “the Bull _Laudabiliter_,” so called from its beginning with
the word _Laudabiliter_ and, as befits an Irish document, its not being
a Bull),[30] and with it a confirmation by Pope Alexander, which was
almost undoubtedly a forgery.
But before this synod of Waterford was held much had happened. Christmas
in 1171 had been spent by the king at Dublin, where an elaborate palace,
built of wattles in the native fashion, had been erected for him, and
where the magnificence and luxury of his household, simple though it was
if judged by continental standards, struck surprise into the minds of
the Irish. But if the royal table presented a spectacle of unwonted
luxury to the natives, the food of the country, the absence of wine, and
the impurity of the water proved disastrous to the English. An
exceptionally stormy winter aggravated the scarcity of provisions and
consequent mortality, prevented operations against Roderic of Connaught,
and by severing all connection with England left Henry a prey to
unappeasable anxiety. Early in March 1172, news having possibly reached
him of the arrival of the papal legates in Normandy, he moved down to
Wexford, the greater part of his army going at the end of the month to
Waterford; but for over six weeks the weather rendered the crossing to
Wales impossible, and it was not till Easter Monday, 17th April, that
Henry landed near St. David’s, whence he made his way to Portsmouth,
from which place he crossed to Normandy early in May.
The arrival of the papal legates, coupled with rumours of a conspiracy
being formed by the young King Henry and his brothers, had compelled
Henry to return from Ireland without attempting the subjugation of the
Ard-Righ and without strengthening his hold upon the portions of the
island already conquered by the erection of a series of castles. Before
leaving, however, he took measures intended apparently to weaken the
power of the original adventurers alike for action independent of
himself and for the oppression of the natives. The government of Dublin,
with the province of Meath, he granted to Hugh de Lacy, a man of
character and ability, who justified his selection by adopting a just
and conciliatory policy towards the Irish. With him were associated in
the charge of the city Robert Fitz-Stephen and Meiler Fitz-Henry, while
Waterford and Wexford were committed to Robert Fitz-Bernard. Earl
Richard retained possession of Leinster, and was apparently recognised
as in control of the conquered portion of Ireland; while the province of
Ulster, whose chiefs had refused to accept the English supremacy, was
handed over to John de Courcy to subdue and enjoy as best he might.
The earl, who had made Kildare his chief seat, had bestowed his daughter
in marriage upon Robert de Quency, whom he created hereditary constable
of Leinster; but not long after the marriage Robert was killed in an
expedition against O’Dempsey of Offaly, leaving an infant daughter, who
eventually married the son of Maurice Prendergast. Raymond the Big then
demanded the hand of the earl’s widowed daughter, with the
constableship, and upon his demand being refused retired into Wales.
About the same time, in the summer of 1173, Henry, hard pressed by the
rebellion of his sons, summoned some of the leading barons from Ireland,
including Earl Richard, whom he made governor of Gisors. The appointment
was of short duration, and the earl was soon invested with the
government of Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford, and sent back to Ireland
with letters recalling Hugh de Lacy, Fitz-Stephen, Fitz-Bernard,
Prendergast, and others, who crossed at once, in time to take part in
the battle at Fornham on 17th October 1173. The English forces in
Ireland were thus seriously depleted, and an expedition led by the earl
and Hervey de Montmorency into Munster having ended disastrously, all
Ireland began to rise and endeavour to shake off the foreign yoke. Earl
Richard hastily sent for Raymond, promising him the hand of his
daughter, for which he had asked in vain before; Raymond responded to
the offer, landed with a small force at Waterford and marched to
Wexford, where he reduced the town to order and obtained his coveted
bride. Next year, in 1175, he led a force into Limerick and captured
that town, but his successes, and possibly his excesses also, were
displeasing to King Henry, and early in 1176 he was summoned to England
to account for his actions. The state of affairs at Limerick, however,
was too desperate to permit of his absence, and after relieving the
garrison he thought it good policy to obtain a renewal of their oaths of
fealty to the king of England from the kings of Connaught and Thomond.
Raymond was therefore still in Ireland at the beginning of June 1176,
when Earl Richard died and William Fitz-Audelin landed as procurator or
justiciary of Ireland.
Fitz-Audelin and his two coadjutors, Miles de Cogan and Robert
Fitz-Stephen, were recalled in 1177, and Hugh de Lacy was appointed
justiciary, Fitz-Audelin being associated with Robert le Poer in the
custody of Waterford and Wexford, Miles and Robert receiving South
Munster, and North Munster, as yet unsubdued, being granted to Philip de
Braose,[31] from which he got as little good as he deserved. For the
next seven years Henry left Ireland pretty much to itself, and Lacy
continued to strengthen the position of the English settlement by
building castles and by a firm but conciliatory attitude towards the
natives. Unfortunately his success, coupled with his marriage with a
daughter of the king of Connaught, aroused Henry’s jealousy, and in 1184
he was removed from office. As early as 1177 Henry had declared his
intention of making his young son John king of Ireland, and in 1185 the
furtherance of this design afforded an excuse for keeping the beloved
boy from the distant dangers of the Crusade. John was at this time in
his nineteenth year, vain, pampered, vicious, and as completely void of
any redeeming virtue as any young man could be. His father, to whom he
was as the apple of his eye, could hardly have found in all his broad
realms any person more dangerously incompetent to undertake the
difficult government of Ireland.
On 31st March 1185, the king knighted his son at Windsor, and almost
immediately afterwards John set out, under the charge of Ranulph de
Glanville, the justiciar, for Gloucester. After a few days’ stay in that
city the heavy baggage and provisions for the expedition, with the
greater part of the forces, were sent on to Bristol, while John himself
with the remainder passed on to Milford Haven, whence he sailed for
Waterford on 24th April. His force was of imposing dimensions--it is
said to have contained three hundred knights--and as we find such men as
William le Poer and Stephen le Flemeng each bringing fifty horses, the
total number of the cavalry must have been large; there was probably a
contingent of Flemish mercenaries, as Godescalk, “the master of the
Flemish serjeants,” came from Kent, and there must have been the usual
proportions of archers and foot soldiers. Significant is the entry on
the Pipe Rolls of payments for Roger Rastel and other huntsmen with
horses and dogs who went from Somerset into Ireland, and still more
significant are the entries of large sums spent in furnishing John’s
kitchen and bakery. The bulk of John’s followers were Norman courtiers,
despising their English companions, who in turn regarded the Irish as
despicable savages. On John’s arrival the friendly chieftains came to
welcome the son of the most powerful prince in Christendom, but found an
ill-mannered youth surrounded by a crowd of fashionable effeminate
flatterers. The Normans mocked at the barbaric dress of the native
princes, and carried their ill-bred insolence so far as to pluck them by
their long beards. In justifiable anger the princes left the court at
Waterford and went to warn their compatriots of the treatment in store
for them. The kings of Connaught, Limerick, and Cork, who had meditated
tendering their fealty to John, now naturally held aloof, and soon the
faithful natives were driven by the insults and injuries suffered at the
hands of the invaders into active revolt. Meanwhile the newcomers had
completely alienated the early settlers, depriving them of their
hard-won conquests and distributing offices of importance and honour
with a complete disregard for the fitness of the candidates. The Norman
courtiers, used to the luxurious life of large towns and the
aristocratic campaigning of the Continent, utterly refused to endure the
hardships inseparable from service in the interior of the country, and
clung to the seaboard towns where alone wine was available. Hugh de Lacy
and the barons who had won and held Leinster by their strength and
military ability kept grimly aloof and watched disaster after disaster
overtake the incompetent and inexperienced army of invasion.
Matters soon reached such a pitch that it was clear that some man of
ability must be put in command, and accordingly in the autumn of 1185
John de Courcy, whose conquest of Ulster had proved him to be a warrior
of consummate skill and daring, was appointed chief governor with
excellent effect, and two months later Prince John returned to England.
He had no difficulty in persuading his infatuated father that his
failure was due to the treachery of Hugh de Lacy, and it was with
unconcealed delight that Henry heard of Lacy’s murder in 1186. Early in
that same year Pope Urban III. had acceded to Henry’s request for the
coronation of John as king of Ireland, and had even sent him a crown of
gold and peacocks’ feathers--borrowed plumes sufficiently suitable for
the empty head they were to adorn. John was therefore despatched to
Ireland to seize Lacy’s great fief into the king’s hand in August, but
before he could sail news arrived of the death of his brother Geoffrey,
and he was recalled. For the remaining three years of his reign Henry
was too busy with English and foreign affairs to devote his attention to
Ireland.
CHAPTER VII
THE REBELLION OF THE YOUNG KING
Henry had left Ireland, as we have seen, on 17th April 1172, and about
the second week in May he crossed from Portsmouth to Barfleur with a
considerable following, at least twenty-five ships accompanying him. On
17th May he met the cardinals at Savigny, and was informed by them of
the terms offered by the pope for his reconciliation to the Church. It
would seem that these included the entire abrogation of the
Constitutions of Clarendon, and to this Henry absolutely declined to
consent, declaring that sooner than accept these conditions he would
return to Ireland. The diplomatic Bishop Arnulf of Lisieux now
intervened and succeeded in effecting a compromise, and on Sunday, 21st
May, Henry came to the cathedral of Avranches and was absolved from the
guilt of the murder of Becket on a promise to comply with the modified
requirements of the legates. He was to find the money to support two
hundred men-at-arms for one year in the Holy Land, to go for three years
on Crusade, to restore the property of the church of Canterbury, and
take back into favour all who had suffered for their support of the
archbishop; he was also to support the claims of Alexander and his
successors against the schismatics, to permit appeals to the pope in
ecclesiastical causes, and to abolish all customs injurious to the
Church which had been newly introduced in his reign. The wording of the
last clause left matters exactly as they were at the beginning of the
quarrel with Becket, for the whole point of the dispute was Henry’s
contention that the Constitutions were in force in the time of his
grandfather. The final issue of the conflict was thus decidedly in
Henry’s favour, and the murder, instead of proving, as it must have done
in the case of a less able man, disastrous, had actually been
beneficial. The king’s strength is also shown in his dealings with the
four knights who had murdered the archbishop; a weaker man would almost
certainly have sacrificed the murderers to appease public opinion, but
Henry, admitting that they had acted on his behalf though not in accord
with his intentions, took no action against them, possibly not sorry to
let ecclesiastical claims reduce themselves to a logical absurdity by
showing that the Church could only deal with the ecclesiastical offence
of the murder of an archbishop by the ineffective method of
excommunication.
The young King Henry was present at the ceremony at Avranches and joined
with his father in swearing to obey the terms imposed, so far as they
were not personal to the elder king; but it would seem that the
representatives of France and other important personages were absent,
and it was therefore arranged that the ceremony should be repeated at a
later date at Caen. The absolution was duly repeated about Michaelmas,
but whether at Caen or again at Avranches is not quite clear. Meanwhile
Henry had arranged for the deferred coronation of his son’s wife
Margaret, the daughter of King Louis. It has already been mentioned
that, much to her father’s anger, she had not been crowned with her
husband, but it would seem that Henry had had the genuine intention of
allowing her to be crowned subsequently. He appears to have promised
Becket that he should officiate, and it may have been for this purpose
that Margaret crossed over to England in September 1170. She remained at
Winchester until 3rd April 1171, when she crossed again to Normandy, and
was no doubt with her husband at Christmas that year, when the young
Henry held his court at Bur-le-Roi, to which flocked the chivalry in
such numbers that it is recorded that in one hall there dined together a
hundred and three knights whose Christian name was William. In August
1172 Margaret and her husband went back to England, and on the 27th of
that month they were crowned together in Winchester Cathedral by Rotrou,
Archbishop of Rouen, and the Bishops of Evreux and Worcester. Their stay
was not of long duration, as early in November they were summoned back
to Normandy by the old king. They obeyed unwillingly, but instead of
joining the English court paid a visit to King Louis, who seized the
opportunity to urge upon the young Henry that he should demand from his
father the complete sovereignty of either England or Normandy, or at any
rate something more substantial than the shadowy royalty which he had
hitherto enjoyed. The counsel fell on willing ears; the prince had long
smarted under his father’s strict control and the surveillance of
ministers who were practically his masters, and he was in no mind to
remain a king without a kingdom and without even a sufficient income.
After Christmas, which the young king and his queen kept at Bonneville
while the elder Henry and Eleanor were at Chinon, the two Henrys went to
Montferrand and afterwards to Limoges to negotiate for the marriage of
John, now six years old, with Alais, daughter and heir of the powerful
Count Hubert of Maurienne, lord of Savoy. The count undertook to make a
most liberal provision for the young couple, but when it came to Henry’s
turn to fix what he would bestow upon them he named the castellanies of
Chinon, Loudun, and Mirabeau. The young Henry at once indignantly
protested that these castles belonged to him as Count of Anjou, and
absolutely declined to make them over to his brother. This, combined
with his father’s action in refusing to increase either his power or his
allowance and in removing from his company certain young men of bad
influence, roused the young king’s resentment, which was sedulously
fanned by his mother, Queen Eleanor. The latter, egged on by her uncle,
Ralph de Faye, urged her son to open rebellion, and afterwards
persuaded his brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, to join him in opposition
to their father. At last, on 5th March, the young king slipped away, and
evading pursuit reached the court of Louis.
The rebellion thus begun bore a formidable aspect and seemed to have
every prospect of success. Young Henry was an admirable centre for the
concentration of the disaffected. Tall, remarkably handsome, and adding
to his father’s charm of manner an open-handed liberality which the
elder Henry lacked, he was already earning the reputation which he
established a few years later as the flower of chivalry, while his
apparently complete lack of solid qualities in no way detracted from his
popularity. In the struggle with his father he could of course count
upon the assistance of King Louis, and though that king was singularly
incompetent his resources were very considerable. The more lawless
English lords, whose wings had been clipped by Henry’s anti-feudal
legislation, might also be counted upon; and in this category were old
Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, the other Earl Hugh, he of Chester, the
young Earl of Leicester, son of the loyal justiciar who had died in
1168, Earl Ferrers of Derby, and Roger Mowbray. The discontented lords
whose lands lay within Henry’s continental domains were still more
numerous, and included the Counts of Ponthieu, Evreux, Eu, and Meulan,
William de Tancarville, chamberlain of Normandy, and Geoffrey and Guy de
Lusignan. Amongst those who seem to have supported the young king out
of affection for him rather than out of hatred of his father were
William Marshal, younger son of Becket’s adversary and one of the most
brilliant knights of his time, Hasculf de Saint Hilaire, Robert Tregoz,
and William de Dives. Further important allies were secured by
recklessly liberal promises of reward: to Count Philip of Flanders young
Henry promised the county of Kent with the castles of Dover and
Rochester and £1000 of rent; to his brother, the Count of Boulogne, the
county of Mortain and other lands; to Theobald, Count of Blois, the
castle of Amboise and £500 of rents from Anjou; and a little later, when
the unsatisfactory state of affairs in Normandy rendered desirable a
diversion in England, Westmoreland with Carlisle and possibly also
Northumberland were offered to King William of Scotland, while to his
brother David the earldom of Huntingdon and Cambridge was granted.
On the other hand, though his continental domains were seething with
discontent, King Henry could count upon powerful support from the
English magnates. The Earls of Cornwall, Surrey, Arundel, Essex,
Northampton, and Salisbury could be relied upon; Richard “Strongbow” of
Pembroke was loyal, though too much engaged with affairs in Ireland to
be of much assistance; and William of Gloucester, though married to the
young Earl of Leicester’s sister, would be at worst neutral. The best
part of the baronage, headed by the great justiciar, Richard de Luci,
“the Loyal,” were to be depended upon, and included men of the military
ability of Humphrey de Bohun, Robert de Stuteville, William de Vesci,
and Odinell de Umfraville. The kings of Wales, David ap Owain and the
redoubtable Rhys ap Gruffudd, with their hardy warriors, were also
allies not to be despised. The valuable support of the Church was also,
contrary to what might have been expected, strongly on the elder king’s
side, the only conspicuous exceptions being the Bishop of Durham and,
curiously enough, Henry’s former ardent partisan, Arnulf of Lisieux. To
further strengthen his position Henry now filled up the six vacant
English bishoprics, taking the opportunity to promote his faithful
archdeacons; Richard of Ilchester, Archdeacon of Poictiers, receiving
the see of Winchester, Geoffrey Ridel of Canterbury that of Ely, and
Reynold, Archdeacon of Salisbury, that of Bath; Robert Foliot,
Archdeacon of Lincoln and brother of the Bishop of London, obtained
Hereford, Joscelin was promoted from the deanery to the bishopric of
Chichester, and the great see of Lincoln was bestowed upon the king’s
illegitimate son Geoffrey. In this manner Henry showed his obedience to
the papal demand that the vacant sees should be filled, and at the same
time he obtained practical control of the episcopal bench. The primacy
was for a time left unfilled, owing to disputes between the monks of
Canterbury and the bishops of the province, and to other causes; but in
June, Richard, Prior of Dover, was elected by general consent, and, by
a happy coincidence, on the day of his election there arrived a letter
from the pope announcing that the martyred Thomas of Canterbury had been
enrolled amongst the saints.
Thanks to his wise policy in encouraging the trading and mercantile
communities and in protecting the small men from the oppression of the
great, Henry had on his side the bulk of the populace and especially the
citizens of London, Rouen, and the other great towns. Finally, he had
great financial resources, and it was this abundance of money that
turned the scale in his favour by enabling him not only to hire large
numbers of mercenaries but also to buy off many of the French nobles who
were supposed to be supporting his rebellious sons.
As soon as it was clear that his son had fled to raise the standard of
rebellion Henry proceeded to Gisors and set that and his other frontier
castles in a state of defence. While he was so doing a rumour reached
the rebels that he was advancing to attack them and they at once
prepared for battle. The young king had not yet been knighted, his
father having intended that King Louis should bestow the dignity upon
him; but feeling that it would befit his position as leader of the army
he now hastily sought the honour of knighthood at the hands of his
faithful comrade and instructor in the art of arms, William Marshal. The
alarm proved false; Henry, so far from attacking, retired to Rouen,
where he spent the greater part of the next four months hunting and
apparently ignoring the outbreak, but really keeping a watchful eye upon
events and waiting the opportunity to strike a crushing blow.
About the last week in June Henry appears to have made a hurried visit
to England, going straight to Northampton, spending four days there, and
then returning at once to Rouen.[32] Affairs in England were calculated
to give rise to some anxiety. Although so many castles had been thrown
down or taken into the king’s hand since the beginning of his reign a
considerable number still remained in private hands, and of these at
least a score were now held for the rebels. On the east coast Hugh Bigot
held Framlingham and Bungay; in the Midlands, Huntingdon was held for
David of Scotland; the Earl of Leicester had Leicester, Mountsorel, and
Groby; the Earl Ferrers Tutbury and Duffield; while Chester was held for
Earl Hugh. In the north the Bishop of Durham had fortified Durham,
Norham, and Northallerton, and Mowbray held Thirsk, Malzeard, and
Axholme; Hamo de Masci had castles at Dunham and Ullerwood, Geoffrey de
Costantin at Stockport, and Richard de Morville at Lauder, and there
were a number of smaller fortresses which might prove centres of
danger. The castles in the hands of the king and his supporters must
have been at least five times as numerous, and the royal officers
speedily set in order those in the districts most likely to be
affected--the south-east, exposed to the raids of Flemish and French,
and the north, where the Scots were to be feared. Porchester,
Southampton, and Winchester were strengthened, so were Arundel,
Chichester, and Hastings; in Kent much money was spent on the castles of
Dover, Canterbury, Rochester, and Chilham; the Tower of London was of
course a centre of activity; at Oreford the outer defences were
strengthened; Walton, Colchester, and Norwich were garrisoned; so were
Hertford, Cambridge, Wisbeach, and Lincoln. Windsor, Oxford,
Berkhamstead, Wallingford, Kenilworth, Warwick, Worcester, Nottingham,
and the Peak carried the chain of royal strongholds across the country,
while in the north were York, Bowes, Richmond, Carlisle, Prudhoe,
Appleby, Wark, and Newcastle. For the present the chief centre of danger
seemed to be Leicester, and it was no doubt as a result of the king’s
flying visit to Northampton that operations were set on foot early in
July against Leicester.
About the time that Henry returned to Rouen, on 29th June, Count Philip
of Flanders captured Aumâle, probably by the connivance of its defender,
Count William of Aumâle, and, after a more energetic resistance, the
castle of Driencourt. This last success, however, was neutralised by the
death of Philip’s brother, Count Matthew of Boulogne. Meanwhile the
French army under King Louis and the young King Henry was vainly
besieging Verneuil. Hugh de Lacy and Hugh de Beauchamp, who were in
command of the defence, had no difficulty in repelling their attacks,
but after a month’s siege provisions ran short in the outermost of the
three “bourgs” into which the town was divided, and the inhabitants
agreed that if they were not relieved before 9th August they would
surrender, the French on their side swearing to do them no harm. Henry,
realising that instant action was necessary, advanced at once, burning
the Earl of Leicester’s abandoned castle of Breteuil on the way. When
the two armies were in sight of one another on 8th August Louis sent
envoys and obtained a truce until the next day, and Henry, not
suspecting his good faith, retired to Conches. Next day Louis demanded
the surrender of the bourg in accordance with the former agreement, and
at once treacherously set it on fire and, adding cowardice to treachery,
fled back to France, hotly pursued with great slaughter by Henry. The
centre of action now shifted to Brittany, where the turbulent Breton
nobles had risen under Ralph of Fougères and the Earl of Chester.
Against them Henry sent a strong force of Brabantine mercenaries under
William de Humez, who inflicted a very severe defeat on the rebels,
capturing Hasculf de Saint Hilaire, William Patrie and others, and
driving the remainder of the force into the castle of Dol. A messenger
was sent off at full gallop to Henry at Rouen, and by an almost
incredibly rapid forced march he covered the whole distance from Rouen
to Dol, over 150 miles, in two days.[33] Earl Hugh and Ralph of
Fougères, seeing that resistance was hopeless, surrendered on 29th
August, and by this single stroke eighty persons of rank and position
and a number of men of lesser estate were captured and the rebellion in
Brittany stamped out. The time now seemed ripe for a reconciliation, and
on 25th September Henry met his three sons and King Louis near Gisors.
The terms offered by the king to his sons were liberal in the extreme,
but the French king had no wish to see peace restored and he persuaded
them to reject the terms. The Earl of Leicester also, who had all
arrangements made for an invasion of England, did his insolent best to
keep the quarrel alive.
We have seen that early in July preparations had been made for the siege
of Leicester. On the 22nd of that month the town surrendered to the Earl
of Cornwall and Richard de Luci; the inhabitants were allowed to
withdraw to St. Albans and other places of refuge and the town was set
on fire. The castle, however, still held out, and in September news from
the north caused the siege to be raised. King William of Scotland,
having vainly offered his services to the elder Henry in return for a
grant of Northumberland, accepted the younger Henry’s promise of
Westmoreland and assembled a large army to reduce the northern counties.
His first move was against the castle of Wark, where Roger de Stuteville
was in command; Roger obtained a truce of forty days and the Scottish
army passed on, ravaging and burning as they went, and after an
ineffectual attack on William de Vesci’s castle of Alnwick captured
Warkworth Castle. Newcastle, held for the king by Roger Fitz-Richard,
Lord of Warkworth, proved too strong for the invaders, and their efforts
were next directed against Carlisle. Here Robert de Vaux made a gallant
defence, and news arriving of the advance of the English relieving force
the Scots retreated to Roxburgh in full flight. Richard de Luci, with
the troops he had brought from Leicester, and Humphrey de Bohun, with a
detachment of mercenary cavalry, pursued them across the border and
burnt Berwick. But news reached them that the Earl of Leicester had
landed with a force of Flemings at Walton on 29th September. Bohun at
once turned southwards, while Luci negotiated with the Scottish king
before the news of Leicester’s landing could reach the latter. A truce
was obtained to last until January, and by the Bishop of Durham’s
mediation this was afterwards extended to April 1174.
The Earl of Leicester, on landing, had spent four days in a fruitless
endeavour to capture Walton Castle, but finding it too strong to be
taken, although Earl Hugh of Norfolk had brought a siege train to his
assistance, he turned aside and attacked Haughley. This fortress, held
by Ranulph de Broc, Becket’s old adversary, was speedily captured and
given to the flames, and then the earl’s initiative appears to have died
out and he was content to quarter himself idly at Framlingham until Earl
Hugh gave him a strong hint that he was outstaying his welcome. At last
he decided to try and reach Leicester, and on 17th October he started,
with the intention of passing to the north of Bury St. Edmunds. At the
latter town the royalists, under Humphrey de Bohun, had been reinforced
by troops under the Earls of Cornwall and Arundel, local levies under
Roger le Bigod, the loyal son of old Earl Hugh, and Hugh de Cressi, and
a detachment of hardy fighting men from Ireland. Setting out with St.
Edmund’s banner at their head they came upon the Flemings at Fornham-St.
Geneveve. In actual numbers the advantage lay with the Earl of
Leicester, but his followers were almost entirely infantry of poor
quality, quite unfitted to cope with the powerful cavalry opposed to
them, and it was only a matter of minutes before the Flemings had been
ridden down and scattered, a prey for the country people, who bore them
no good-will. Earl Robert and his cousin, Hugh de Chastel, were
captured, and the gallant Countess Peronelle, clad in mail, falling into
a stream in her flight, was with difficulty rescued from a death which
she preferred to the disgrace of surrender. A halt was now made and
forces collected to crush Earl Hugh, but with the aid of his wealth he
bought a truce for himself and permission for the Flemish mercenaries
still in England to leave the country unharmed.
Henry, having seen the captured earl and countess safely lodged in the
castle of Falaise, led an army into Anjou in November and captured
Preuilly, La Haye, and Champigny with a large number of men of rank. The
year 1173 thus ended favourably for the elder king, and truces with the
kings of France and Scotland ensured peace until the close of Easter,
31st March 1174. But with the beginning of April the struggle began
again. The Scottish king crossed the border and besieged Wark, raiding
as far as Bamborough, where William de Vesci’s castle proved too strong
to be attacked. Roger de Stuteville offered a vigorous defence, and the
besiegers’ artillery proving more deadly to themselves than to the
garrison, King William abandoned the siege of Wark and concentrated his
efforts on Carlisle. He had been joined by Roger Mowbray and Adam de
Port, a Norman baron who had been banished and deprived of his English
estates in 1172 for conspiring against Henry, and his army included the
inevitable execrated Flemish mercenaries. Ruthless as these Flemish
adventurers were, they were less inhuman than the savage Highlanders and
men of Galloway who accompanied them. From Carlisle plundering bands
ravaged and destroyed the northern counties, while more warlike
expeditions captured the border forts of Liddel and Harbottle. Far more
serious was the tame surrender of Appleby Castle: the aged Gospatric,
son of Orm, the English constable of the castle, was possibly too old
for his responsible position, and his lack of confidence would seem to
have affected the garrison, amongst whom were the steward of Hugh de
Morville, the murderer of Becket, and one John de Morville, probably
connections of Richard de Morville, who was a prominent supporter of the
Scottish king. This success was followed up by the capture, after a
desperate resistance, of Brough-under-Stanemore, and the general trend
of affairs induced Robert de Vaux to obtain a truce for Carlisle on
undertaking to surrender at Michaelmas if not relieved before that date.
Henry, after assuring himself of the loyalty of Maine and Anjou in the
spring of 1174, had entered Poitou and inflicted a crushing defeat on
the troops of his son Richard at Saintes in May. Messages had been
reaching him for some time past from the justiciar, who was besieging
Huntingdon, urging his return to England, and on his arrival at
Bonneville in Normandy on 24th June he was met by Richard of Ilchester,
bishop-elect of Winchester, with news of the gravity of affairs. There
was no mistaking the significance of the selection of Richard--“they
could not have sent a more urgent messenger, unless they had sent the
Tower of London”--and Henry at once prepared to cross to England. He
accordingly embarked at Barfleur on 7th July, and being determined to
leave no centres of disaffection behind him, he carried with him the
Earls of Chester and Leicester, Queen Eleanor, who had been captured the
previous year trying to reach the French court in male disguise, and
Queen Margaret. The weather was stormy but the wind was in the right
direction, and Henry bade the shipmen set sail, saying solemnly, “If
what I purpose is for the peace of Church and people, and if the King of
Heaven has decreed that peace shall be restored by my coming, then in
His mercy may He grant me a safe passage. But if He has turned His face
from me and has decreed to afflict the kingdom with a rod, then may it
never be mine to set foot on shore.” The voyage to Southampton was
accomplished in safety, and Henry at once proceeded, fasting and with
all signs of humility, to Canterbury, where on 12th July he performed
public penance at the tomb of St. Thomas. The Bishop of London delivered
an address on the king’s behalf, disavowing all share in the murder, but
admitting that his rash words had been the actual cause of it; then,
after long remaining in prayer at the tomb, the king submitted to a
ceremonial scourging at the hands of all the monks of the convent of
Christ Church. Finally he made a grant of lands to the monastery in
memory of the martyr, and probably at the same time settled a small
income upon Becket’s married sister, Roese,[34] his other sister, Mary,
having been appointed in the previous year Abbess of Berking.
The news of Henry’s landing put an end to the plans of the younger king
for an invasion of England, which he had contemplated in company with
Philip of Flanders. He had even gone so far as to send over three
hundred picked Flemish knights under Ralph de la Haye in June. They had
landed at Orewell, placed themselves under the command of Earl Hugh of
Norfolk, and, after being repulsed from Dunwich, had captured the
wealthy city of Norwich by treachery and gained thereby great plunder if
little military advantage. This occurred on 18th June, and the news
apparently caused the justiciar to relinquish the siege of Huntingdon,
leaving Earl Simon of Northampton, who claimed the earldom of
Huntingdon, to win the castle and the county for himself. As we have
already seen an urgent message was despatched to the king, and about the
same time Robert de Vaux obtained conditions for Carlisle. The Scottish
army being thus set free for fresh enterprises Roger Mowbray urged King
William to move southwards to his assistance, his strongholds of Axholme
and Malzeard having fallen before the troops of Geoffrey, the king’s
illegitimate son, the young bishop-elect of Lincoln, and Thirsk being
threatened. William preferred the less hazardous course of keeping near
his own borders, and laid siege to Odinal de Umfraville’s castle of
Prudhoe. The castle was strong and well provisioned, and Odinal
succeeded in getting away to raise forces for its relief. Preparing to
retreat into his own country, the Scottish king sent detachments of his
army under Earl Duncan, the Earl of Angus, and Richard de Morville to
ravage the country, while he with a small body of knights made a
demonstration against Alnwick. The English forces under Ranulf de
Glanvill, Odinal de Umfraville, Robert de Stuteville, William de Vesci,
and Bernard de Baillol left Newcastle at daybreak on 13th July, and,
favoured by a mist, surprised King William and his attendants close to
Alnwick. William the Lion did not surrender tamely, but, mounting his
horse, led his men against the foe. The odds were too heavy, however;
the king’s charger was killed and he himself pinned to the ground by its
fall, Roger de Mowbray and Adam de Port fled for safety, but the
Scottish knights fought for their lord so long as resistance was
possible. Thus on the day, possibly even at the hour, on which Henry
completed his penance at the tomb of St. Thomas his most dangerous
opponent was made prisoner. The good news was despatched at once by a
mounted messenger, who found Henry resting at London, where he had had a
most enthusiastic reception upon his arrival. The king, who was unwell,
was asleep, but the messenger would brook no delay, and the news of
William’s capture, which Henry could at first hardly believe, proved
good medicine for the sick man. The nobles at court were at once told
the news, and next day
[Illustration: SEAL OF WILLIAM THE LION (1/1)]
all the bells of London’s six score churches rang in joy that the
rebellion in England was at an end.
A few days later the king advanced to Huntingdon, which surrendered to
him on 21st July. He then turned to attack Earl Hugh’s castle of
Framlingham, and by the 24th had advanced with his siege train as far as
Seleham; but next day the earl met him there, gave up his castles of
Bungay and Framlingham, and agreed to pay a heavy fine for his offence
and to make amends for the damage wrought by his soldiers; he was at
once restored to his earldom, and his Flemish troops were permitted to
leave the country unmolested, but not to take any property with them.
During this interview, which took place on horseback in the open air,
the king was kicked on the leg by the horse of Tostes de St. Omer, a
Templar of prominence, but the injury did not prevent his going on to
Northampton, where the last act of the rebellion in England was played.
Bishop Hugh Puiset, who had brought over a detachment of Flemings under
command of his nephew, the Count of Bar, on the very day on which the
Scottish king was captured, had sent back the infantry at once, but had
retained his nephew and his men-at-arms until the fortune of war had set
definitely in Henry’s favour; he now made submission, gave up his
castles of Durham, Northallerton, and Norham, and dismissed his foreign
allies. The Earl of Clare, who was believed to have been plotting action
with Gilbert Munfichet when the latter fortified his London castle,
tendered assurances of loyalty. Roger Mowbray surrendered Thirsk;
Ansketil Malory, who had defended Leicester so well, and had even
attacked and defeated the loyalists at Northampton, gave up his master’s
castles of Leicester, Groby, and Mountsorel; and Earl Ferrers, who not
long before had sacked Nottingham, gave up Tutbury, which had been
besieged for some time past by Rhys and his Welshmen. Rhys was rewarded
by a grant of the castle and district of “Emelin,” while the loyalty of
David ap Owain of North Wales was recompensed by the hand of Emma, King
Henry’s half-sister.
Although affairs in England had been settled so satisfactorily there was
no time to be lost; taking advantage of Henry’s absence King Louis had
pressed forward with the young King Henry and invested Rouen. The town
was devoted to the elder Henry’s interests; it was well provisioned and
was in no great danger, but it was clearly desirable that it should be
relieved as soon as possible, and on 8th August Henry sailed for
Barfleur, carrying his more important prisoners with him and taking back
not only the Brabantine mercenaries he had brought over in June but also
a number of Welsh troops. These latter on 12th August, the day after
their arrival at Rouen, crossed the Seine and made a bold and successful
raid on the French camp, and next day a sally from the town resulted in
the easy destruction of the defensive works of the besiegers’ camp. When
the war had opened just a year before, in August 1173, with the siege
of Verneuil, Louis had shown a blend of treachery, cowardice, and
incompetence, and now that the war was closing with this siege of Rouen
his conduct displayed the same features. Just before Henry’s arrival, on
St. Laurence’s Day (10th August), the French king had declared a truce
in honour of the saint and then made secret preparations for storming
the city; fortunately some priests, who happened to be on the belfry
looking at the view, saw the movement in the enemy’s camp and rang the
tocsin; the citizens flew to arms, and the French took therefrom no
advantage but dishonour and disgrace. On the day after the successful
sally the French burnt their siege engines and fled, Louis staving off
pursuit by proposing a conference at Malannai next day, but again
breaking his word and flying into France.
Negotiations were opened on 8th September at Gisors, but as Richard was
still defying his father in Poitou a settlement was postponed and Henry
went in pursuit of his warlike son. A couple of weeks sufficed to bring
Richard to terms, and on the last day of September conditions of peace
were drawn up. The followers of the young king were released from the
allegiance they had sworn to him, and were received back into the king’s
favour and as full possession of their lands as they had at the time war
broke out; prisoners were released without ransom, except such as had
already come to terms and also excepting the King of Scotland, the
Earls of Leicester and Chester, and Ralph of Fougères; all castles that
had been built or strengthened during the rebellion were to be restored
to their former condition, and, indeed, so far as possible everything
was to resume its previous existence. The young King Henry was granted
two castles in Normandy and a yearly allowance of £15,000 Angevin money
(£3600 English); Richard should have two castles of no strategic
importance in Poitou and half the revenues of that province, and
Geoffrey half the inheritance of Constance, daughter of Count Conan of
Brittany, and the whole when he married her. At the same time the young
king agreed to the bestowal upon his youngest brother, John, of the
castles of Nottingham and Marlborough, and £1000 from the English
revenues, as well as castles and rents in Normandy, Anjou, and Maine.
Richard and Geoffrey then did homage to their father, but this ceremony
was dispensed with in Henry’s case out of deference to his rank of king.
Finally, in December, King William the Lion obtained his release from
the prison at Falaise by becoming the vassal of Henry and undertaking to
hold Scotland under the English king. To ensure the fulfilment of this
treaty the castles of Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, and
Stirling were surrendered to Henry. The close of 1174 thus found Henry
completely triumphant and the formidable combination of his enemies
absolutely shattered.
[Illustration: SEALS OF GEOFFREY, SON OF HENRY II, AND CONSTANCE OF
BRITTANY, HIS WIFE (1/1)]
CHAPTER VIII
HENRY AND HIS SONS--HIS DOWNFALL AND DEATH
The economic effects of the rebellion were far-reaching. Those who had
been involved in it returned, it is true, nominally to the position in
which they had been before the outbreak, but their lands had been
systematically ravaged, their castles given to the flames, and blackened
ruins told for a generation the tale of their disastrous failure. So far
as England was concerned these effects were more localised and less
extensive. During the war Mowbray’s castles of Kirkby Malzeard and
Axholme had been destroyed, and at its close the same fate befell
Thirsk. Thetford and Brackley and the two Kentish castles of Allington
and Saltwood had been dismantled before the end of 1174, and so had
Geoffrey de Turville’s castle of Weston. Next year saw the overthrow of
Groby and Tutbury; Dudley, the castle of Earl Ferrers’ son-in-law,
Gervase Painel, was razed and its owner fined 500 marks for his share in
the revolt, his neighbour and comrade in arms, Hamo de Masci, being at
the same time fined 300 marks. The strongholds of Huntingdon and
Leicester were rendered incapable of again resisting the king’s forces,
and the great English military architect and engineer, Ælnoth, came down
to supervise the levelling of the walls of Framlingham Castle and the
filling of its fosse. For strategic reasons the fort at Walton, which
had successfully resisted the Flemish invaders, was destroyed in 1176,
and also the keep of Bennington, and the Bishop of Durham only saved his
castle of Northallerton by a payment of 2000 marks. What other castles
disappeared we do not know, but such as remained were taken into the
king’s hands, the Earl of Gloucester yielding Bristol and Gloucester
with great reluctance.
The expenses of the war must have strained Henry’s finances severely.
For the expeditions on the Scottish border alone we know that Ranulph de
Glanville and Robert de Stuteville paid over £2000 to their troops, and
the cost of the mercenaries employed on the Continent must have been
very heavy. A large but quite uncertain sum must have been obtained from
the ransom of the many important prisoners taken, and further
contributions were levied in the form of fines. The Earl of Leicester
was impleaded by Bertram de Verdon, Sheriff of Leicestershire, for
injuries done by his men and fined 500 marks. Nine citizens of York who
had sided with the rebels were fined 1300 marks between them, several of
them being also fined smaller sums for receiving goods belonging to
Flemings. These latter had been banished from England, saving their
lives at the expense of their property, and the township of Selby was
fined £5 for allowing Flemings to carry away their goods, William of
Selby 5 marks for not detaining Flemings whom he saw pass through the
town, and Fulk of Selby £10 for hiring his ship to the Flemings. For the
most part these foreigners were clothworkers, and their forfeited
property, consisting chiefly of wool, did not yield any great sum. A
more fruitful source of income arose from the estates of the Earl of
Leicester and his companions during the time that they were in arms
against the king, and from these only about £300 were obtained between
September 1174 and the restoration of the estates to their owners. Apart
from the 2600 marks assessed upon the citizens of York, the Earl of
Leicester, Gervase Painel, and Hamo de Masci, £500 was raised by smaller
fines upon persons who had sold horses or armour or given other
assistance to the rebels. Even adding in Earl Hugh’s fine of 700 marks
and the 500 marks which Gospatric was fined for the surrender of
Appleby, the total amount accounted for at the exchequer as wrung from
the vanquished party seems to have fallen far short of £4000. Searching
for some device to fill his empty coffers Henry hit upon the idea of
vigorously punishing all offences against the Forest Laws which had been
committed during the time of the disturbances. Accordingly, in August
1175, he held pleas of the forest at Nottingham and afterwards at York
in person and sent special commissioners to hold similar pleas in other
counties. The baronage protested, and Richard de Luci produced the
king’s own writ issued at the time of the war, apparently suspending the
Forest Laws and authorising any person to take wood and venison in the
royal forests. It is as difficult to understand why Henry issued such a
writ as it is to see upon what grounds he set it aside. Possibly a writ
intended to apply to certain special cases, such as the taking of
venison for the provisioning of the royal troops or of timber for
military works, had by a misunderstanding or error of wording been made
to apply generally, and Henry declined to accept responsibility for the
mistake. However this may be, it is clear that his action in pressing
these pleas was at least a piece of sharp practice, and the heavy fines
exacted can hardly be regarded in the circumstances as anything but
extortion. The sum of the fines inflicted appears to have been £13,450,
and although much of this was not paid at once and some was in the end
remitted, the eventual yield seems to have been quite £10,000. About
1700 persons were amerced; and when it is remembered that to these must
be added a large number of cases in which whole townships were fined, it
is clear that the total number of persons affected must have been very
large. A few fortunate counties, such as Kent, Sussex, Norfolk, and
Suffolk, contained no royal forests, but elsewhere every class of man
was swept into the legal net, from the great baron to the villein and
including the clergy. Henry had indeed succeeded in wringing from the
papal legate, Cardinal Ugoccione, the concession that the clergy should
be subject to the Forest Laws.
The legate had been sent over to settle the rival claims of the sees of
Canterbury and York, but his arrival only tended to aggravate matters.
At a synod held at Westminster on 18th March 1176, the endeavours of
Archbishop Roger of York to oust Richard of Canterbury from his seat of
honour on the legate’s right hand led to a disgraceful scuffle, in which
Archbishop Roger was attacked by the supporters of the southern primate,
knocked down, and in the end ignominiously ejected from the chapel. The
legate indignantly dismissed the synod and was with difficulty persuaded
to retain his official position. In July he left England, having
accomplished practically nothing in the matter of the rival sees. If
popular rumour was correct in believing that he had been sounded by
Henry on the question of a divorce from Queen Eleanor, in this matter
also there had been no result. The one important result of his visit had
been that the clergy were for the future to be subject to the Forest
Laws and also to plead in the king’s court in matters touching lay fees.
It is said that by way of compensation Henry recognised their exemption
from lay jurisdiction in all other matters, agreed not to make a
practice of retaining vacant bishoprics and abbeys in his hands, and
granted that the murder of a clerk should be punished by forfeiture.
Even if these concessions were made they were far from reconciling those
of the clerical party who still held Becket’s ideal of the supremacy of
the Church.
Restored to favour with the pope and victorious over as formidable a
combination of his enemies as could well be formed against him, Henry
was now at the height of his power, recognised throughout Europe as a
prince whose friendship was worth seeking. In his court at Westminster
on 12th November 1176, might have been seen ambassadors from the Emperor
Manuel of Constantinople, the Emperor Frederic, the Duke of Saxony, the
Count of Flanders, and the Archbishop of Rheims. About the same time
also came a joint mission from the Kings of Castile and Navarre asking
Henry to arbitrate between them in a dispute about certain castles and
other territory. Accordingly, in the following March Henry heard the
arguments of the rival embassies and gave his decision after
consultation with the peers of his court, sentencing each side to make
restitution to the other and further condemning the King of Castile to
pay to Navarre 3000 maravedis a year for the next ten years. This King
Alphonso of Castile had married Henry’s daughter Eleanor in 1170, and
about the time that the subject of this arbitration was first broached,
at the end of 1176, another of Henry’s daughters, Joan, was on her way
to marry King William of Sicily. Negotiations for the marriage had been
opened earlier in the year, and after her
[Illustration: SEALS OF JOAN, DAUGHTER OF HENRY II (1/1)
(Silver Matrix in B.M.)]
trousseaux had been bought in London, at a cost of over £100 (say £2500
of modern money), she travelled through France with a brilliant retinue
to St. Gilles, where she found awaiting her the Sicilian nobles and the
Bishop of Norwich. The unfortunate bishop had been sent on ahead earlier
in the year to Sicily to make final arrangements and had had a very
rough time; the country through which he passed was suffering from
famine and he could hardly get provisions for himself or his horse;
accommodation sometimes failed completely, so that he had to sleep on
the rocks or sand of the seashore, and when he had a roof over his head
he found that the fleas had no reverence for his episcopal or
ambassadorial dignity, so that he was very pleased to complete his
mission by handing the princess over to the Sicilians and to hurry back
to England in time for the Christmas festivities at the court at
Nottingham.
Two other marriages occupied the king’s attention about this time. The
young daughter of Count Hubert of Maurienne having died, Henry had to
find another heiress as bride for his favourite son John, and ultimately
decided that the great estates of the Earl of Gloucester would make a
suitable endowment for the landless prince. The earl had three
daughters, of whom two were already married to the Earl of Hertford and
the Count of Evreux, and Henry now prevailed upon the earl to agree that
all his estates should be settled upon the remaining daughter, Isabel,
and that she should be betrothed to John, for whom the king had also
reserved the great estates of his uncle, Earl Reynold of Cornwall, upon
the latter’s death in 1175, with similar disregard for the rights of his
daughters and lawful heirs. Having settled this matter to his
satisfaction Henry next found himself confronted with the question of
Richard’s matrimonial affairs. Richard had long been pledged to marry
Alais, daughter of King Louis, and she had been, in accordance with the
usual practice of the time, brought up at the court of her intended
father-in-law. She was now about twenty and the King of France was
pressing for the marriage to be performed, and in 1177 a papal legate
was despatched from Rome with instructions to lay Henry’s dominions
under an interdict if he should refuse to carry out the agreement. In
August of that year Henry crossed to Normandy and next month met the
legate at Rouen, and on 21st September held a conference with King Louis
at Ivry. At this conference the promise that Richard should marry Alais
seems to have been renewed in an informal way, but Henry had no
intention of fulfilling it, and indeed it seems probable that he was at
this time himself the lover of the princess, who had succeeded the
famous Rosamund Clifford in his affections when that beautiful favourite
died.[35]
A more important effect of the conference at Ivry was the treaty then
drawn up between the two kings, composing their differences and agreeing
to submit such points as still remained in dispute to arbitration, and
also agreeing to go together on crusade to the Holy Land. Henry probably
never had the slightest intention of going to Jerusalem; indeed to have
done so, leaving behind him such disloyal and unprincipled young
scoundrels as his sons had proved themselves to be, would have been
madness, even if he had felt any particular interest in the fate of the
Holy Land. It will be remembered that the terms upon which Henry was
absolved from the guilt of the murder of Becket had included the payment
of a large sum for the support of the warriors in Palestine and his
personal participation in a crusade for three years. The first of these
obligations he would seem to have discharged early in 1177, when the
Earl of Essex and other English knights went with Count Philip of
Flanders to the East, as William de Braose was sent “to carry the king’s
alms to the Templars.” The three years’ crusade was commuted for the
foundation of three monasteries, and Henry, whose partiality for
monastic establishments was by no means marked, contrived to interpret
this obligation in a way consistent with the strictest economy. Finding
that the secular canons of Waltham had become remiss in the performance
of their duties, he ejected them from their collegiate church, with the
connivance of their dean, Guy Rufus, and replaced them by canons
regular of the Augustinian order. In the same way, finding the lives of
the nuns at Amesbury far from satisfactory, he turned them out,
pensioning off the abbess, and put in their place other nuns from the
Norman abbey of Fontevrault. Both of these transformations took place in
the latter half of 1177, and for the next few years the work of
rebuilding and enlarging at Waltham and Amesbury were carried on at the
king’s expense on a fairly generous scale. The third monastery was a new
foundation, a small priory of Carthusians established at Witham in
Somerset. It would seem that Henry brought over a few brethren from the
famous monastery of Chartreuse early in 1175, but gave them no
assistance and took no further steps towards establishing them in
permanent buildings. The first prior abandoned his post in despair and
the next died soon after his arrival at Witham; Henry then succeeded
with much difficulty in persuading the Prior of Chartreuse to send Hugh
of Avalon, a monk of equal ability and piety; but when he came he had to
endure the same heartbreaking round of delays, evasions, and unfulfilled
promises, and it was not until about 1180, when Henry discovered the
true worth and charm of his personality and became his close friend,
that the king made any endeavour to complete the priory of Witham. It
was characteristic of Henry that when the prior expressed his wish for a
copy of the Holy Scriptures for the use of his brethren, the king
compelled the monks of Winchester to give up an elaborately written
copy, which they had just completed for their own use, and presented it
to the grateful monks of Witham. It was equally characteristic of Hugh
that, when he learnt how the precious volume had been provided, he
insisted upon returning it to its rightful owners.
The warm affection which the king lavished upon Hugh led many people to
believe that the latter was Henry’s son, a belief strengthened by a
certain likeness observable between the two. And indeed the likeness was
not confined to physical traits, for Hugh, with all his piety and
austerity, was quick-tempered and quick-witted and had as keen
appreciation for a joke as had Henry himself, and fully realised that a
witty as well as a soft answer may turn away wrath. On one occasion,
having incurred the king’s wrath by excommunicating one of his
foresters, he was summoned to Woodstock and found Henry and his
courtiers sitting in a circle on the grass. To intimate his displeasure
the king ignored Hugh’s salutation and maintained a sulky silence, the
attendant nobles following his example; Hugh calmly pushed aside an earl
and sat down next to the king, who, incapable of resting idle, called
for a needle and thread and began to stitch a torn leather finger-stall
which he was wearing on his left hand. Hugh watched him for a minute and
then said dryly, “How like you are now to your cousins of Falaise!” The
impudence of the remark appealed to Henry, who lay back and roared with
laughter, and then himself explained to such of his courtiers as had not
grasped the point that the allusion was to his descent, through William
the Conqueror, from the peasant girl of Falaise, a town famous for its
skinners and leatherworkers. This incident occurred after Hugh had been
promoted, in 1186, from the priory of Witham to the bishopric of
Lincoln, which had been held from 1173 to 1182 by the king’s
acknowledged bastard, Geoffrey, who, however, preferring rather to
fleece than to tend his sheep, had never been consecrated to the see.
It is curious that Henry, himself careless of religion and actively
antagonistic to the Church, should have lavished his warmest affection
upon two men destined after their death to rank in the calendar of
saints. The intimate friend of his early years became St. Thomas of
Canterbury, and the chosen associate of the closing years of his reign
was destined to become St. Hugh of Lincoln. The claims to saintship of
the two men were singularly different; Thomas was one of those arrogant,
fighting ecclesiastics who identify the cause of the Church with
themselves and “take the kingdom of heaven by violence,” while Hugh was
a man of peace, one of those who identify themselves with the cause of
God, to whom beatification comes as the natural reward for the blessings
they have themselves bestowed upon their flocks. Of the two St. Thomas
inevitably made the greater impression upon the
[Illustration: SEAL OF THOMAS BECKET ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY (1/1)]
[Illustration: SEAL OF HUGH BISHOP OF LINCOLN (1/1)]
popular imagination, and his shrine was a centre of pilgrimage long
before St. Hugh had even left his obscure priory for the great bishopric
of Lincoln. A great impulse was no doubt given to the adoration of St.
Thomas by the events of 1174, when the capture of the King of Scotland
followed so immediately upon Henry’s penance at Canterbury. In the
twelfth century people did not talk of coincidence or propound elaborate
theories that the concentration of Henry’s mind upon the desire for
victory had acted upon the brain centres of Ranulph de Glanville’s
subconsciousness and spurred him on to action. They simply accepted as a
fact the personal intervention of St. Thomas, and Henry himself
countenanced that view by going with his royal son on a pilgrimage of
thanksgiving to Canterbury on 28th May 1175. Later in that year the
young Queen Margaret visited the shrine “for the sake of prayer,” and it
is not improbable that we have the partial fulfilment of her petitions
in the birth of a son at Paris in June 1177; but if so the answer to her
prayers was only partial, for the child lived barely long enough to be
christened William, and died within three days of his birth. A still
more remarkable tribute to the fame of St. Thomas was paid in 1179. At
that time King Louis was arranging for the coronation of his son Philip,
then fourteen years old, but just before the date fixed for the ceremony
the boy fell ill as the result of a hunting misadventure. Casting about
in his mind for a suitable spiritual advocate it was not unnatural that
the king’s choice should fall upon Thomas of Canterbury; if he had come
so effectually to the help of his old adversary Henry he might surely be
relied upon to assist his old supporter Louis. King Henry readily
acceded to the French king’s request for a safe conduct and met him in
person at Dover on 22nd August, whence the two kings went next day to
Canterbury. Here King Louis offered his petition at the tomb of the
saint and enriched the convent with the grant of a yearly render of wine
and exemption from customs for goods exported for their use from France.
On his return to France the king found his son convalescent, and in
November the postponed coronation took place, the younger Henry being
amongst those present. But before this date King Louis himself had been
struck down with paralysis, and after nine months’ illness he died on
18th September 1180. Death was busy about this time; Richard de Luci,
the great justiciar, had died in July 1179 at the priory of Lesnes,
which he had founded; Pope Alexander III. died in August 1181, and
Roger, Archbishop of York, in the following November. In Louis, Henry
lost an old antagonist, but one whose weakness and incompetence had been
a source of strength to the English king. Henry had never pursued an
aggressive policy towards France and had never attempted to crush Louis
or even to throw off his nominal suzerainty; when their claims clashed,
as they frequently had done, he was content to defeat the attack or
outwit the diplomacy of the French king, but in the young Philip there
was growing up a far more formidable adversary and one who could neither
be hoodwinked nor driven from the field without difficulty. For the
time, however, Henry’s relations with the young French king were almost
paternal. In the spring of 1180 Henry intervened to reconcile Philip and
his uncles of the house of Blois, and in July of the following year he
patched up a peace between Philip and his wife’s uncle, Count Philip of
Flanders. This peace was broken before the end of the year, when Count
Philip formed a coalition against the King of France, and he might have
fared badly if the younger Henry, who had remained in Normandy after his
father had gone back to England, had not come to the rescue. Peace was
again patched up between France and Flanders by Henry in March 1182, and
the two Philips united with Henry in intervening on behalf of the
latter’s son-in-law, Henry the Lion of Saxony, who had incurred the
enmity of the Emperor Frederic and had been sentenced to seven years’
banishment. As a result of this intervention the duke’s sentence was
substantially reduced, and when he came to Normandy with his wife and
children he was warmly welcomed and liberally provided for by Henry.
Conspicuous as was Henry’s success in dealing with foreign princes, his
failure when dealing with his own sons was equally conspicuous. He
could act as peacemaker between France and Flanders, but from 1176
onwards his sons were continually at war, sometimes assisting one
another to suppress rebellious vassals, at other times quarrelling among
themselves. Richard in particular was continually fighting in Poitou,
where his arrogance and licentiousness had made him extremely unpopular
with his subjects. Matters came to a crisis early in 1183, when, upon
Richard’s refusing to do homage for Poitou to the younger Henry, the
latter with his brother Geoffrey joined the discontented Poitevins and
made war upon Richard. King Henry came to the help of Richard and
advanced to Limoges, where he had a narrow escape from being shot by his
sons’ soldiers. The rebellious princes, relying upon their father’s
affection, obtained a succession of truces which they broke without
compunction whenever it suited their purpose, ill-treating his
messengers and plundering his supporters. Geoffrey stripped the shrine
of St. Martial at Limoges in order to pay his mercenaries, and the young
king, finding his plans going astray, took an oath at that same shrine
to go on crusade. His father endeavoured to persuade him to renounce the
rash vow, but when he found him apparently intent upon the project
generously promised to equip him. He repaid the generous offer by
abandoning the scheme and indulging in a plundering foray, stripping the
monastery of Grammont, the one religious house for which his father had
displayed an affection. Towards the end of May 1183 the young king fell
ill, but this did not deter him from sacking the famous shrine of
Roquemadour. On his way back from this sacrilegious exploit he was
obliged to stop at Martel, as his fever had much increased and soon
developed into dysentery. Realising that it was likely to end in death
he sent for his father, but Henry, naturally suspecting a trap, would
not come, though he sent a sapphire ring to his son as a token of his
affection, and possibly with the hope that the mystic curative qualities
of that precious stone might prove beneficial. On 11th June the young
man died, expressing a pious penitence which would have been more
edifying had it been displayed earlier, and commissioning the faithful
William Marshal, who had just been recalled to his court after an
undeserved period of exile, to perform for him the two years’ crusade
which he had sworn to undertake.
The death of the unfilial and unprincipled Henry had followed so close
upon his sacrilegious spoliation of St. Amadour that it might well have
been considered a divine judgment, and it is almost incredible that even
his most devoted partisans could have proclaimed him a saint; yet such
was the case, and a few audacious and imaginative adherents even
asserted that miracles had been wrought by him. His liberality, good
fellowship, and manly courage, which showed itself in his addiction to
the tournament, a form of sport so far from saintly that it was under
the papal ban, had made him friends who mourned his loss; a still larger
number regretted the removal of a tool so useful for undermining the
influence of the hated King of England. The one man who sorrowed for him
most sincerely was the father against whom he had sinned so
persistently.
Within a month of the young king’s death the rebellion which he had
fomented was at an end. During the latter half of 1183 Henry appears to
have made an uneventful tour through his continental dominions, but in
the spring of 1184 we find him negotiating for the re-marriage of the
Count of Flanders, sending his own royal yacht to fetch the bride, a
daughter of the King of Portugal, and conducting her from La Rochelle to
the Flemish border. And, more or less as the result of this marriage, we
find him called upon to interfere once more between the King of France
and the Count of Flanders to procure peace. Immediately afterwards, on
10th June 1184, Henry crossed once more to England, after an absence of
two years. The next six months were largely taken up with the choice of
a successor to Archbishop Richard, who had died in the preceding
February. At last, after several names had been suggested by the
Canterbury monks only to be rejected by the king, Bishop Baldwin of
Worcester was elected on 16th December.
The year 1185 opened with the arrival at Canterbury of Heraclius,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, charged by Baldwin, the head of the tottering
kingdom of Jerusalem, with an appeal to Henry for help. On 18th March
Henry gave formal audience to Heraclius, who offered him the keys of the
Holy Sepulchre and the crown of Jerusalem, and produced a letter from
the pope urging a new crusade. By the advice of his council Henry
declared his inability to go in person, and he also declined to accept
the crown for any of his sons, but he promised assistance in men and
money, and large numbers of his nobles took the cross. A month later the
king and the patriarch passed over together into Normandy, and on 1st
May they had an interview with King Philip of France, who took up the
same line as Henry had done, so that Heraclius had to return to his
master with the promise indeed of assistance, but disappointed in his
hopes of obtaining an influential leader. As soon as the interview was
over Henry had to turn his attention to his quarrelsome son Richard.
Untaught by experience, the king had continued to provoke his sons
against one another and against himself, striving to wrest Aquitaine
from Richard for the benefit of John and then setting John and Geoffrey
to fight their elder brother; this quarrel had been composed for a time,
but Richard was now attacking the lands of his brother Geoffrey, and in
order to quiet him Henry sent for Queen Eleanor, the rightful owner of
Poitou, and forced Richard to surrender the province into his mother’s
hands. This had the desired effect of restoring order, and in August
1186 Geoffrey was killed in a tournament at Paris, regretted by none
except his father and Philip of France.
In May 1186 Henry, who was an inveterate matchmaker, had arranged for
the marriage of King William of Scotland with his cousin Ermengarde,
daughter of Richard, Viscount of Beaumont. The marriage took place at
Woodstock on 5th September, Henry’s wedding present taking the shape of
the Castle of Edinburgh; but before it was celebrated the two kings had
marched north together, in July, and compelled Ronald, son of Uctred,
the usurping Lord of Galloway, to submit to Henry’s judgment. But while
Henry’s relations with his old adversary of Scotland were thus
satisfactory there was growing friction between him and Philip of
France. The questions of the dower due to the young king’s widow,
Margaret, and of the marriage of Philip’s other sister Alais to Richard,
had been debated with acrimony on several occasions, and the action of
the English Constable of Gisors in destroying a fortress in process of
erection on the French border and killing the son of the French knight
in charge of the work, in October 1186, had further exasperated Philip.
For the time the storm blew over, but in May 1187, after an ineffective
endeavour to come to terms with Philip, Henry prepared for war. The
French king besieged Richard and John at Châteauroux and Henry had to
come to their rescue, but a pitched battle was avoided by the
interposition of Pope Urban III., whose anxiety for the fate of
Palestine made him particularly desirous of peace in Europe, and a truce
for two years was agreed upon on 23rd June. Immediately afterwards
Philip began to cultivate Richard’s friendship, hoping to use him
against his father, as he had done young Henry and Geoffrey. Richard
swallowed the bait and went off with Philip, living for some time in the
closest intimacy with him, ignoring his father’s remonstrances, and even
plundering his treasury at Chinon; but after a while he came to a better
mind and returned to his allegiance.
In January 1188 Henry was preparing to return to England, when Philip
threatened to invade Normandy unless the marriage of his sister Alais
and Richard were celebrated at once and the fortress of Gisors
surrendered to France. Henry at once proceeded to meet him at the usual
place, a great elm standing on the borders of France and Normandy near
Gisors. Little progress was made in the negotiations until the arrival
of the Archbishop of Tyre, who preached a stirring sermon on the
misfortunes of Palestine, recounting the capture of King Guy and the
True Cross by Saladin in July 1187--a disaster which caused the death of
Pope Urban III.--and the fall of Jerusalem in the following October. His
hearers were so moved that almost with one accord they vowed to go upon
crusade, Henry and Philip setting the example and putting aside all
their differences. So great were the numbers of those that took the
cross that it was needful to adopt badges to distinguish the different
nationalities, the French wearing red crosses, the followers of the
English king white crosses, and the Flemings green. Henry at once issued
orders at Le Mans for the collection of a tithe to be levied throughout
all his continental dominions. All persons who did not go to the crusade
themselves were to give a tenth of their goods, and arrangements were
made for ensuring that none should evade his duty. Those who were
willing to serve in person might take the tithes of their men and lands
for their own equipment. As soon as this ordinance had been published
Henry hastened to England, landing at Winchester on 30th January. A
fortnight later a council was held at Geddington, when the ordinance for
the collection of the crusading tithe, usually known as the Saladin
tithe, was made applicable to England. The King of Scotland was urged to
follow his suzerain’s lead, and Archbishop Baldwin was sent to preach
the crusade in Wales, accompanied by Gerald de Barri, who has left an
account of the mission containing many interesting details of Welsh
topography and history and a very full appreciation of the services
rendered by Gerald himself.
Meanwhile Richard, who had taken the cross the previous year in
Brittany, was indulging in a little war with the Count of Toulouse with
considerable success. Philip, who appears to have incited Richard to
action in order to pick a further quarrel with Henry, now complained to
the latter of his son’s conduct, and in June invaded Berry, capturing
Châteauroux and other places. Henry crossed once more, for the last
time, to Normandy, to find that Richard had driven Philip out of Berry.
After some desultory border raiding a conference was arranged between
the two kings at the historic elm by Gisors. Neither side would accede
to the demands of the other, and after a proposal to settle the dispute
by battle between four picked champions from either side had been
rejected, preparations were made to resume the campaign. Some of the
French troops, irritated at the sight of the English resting in comfort
in the shade of the elm while they themselves were out in the heat, cut
down the famous tree. Philip was annoyed at the spiteful vandalism, and
Henry vowed to revenge the elm.
For the moment no fighting took place; the Counts of Flanders and of
Blois and other French nobles declining to serve any longer against
Christians when their arms were so badly needed in Palestine, Philip was
obliged to disband his forces, and Henry did likewise, giving, however,
secret orders for their reassembly at Pacey. Thence he sent them across
the French border to ravage the district round Mantes, while Richard
operated further south from Châteauroux. King Henry took little active
part in this campaign, as he had been taken ill at Chinon early in the
autumn. A meeting of the kings at Châtillon in October came to nothing,
and Philip began to tamper with Richard’s unstable fidelity. A promise
that he should have Anjou, Touraine and Maine in reward for deserting
his father speedily brought Richard over to Philip’s side, and the
latter then arranged for a fresh conference with Henry at Bonmoulins on
18th November. Richard and Philip arrived together, and though the
former explained to his father that his meeting with the French king on
the way was quite accidental, Henry’s incredulity and alarm were soon
justified. Philip, after proposing a mutual retrocession of all
territories taken during the recent campaign, again demanded the
marriage of Richard and Alais, the cession to Richard of Anjou, Touraine
and Maine, and his acknowledgment as Henry’s heir. King Henry refused
these last demands, and Richard angrily flung down his sword and did
homage to Philip for the three provinces which his father had refused
him.
A truce had been agreed upon to last until 13th January 1189, but with
its expiration Philip and Richard renewed the attack. Henry, whose
health had completely broken down, was laid up at Le Mans during the
spring, and from there he sent William Marshal and the Archdeacon of
Hereford to Paris to negotiate with King Philip; but by the efforts of
Richard and his wily minister, William Longchamp, their endeavours were
brought to nought. A slight improvement in his health enabled Henry to
meet his opponents in person on 28th May at La Ferté Bernard, where
Richard’s demand that his brother John should go on crusade was met by
Henry not merely with a direct negative but with the suggestion that
John should marry Alais and have the provinces which Richard claimed.
This, while exasperating Richard still more completely, did not appeal
to Philip, and, in spite of the efforts of the legate, Cardinal John of
Anagni, who threatened to lay his dominions under an interdict if he did
not make peace, the French king resumed the campaign with vigour, and
after several smaller successes appeared before Le Mans on 12th June.
The bridges across the Sarthe had been broken down and the known fords
blocked with sharp stakes, but the French cavalry, sounding the river
with their spears, found a place where they could cross and caught the
English by surprise. During the sharp fighting that ensued outside the
town Stephen of Tours, the governor of the town, set fire to a suburb
whose buildings would have afforded dangerous cover for the assailants.
Unfortunately the wind suddenly shifted and, blowing strongly, drove the
flames into the city, which itself caught fire in several places.
Realising the desperate nature of their position King Henry and his
knights sought safety in flight. They were pursued by a force of cavalry
under the leadership of Richard, who was some way in advance of his
followers and rapidly overtaking the king when William Marshal turned
upon him. Count Richard had for some reason thrown aside his defensive
armour, and, seeing himself at the Marshal’s mercy, called to him not
to kill him. “Not I! the devil may kill you!” retorted the knight, and,
lowering his lance, he struck the count’s horse dead, bringing its rider
to the ground. Richard at once called off his men and abandoned the
pursuit, and Henry, pausing for a while on a little hill and looking
back upon his beloved native town in flames, burst into a flood of
furious blasphemy, vowing that as God had cheated him of the place which
he loved better than all others so he would cheat God of his soul.
With Henry were his son John and his illegitimate son Geoffrey. This
Geoffrey, the only one of Henry’s sons worthy of the name, was born
about 1153, his mother being a woman of humble position;[36] he was
devoted to his father and, as bishop-elect of Lincoln, had taken a
vigorous part in the suppression of the rebellion of 1173-4. Resigning
the see of Lincoln in 1181 he became chancellor, in which office he was
in constant attendance upon the king. At Le Mans he fought valiantly
with fire and foe, and now that the fugitives had reached Fresnai he
proposed to spend the night outside the castle so as to bear the brunt
of any attack that might be made. To this Henry would not assent, and it
was Geoffrey’s cloak that covered the weary king when he flung himself
down, clothed as he was, for the night. Next day, refusing the advice of
his barons to fall back on
[Illustration: SEAL OF GEOFFREY THE BASTARD AS BISHOP ELECT OF LINCOLN
(1/1)]
[Illustration: SEAL OF JOHN AS COUNT OF MORTAIN (1/1)]
Normandy, Henry sent Geoffrey with almost all his forces to Alençon,
himself making his way towards Chinon. John now took the opportunity of
deserting his father, although Henry had just shown his partiality for
him by making the seneschal of Normandy and Earl William de Mandeville
swear that in the event of his death they would only give up the castles
of Normandy to John and to none other. Geoffrey, his brother, base in
birth but not in nature, as soon as he had discharged his commission
spurred back to join his royal father, whose illness, aggravated by the
strain and grief of the last few days, had entered upon its final stage.
Meanwhile Philip, carrying everything before him, had reached Tours on
30th June. There he received a mission from the Count of Flanders, the
Archbishop of Rheims, and the Duke of Burgundy, urging him to come to
terms with Henry. Tours was captured on 3rd July, and next day King
Henry agreed to a meeting at a house of Templars not far from Colombier,
near Azai, but when Henry reached the spot and dismounted he found that
his legs would not support him, and his agony was such that he was
obliged to lie down. King Philip and Richard on their arrival, not
finding Henry, denounced his illness as a feint, and it was not until
the king rode up, supported on his horse by his attendants, that they
realised that he was dying. Philip courteously spread a cloak upon the
ground and bade him be seated, but his indomitable spirit would not
allow him to display so much weakness. He had come prepared to accept
any terms, to make any concessions, but with the full intention, if he
lived, of winning all back by the power of the sword. Philip’s terms,
considering the hopeless position of his adversary, were not ungenerous.
Henry had to surrender all claims to Auvergne and to do homage to Philip
for his continental dominions; Alais was to be taken from his custody
and married to Richard, who was to be recognised as his father’s heir
and to receive the fealty of his barons. Moreover, all those who had
joined Richard during the war were to remain his men and not to return
to their allegiance to Henry. Finally, Henry was to pay 20,000 marks to
the French king, and the agreement for a common crusade was renewed,
Lent 1190 being named as the date and Vézelay as the rendezvous. At the
end of the interview Henry had to give his son the formal kiss of peace,
but as he did so he muttered, “May God grant that I live long enough to
take my revenge upon you,” a threat at which Richard openly jested to
his friends.
Henry returned from Colombier to Chinon, and as he lay upon his deathbed
the list of those who had deserted him and sworn allegiance to Richard
was brought in. He bade the bearer read out the names, but when the
first name of all proved to be his best-loved son, John, for whom he had
done so much, he stopped the reader, saying, “It is enough! Now let come
what may!” Broken-hearted and racked with pain the great king lingered
on for two days, muttering in his delirium “Shame on a conquered king!”
and cursing his sons. The sole redeeming feature of these last days was
the unremitting tenderness with which Geoffrey nursed his father, who
repaid his affectionate care with words of loving praise, giving him at
the last his royal signet ring engraved with his symbol, a leopard.[37]
Yet even Geoffrey seems to have been absent at the moment that his
father passed away, and the few servants who were there, seizing the
opportunity to lay hands on everything portable that was worth taking,
left the king’s body lying half naked and uncared for, till one William
Trihan, known only to history for this good act, placed over his royal
master his cloak, appropriately one of the short Angevin cloaks, the
introduction of which into England had earned Henry the nickname of
“Courtmantel.”
Thus, on 6th July 1189, died Henry II.
Next day the dead king was carried to Fontevrault, where, in the church
of the great nunnery, his body lay for a time in state. Hither came
Richard, now in his turn king; for a while he stood and gazed at the
stern uncovered face of his father, then, kneeling for a brief moment in
prayer, rose, and calling William Marshal and Maurice de Craon to him,
strode out of the church. In a few words he showed that he bore no
ill-will towards his father’s loyal adherents and then departed, to
return next day for the funeral. Henry had never cared much for the
outward pomp and circumstance of kings, and such emblems of royalty as
he may have had with him in his last days seem to have been either lost
at Le Mans or stolen at the time of his death. And so when he was being
robed for burial it was with difficulty that the royal insignia of
crown, ring and sceptre could be improvised, and he who had been the
greatest of the princes of Europe was laid to rest with less ceremonial
splendour than many an obscure vassal.
[Illustration:
_Neur dein, Photo._
TOMB OF HENRY II AT FONTEVRAULT]
CHAPTER IX
LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE REIGN
The reign of Henry II. is of particular importance in English
constitutional and legal history. It was a period of evolution, of
crystallisation, a period of transition. As in architecture we have at
this time the transition from Norman, or Romanesque, to Gothic, so we
have the transition from oral tradition and custom to written law and
formula. As the Saxon blood was blending with the Norman to form the
English people, so Saxon law was assimilating Roman law and the theories
of the Canonists to form English law. The genius of Henry lay rather in
organisation than in initiative. Possessing an innate love of justice
and an instructed appreciation of legal forms, he set himself to evolve
method and order from the somewhat chaotic confusion of conflicting
customs. Under his hand the young plant of English law was pruned,
trained, and bent in the direction in which it was to grow during the
succeeding centuries. His natural inclination for the work was doubtless
whetted by the twofold consideration that every extension of the central
royal jurisdiction involved a diminution of local feudal jurisdiction
and that increase of legal control implied increase of revenue. The
personal part played by the king in the administration of the law was
striking. Constantly we find him sitting in a judicial capacity,
following with more or less patience the involved arguments of the
advocates, inspecting charters in dispute, criticising them shrewdly and
impartially, and exhibiting a legal acumen which proved that he was
worthy, apart from his rank, to preside over the ultimate court of
appeal.[38] The strong arm of the law could hardly be invoked without
his aid, and the slow foot of justice could only be hastened with his
assistance. And for such assistance payment must be made. Henry was,
indeed, notorious as a “seller of justice”; but if the commodity was
expensive it was at least the best of its kind, and there is a profound
gulf between the selling of justice and of injustice. A bribe might be
required to set the machine of the law in motion, but it would be
unavailing to divert its course when once started. When John le Viel, a
wealthy citizen of London, was convicted of taking part in a series of
outrages which culminated in the murder of Earl Ferrers’ brother in
1177, his offer of 500 marks to the king gained him no reprieve and he
suffered the death penalty with his humbler and poorer accomplices.
It is partly owing to the personal predominance of the king as law-giver
that exact dates and details of the institution or formal adoption of
certain methods of legal procedure are hard to ascertain. A verbal
instruction or a few written lines to the justiciar would be enough to
establish a formula which would rapidly become a commonplace of law
without exciting comment from any chronicler. There are, however, some
four or five occasions on which a definite code of laws or regulations
was published and duly recorded. The first of these was the code drawn
up in 1164 to define the relations of Church and State. The
circumstances in which these “Constitutions of Clarendon” were drawn up
have already been considered. They were drawn up definitely as
representing the rules in force in the time of Henry I., and it would
seem that for the most part they could fairly claim this antiquity,
though their continuity had been broken by the disorder of Stephen’s
reign. That they lost something of their elasticity and became more
pronouncedly favourable to the secular courts when they were reduced to
writing can hardly be doubted, and that there was some small amount of
actual innovation is highly probable, but it is as compiler rather than
author that the name of Henry II. should be associated with the
Constitutions of Clarendon.
By these Constitutions it was asserted (cap. 1) that all actions
concerning the advowsons of churches should be heard in the king’s
court,[39] even if both parties were clerks, and that (cap. 2) the
king’s consent must be obtained before any church held in fee of the
crown could be granted in perpetuity. By a further assertion of the
royal proprietary rights (cap. 12) the king claimed to have the custody
and control of all sees, and of such monasteries as were in the
patronage of the crown, during their vacancies, and to determine when
their new heads should be elected. Whatever may be said against this
claim morally--and it certainly gave the king every inducement to
prolong such vacancies and leave a wealthy see or abbey headless--it was
undoubtedly a custom of respectable antiquity, based presumably on
analogy with the king’s feudal right to the custody of the lands of his
lay tenants-in-chief during the minority of their heirs. The identity of
status of lay and ecclesiastical tenants was insisted upon in the order
(cap. 11) that prelates and beneficed clergy who held of the king in
chief should hold their lands as baronies and perform the services due
therefrom, including the duty of sitting as judges on the Bench with the
lay barons, save that they should not take part in pronouncing sentence
of death or mutilation.
Besides pleas of advowsons all pleas of debt were now removed from the
ecclesiastical courts (cap. 15), even when involving breach of oath. A
third class of actions, those concerned with lands said to be granted in
alms to churches, involved a more elaborate procedure (cap. 9). If a
piece of land were claimed by a clerk as belonging to his church and by
a layman as belonging to his lay fee the question was first to be
referred to a jury of twelve men of good standing; if they decided that
the land was held in alms the case should be tried in the ecclesiastical
court, but if the contrary, then in the king’s court. The appearance of
this jury of twelve is very important, and it occurs again in the
Constitutions. Certain moral offences were admittedly the province of
the Court Christian, but it was common knowledge that the archdeacons
and their officials, whether from lack of legal training or of charity,
accepted accusations on very insufficient evidence; it was therefore
laid down (cap. 6) that such accusations ought not to be made against
laymen unless supported by responsible witnesses; but in cases where
witnesses dare not come forward, owing to the rank or power of the
accused, a jury of twelve men of good standing might be summoned to
inquire into the truth of the accusations.
In these two instances of the appointment of juries we have almost
certainly innovations, and it is to Henry II. that we must attribute the
institution of the trial by jury. It must be borne in mind that just as
these twelve jurors differed in everything but number from the
Anglo-Saxon “doomsmen,” whose office was to give sentence, so they also
differed from the modern jury. The modern juryman is supposed to start
with a completely open mind, and indeed in America even a remote and
superficial knowledge of the nature of the case to be tried has been
considered a disqualification; but the medieval jurors were men chosen
for their knowledge of the matter in dispute; they were witnesses--not
witnesses for the prosecution or for the defence, but, being summoned by
an impartial authority, witnesses for the truth; they answered the
questions put to them in the light of their personal knowledge and not
as a result of deductions from the deliberately misleading arguments of
rival advocates. The evolution and progress of legal procedure is always
interesting, and particularly so in the case of the peculiarly English
institution of the jury. The occasional appointment of juries of inquest
to settle special points may, of course, be traced back for generations,
but the definite establishment of the jury as a legal instrument dates
from the reign of Henry II.
The claims of the spiritual courts were complicated by possessing a
double basis; on the one hand they claimed all actions which could in
any way be held to be concerned with morals or with the property of the
Church, and on the other they claimed jurisdiction over all persons who
had been admitted to the ranks of the clergy. While admitting the theory
of clerical exemption in criminal cases Henry endeavoured to neutralise
it in practice. The suggested compromise, which was the chief bone of
contention between him and the Church party, was (cap. 3) that an
accused clerk should be summoned before the king’s court, and if a
_primâ facie_ case were made out against him he should be remitted to
the bishop’s court for fuller trial and sentence, the proceedings being
watched by one of the royal officials. If convicted he should _ipso
facto_ forfeit the Church’s protection and become amenable to the common
law. This latter proviso had to be abandoned, but within about a century
of the birth of the Constitutions the royal courts had established their
right to pronounce upon the guilt of an accused clerk before handing him
over to the ecclesiastical court. While the Church was claiming
exemption from lay justice it was natural that an endeavour should be
made in retaliation to limit the scope of the Church’s sentence, and
accordingly it was ordered (cap. 7) that no tenant-in-chief or royal
officer should be excommunicated without the king’s permission, and a
similar protection was extended (cap. 10) to all persons dwelling in a
royal borough, castle, or manor. In both cases it was expressly stated
that the king or his officials would endeavour to compel the offender to
make satisfaction, so obviating the necessity for excommunication, and
indeed it was laid down (cap. 13) that the royal and ecclesiastical
courts should give one another mutual assistance in bringing offenders
to book.
A further blow was aimed at clerical independence by the regulation
(cap. 8) that there should be appeals from the archdeacon’s court to
that of the bishop and thence to that of the archbishop, but that appeal
from the archbishop’s court should be to the king’s court and not to
Rome without royal consent. To prevent this rule being broken Henry
maintained (cap. 4) that prelates and beneficed clergy had no right to
leave the country without royal licence, and that in any case they must
swear to do nothing to the prejudice of king or realm during their
absence. The supremacy of the pope, however, proved to be too firmly
rooted in the minds of the clergy, and these articles had to be dropped,
Henry himself during the Becket controversy being obliged to resort to
constant appeals and counter-appeals to the papal court.
During the seven years’ struggle with Becket which followed the
promulgation of the Constitutions of Clarendon, Henry did not neglect
the cause of legal reform, and early in 1166 he issued an important
series of injunctions known as the Assize of Clarendon. These
injunctions, turning upon the existence of a system of itinerant
justices, whose presence in all parts of the country at frequent
intervals they take for granted, prove that the custom of sending
commissions of judges on circuit, which had been inaugurated by Henry
I., but had fallen almost out of use, and certainly out of all
regularity, under Stephen, had been restored by Henry II. The evidence
of the Pipe Rolls shows that during the early years of the reign most
of these “eyres,” or itinerant courts, were held by the leading royal
officers, such as the chancellor, the justiciar, or the Earl of Essex,
acting singly or together, but in 1176 the king divided the whole
country into six circuits and appointed three justices to each circuit.
For some reason this scheme did not work well, possibly from an excess
of zeal and self-importance on the part of the justices, and in 1179
Henry revoked these appointments and constituted a central royal court
of five justices; subsidiary to this permanent court he established four
circuits, the commission for each circuit being five judges, though, by
an apparent contradiction, the commissioners for the northern circuit
were the officers of the permanent central court. The arrangement of the
circuits varied from time to time and constant changes were made in the
personnel of the judges, but the main features of itinerant courts with
a permanent central court above them became fixed. From the central
court there was appeal in cases of difficulty to the king and
council.[40] As we have already said, Henry took a large personal share
in the administration of justice, but he acted strictly within
constitutional limits, and it was always the council that pronounced the
sentence, though the influence of the king’s expressed opinion would
naturally be paramount.
By the Assize of Clarendon it was ordered that the sheriffs and
itinerant justices should make careful search for evil-doers throughout
the country. Twelve men of good standing from each hundred and four from
each township were to declare on oath what men in their district were
known or suspected to be robbers, murderers, thieves, or harbourers of
bad characters. All such were at once to be arrested and brought before
the nearest justice and compelled to purge themselves by the ordeal of
water. In this ordeal the accused was bound hand and foot and thrown
into a pond or pit, of which the water had previously been consecrated
by a priest.[41] If the water rejected him, so that he floated, he was
considered guilty, his foot was struck off and his goods were forfeited
to the king; but if the water received him and he sank he was dragged to
land and his innocence was held to have been proved. But a sceptical
feeling towards the ordeal was growing up, and the Assize ordered that
if the repute of the accused were notoriously bad and the accusations
against him well sustained, then, even if he acquitted himself by the
ordeal, he should be banished from the country, being bound to leave
England within a week, or as soon after as the wind would serve.
By reserving all cases of this type to the jurisdiction of the king’s
courts and by authorising the sheriffs to enter any “liberty” or honour
for the purposes of arresting criminals or of supervising the police
organisation of frank pledges a severe blow was struck at the private
feudal courts, and, incidentally, the security of the law-abiding
populace was much increased. To strengthen this security yet more the
king gave orders for the erection of gaols in every county and for the
compilation of lists of fugitive criminals. No unknown wayfarer or
vagabond might stay for more than one night in any borough unless he or
his horse fell ill, and all newcomers settling in any county had to find
sureties for their appearance before the justices, while a final haven
of refuge was closed to the fugitive by the rule that no religious house
should receive into its fellowship any man of the lower class (_de
minuto populo_) without inquiry into his antecedents.
It is probably to this same year, 1166, that we may assign the Assize of
Novel Disseisin, by which possession became not merely nine-tenths of
the law but the law itself. Under this assize any person who was seised,
or possessed, of a freehold and was ejected therefrom, or disseised,
without a previous decision of the court, might recover his seisin by an
action before the king’s court, without regard to the goodness of his
original title. There is some reason to believe that this theory of the
right of the actual possessor to remain in possession until the claimant
had proved his better right to the property was recognised in the
previous reign, but it was under Henry II. that it took definite form as
a fixed method of legal procedure which formed the basis of innumerable
actions in later times. About this same date, too, we find evolving
another legal form which was to play a very important part in the
history of the conveyance of land. It is self-evident that from time to
time the parties concerned in a suit before the king’s court might find
it to their mutual advantage to come to a compromise. As this would
involve the abandoning of the suit, probably depriving the king of
certain perquisites of justice and certainly rendering nugatory the
trouble taken by the justices over the preliminaries of the trial, the
king’s leave to compromise had to be purchased, and frequently the terms
of the agreement were submitted to him for confirmation. To begin with,
these agreements, which from their putting an end to the suit were
called “final concords” or “fines,” would be drawn up casually,
expressing each particular composition in such phrases as seemed most
convenient, but the Justiciar Glanville, writing at the end of Henry’s
reign, lays down a definite formula to be used in drawing up a Fine, and
this formula can be traced back to 1172 and occurs, with slight
variations, as early as 1163,[42] though instances before 1180 are
rare. When these Fines acquired the recognised status of legal formulæ
steps were taken to preserve official copies of them, and as soon as it
was realised that the execution of a Fine was the surest way of securing
a permanent record of a conveyance of land, or similar deed, it became
the practice to bring fictitious actions with the express intention of
compromising them and executing Fines. The Fine was, therefore, at a
later date almost invariably the termination of a fictitious suit, but
there is no reason to believe that this was so in the time of Henry II.
to any great extent, and though we owe to him the formula of the Fine it
remained in his time a genuine act of compromise, and incidentally a
considerable source of revenue.
The administration of the Assize of Clarendon, especially of those
portions concerned with forfeitures and pecuniary penalties, seems to
have given rise to much complaint. The sheriffs were said on the one
hand to have used their power to extort more than was due and on the
other hand to have paid into the exchequer less than was due. Further
rumours of peculation in connection with the aid for the marriage of the
king’s daughter in 1168 having reached Henry’s ears, he suspended all
the sheriffs in 1170, and ordered a careful and minute inquiry into the
whole question. All moneys paid to sheriffs and other officials, or to
magnates and their stewards, during the past four years, were to be set
down, with a notice whether they were demanded with lawful warrant or
without. The value of the goods of convicted or fugitive felons and the
amounts paid towards the marriage aid were also to be returned, and note
was to be made of any bribes accepted by the sheriffs or hush-money
given by them. The inquiry was also to extend to breaches of the Forest
Law and the conduct of the officials administering it. The only
fragments of the returns[43] to this inquiry that are known to have
survived throw little light on the general conduct of the sheriffs and
their subordinates, though they illustrate the truth that taxation
always soaks through to the lowest stratum of society. Although taxation
under Henry did not fall with nearly so direct and crushing a force upon
the poor as under King Louis in France, the large sums extorted from the
English magnates had naturally to be raised by them in part from their
poorer tenants, and if the king expected his lords to make large “gifts”
of money to him it was natural that they should in turn impress upon
their subjects the duty of giving “willingly” to them.
One immediate result of this inquiry of 1170 was the substitution of men
from the ranks of the exchequer and court officials in place of local
magnates as sheriffs. The change was a wise one, increasing the skill
of administration and reducing the risk of extortion and undue use of
influence. The continuous undermining of the baronial authority, of
which this was but one more instance, had a double effect at the time of
the young king’s rebellion in 1173; on the one hand it drove the more
intolerant nobles to take up arms against King Henry, but on the other
it put in the king’s hand a powerful organisation controlled by loyal
officials, whose prospects were bound up with his own and supported by
the mass of the people, who had every reason to appreciate his rule and
to fear the victory of the feudal reactionaries. After the rebellion had
quieted down Henry issued, at Northampton in 1176, an assize of wider
scope than any other of his reign. The decrees of the Assize of
Clarendon were repeated but re-enforced; forgery and arson were added to
the Pleas of the Crown about which inquiry was to be made, and the
convicted felon was to lose a hand as well as a foot. Returns were to be
made of the escheats, churches, and heiresses who were in the king’s
gift, and the justices were to try actions brought under the Assize of
Novel Disseisin and were also given control of cases concerned with as
little as half a knight’s fee. Finally, an important regulation was laid
down that if a free tenant died his son and heir should at once have
such seisin of the freehold as his father had at the time of his death,
and the widow should have her dower. If the lord of the fee did not
admit the heir of the freehold the justices should cause an inquest to
be made by the jury of twelve men which had now become so integral a
part of legal procedure, and if they found that the father had died
seised the heir should recover possession. In this we have clearly the
first enunciation of the Assize of Mort d’Ancestor, which in course of
time was extended from the direct to the more remote degrees of kindred.
The work begun by the Assizes of Novel Disseisin and Mort d’Ancestor was
brought to a logical completion in 1179 by the institution of the Grand
Assize. By this assize any action concerning a freehold could be
transferred from the manorial to the royal court. The demandant in the
lower court was bound, as of old, to offer to prove his claim by the
judicial duel, a clumsy process entailing endless delays and expense and
the humiliation, if not death, of the defeated party, and often ending
in a way clearly contrary to justice. Now, by this new regulation, the
tenant when challenged might “put himself upon the assize”; the
demandant would then sue a writ in the king’s court, four knights would
be appointed to elect a jury of twelve knights, or country gentlemen as
we should call them, associated with the district in which the disputed
land lay. The jury had then to state from their own knowledge, or from
what their fathers had told them, which of the two parties had the
better claim to the land. If any of the jury did not know anything of
the matter they were discharged and others put in their place, and if
the knights were divided in opinion their numbers were increased until
twelve decided in favour of one party. Knowing, as we do from the Plea
Rolls of the next reign, how protracted a suit might be under this
assize, we can appreciate from Glanville’s encomium on the comparative
rapidity of the process how interminable must have been the proceedings
under the old methods. It was not only a great extension of the
influence of the king’s court, but was also a victory for common sense
and sound law, and the absurd and illogical ordeal by battle rapidly
fell into disuse, though it was not actually repealed in English law
until 1819 and is still retained for the settlement of international
quarrels.
The Grand Assize of 1179 is the last definite reform of Common Law
procedure that we can connect with Henry’s name, but in 1184 he issued
an Assize of the Forest. Under the Norman kings the doctrine of royal
rights over those unreclaimed woodlands, moors, and heaths which were
known as forests was rigorously asserted. Henry I., in particular, had
so stretched his claims as to exercise jurisdiction over the sporting
preserves of his barons, ignoring their rights and oppressing their
tenants by the application of the arbitrary regulations of the Forest
Law. Stephen had been compelled to relinquish all those forests which
had been created by Henry I., and to confine the claims of the crown to
those that were in existence at the time of the death of William Rufus,
but Henry II. had gradually reasserted his grandfather’s claims, though
not in their entirety. Henry himself was an ardent sportsman, finding in
hunting and hawking an outlet for his ceaseless activity of spirit, and
appears to have regarded poaching on the royal preserves as the most
heinous of all offences. From the beginning of his reign justices from
time to time toured the country inquiring into breaches of the Forest
Law and mulcting the offenders, and we have seen how in 1176 he bled the
whole country by a deliberate abuse of that same law, but it does not
seem that any definite code was drawn up until the assize was published
at Woodstock in 1184. Whether this was a stiffening of the laws in use,
as is generally assumed, or a relaxation, or merely a codification,
cannot be decided. In any case the laws, though severe, were less savage
than those of Henry I. The technical details of the regulations touching
the king’s forests and his subjects’ woods and coverts cannot here be
dealt with, but some of the devices to stop poaching may be noticed. No
one within the forest bounds might keep bows and arrows, dogs or hounds
without licence; hunting at night involved a year’s imprisonment and a
fine; all large dogs (_mastivi_) within the forest districts were to be
hambled, that is to say, lamed by cutting out the ball of the foot, to
prevent their chasing the deer, and no tanner or white tawer might ply
his trade within the forest bounds outside a borough. Finally every man
above twelve years of age within the forest district had to swear to
observe the laws; this applied also to all clerks holding lay fees, and
in many ways the most notable section of the assize is that which
definitely asserts the susceptibility of the clergy to the Forest Law
and authorises the royal officers to lay hands on clerical offenders.
CHAPTER X
FINANCE
Finance plays as prominent a part in public as in private life, and the
fortunes of a nation are as much built upon a money basis as those of an
individual. This somewhat obvious truism is particularly applicable to
the reign of Henry II., owing to the important share taken by hired
mercenary soldiers in his numerous campaigns, the wealth at the king’s
disposal frequently enabling him to dispense with the service of
disaffected or untrustworthy vassals. And the main source of this wealth
was England, or at least it was from England that were drawn those extra
supplies that formed the critical margin of safety, for while we hear
constantly of treasure sent from England to the king or his ministers in
Normandy we find no trace of any surplus from Henry’s continental
treasuries reaching the treasury at Winchester. Fortunately we possess
the material for our examination in the series of revenue accounts known
as the Pipe Rolls, complete from the second to the last year of the
reign.
The treasury, with the controlling machinery of the exchequer, had been
fully organised under Henry I., and an analysis by Sir James Ramsay of
the one surviving Pipe Roll of that king’s reign, that for the
thirty-first year (1130), shows the total royal revenue to have been
about £27,000. During the anarchy that prevailed under Stephen’s nominal
sovereignty the organisation of the exchequer virtually fell into
abeyance. While there is no evidence of Stephen having been at any time
in difficulties for lack of money, it is clear that his permanent and
assured revenues must have been very small. The districts in which his
power was sufficiently established to ensure the collection of the royal
dues varied from time to time and at best were limited, while their
yield was still further reduced by the lavish grants of crown demesnes
with which he had been compelled to purchase the allegiance of powerful
barons. Henry II., on coming to the throne, had, as we have seen,
resumed possession of the royal demesnes thus alienated, and he also
entrusted the re-organisation of the exchequer to Nigel, Bishop of Ely.
Order was soon restored, though it was several years before we find the
same elaboration of the financial network as was exhibited in 1130.
A careful analysis of the Pipe Roll for 1156, the first of the series,
shows that the total amount of the revenues dealt with, which exclude
the issues of the three northern counties, still at that time in the
hands of the King of Scotland, was in round figures £21,650. But of this
£6000 has to be deducted for portions of the royal demesnes which had
been granted to various persons, and for payments pardoned or remitted
by the king. Another £2250 had not been paid and was still owing, a
certain proportion being bad debts. Of the remainder, £9120 was paid
into the treasury in cash and £4260 had been spent by the sheriffs and
other accountants on the king’s behalf in payment of alms, repairs to
buildings, wages and miscellaneous purchases. The actual revenue of this
year may therefore be taken as about £13,000, or rather less than half
that of Henry I. in 1130.
Turning now to the consideration of the sources of revenue, the first is
the farms (_firmæ_) of the various counties and honours, these being
fixed sums at which the sheriffs of the counties or the farmers of the
honours compounded for the issues of the lands under their control. Upon
occasion a county might for some reason be without a sheriff, in which
case one or more wardens (_custodes_) would be appointed, and they would
answer in detail for the issues and receive payment in reward for their
services. In some cases the totals of these issues amount, as we should
expect, to more than the fixed farm, the difference between the two sums
being what the sheriff would have for his labour. But occasionally, and
notably in the case of London,[44] the yield under _custodes_ was
considerably less than under a sheriff. It is hardly conceivable that
the sheriff, in addition to the labour and responsibility of his
official duties, should have been expected to make a loss over the
render of his farm, but our knowledge of the methods by which the
various moneys were collected before they reached the exchequer is too
slight to enable us to explain this phenomenon. An incident which throws
upon the question a light so uncertain as to render it almost more
obscure occurred at the beginning of the Becket controversy. At a
council held at Woodstock in 1163 the king demanded that a certain
payment customarily made to the sheriffs from the lands of the counties
under their control should in future be entered on the rolls and
accounted for at the exchequer. Archbishop Becket rejected the demand,
declaring that the payments in question were voluntary, that they
depended upon the good conduct of the sheriffs, and that he would never
consent to pay one penny on this account to the king. The chronicler who
relates this incident at most length adds that the payment in question
was two shillings from every hide, but this was almost certainly an
error due to confusion with the Danegeld; the “sheriff’s aid,” about
which the dispute arose, was not levied on any fixed basis but varied in
different parts of the country.[45] So far as we can see, the object of
King Henry was to make the sheriffs more entirely dependent upon
himself, drawing them into the position of the _custodes_ as mere
salaried officials of the exchequer; incidentally, no doubt, he hoped at
the same time to obtain a substantial increase of revenue by
appropriating the “aid.” The objection voiced by Becket seems to have
been based precisely on the king’s wish to make the sheriffs responsible
solely to himself; under the existing arrangement a sheriff who abused
his authority ran the risk of losing the emoluments of his office, and
even with this check these officials and their underlings not
infrequently misused their power, extorting money from those under them
and failing to account at the exchequer for money received. So
notorious, indeed, did their maladministration become that, as we have
seen, in 1170 Henry was driven to take summary action, removing all the
sheriffs from office and appointing commissions to inquire into their
conduct. Some of the officials thus removed were fined and very few were
restored to their former position, but the new men appointed do not seem
to have been greatly superior to their predecessors, and it is clear
that whatever the sheriff lost or made over his farm he certainly
possessed valuable perquisites, both legitimate and of doubtful
legality.
The farms were the only fixed source of revenue, but an uncertain amount
could always be relied upon from legal procedure (_placita_), fines
inflicted for breaches of either the Common or Forest Law, amercements
levied on hundreds, tithings, or townships for murders, payments made
for leave to compound a suit begun in the king’s court, and penalties
due from the defeated party in a judicial duel. For the most part the
items under this head were small, though in the aggregate their amount
was considerable, but not infrequently we find heavy fines inflicted
upon men of wealth, for which no reason is given and which were in some
cases, no doubt, arbitrary acts of extortion on the king’s part. In 1165
Earl Hugh of Norfolk paid half of a fine of 1000 marks, while the Abbot
of St. Edmunds, William Cheyney, and two other East Anglican magnates
were amerced 200 marks apiece. That same year Hugh de Mortimer was fined
500 marks, the Bishop of Lincoln 400 marks, Ivo de Harcourt 300 marks,
Ralf de Cahaignes and Lefwin of York a like amount, the Abbot of
Westminster £100, and Abraham, the Jew of London, £2000. The Jews,
indeed, were a fruitful source of income: their financial genius had
enabled them to concentrate most of the floating capital of the country
in their hands. They had almost as much a monopoly of ready money as
they had of the trade of usury. In this latter respect their monopoly
was protected by the ban of the Church directed against Christian
usurers, and, safe from competition, they lent their money at their own
terms, usually about 60 per cent., to litigants, ambitious prelates, or
impoverished monasteries, at one time financing an unauthorised
expedition to Ireland and at another assisting the king with large
advances.[46] Henry was too sensible of their value to persecute, or to
permit his subjects to persecute, the Jews, but he had no scruples in
fining them arbitrarily enormous sums, which might have been crippling
if they had ever paid more than a fraction of them, and in 1188, when he
ordered his other subjects to pay a tenth of their goods towards the
crusade, he made the Jews contribute a quarter instead of a tenth. In
this latter case one of the London Jews was allowed to compound for his
share of the subsidy by a payment of £200, of which half was to be paid,
perhaps by the grim humour of the king, on the Sunday on which the
canticle “Rejoice, O Jerusalem” is sung. It was in the previous year
that the wealthiest of all the English Jews, the famous Aaron of
Lincoln, had died, and by the law relating to usurers, whether Jew or
Christian, his immense possessions, equal apparently to more than the
yearly revenues of the crown, had fallen to the king, only to perish in
great part beneath the waves of the Channel.
If the death of a usurer brought grist to the king’s mill so did that of
a prelate. However inexcusable from a moral point of view the seizure of
the issues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys may have been, the temptation
must have been strong. For example, the vacant abbey of Glastonbury in
1181 brought in £600 clear, and next year the see of Lincoln accounted
for £1290 and that of York for £1260; Canterbury varied from £1100 to
£1500. The farm of the bishopric of Winchester in 1172 was £1555; Ely
produced nearly £900, and even Bath was worth £425 clear in 1167. Very
few lay honours approached even the smallest of these sums, but with lay
estates as with clerical the death of the tenant was made a source of
profit to the king. If the heir were under age he and his lands would be
taken under the royal protection and either managed directly for the
king’s benefit or granted, for a consideration, to some person of
position, who might or might not be a relation of the heir, while the
tenant’s widow could be sold in marriage or made to pay heavily for the
right of following her own choice. Even if the heir were of age and
there were no widow to mulct, the new tenant would have to pay “relief,”
or death duties, graduated on the simple lines of getting the utmost
possible out of the landowner. For small estates the normal rate of
“relief” was £5 for a knight’s fee, the average value of a fee being at
most £20, but in the case of large estates the amount demanded seems, as
we have said, to have been arbitrarily fixed by the king. In 1185 as
much as 700 marks was demanded of the Countess of Warwick for the
privilege of having her father’s land, her dower and liberty to remain
single. To a certain extent these enormous fines, whether inflicted as
succession duties or for other reasons, were _bruta fulmina_, defeating
their own ends. Usually the debtor contented himself with paying yearly
instalments, sometimes round sums and sometimes strangely complicated
amounts which suggest a sudden demand from the sheriff satisfied by a
prompt clearance of pockets. The first instalment was as a rule
substantial; Fulk Paynel in 1180 paid 200 marks out of the 1000 marks
demanded of him for the honour of Bampton; but in the same year Adam de
Port only paid £40 out of a similar fine for possession of his lands and
his wife’s inheritance in Normandy and for restoration to the king’s
good favour. Fines might thus drag on literally for generations, the
instalments often showing a tendency to dwindle away until they ceased,
and either the king excused the payment of the rest or the sheriff wrote
it off as a bad debt. Almost any payment on account seems to have been
accepted, and in 1187 William Fitz-Ercenbald, who owed £2156 for arrears
of farm of the silver mines of Carlisle, paid in the rather absurd
amount of 13s. 4d.
Although all these sources could be counted upon to yield something
every year the annual yield varied greatly. There were, however, means
of raising extra occasional revenue, of which the amount could be
foretold with some accuracy. In the first place there was the Danegeld,
dating back to Saxon times. This was a tax of two shillings on every
hide of land as rated in the Domesday Survey. It was levied in 1156,
when the accounts show that if it had been collected in full it would
have amounted to £4550, but owing to extensive remissions and
exemptions, extending to a little over £2000, the total yield was only
£2500. For some unknown reason this tax was only levied once more, in
1162, and was then allowed to fall into disuse. Of more doubtful
legality but, as a rule, of greater profit were the “aids” (_auxilia_,
_dona_) assessed upon the counties and boroughs from time to time,
regulated apparently by the king’s need of money and the taxable
capacities of the districts assessed. In 1156 these “aids” yielded
£2100, with a further £100 still owing, while in 1159, according to Sir
James Ramsay, the amount was well over £5000. On the latter occasion the
“aids” were levied upon bishops, certain of the wealthier lords,
clerical and lay, and Jews as well as upon the boroughs; amongst the
biggest payments were those of the city of London £1000, Norwich £400,
York, Lincoln, and Northampton 200 marks each, the Archbishop of York
500 marks, the Bishops of Durham, Winchester, and Lincoln a like amount,
and the Abbot of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, 220 marks. Two years later
York again paid 200 marks, but Lincoln had risen and Norwich fallen to
£200, and London escaped with 1000 marks.
By feudal custom Henry was entitled to call for an “aid” from his
military tenants on the occasion of his eldest daughter’s marriage, and
in 1168 he availed himself of this right, stretching his demands to
include many persons outside the military classes, to whose
contributions he had no just claim. The similar feudal “aid” for the
knighting of his eldest son was never raised, as the young king was
knighted at the time that he was in opposition to his father. Finally,
in time of war the king could call for Scutage, a monetary composition
in lieu of personal service with the army. The amounts demanded for
Scutage varied from one to two marks for the knight’s fee, the larger
sum being exactly equivalent to the wages of a “knight,” or man-at-arms,
for forty days, the period for which the tenant of a knight’s fee was
bound to serve. Scutage was called for in 1156 for the war with Geoffrey
of Anjou, in 1159 for the Toulouse fiasco, when £2440 is said to have
been paid, implying the commutation of the personal service due from
1830 knights, in 1161 and 1162 for war with France, in 1172 for the
Irish expedition, and, finally, in 1175 for the projected expedition to
Galloway. Whether the “assessment for the army in Wales,” raised in
1165, should be considered as a scutage is questionable; it appears to
have been more of an irregular “aid.”
How far the exchequer officials of the period indulged in anticipatory
estimates of revenue, framing their simple and elastic budgets thereon,
cannot be said. Possibly the half-yearly provisional accounts rendered
by the sheriffs at Easter enabled them to foresee whether additional
taxation would be required to bring the revenue up to the required
amount by Michaelmas. Possibly, on the other hand, extra taxation was
put on whenever the balance in the treasury seemed to be getting low.
But however this may have been, the annual revenue was kept by one means
or another at a pretty constant level. Sir James Ramsay gives the totals
alike for 1159, in which year nearly £8000 were raised by scutage and
“aids,” and for 1169, when no extra taxation was levied, as
approximately £20,000. In 1176 the sum actually paid into the treasury
was £14,250, while something like £1750 had been spent by the
accountants on the king’s behalf, giving a total of £16,000. To this
have to be added the enormous sums extorted for breach of the Forest
Law. The total of the fines inflicted on this score was £13,450, the New
Forest accounting for over £2000 and the forests of Yorkshire £1600,
Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset and
Oxfordshire being all above £1000. But considerably less than half the
sum demanded was paid at the time, and the total for the year may be
estimated as between £5000 and £6000, bringing the revenue up to rather
over £21,000.
The money collected by the sheriffs and other officials was accounted
for every year at Michaelmas at the court of the exchequer. The
exchequer (_scaccarium_) derived its name from the great table covered
with a black chequered cloth on which the revenue accounts were set out
by means of counters. It must be borne in mind that ability to read and
write, though not yet considered as in itself entitling the possessor to
“privilege of clergy,” was so far peculiar to the clergy that a large
proportion of the lay sheriffs would have been unable to keep or to
understand written accounts. Even for those more learned the difficulty
of working out complicated sums in Roman numerals must have been
considerable, and indeed it is comparatively rare to find any lengthy
medieval account in which the sums of the items correspond throughout
accurately with the totals given. At the treasury courts, therefore, of
England and Normandy, and possibly elsewhere, an elaboration of the
“abacus,” or calculating board, was introduced. This consisted of a
table, ten feet long by five feet wide, covered with a black cloth on
which were drawn seven vertical columns, representing, from right to
left, pence, shillings, pounds, tens, hundreds, thousands, and tens of
thousands of pounds. These columns in turn were divided by horizontal
lines, cutting the cloth into a series of squares like those on a
chess-board. Within these squares the accounts were set out with
counters. At the Michaelmas session the chancellor, treasurer, and other
officials, with their clerks, sat round three sides of the table, while
on the other side was the calculating clerk with his counters, and near
him the sheriff, who may be regarded as his opponent in the game. Along
one line the calculator set out the amounts due from the accounting
sheriff, and below it he gradually built up the sheriff’s account,
beginning with the money paid in in cash and adding item by item the
sums, expended, for which the sheriff produced either the king’s writs
or tallies,[47] the sheriff’s object being to make the two amounts
balance. In this manner, by ocular demonstration, a long and complicated
account could be easily followed, while for permanent record all the
items were entered upon their rolls by the clerks of the chancellor and
treasurer.
The only coin in circulation in England at this time was the silver
penny, and although sums of 12, 160, and 240 pence were spoken of as
shillings, marks, and pounds for convenience of calculation, such units
had no tangible existence and all money payments were made in pence.
Although the money issued during Stephen’s reign was poorly executed,
such coins as have survived do not bear out the chroniclers’ assertions
that it was debased; but it is probable that the total amount of coin in
circulation was small and that a considerable proportion of it was
forged. In any case Henry had issued a new coinage in 1156, but the
moneyers appear to have not infrequently debased the silver or made
illegal profits in other ways, and in 1158 many of them had to stand
their trial by the ordeal of water and several only escaped mutilation
by the payment of heavy fines. Twenty years later, in 1177, we find what
looks like an organised conspiracy of fraud amongst the Canterbury
moneyers, five of their number being fined between them 2500 marks. At
last, in 1180, Henry entrusted the re-organisation of the coinage to a
foreigner, Philip Aymary, who did his work very well, but so manipulated
the business to his own profit that he was banished in disgrace. This
coinage, although possessing no particular artistic merit, was
technically a great advance on its predecessor, and was so well
appreciated that it continued to be struck, with hardly noticeable
variations, under Richard and John and well into the reign of Henry III.
As a result of forgery, fraud, and the inevitable loss of weight during
circulation the 240 pence which constituted the nominal pound “by tale,”
or by number, rarely corresponded to the standard pound by weight, and
as many of the sheriffs’ county forms were due in “blanched” money, that
is to say, in pounds of standard fineness and weight, it was necessary
to test the money paid in. To begin with, pence to the value of
forty-four shillings were counted out from the mass of money
[Illustration: SILVER PENNIES
1. First coinage of Henry II
2. Type introduced in 1180
3. Penny of Henry II struck for Aquitaine
4. Penny of Eleanor as Duchesse of Aquitaine
]
paid in by the sheriff whose account was under examination. Twenty
shillings of this was then melted down in a crucible and purified by
fire; the resulting ingot was next weighed against the standard pound,
and pence added from the selected money to bring it up to weight; the
number of pence required for this purpose having been noted the sheriff
was charged on all “blanch” sums due that number of pence in addition to
each pound by tale.
When we pass to the consideration of the relative value and purchasing
power of money in the middle of the twelfth century as compared with the
present time we are met by many complications. The average price of an
ox or cow during this reign was from three shillings to four shillings,
occasionally rising as high as five shillings; farm horses fetched three
shillings, but military chargers cost three pounds or more; sheep ranged
from fourpence to sixpence and young pigs were about the same, but when
full-grown they fetched as much as a shilling. A penny a day was the
recognised wage for a sergeant or private soldier, and eightpence a day
for a man-at-arms; the master of the royal yacht received a shilling,
the clerk of the household two shillings, and the chancellor five
shillings a day. Probably we may take the money of that date as roughly
equivalent to twenty-five times the amount in modern currency.
So far as the expenditure of the Crown is concerned we labour under
considerable difficulties, having no records of the nature of the
Liberate and Issue Rolls of later reigns. The only items of expenditure
which have come down to us are such as have been entered upon the Pipe
Rolls as discharged by the sheriffs and other officers out of the issues
of their offices. The heaviest of these expenses were incurred in
connection with building, and especially in the repair and enlargement
of the royal castles. The rebuilding of Scarborough has already been
spoken of, and amongst the scores of entries of work done on castles may
be mentioned the £1000 spent on Oxford in 1166 and 1167, a sum which is,
however, insignificant beside the £4350 spent on Dover Castle between
1182 and 1187, as much as £1248 being spent in the one year 1185.
Nottingham, which appears to have been one of the most habitable of the
castles, accounted for £450 in 1172 and for over £300 in 1175; large
sums were also spent on the king’s hunting seats such as Woodstock,
Clipston, and especially Clarendon. For the adornment of Clarendon there
were provided in 1177 “marble columns,” probably shafts of dark marble
similar to those the introduction of which by St. Hugh in his new work
at Lincoln so struck contemporary writers. But numerous as are the
entries of building expenses, they can represent but part of the sums
laid out by Henry on such operations, nor do we hear anything of the
cost of the army or of the upkeep of the royal household, though we know
from the existing list of salaries that this last item must have
amounted to about £1500 a year. Whatever were his expenses Henry
contrived to amass a great fortune, which his successor, Richard, found
little difficulty in dissipating.
CHAPTER XI
THE ENGLISH NATION UNDER HENRY II
Society in England during Henry’s reign might be considered as arranged
in three groups: (1) The Military Class, with the king at its head,
ranging from the semi-independent earl to the humble tenant of some
fraction of a knight’s fee. (2) The Merchants and Traders--dwellers in
cities and seaports, from the wealthy councillor to the humble
apprentice. (3) The Peasantry--the comfortable yeoman, the farm
labourer, whose theoretical lack of freedom often sat but lightly upon
him, and the hired servants. From this third class the two superior
classes were completed. They formed the nameless ranks of archers and
foot soldiers who bore the brunt of many a battle, and, unprotected by
coat of mail or prospect of ransom, paid forfeit for defeat with their
lives, and they were the hardy sailors, serving the merchants in time of
peace, but ever ready to convert their ships into men-of-war. It might
seem that the clergy should form a fourth class, but they really fall
into the same three divisions as the laity. The prelates and
dignitaries, holding their lands by military service and bound to
provide so many knights for the king’s army, sometimes leading their
troops in person; then, opposed to these sons of the Church Militant,
the monks and canons of the religious orders, intent on the business of
religion, not wholly averse to trading spiritual for material blessings,
and displaying some skill in laying up treasure in this life as well as
for the next; and finally the poor, but not always honest, parish
priests and unattached clerks, the hardest workers and the worst paid,
little above the secular peasantry from whose ranks they sprang, their
many virtues unrecorded and the excesses of their unworthy members
pilloried. If a fourth group did exist it consisted of the officials,
blending the characteristics of clerks, soldiers, and merchants--men
prepared at a moment’s notice to hear pleas, superintend the purchase
and despatch of stores, or take command of a force of soldiers.
The king’s supremacy in his court was indisputable; his greatest nobles
were proud to serve him, and quick to resent any infringement of their
rights of service. Thus the Earl of Arundel, hereditary chief butler,
returning from a long journey just as the two kings, Henry and Louis,
were sitting down to dinner, strode into the hall, flung off his cloak
and seized the royal goblet from the acting butler, who resisting, the
powerful earl knocked him down and presented the wine on bended knee to
his royal master, explaining apologetically to the French king that it
was his privilege and that the deputy butler ought to have withdrawn
without protest. So also, at a later date, William de Tancarville,
chamberlain of Normandy, forcibly possessed himself of the basin and
ewer which another courtier was carrying to the king. Yet was Henry the
most accessible of men; out of doors he suffered his subjects to crowd
round him and speak to him freely, in his court he was almost always
ready to give informal audience to all who sought him, and it was only
at the very door of his bedchamber that a messenger would be challenged.
Men of wit, such as Walter Map, the cynical canon of St. Paul’s, might
break in on his conversation with a humorous or sarcastic comment
unrebuked, and Henry could even take in good part the public reprimand
addressed to him by an obscure monk of his neglected priory of Witham.
The English court under Henry attracted scholars of European fame, and
on the lighter side of literature we find the king encouraging Gerald de
Barri, the proto-journalist, listening amusedly to his anecdotes and
bantering him, giving money to “Maurice the story-teller”
(_fabulatori_), and replying with mock seriousness to the heroics
purporting to be addressed to him by King Arthur.
If his nobles did not share the king’s literary tastes they were at
least in tune with him on the subject of sport. Hunting and hawking were
the recreations of the English and Norman nobility, and in his devotion
thereto Henry yielded to none of his subjects. The keepers of his hounds
formed not the most insignificant part of his retinue; hawks were
procured for him from Norway and from Ireland and passed as presents
between himself and foreign princes; when he went out of England,
whether for peaceful cause or war, his hawks and hounds and huntsmen
followed him. His sons also, like all the magnates of their days, were
devotees of the chase, but the two elder found greater pleasure in the
sport of war, and the young King Henry in particular shone as the patron
of the tournament. The gradual repression of private warfare, at least
between the smaller lords, had deprived life of much of its excitement,
and the more warlike spirits sought to counteract what they no doubt
considered the softness and degeneracy of the age by the institution of
tournaments, a species of private war cleansed of personal rancour and
lacking the disastrous consequences to lands and tenants involved by the
real thing. To picture the tournament of this date as resembling the
formal and chivalrous jousting in the lists of later centuries would be
completely misleading. For the most part the frequenters of these
meetings were landless men, younger sons and needy adventurers, intent
solely, or at least mainly, on making money by the capture of opponents,
whose chargers and armour then became their own, and whose bodies might
be held to ransom. It was no shame for ten to set on one, and William
the Marshal, one of the most brilliant of these adventurers and the
instructor of the young king, gained praise by the skill with which he
let his adversaries exhaust themselves before he flung his forces upon
them. This same Marshal, who went with another knight on a pot-hunting
expedition during which they accounted for 103 knights, besides extra
chargers, on one occasion saw one of the opposing knights thrown by his
horse and lying on the ground, disabled with a broken thigh; rushing out
of the tent where he was dining he picked up the injured man and bore
him back into the tent, handing him over a prisoner to his companions
“to pay their debts with.” In this particular instance there was no
doubt an element of rough humour, but the whole spirit of the tournament
was practical and unromantic, though fame and glory were sought at the
same time as wealth, and the Marshal would have set a higher value upon
his reputation for skill and courage than upon the fund of ready money
for which he was remarkable at a time when steel and silver were rarely
found together.
The spirit of the tournament pervaded the field of battle, and so far as
the knightly combatants were concerned their chief aim was to capture
and hold to ransom their adversaries rather than to kill them. Such lust
of slaughter as they felt was satisfied at the expense of the
unfortunate infantry, drawn from the ranks of the peasants and yeomen
and not worth ransoming. After a desperate and decisive battle the
chroniclers will recount a long list of knights captured, but it is rare
indeed that any are recorded to have fallen in battle, and on such rare
occasions it was usually by the hand of a common foot soldier or by a
chance arrow. It was precisely this tradition of the respect due to
gentle blood that made the Norman knights so useless against the Welsh
or Irish, who ignored their gentility and fought to kill.
Henry’s genius for organisation found scope in military matters as
elsewhere. During the reigns of the Saxon kings the _fyrd_ or national
militia, theoretically consisting of all the able-bodied male
population, was always liable to be called out in time of war, and this
liability had remained in force after the Conquest. Under William the
Conqueror the country had been parcelled out into estates, great and
small, the tenants of which held by the service of supplying a fixed
quota of knights, in no way proportionate to the size or value of the
estate, to serve in the royal army for forty days when required. It has
been already pointed out that Henry II. encouraged the system of
commuting personal service for a money payment, and in order to
ascertain the exact amount of service due he caused a general return to
be made by his military tenants in 1166. They were required to state how
many knights they were bound to find, and as there were two ways of
providing for these knights, either by granting them land in return for
their services when required or by hiring them as occasion demanded, a
distinction was to be drawn between the knights enfeoffed and those
chargeable on the demesnes. A further distinction was to be made
between those knights already enfeoffed at the time of the death of
Henry I. and those of newer feoffment. In many cases the greater barons
had enfeoffed more knights than they were bound to supply, probably for
the most part during Stephen’s reign, with the intention of augmenting
their own private forces, and Henry claimed that they should pay scutage
on this larger number of knights instead of on their original quota, a
claim which was strenuously resisted.
For the re-organisation of the national forces an Assize of Arms was
issued in England in 1181. Every holder of a knight’s fee or of rents
and property to the value of sixteen marks was to keep a coat of mail, a
helmet, a shield, and a lance; the owner of property worth ten marks
should have a hauberk, an iron headpiece, and a lance, and all burgesses
and the whole body of freemen should have a quilted jacket (_wambais_),
an iron headpiece, and a lance. These arms were never to be parted with,
but to descend from father to son; but in order to render the supply
more accessible it was ordered that no burgess should keep more arms
than his statutory quota, and if he had others should give or sell them
to those that required them; at the same time Jews were forbidden to
retain coats of mail and hauberks, presumably the most expensive
portions of the outfit. From the absence of any mention of horses it has
been assumed by some writers that all these troops were expected to
fight on foot, but this is undoubtedly an error; presumably the
provision of a horse was left to the discretion of the soldier, and
practically the whole of the first class and a large proportion of the
second would have been mounted men. Another noteworthy omission is that
of the bow; some thirty years later the holder of property worth twenty
shillings was required to provide a bow and arrows, but at this time it
would seem that the bow was regarded as unworthy of a freeman and its
use confined to the villein soldiers.
The justices itinerant were to publish this assize in the different
county courts and to make it known that any defaulter would pay for his
fault with his body and by no means escape with fine or forfeiture. At
the same time the justices were to hold inquiries by juries of freemen
of good standing as to the persons in the several hundreds and boroughs
who held property worth sixteen marks or ten marks, to draw up lists of
such persons and to swear them to the observance of the assize.
The final article of the Assize of Arms directed that no one should buy
or sell any ship to be taken away from England, or export timber. In
this decree we have evidence of Henry’s comprehension of the value of a
strong navy to the country. In speaking of a strong navy it must not be
supposed that any royal force of fighting ships existed or was even
contemplated at this time. Such naval organisation as existed was almost
entirely confined to the federation of the Cinque Ports. The origin and
early history of this federation is very obscure, but it seems clear
that Hastings and Dover and probably the other three ports of Sandwich,
Hythe, and Romney, were bound together by the possession of common
privileges and common responsibilities in the reign of Edward the
Confessor. Hastings was the undoubted head of this group of ports and
the first to acquire privileges at the royal court and in connection
with the herring fishery at Yarmouth which were afterwards extended to
the other members. When the title of the Cinque Ports was assumed has
not yet been discovered, but it was clearly established by the beginning
of the reign of Henry II., as in 1161 we find a payment of £34, 17s. to
the ships of “the five ports” which conveyed treasure across the
channel. As one main division of the English fleet employed in the
expedition against Lisbon in 1147 was referred to as the “Hastingenses,”
almost certainly alluding to the ships of the allied ports, it would
seem that the title was first officially recognised under Henry II. The
bonds of union were still so loose that the separate ports and their
affiliated members received separate charters. One of these, of quite
uncertain date, issued by Henry at Westminster, confirmed to the
“barons” of Hastings their privileges at court, exemption from customs
and other dues, and the foreshore rights of “strand and den” at
Yarmouth, in return for the provision of twenty ships for fifteen days
when required. Henry also granted similar exemptions to the two
“ancient towns” of Rye and Winchelsea, affiliating them to Hastings, to
whose quota of twenty ships they were to send two; they were further
exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts and might be
impleaded only in the same manner as the barons of Hastings and of the
Cinque Ports. This privilege of a separate court was clearly of early
date, as in another charter given during the first six years of Henry’s
reign to the men of Hythe he ordered that they should not plead
elsewhere than they were used to do, namely at the Shipway.
As a result of grants and confirmations of privileges the king could
rely at need upon a force of some sixty ships. The ships themselves were
the ordinary fishing and trading vessels of the channel ports, small but
seaworthy, easily converted into fighting ships by the erection of
wooden fore and stern castles and manned by hardy and experienced
sailors. But for all their experience the little ships with their single
square sail were not very manageable in a storm and the tale of
shipwrecks was large. When used for transport purposes it would seem
that about a hundred soldiers could be carried by each vessel. The
Cinque Port vessels were bound to carry a crew of twenty-one, but this
was apparently an exceptional complement, as in the levy of ships for
the Irish expedition of 1171 the average crew was twelve men and a
master, such crews being carried by the thirty-six ships from Norfolk
and Suffolk, the seven from Dorset and Somerset, six from Devon, two
from London, and one from Herefordshire; on the other hand the
twenty-eight ships supplied by Gloucestershire averaged only six men,
but eight from Sussex nineteen, and two from Hampshire twenty-two
apiece. During the troubles of 1173 most of the ships which were “sent
to Sandwich to meet the ships of the Cinque Ports” carried crews of
twenty or upwards, and the two vessels from Colchester carried sixty
seamen between them. Probably the numbers were raised at this time in
anticipation of attack, as we find that an extra force of from ten to
twenty men was put on board the king’s yacht each time it crossed with
treasure this year. This royal yacht was the only vessel permanently
retained in the king’s service, naval forces being collected as required
from the Cinque Ports and other coast towns, though there were at
Southampton certain private ship-owners whose vessels were so often
chartered for national service that they might almost be held to have
constituted a miniature royal navy in embryo.
Southampton was at this time the chief mercantile port of England,
pre-eminent for its valuable wine trade, thanks alike to the natural
advantages of its situation relative to Normandy and the wine-exporting
districts of the west, and to its proximity to the royal city of
Winchester. Although London had already outdistanced Winchester in
wealth the latter was still the home of the treasury, the rival of
Westminster as the king’s official residence, and a leading centre of
trade. The great fair of St. Giles drew merchants from all over England
and from foreign lands to Winchester, to sell their fine worked stuffs
to the king’s purveyors for his royal robes or to buy the coarse woollen
cloth of local manufactures, for Winchester with its gilds of weavers
and fullers was a great seat of the cloth industry, most of its products
being the coarse “burrell” cloth of which two thousand ells were
purchased and sent to Ireland in 1171 for the troops. A cheaper and
coarser cloth seems to have been made in Cornwall, as on several
occasions Cornish “burrells” in large quantities were bought for the
king’s almoner. The output of English cloth was altogether more
remarkable for quantity than quality; gilds of weavers existed in 1156
at Winchester, London, Lincoln, Oxford, Huntingdon, and Nottingham, all
being of sufficient importance to pay yearly to the king from 40s. to
£6, but their productions were for the most part poor and coarse, with
the notable exception of the scarlet cloths of Lincoln, which are found
fetching the prodigious price of 6s. 8d. the ell. So far as there were
exceptions to the general lack of quality they were no doubt due to
foreign, especially to Flemish, influence. At the time of the expulsion
of the Flemings after the rebellion of 1173 there are numerous entries
on the Pipe Rolls recording seizures of wool and woad belonging to
Flemings; the dyers of Worcester are recorded as owing £12 to the
king’s Flemish enemies, and there is other evidence to show the presence
of these skilled clothworkers throughout the country.
For foreign trade, statistics, and even such details as would permit of
broad generalisations, are lacking. There was no imposition of customs
for revenue purposes by the central authorities; each town, whether
seaport or inland market, had its own schedule of customs and _octroi_
dues, but they were only under the control of the Crown in so far that
the king could by charter exempt persons from the payment of such dues
throughout the realm. Such exemptions were amongst the most valued
franchises of the barons of the Cinque Ports, the men of a few
privileged boroughs, and the tenants of certain great religious houses.
A trading privilege of particular interest for its bearing upon the
development of London under Norman influence was the right of the
citizens of Rouen to a port or anchorage in the Thames close to the city
walls, which was confirmed to them by Henry II. in 1174. A still more
striking instance of the connection of two ports was Henry’s grant of
Dublin to the burgesses of Bristol, assuring to them a virtual monopoly
of the Irish trade, which they appear to have previously shared with
Chester, the monopoly of the Irish trade with Normandy being in the same
way assured to Rouen. As a whole Henry’s policy towards the towns and
trading communities, especially in the earlier years of his reign, was
liberal and encouraging; we find him granting the customs of York to
the burgesses of Scarborough in 1155, the liberties of London and
Winchester to the men of Gloucester, and the customs of Lincoln to the
burgesses of Coventry at a later date; gilds merchant and trade gilds
were confirmed in their privileges at Oxford, Nottingham, Lincoln, and
elsewhere, and the formation of others licensed. With the growth of
trade other unauthorised gilds sprang up, and in 1180 no fewer than
nineteen such “adulterine” gilds were reported in London alone, five of
them being connected with London Bridge, the famous stone bridge built
in 1176. Of these London gilds the only four definitely identified with
special trades were those of the goldsmiths, spicers, butchers, and
clothworkers, the others being, no doubt, social and religious societies
of a less specialised composition.
Side by side with the growth of manufactures developed the exploitation
of the mineral wealth of England. The lead mines of Derbyshire,
Yorkshire, and Shropshire were being worked, and the valuable
silver-bearing lead mines of Carlisle, which were farmed in 1158 for 100
marks, were bringing in 150 marks at the end of the reign, having
fluctuated between 500 marks in 1166 and no yield at all after the
border wars of 1173-4. At the other end of the kingdom were the rich tin
mines of Cornwall and Devon. Iron was worked in the northern counties
and to some extent in Northamptonshire, but the industry had not yet
attained any degree of importance in the Weald of Sussex and Kent, and
the Forest of Dean enjoyed a practical monopoly of the southern iron
trade. Tin was undoubtedly exported to the Continent, lead we read of as
sent by King Henry for the use of the monks of Clairvaux; but it is
doubtful whether it was to any extent an article of commerce, and iron
was almost certainly not exported.
By a curious inversion of later practice the chief exports from England
in early times were the raw materials of wool and hides and a certain
amount of food stuffs. Amongst the latter were no doubt cheeses, which
had already found a market in Flanders in the eleventh century, and
possibly ale, for which England, and especially Kent, was celebrated. In
1168 we find fifty-three hogsheads of ale sent to the king in Normandy,
and that this drink was appreciated by foreigners we may conclude from
its having occupied so prominent a part amongst the gifts which Becket
carried with him on his famous embassy to the French court. While ale
was the national drink, no small quantity of wine was grown in England,
vineyards existing in the southern counties from Kent to Hereford, and
at least as far north as Cambridgeshire, and references to cider are
also numerous.
The preference given to cider over Kentish ale was one of the charges of
luxury brought by Gerald de Barri against his monastic entertainers at
the cathedral priory of Christchurch, Canterbury. How far the
accusations of excess, in food and in other matters, brought by Gerald
and by Walter Map against the monks, and in particular against those of
the Cistercian order, could be sustained is a question difficult to
answer. Both men bore personal grudges against the Cistercians, both
preferred a scandalous story or a witty jest to strict accuracy, and
Gerald especially was utterly unscrupulous in the abuse of his enemies.
At the same time some of the little details in the stories told seem to
support their accuracy, and there is evidence that in many cases abuses
had crept in and ascetic ideals been relaxed with a rapidity which is
astonishing when it is remembered that Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder
of the order, had died only the year before Henry ascended the throne.
One of Gerald’s tales relates how an abbot of one of the English
Cistercian houses hospitably regaled the king, not knowing him, with a
drinking bout, initiating him into the mysteries of “Pril” and “Vril,”
the private toasts, or drinking cries, used in the monastery in place of
the secular “Washeil” and “Drinkheil,” and how Henry, when the abbot
subsequently came to court, welcomed him with “Pril” and made him repeat
the performance, to his utter confusion and the intense amusement of the
nobles. The possibility of this being a true story is increased when we
read in the Cistercian annals a generation later that in 1215 the Abbot
of Beaulieu was deposed because he behaved outrageously at table,
drinking hilariously, in the presence of three earls and forty knights,
and that, two years later, the Abbot of Tintern drank ceremoniously
(_solemniter_) with bishops and monks. Of the purely English order of
Gilbertines, whose founder, Gilbert of Sempringham, died in 1181, Gerald
speaks favourably, though deprecating their system of double convents
for nuns and canons, but it is only of the austere Carthusians and
Grammontanes that he writes with whole-hearted commendation. That his
praise was justified is confirmed by the exceptional favour shown to
these two orders by Henry, who troubled little about other religious,
save the nuns of Fontevrault and the military order of the Templars.
Gluttony and drunkenness were indeed vices in their addiction to which
the English, both clergy and laity, compared unfavourably with their
Welsh and Irish contemporaries. William Fitz-Stephen, in his famous
description of London, gives “the immoderate drinking of fools” as one
of the two “plagues” of the city. The degree of luxury then prevalent at
table is indicated by his account of the public cook-shop on the river
bank near the wine wharves, where every variety of fish, flesh, and
fowl, roast meat, baked meat, stew and pasty was ever preparing. Hither
ran the servants of those upon whose empty larders unexpected guests had
descended; here was store sufficient to satisfy an army of knights or a
band of pilgrims; here an epicure might call for sturgeon, woodcock, or
ortolan. It was a gay, busy, prosperous city, ships of all nations
loading and unloading, crowds chaffering with the merchants and
tradesmen, whose stalls were congregated according to kind; here the
booths of the goldsmiths, and here a street of cloth merchants; here the
grocers, and here a row of cutlers, while through the narrow, irregular
streets, scattering purchasers and loafers, would pass the retinue of
some prelate or baron on the way to his town house. Then there was the
weekly excitement of the horse fair held outside the city walls on the
flat fields of Smithfield; every one was there, come to buy, to sell, or
to look on, and there were horses to suit every conceivable want, at
least if you accepted the word of their owners; here were ambling nags,
unbroken colts, of whose heels you had better be careful, stately
chargers, sturdy pack horses, mares with their foals, cart horses,
driving horses, horses innumerable. But the fun really began when, with
a sudden shouting, the crowd parted hastily and left a clear course down
which thundered the chargers in mad race, scarcely needing the shouts
and spurring of their boy jockeys to urge them to their utmost effort.
And then there were the holidays, when the fields outside the city were
thronged with students, chaffing each other and lampooning their
teachers with apt Latinity, young nobles from the court at Westminister,
and apprentices from the city, while their elders looked on and grew
younger with excitement as they watched them cock-fighting,
ball-playing, or tilting; and as the day wore on the girls would come to
the fore and there would be song and dancing until the moon rose. Or the
scene would shift to the river, where the boys, standing in the bows of
a boat, would tilt at a shield suspended above the water and win either
the applause or more often the laughter of the watchers on the bridge
and in the riverside houses by their efforts to maintain their balance
and avoid a ducking. And then in the winter, when the marshes were
covered with ice, bone skates were in demand, and tilting on skates
warmed the blood even if it was responsible for rather a large number of
broken heads and limbs. For those who were too old, too timid, or too
dignified for such boisterous sports there were the pleasures of hunting
and hawking over the great preserves belonging to the city in
Hertfordshire, Middlesex, and Kent. A gay city, but one whose gaiety was
only too often suddenly checked by an outbreak of fire, the second of
Fitz-Stephen’s “plagues.” With their wooden hovels, wooden booths, and
primitive open hearths the English towns were constant sufferers from
fire. Becket’s parents had been impoverished by a succession of fires,
and in one year, 1161, London, Canterbury, Winchester, and Exeter were
devastated; next year the booths of St. Giles’ fair at Winchester were
burnt with all the merchandise in them, and in 1180 a fire beginning at
the mint destroyed the greater part of the unfortunate town of
Winchester; Glastonbury was burnt in 1184 and Chichester in 1187; and
these are only instances recorded for the magnitude of destruction
wrought; smaller outbreaks must have been of continual occurrence.
The description of London, _mutatis mutandis_, would apply sufficiently
well to other towns of the period, though in many of the smaller
boroughs the mercantile element must be almost eliminated and a large
agricultural element introduced to render the picture even tolerably
faithful. But when we get outside the walls of the towns we meet with
quite a different state of affairs. Here and there a castle or the chief
seat of some powerful landowner would present us with a building of some
architectural importance, but in far the greater number of cases the
chief house, the manor, would be a barn-like structure of one storey,
the main feature of which would be the hall, or living room, with the
massive beams of its open roof blackened by the smoke from the fire
burning on an open hearth in the centre of the hall. The chamber, or
sleeping apartment, a similar but smaller room connected with the first
by a lobby or vestibule, would possibly be partitioned into cubicles
either by lath and plaster walls or by cloth hangings. The kitchen, with
brew-house, wash-house, dairy and other offices, where such existed,
might form part of the main buildings or be in a block by themselves,
and there would be one or two barns, with cart-houses, stables,
cow-sheds, hen-houses, pig-styes and the miscellaneous appurtenances of
a farm. The roofs of the various buildings would be thatched and the
windows unglazed, closed with wooden shutters; on the floor would be a
layer of rushes, not too frequently renewed, and one or two trestle
tables, some benches and stools; a cupboard and possibly a couple of
massive chests would pretty nearly exhaust the catalogue of the
furniture, save for the wooden platters and bowls, buckets and barrels
in the kitchen. Near the manor house as a rule would stand the church,
massive and dark, its walls adorned with crudely realistic paintings and
its stonework enriched with the strong, barbaric mouldings of the
period, and hard by, overshadowed by the tithe barn, would be the house
of the parish priest, little superior to the clusters of mud huts in
which the peasantry contrived to exist.
To obtain a true estimate of the position of the peasantry at this time
it is essential to grasp the entirely different standard of life then
prevalent. Comfort and happiness are mainly matters of comparison, and
at a time when the country gentleman was content with a simplicity which
a modern artisan would scorn the labourer might well see no discomfort
in conditions against which an Irish peasant would protest. A condition
of servitude was no great burden in itself to those upon whose
imaginations the theoretical beauty of liberty had not dawned. The
gradations between free and bond were so fine that it required a skilled
lawyer to draw the line that separated them, and in practice many
freemen were worse off than the average villein. If villeinage legally
bound the tenant to perform irksome service for his lord it morally
bound the lord to provide for his tenant. At the same time the services
exacted from the villein were arduous; in theory they were unlimited,
but in practice custom had already fixed their nature in most manors.
Striking a rough average, we may say that a villein as a rule had to
work for his lord one day in each week for every five or ten acres that
he held, and in addition to put in a number of extra days during the
busy and critical weeks of harvest and further occasional days for
ploughing, harrowing, and sowing. Then there were occasions when he
might be called upon to help in thatching the farm buildings, carting
manure, repairing hedges, carrying farm produce to market or fetching
salt, or such local requirements as the drying and salting of herrings.
For many of these extra services he had some return in the shape of a
meal at the lord’s cost, but the demands upon his time were heavy and
would have left him little opportunity to cultivate his own small
holding if he had no sons or others to assist him.
The lot of the people, villein, landowner, and burgess had improved
under the wise rule of Henry, and even the great lords, if shorn of
their power, were safe from the attacks of rivals and secure of their
possessions so long as they remained loyal. The seeds of the English
Constitution had been sown. The English nation, which had been nursed,
in part unwittingly, by Henry, was to discover its own existence under
his successors when his foreign policy failed and the connection between
Normandy and England was severed. The relations between Church and State
were settled upon a firm basis, and if the supremacy of the State, for
which Henry had fought, had to be abandoned, the Catholic Church in
England developed a consciousness of nationality and remained
independent of Rome in a degree quite exceptional when compared with the
Church on the Continent. As the effects of Henry’s policy were either
evanescent and negligible or enduring, and in the latter case easy to
trace, it is not hard to estimate the significance of his reign, but to
obtain a just estimate of the man himself is more difficult. For the
more intimate details we are largely dependent upon men who either bore
him ill-will or, more rarely, were writing in a spirit of flattery, but
putting the evidence together we see a strong, clear-headed man,
controlling his emotions but occasionally clearing off accumulations of
irritation and annoyance by tremendous outbursts of mad rage; a
methodical man with a keen sense of justice, but arbitrary and
unscrupulous; a skilled general who never engaged in warfare if it
could be avoided; a keen and restless sportsman with a sense of humour
and a passion for literature; a free-thinking adulterer with a genuine
appreciation of purity and true religion; a king who could manage the
affairs of half-a-dozen principalities but could not rule his own house;
an acute judge of men, who lavished affection and benefits upon
ungrateful and unworthy sons; a mass of contradictions; in other words,
an entirely human man.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
RECORDS
For the whole period covered by the reign of Henry II. the English
national archives are fortunate in the possession of the unique series
of Pipe Rolls. On these annual account rolls were entered in detail the
issues of all the counties, escheats, vacant sees and other lands farmed
for the Crown. The details of these payments, including “relief” paid by
the heirs of deceased tenants in chief, amercements for innumerable
offences and other miscellaneous information, are most valuable to the
genealogist, topographer, and constitutional historian, but of greater
value to the general historian are the balancing items of money expended
by the sheriffs upon building operations, hiring ships, provisioning
troops, entertaining members of the royal family or ambassadors from
foreign courts, and in a hundred other different ways. From these it is
possible in many cases to follow the king’s movements, while often the
details given throw a cold, impartial light, corroborative or
corrective, upon the prejudiced or distorted statements of the
chroniclers. Of the corresponding Pipe Rolls for Normandy only that for
1180 and a fragment for 1185 have survived.
A large number of royal _Charters_ of this period have survived and are
of great value to the antiquary, though, for the most part, they yield
little to the general historian. The _Calendars of Charter Rolls_, Mr.
Round’s _Calendar of Documents preserved in France_, and the _Monasticon
Anglicanum_ contain the most important collections of these charters.
With practically no exceptions the charters of Henry II. are undated
and can only be assigned to their years by a careful examination of the
attesting signatures, but M. Leopold Delisle in a series of articles in
the _Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes_ (1906-1908) claims that the
charters prior to 1173 can be at once distinguished from those of later
date by the absence from the king’s title of the formula _Dei gratia_,
which is invariably found from 1173 onwards. This theory has been
disputed, but the weight of evidence is in favour of M. Delisle.
Surveys of the manors and churches belonging to the canons of St.
Paul’s, made in 1181 (printed in the _Domesday of St. Paul’s_ by the
Camden Society), and of the possessions of the Knights Templars in 1185
(Exch. K. R., Misc. Books, vol. 16) are of interest for the light thrown
upon land tenure and agricultural life in general, and further
particulars can be gleaned from the many monastic cartularies, printed
and manuscript, which exist. Most important, perhaps, of all this class
of records is the “Boldon Book,” an elaborate survey of the possessions
of the see of Durham in 1183, which has been fully treated by Dr.
Lapsley in the _Victoria History of the County of Durham_.
_The Red Book of the Exchequer_, which has been printed in the Rolls
Series, contains the important returns of knights’ fees made in 1166 and
the “Constitutio Domus Regis,” an account of persons composing the
king’s household, their wages and perquisites, originally compiled in
the reign of Henry I., but equally applicable to the court of Henry II.
CHRONICLES
For the acts of Henry prior to his accession we are mainly dependent
upon the concise records of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ and Henry of
Huntingdon, with the valuable addition of the more detailed _Gesta
Stephani_.
For the general history of the reign the _Chronicles_ of Robert of
Torigny, Abbot of Mont St. Michel, down to 1186, in which year he died,
and the _History_ of William of Newburgh are two of the most reliable
sources. From 1170 onwards we have the valuable aid of the _Gesta
Henrici_, known by the name of Abbot Benedict of Peterborough, which is
incorporated in the _Chronicles_ of Roger of Hoveden. The works of Ralph
de Diceto, Dean of St. Paul’s, and of Gervase of Canterbury are for the
most part compilations based upon other writers, but each contain a few
facts not found elsewhere. The _Annales Monastici_ and other monastic
chronicles printed in the Rolls Series and the _Annales Angevines_
(_Collection de Textes_) supply a few occasional details of local events
and serve to corroborate the more important works.
The bulk of the literature concerned with the Becket controversy has
been collected in the seven volumes of Canon J. C. Robertson’s
_Materials for the History of Thomas Becket_ in the Rolls Series. These
contain the _Lives_ by William of Canterbury, including a long list of
Miracles, Benedict of Peterborough, John of Salisbury, continued by Alan
of Tewkesbury, William Fitz-Stephen, Herbert of Bosham, Edward Grim and
two anonymous biographers, and also over eight hundred _Letters_
connected with the controversy. Some light is thrown on the contemporary
estimate of Becket by the Latin metrical chronicle, _Draco Normannicus_,
attributed to Etienne of Rouen and written before Becket’s martyrdom had
conferred upon him exemption from criticism.
Welsh affairs are recorded in the _Annales Cambriæ_ and the more
detailed _Brut y Tywysogion_, and much light is thrown upon them by the
_Descriptio Cambriæ_ and the _Itinerarium Cambriæ_ of Gerald de Barri
(“Giraldus Cambrensis”). The same writer’s _Topographia Hibernica_ gives
an interesting but inaccurate account of Ireland, and his _Expugnatio
Hiberniæ_ recounts the conquest of Ireland by Richard “Strongbow,” Earl
of Pembroke, and his companions. Another and more reliable account of
the conquest is given in the Norman poem, _The Song of Dermot and the
Earl_ (ed. G. H. Orpen, 1891); it appears to have been based upon
materials supplied by Morice Regan, secretary to King Dermot. In
addition to these sources we have, for Irish history, the _Annals of the
Four Masters_ and the _Annals of Loch Cé_.
Jordan Fantosme has left us a spirited Norman poem on the war between
England and Scotland in 1173-4, including the capture of the Scottish
king, at which he was present. Another poem, _Guillaume le Maréchal_
(ed. P. Meyer, Société de l’Histoire de France), throws considerable
light upon Henry’s later years, as does the _De Principis Instructione_
of Gerald de Barri and the _Vita Hugonis_, or Life of St. Hugh of
Lincoln.
On the legal and constitutional side we have Glanville _De Legibus_, a
formulary compiled by the justiciar about the end of Henry’s reign, and
the _Dialogus de Scaccario_ of Richard Fitz-Neal, an elaborate account,
historical and technical, of the exchequer.
In the matter of illustrating the life of the times first place must be
accorded to Gerald de Barri, who exhibits in a unique degree the
qualifications of a journalist; clever, humorous, plucky, possessing
immense self-confidence, a fund of quotations, a love of “purple
patches” and an eloquence of abuse worthy of his Welsh extraction, he
continually enlivens his pages with personal anecdotes, usually
scandalous. With him may be classed Walter Map, Archdeacon of Oxford,
witty and sarcastic. The _Maréchal_ poem, already mentioned, throws some
light on the life of the nobles, more especially of the younger landless
men, whose chief delight was in the tournament. The inner life of a
monastery is shown with singular fidelity in the _Chronicle_ of Jocelin
of Brakelond, monk of Bury St. Edmunds, and a few details of the general
life of the people may be gleaned from the writings of Alexander
Neckam.
MODERN WRITERS
The reign of Henry II. has been treated by Lord Lyttleton, and more
recently by Miss Norgate and by Mrs. J. R. Green. The period is also
covered by the third volume of Sir J. Ramsay’s solid and scholarly
_History of England_. Mr. Eyton in his _Household and Itinerary of Henry
II._ endeavoured to trace the movements of the restless king from day to
day and to assign to definite occasions his undated charters. Complete
success in such a task is not to be expected, but although there are a
number of mistakes, especially in the dating of charters, the work is
monumental and most valuable to the student. Finally, mention may be
made of Mr. Round’s various papers in _Geoffrey de Mandeville_, _Feudal
England_, and _The Commune of London_.
APPENDIX
ITINERARY OF HENRY II
This itinerary is based upon Eyton’s monumental work, the sources being,
first, the definite statements of the chroniclers; secondly, the
evidence of records, more particularly the Pipe Rolls, which prove the
presence of the king at certain places in the course of the year but do
not as a rule give an exact date; and thirdly, royal charters, which can
be dated within certain limits by the names of the witnesses. Where the
name of a place is given with a date in brackets, it indicates that the
place was visited during the year under which it appears, but that the
exact date is problematic. In cases where charters given at a particular
place can be assigned with reasonable probability, but not with
certainty, to a particular year, the place name is put in brackets.
1154
December 7 Barfleur
” 8 Coast of Hampshire
(Henry lands)
Winchester
” 19 Westminster
(coronation)
” 25 Bermondsey
1155
January 13 Oxford
[January, [Northampton]
February, York
March] Scarborough
[Lincoln]
[Peterborough]
[Thorney]
[Ramsey]
Nottingham
March [c. 27] London
April 10 Wallingford
[May, June] Cleobury
Wigmore
Bridgnorth
July 7 Bridgnorth
[July, August, [Worcester]
September] [Salisbury]
September 20 Winchester
[October, Cricklade
November, Woodstock
December] Windsor
December 25 Westminster
1156
January 2-10 Dover
” [11-31] Wissant
[St Omer]
February 2 Rouen
” 5 near Gisors
[February-August] Anjou
Mirebeau, in
Poitou
Chinon, in
Touraine
Loudun, in
Touraine
[September 1] Saumur
[October] Limoges
December 25 Bordeaux
1157
[January-March] Normandy
April [c. 8] Barfleur
Southampton
London
[May] Ongar
May 19 Bury St.
Edmunds
” 23-28 Colchester
[June] [Thetford]
[Norwich]
July 17 Northampton
[July] The Peak
Chester
[August] North Wales
December 13 Gloucester
” 25 Lincoln
1158
[January] Carlisle
[February, [Blythe]
March] [Nottingham]
The Peak
April 20 Worcester
[April-August] [Evesham]
[Tewkesbury]
Gloucester
Wells
Cheddar
Brill
Clarendon
[Westminster]
Brockenhurst
Winchester
August 14 Portsmouth
(Henry
crosses to
Normandy)
[August] near Gisors
September 8 Argentan
[September] Paris
September 29 Avranches
October [c. 9] Nantes
[October] Thouars
[November] Le Mans
November 23 Mont St.
Michael
[November, Avranches
December] Bayeux
Caen
Rouen
December 25 Cherbourg
1159
[? April] Blaye in
Guienne
Poitiers
May 21-23 Bec Hellouin
” 24 Rouen
June 6-8 Hilliricourt
” 24 Poitiers
” 30 Perigueux
July 1-3 Agen
” [c. 5] Auvillards
July-September Toulouse
[c. 26]
[October] Uzerche
Limoges
Beauvais
[November] Guerberoi
Estrepagny
December 25 Falaise
1160
Normandy
July Neufmarché
November 2 Neufbourg
December 25 Le Mans
1161
Normandy
March 1 Mortimer-en-Lions
[March] [Lions-la-Forêt]
Le Mans
[May, June] The Vexin
near Chateaudun
July-August Châtillon (? on
10 the Garonne)
[October] Fréteval
December 25 Bayeux
1162
February 25 Rouen
[March] Lillebone
Fécamp
[April] Rouen
[May] Falaise
Normandy
[September] Choisi on the
Loire
[December] Barfleur
December 25 Cherbourg
1163
January 25 Southampton
[February] Oxford
Salisbury
March 3-6 London
” 8 Westminster
” 17 Canterbury
” 19 Dover
” 31 Windsor
April Reading
Wallingford
[May] Wales
[June] Carlisle
York
Northampton
July 1 Woodstock
[July, August] London
Windsor
October 1, 2 Westminster
[October- Northampton
December Lincoln
The Peak
Gloucester
Oxford
December 25 Berkhampstead
1164
January 13-28 Clarendon
[March] Porchester
Woodstock
April 12 London
” 19 Reading
c. August 24-c. Woodstock
September 10
September 14 Westminster
October 6-20 Northampton
December 24-26 Marlborough
1165
[February] [Westminster]
[March] Normandy
April 11 Gisors
” [15] Rouen
May Southampton
Surrey
Rhuddlan
Basingwerk
[July] Shrewsbury
Oswestry
[August] Powys
Chester
[September- Westminster
December] Woodstock
December 25 Oxford
1166
February Clarendon
March [c. 20] Southampton
[April] Maine
Alençon
Roche-Mabille
April 24 Angers
May 10-17 Le Mans
June 1 Chinon
” 28 near Fougères
July 12-14 Fougères
[August, Rennes
September] Rédon
Combour
Dol
Mont St Michel
Thouars
[October, Caen
November] Touques
Rouen
Caen
November 18 Tours
” 20 Chinon
December 25 Poitiers
1167
January Guienne
February, March Gascony
April Auvergne
May Normandy
June 4 The Vexin
[July] Chaumont
[August] The Vexin
Rouen
September Brittany
October [Valognes]
Caen
November 26-December 4 Argentan
[December] Le Mans
December 25 Argentan
1168
January Poitou
[March] Normandy
April 7 Pacey
May Brittany
Vannes
Porhoet
Cornouaille
June Dinan
St. Malo
Heddé
” 24 Bécherell
Tinténiac
” 25 Leon
[July] La Ferté Bernard
[August Ponthieu
September] Brueroles
Neufchâtel
Norman frontier
[October] Perche
December 25-31 Argentan
1169
January 1 Argentan
” 6 Montmirail
March St. Germain-en-Laye
Poitou
[April] St. Machaire
May-July Gascony
August Angers
” 15 Argentan
” 23, 24 Damfront
” 31 Bayeux
September 1, 2 Bur-le-Roi
” 3-October Rouen
November 16 St. Denis
” 18 Montmartre
December 25 Nantes
1170
January Brittany
February 2 Séez
” [c. 25] Caen
March 3 Portsmouth
April 5 Windsor
” [c. 10] London
June 11 London
” 14, 15 Westminster
” [c. 24] Portsmouth
Barfleur
” [c. 30] Falaise
[July] Argentan
July 6 La Ferté Bernard
” 20, 22 Vendome near
Fréteval
August La Mote Garnier,
near
Damfront
September Roque Madour
October Tours
” 12 Amboise
Chaumont
Chinon
[November] Loches
November 23 Mont Luçon
” 26 Bourges
December 21 Bayeux
” 25 Bur-le-Roi
” 31 Argentan
1171
January 1-February [c. 10] Argentan
February [c. 11-25] Pont Orson
[March, April] [Brittany]
May 2-16 Pont Orson
[June, July] Normandy
Valognes
August 2 Portsmouth
” [c. 5] Winchester
September [c. 8] Welsh border
” 25 Pembroke
” 27 St. David’s
” 29-October 15 Pembroke
” 16 Milford Haven
” 17-31 Waterford
November 6 Cashel
” 11-December 31 Dublin
1172
January, February Dublin
March, April 1-16 Wexford
April 17 Portfinnan
” [19] Haverfordwest
” 21 Pembroke
” 22 Cardiff
April 23 Newport
” 24 Talacharn
May [c. 12] Portsmouth
Barfleur
” 16 Gorram, in
Maine
” 17 Savigny
” 21 Avranches
[June-August] Brittany
September [c. 29] Caen
[December] Le Mans
” 25-31 Chinon
1173
[January] Montferrand,
in Auvergne
February 21-28 Limoges
March [c. 1] Vigeois
” 5 Chinon
” 7 Alençon
” [c. 10] Gisors
April 4 St. Barbe
” 8 Alençon
April-June Rouen
[June, c. 25] Northampton
July Rouen
August 6, 7 Conches
” 8 Bréteuil,
Conches
” 9 Verneuil
” 10 Damville
” [c. 12-20] Rouen
” 22-29 Dol
September 8-15 Le Mans
” 25, 26 Gisors
[November] Anjou
November 30 Vendome
December 25 Caen
1174
January-April Normandy
April 30 Le Mans
May 12 Poitiers
[May] Saintes
June 11 Ancenis
” 24 Bonneville
July 7 Barfleur
” 8 Southampton
” 12, 13 Canterbury
” 14-17 Westminster
” 20, 21 Huntingdon
” 24, 25 Seleham
” [27] Brampton
” 31 Northampton
August 8 Portsmouth
Barfleur
” 11-14 Rouen
September 8 Gisors
” c. 22 Poitiers
” 30 Mont Louis,
near Tours
[October] Falaise
December [c. 1] Falaise
” 8 Valognes
” 25 Argentan
1175
January Anjou
February 2 Le Mans
” 24 Gisors
” 26 Rouen
March Anjou
” 25 Caen
April 1 Bur-le-Roi
” [c. 3] Valognes
” 13 Cherbourg
” 22 Caen
May 8 Barfleur
” 9 Portsmouth
” 18 Westminster
” 28 Canterbury
June 1 Reading
[June] Woodstock
June 24 Oxford
” 29 Gloucester
July 1-8 Woodstock
” 9 Lichfield
August 1 Nottingham
” 10 York
[September] [Stamford]
[Northampton]
London
Windsor
October 8 Windsor
” 31 Winchester
November Windsor
” 26 Eynsham
” c. 30 Winchester
December 25-31 Windsor
1176
January 26 Northampton
March 14 London
April 4 Winchester
May 25 Westminster
” [c. 30] Winchester
[June-August] Clarendon
Ludgershall
Titgrave
Marlborough
Geddington
Nottingham
Feckenham
Bridgnorth
[Shrewsbury]
August 15 Winchester
September 21 Winchester
” 28 Windsor
October, c. 9 Feckenham
” 17 Cirencester
November 12 Westminster
December 24,25 Nottingham
1177
January, c. 15 Northampton
” 20 Windsor
February 2 Marlborough
” 22 Winchester
March 9 Windsor
” 13 Westminster
” [c. 20] Marlborough
April 17 Reading
” 21 Canterbury
” 22 Dover
” 23, 24 Wye
” c. 26 London
May 1 Bury St. Edmunds
” 2 Ely
May Geddington
Windsor
Oxford
” 22 Amesbury
” 29 Winchester
June [c. 10] London
” 11 Waltham
” 12 London
” c. 16 Woodstock
July 1 Winchester
” 9 Stokes, near
Portsmouth
” 10-17 Stanstead, in
Westbourne
July c. 17-August 15 Winchester
August 18 Portsmouth
” 19 Caplevic
September [c. 1] Ivry
” 11 Rouen
” 21 Near Ivry
” 25 Nonancourt
[October] Verneuil
Alençon
Argentan
Berri
” 9 Châteauroux
La Châtre
Limousin
Berri
[November] Graszay
Grammont
December 25 Angers
1178
March 19 Bec-Hellouin
April 9 Angers
July 15 “Dighesmut,”
on English
coast
[July] Canterbury
London
August 6 Woodstock
December 25 Winchester
1179
[January-March] Winchester
Windsor
Gloucester
April 1 Winchester
” 10 Windsor
August 23 Dover
Canterbury
” 26 Dover
” 27 Westminster
[October] Windsor
Worcester
December 25 Nottingham
1180
[January] Oxford
[April] Reading
April [15] Portsmouth
Alençon
” 20 Le Mans
[May] Chinon
June 28 Gisors
[July-September] Quillebœuf
Bonneville
Argentan
Caen
Bur-le-Roy
Valognes
Cherbourg
Tenchebray
Damfront
Mortain
Gorron
Lions-la-Forêt
Driencourt
Falaise
September c. 29 Gisors
December 25 Le Mans
c. 31 Angers
1181
[March] [Ivry]
Grammont
March 5 Valasse
April 5 Chinon
April 27 near Nonancourt
[May] Barfleur
[July] Gisors
July 26 Cherbourg
Portsmouth
[August] Canterbury
Nottingham
Pontefract
York
Knaresborough
Richmond
Lichfield
Feckenham
September 6 Evesham
” 12 Winchester
December 25 Winchester
1182
January 6 Marlborough
[February] [Arundel]
February 21, 22 Bishops Waltham
March, c. 10 Portsmouth
Barfleur
[March-May] Senlis
Poitou
Grammont
St. Yriez
Pierre Buffière
June 24 Grammont
July 1 Perigueux
” c. 6 Limoges
December 25 Caen
1183
January 1 Le Mans
[February] Limoges
Aixe
March 1 Limoges
” 8 Poitiers
March Angers
Mirebeau
April 17-June 24 Limoges
Le Mans
July 3 Angers
December 6 Gisors
” 25 Le Mans
1184
[January-May] Limoges
Evreux
Rouen
June, c. 5 Choisi
” 10 Wissant
Dover
” c. 12 Canterbury
” c. 13 London
July 22 Worcester
” c. 25 Winchester
August 5 Reading
” 16 Woodstock
” c. 21 Dover
Canterbury
London
October 21-23 Windsor
December 1-13 Westminster
” 14 Canterbury
” 15,16 London
” 25 Windsor
” c. 31 Guildford
1185
January 1-6 Winchester
” 25 Melkesham
[February] Chipping
Campden
March [c. 10] Nottingham
” 17 Reading
” 18 Clerkenwell
Westminster
” 31 Windsor
April 10-16 Dover
” 16 Wissant
” 21 Rouen
May 1 Vaudreuil
November 7 Aumâle
” 9 Belvoir
December 25 Damfront
1186
[February] Gisors
March 10, 11 Gisors
April 27 Southampton
” c. 30 Merewell
Winchester
May 25 Eynsham
Oxford
July 1 Northampton
” 15 Feckenham
[July] Carlisle
September 5 Woodstock
” 9-14 Marlborough
October 20 Reading
November 30 Amesbury
December 25, 26 Guildford
1187
January 1 Westminster
February 10 Chilham
” 11 Canterbury
” 14-17 Dover
” 17 Wissant
February 18 Hesdin
” 19 Driencourt
” c. 20 Aumâle
April 5 Gué St. Remy,
near Nonancourt
June 23 Châteauroux
August 28 Alençon
[September] Angers
Brittany
Montreleis
[November] Bur-le-Roy
December 25 Caen
1188
January c. 4 Barfleur
” 13-21 Gisors
” 23 Le Mans
” c. 25 Alençon
” 29 Dieppe
” 30 Winchelsea
[February] Oxford
Northampton
” 11 Geddington
Bury St.
Edmunds
” 29-March 1 Clarendon
[Cirencester]
[March-April] Kingston-on-Thames
[March-April] Winchester
Woodstock
June 5 London
” 14 Geddington
July 10 Portsea
” 11 Barfleur
” [12] Alençon
” 16-18 Gisors
” 30 Mantes
September Ivry
October [c. 1] [Gisors]
” 7 Châtillon
November 18 Bonmoulins
December Guienne
” 25 Saumur
1189
February 1-3 Le Mans
March 20 Le Mans
May 19 Le Mans
June 4-9 La Ferté
Bernard
” 10-12 Le Mans
” 12 Frenelles
” 18 Savigny
July 3 Azay
” 4 Colombier
” 5, 6 Chinon: death
of King
Henry
INDEX
Aaron of Lincoln, Jew, 200
Abacus, the, 206
Abbeys, vacant. _See_ Monasteries, vacant
Abergavenny, 36
Abraham, the Jew, 199
Adelisa, Queen, 95
Adrian IV., Pope, 17, 22-23, 46;
Bull Laudabiliter, 114
Advowsons, 67, 178
Ælnoth, 146
Agen, 243
Aids, 203-5;
Sheriff’s. _See_ Sheriff’s aid
Aixe, 249
Alais, French Princess, 49, 152, 164-65, 168-69, 172
Alais of Savoy, 125
Ale, 226
Alençon,171, 244, 246, 248-49, 251
Alexander III., Pope, 46-47, 79-82, 85-87, 89-90,
94, 101-2, 114-15, 122-23, 158
Allington Cast., 145
Alnwick, 140;
Cast., 134
Amadour, St., 161
Amboise, 92, 245;
Cast., 127
Amesbury, 154, 248, 250
Anagni, Cardinal John of. _See_ John of Anagni
Ancenis, 247
Angers, 244, 248-51
Anglesea, 32
Anglo-Saxon Chron., 237
Angus, Earl of, 140
Anjou, 24, 136, 168, 242, 246-47
---- Fulk, Count of, 2
---- Geoff., Count of, 2-7
---- Geoff. of (d. 1158), 8-9, 16, 24, 44, 204;
Hamelin of. _See_ Warenne, Hamelin of;
Will. of, 16, 22, 62-63, 99
_Annales Angevines_, 238
_Annales Cambriæ_, 238
_Annales Monastici_, 238
_Annals of Loch Cé_, 239
_Annals of the Four Masters_, 239
Appleby, Cast., 131, 137, 147
Aquitaine, 8, 163
Ard-Righ (Irish King), 103
Argentan, 101, 242, 245-49
Arms, Assize of, 218-19
Army, 217-19;
Mercenaries (_see_ Mercenaries);
Scutage (_see_ Scutage)
Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux. _See_ Lisieux
Arques, 7
Arson, 189
Arundel, 249;
Cast., 131
---- Earl of, 16, 49, 66, 79-80, 127, 135, 213
---- Joscelin of, 95
Aumâle, 250-51
---- Count Will. of, Earl of Yorkshire, 19-20, 131
Aumône, Phil., Abbot of, 65
Auvergne, 47, 93, 172, 244-46
Auvillard, 243
Avalon, Hugh of. _See_ Lincoln, St. Hugh, Bishop of
Avranches, 122, 242-43, 246
Axholme, Cast., 130, 139, 145
Aymary, Phil., 208
Azai, 171, 251
Baillol, Bern. de, 140;
Joscelin de, 83
Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, 163
---- Archd., 55
Bamborough, 136
Bampton, Hon. of, 202
Bandinelli, Cardinal Roland. _See_ Alexander III., Pope
Bangor, Bpric., 30
Bannow, 107
Baptism, Irish custom, 113
Bar, Count of, 141
Barcelona, Raymond Berenger, Count of. _See_ Raymond Berenger
Barfleur, 8, 122, 137, 142, 241-42, 245-47, 249, 251
Barre, Rich., 102
Barri, Gerald de (Giraldus Cambrensis), 38, 106, 166, 214, 226-27, 238-39;
Rob. de, 106
Basingwerk, 31-33, 37, 244
Bath, Bpric., 201
---- Reynold, Bp. of (Archd. of Salisbury), 128
Battle, Walter de Lucy, Abbot of, 52
Battle-axe, the Irish, 103
Bayeux, 88, 243, 245-46
Beauchamp, Hugh de, 132;
William, 6
Beaumont, Ermengarde of. _See_ Ermengarde, Queen of Scotland;
Rich., Visct. of, 164
Beauvais, 46, 243
Bec Hellouin, 243, 248
Bécherell, 245
Becket, Gilb., 54-55;
Mary. _See_ Berking, Mary, Abbess of;
Maud, 54-55;
Roese, 138;
Thos., Archb. of Canterbury. _See_ Canterbury, Thos. Becket, Archb. of
Belvoir, 250
Bennington, Keep, 146
Berenger, 87
Berkeley, Rog., 6
Berkhamstead, 244;
Cast., 131;
Hon. of, 57, 65, 72
Berking, Mary (Becket), Abbess of, 139
Bermondsey, 17, 241
Berry, 167, 248
Berwick, 134;
Cast., 144
Berwyn, Mts. of, 37
Beverley, Provostship, 57
Big, Raymond the. _See_ Raymond the Big
Bigot, Bigod, Hugh, Earl of Norfolk. _See_ Norfolk;
Rog. le, 135
Bishoprics, vacant. _See_ Sees, vacant
Bisset, Manser, 6
Blaye in Guienne, 243
Blois, 159
---- Count of (1188), 8, 47, 101, 127, 167
---- Hen. of. _See_ Winchester, Hen. Bp. of;
Steph. of. _See_ Stephen, King
Blythe, 242
Bohun, Engelger de, 96;
Humph. de, 128, 134-35
Boldon Book, 237
Bonmoulins, 8, 168, 251
Bonneville, 125, 137, 247, 249
Bordeaux, 242
Bosham, Herb. of, 74, 76, 78, 238
Boston, 77
Boulogne, county of, 62
---- Eustace of. _See_ Eustace of Boulogne;
Mary, Ctss. of, 62, 77;
Matthew (of Flanders), Count of, 62, 127, 132;
Will., Count of. _See_ Warenne, Will., Earl of
Bourges, 246
Bourton, 4
Bowes Cast., 131
Boxley, Abbot of, 99
Brabantine mercenaries, 27, 132, 142
Brackley Cast., 145
Brackelond, Jocelin of, 239
Brakespere, Nich. _See_ Adrian IV., Pope
Brampton, 247
Braose, Phil. de, 118;
Will. de, 153
Breifny, 105
Breteuil, 246;
Cast., 132
Breton, Rich. le, 96, 99
Bridgnorth, 242, 247;
Cast., 22
Brightwell Cast., 10
Brill, 242
Bristol, 9, 105, 112, 119;
Cast., 146;
Dublin granted to, 224
Brittany, 24, 44, 47-49, 132-33, 144, 245-46, 251
---- Conan, Count of, 24, 44, 49, 66, 144;
Geoff., Count of (d. 1158). _See_ Anjou, Geoff. of;
Geoff., Count of (d. 1186). _See_ Geoffrey, son of Hen. II;
Hoel, Count of, 24
Broc, Randulf, Ranulf de, 76, 82-83, 93, 135;
Rob. de, 95, 97, 99
Brockenhurst, 242
Broi, Phil. de, 63-64
Brough-under-Stanemore, 137
Brueroles, 245
Brut-y-Tywysogion, 238
Bungay, Cast., 130, 141
Burgundy, Dk. of, 171
Bur-le-Roi, 95, 124, 245-47, 249, 251
Burrell, a cloth, 223
Bury St. Edmunds, 11, 24, 135, 242, 248, 251
Cadwalader, Welsh prince, 26, 33, 36
Caen, 243-47, 249, 251
Caereinion Cast., 38
Caerleon on Usk, Cast., 112
Cahaignes, Ralf de, 199
Cahors, 46, 57
Calculating board. _See_ Abacus
Cambridge, Cast., 131
---- Earldom, 127
Cambridgeshire, 11, 226
Canterbury, 59, 94, 162, 243, 247-50;
Becket’s murder, 95-100;
Cast., 131;
Christ Church Priory, 52, 138, 227;
fire at, 11, 61, 230;
Henry II.’s penance at, 138;
moneyers, 208;
pilgrimages to, 157-58;
St. Augustine’s Abbey, 203
---- Archbpric., 16, 52, 74, 90, 201
---- Bald., Archb. of, 162, 166;
Rich., Archb. of, 128-29, 149, 162;
Theobald, Archb. of, 11, 15, 50, 54-57;
Thos. Becket (St.), Archb. of, Bibliography, 238;
burial, 99-100;
canonisation, 129;
as chancellor, 15, 46, 50-51, 57-58;
consecration as archb., 50-54;
early life, 54-56;
French embassy, 41-43;
Henry II.’s penance at tomb of, 138;
murder, 95-99, 122-24, 153;
pilgrimages to shrine of, 156-58;
struggle with the king, 58-95, 197
---- Geoff. Ridel, Archd. of. _See_ Ely, Geoff. Ridel, Bp. of;
Walt., Archd., 56.
---- Gerv. of, 238;
Will. of, 238
Caplevic, 248
Cardiff, 246;
Cast., 34
Cardigan Cast., 37
Cardigan, dist. of, 33, 35
Carlisle, 6, 40, 127, 242-43, 250;
Cast., 131, 134;
mines, 202, 225;
siege, 136-37, 139
Carmarthen, 34
Carrick Cast., 110-11
Carthusians, 154, 228
Cashel, 246;
Council of, 113-14
Castile, King of, 150
Castles in England, 12, 18-19, 130-31, 145-46, 210;
in Ireland, 118;
in Wales, 28
Ceiriog, valley of the, 36
Champigny, 136
Chancellor, 183
Chastel, Hugh de, 135
Châteaudun, 243
Châteauroux, 164, 167, 248, 251
Châtillon, 167, 243, 251
Chaumont, 48, 245
Cheddar, 242
Cheeses, English, 226
Cherbourg, 44, 243, 247, 249
Chester, 25-26, 37, 242, 244;
Cast., 130;
Irish trade, 224
---- Hugh, Earl of, 66, 126, 130, 132-33, 138, 144;
Ralph, Earl of, 6, 21
Cheyney, Will., 11, 49, 199
Chichester Cast., 131;
fire of (1187), 231
---- Hilary, Bp. of, 52, 65, 73, 75, 79, 82;
Joscelin, Bp. of, 128
Chilham, 250;
Cast., 131
Chinon, 24, 82, 125, 165, 167, 171-72, 242, 244-46, 249, 251
Chipping Campden, 250
Chirk, 36
Choisi-on-the-Loire, 243, 250
Church, the English, 60-61, 63-69, 128, 149-50, 193, 212-13, 234.
_See_ also Clarendon, Constitutions of, and Ecclesiastical Courts
---- the Irish, 113-15
---- the Welsh, 30
Churches, 232;
advowsons. _See_ advowsons;
lands granted to, 179
Cider, 226
Cinque Ports, 219-22, 224
Cirencester, 9, 248, 251
Cistercians, 227
Clare, Earl of, 34, 63, 141
---- Rich. of, Earl of Pembroke. _See_ Pembroke
Clarendon, 210, 242, 244, 247, 251;
Assize of, 182-85,187;
Constitutions of, 66-67, 79-81, 86, 89, 122, 177-82;
Council of, 65-69
Cleobury, 242;
Cast., 21
Clerical courts. _See_ Ecclesiastical courts
Clerkenwell, 250
Clifford, Rosamund (Fair Rosamund), 152;
Walt., 33
Clipston, 210
Clondalkin moor, 108
Cloth trade, 147, 223
Cock-fighting, 230
Cogan, Miles de, 108-11, 118;
Rich. de, 111
Coinage, 207-9
Colchester, 24, 222, 242;
Cast., 131
Cologne, Archb. of, 49
Colombier, 171, 251
Combour, 244
Conan, Count of Brittany. _See_ Brittany
Conches, 132, 246
Connaught, King of, 118, 120
Consillt, 31
Constable of England, office, 32
Constance (of Brittany), 144
---- Queen of France, 41
---- French princess. _See_ St. Gilles, Constance, Ctss. of
Constantin, Geoff. de, 130
Constantinople, 150
Constitutional history, 175-93
Conway, 32
Cork, King of, 120
Cornhill, Gerv. of, 93
Cornouaille, 245
Cornwall, cloth manuf., 223;
tin mines, 225
---- Reynold, Earl of, 16, 34, 66, 68, 118, 127, 133, 135, 152
Coronation, 15-17, 41, 51-52, 90-91, 123-24
Coudre, Simon de, 86
Courcy, John de, 116, 121;
Rob. de, 31
Court Christian. _See_ Ecclesiastical courts
Courtmantel, nickname of Hen. II., 173
Coventry, 225
Craon, Maur. de, 173
Cressi, Hugh de, 135
Cricklade, 4, 242
Crioill, Sim. de, 97
Crook, 113
Crowmarsh, 10-11
Crown demesnes, grants of, 18-19, 195
Crusade, 83, 153, 160-61, 163, 165-66, 169, 172, 200
Cumberland, 25
Cumin, John, 83
Customs dues, 224-25
Cynan, Welsh prince, 31
Damfront, 245, 249-50
Damville, 246
Danegeld, 203
David, King of Scotland, 6
---- Scottish prince, 127, 130
---- ap Owain, Welsh King, 31 128, 142
Dean, Forest of, 226
Debts, pleas of, 178
_De Legibus_, 239
Demetia. _See_ Wales, South
_De Principis Instructione_, 239
Derby, Ferrers, Earl of. _See_ Ferrers, Earl
Derbyshire lead mines, 225
Dermot MacMurrogh, King of Leinster, 104-9, 239
Dervorgille, Irish queen, 105
_Descriptio Cambriæ_, 238
Devizes, 6
Devon tin mines, 225
_Dialogue de Scaccario_, 239
Diceto, Ralph de, 238
Dieppe, 251
Dighesmut, 248
Dinan, 245
Dives, Will. de, 127
Dol, 132-33, 244, 246
Domfront, 87
Donnell Kavanagh, Irish prince, 107
Dover, 12, 23, 49, 59, 93, 220, 242-43, 248-50;
Cast., 127, 131, 210
Dover, Prior of, 99;
Rich., Prior of. _See_ Canterbury, Rich., Archb. of
_Draco Novmannicus_, 238
Drausius, St., 82
Drax, Cast., 18
Driencourt, 249-51;
Cast., 131
Drunkenness, 227-28
Dublin, 108-10, 112, 115-17, 224, 246
Duel, judicial, 190-91
Duffield Cast., 130
Dundonuil, 108
Dunham Cast., 130
Dunstable, 12
Dunstanville, ----, 66
Dunstaple, 63
Dunwich, 139
Durham Cast., 130, 141
---- Hugh Puiset, Bp. of, 90, 128, 130, 134, 146, 203
Dynevor, 35
Eastry, 77
Ecclesiastical courts, 60-61, 63-71, 149, 178-82
Edinburgh Cast., 144, 164
Eleanor (dau. of Hen. II.), Queen of Castille, 150
---- (of Aquitaine), Queen of England, 7-8, 24, 40-41,
44-45, 125, 138, 149, 163
Ely, 248;
Bpric., 201
---- Geoff., Ridel, Bp. of (Archd. of Canterbury), 72, 84, 87, 92-93, 128;
Nigel, Bp. of, 195
Emelin Cast., 142
---- dist., 142
Emma, Queen of North Wales, sister of Hen. II., 142
England, Church of. _See_ Church, the English
Epernon Cast., 46
Ermengarde (of Beaumont), Queen of Scotland, 164
Ernald the armourer, 36
Essex, Geoff. de Mandeville, Earl of, 25, 66;
Will. de Mandeville,
Earl of, 96, 127, 153, 171
---- Hen. of, Constable of England, 16, 31-32
Estrepagny, 243
Eu, Count of, 66, 72, 126
Eustace of Boulogne, son of King Stephen, 6-7, 11, 45, 56
---- Master, 55
Eva, Irish princess, 106, 108
Evesham, 11, 242, 249
Evreux, 250;
Bp. of, 102, 124
---- Count of, 46, 126, 151
Exchequer, 194-95, 206-7, 237, 239
Excommunication, 67, 181
Exeter, fire of (1161), 230
---- Bp. of, 52
Exports, 226
_Expugnatio Hiberniæ_, 238
Eye, Hon. of, 57, 65, 72
Eynesford, Will. of, 63, 72
Eynsham, 247, 250
Falaise, 91, 144, 156, 243, 245, 247, 249;
Cast. of, 136
Fantosme, Jordan, 239
Farms (firmæ) of counties and honours, 196
Faye, Ralph de, 125-26
Fécamp, 243
Feckenham, 247-50
Ferns, 109
Ferrers, Earl, 66, 126, 130, 142, 145, 176
Final concords. _See_ Fines
Finance, 194-211, 236
Fines, payments, 198-202
---- (final concords), 186-87
Fires, 230
Firmæ. _See_ Farms
Fitz-Audelin, Will., 114, 118
Fitz-Bernard, Rob., 113, 116-17
Fitz-Count, Brian, 10
Fitz-Ercenbald, Will, 202
Fitz-Gerald, Dav., Bp. of St. David’s. _See_ St. David’s;
Maur., 107;
Warin, 16
Fitz-Godebert, Rich., 106
Fitz-Harding, Rob., 105
Fitz-Henry, Meiler, 106, 110, 116
Fitz-Herbert, Herb., 118;
Will., 118
Fitz-John, Eustace, 31;
Will., 96
Fitz-Neal, Rich., 239
Fitz-Nigel, Will., 97
Fitz-Peter, Sim., 63-64, 66
Fitz-Richard, Rog., 134
Fitz-Stephen, Rob., 37, 106, 110-11, 113, 116-18;
Will., 74-75, 228, 238
Fitz-Urse, Reynold, 96-98
Flanders, Count of, 12, 16, 59, 62, 77, 127, 131-32,
139, 150, 153, 159, 162, 167, 171;
Ctss. of, 12;
Matthew of. _See_ Boulogne, Matthew, Count of
Flemeng, Steph. le, 119
Flemings;
banishment, 146-47;
clothworkers, 223-24;
heretics, 83;
mercenaries, 17, 119, 136;
in rebellion of the young king, 134-36,139, 141;
Welsh colony, 17
Foliot, Gilb., Bp. of London (Bp. of Hereford). _See_ London;
Rob., Bp. of Hereford. _See_ Hereford
Fontevrault Abbey, 154, 173
Forest laws, 147-49, 188, 205
Forest, Assize of the, 191-93
Forgery, 189
Fornham-St. Geneveve, battle of, 117, 135
Fougères, 244
---- Ralph of, 132-33, 144
_Four Masters, Annals of the._ See _Annals of the Four Masters_
Framlingham Cast., 130, 135, 141, 146
Frank pledges, 185
Frascati, 102
Frederic I., Emperor, 41, 46, 80-81, 150, 159
Freeholds, actions concerning, 190;
succession to, 189-90
Frenelles, 251
Fresnai, 170
Fréteval, 91, 243
Fugitive criminals, 185
Fyrd, 217
Galloway, 164, 204
Gaols, 185
Gascony, 244-45
Geddington, 166, 247-48, 251
Geoffrey, son of Hen. II.;
birth, 45;
Brittany acquired, 49, 144;
death, 121, 164;
marriage, 49, 144;
quarrels with Richard, 160, 163;
rebellion, 126, 133
---- illegitimate son of Hen. II. (Bp. of Lincoln),
128, 139, 156, 170-71, 173
Gerard, heretic, 83
_Gesta Henrici_, 238
---- _Stephani_, 237
Gilbertines, 228
Gilds, 223, 225
Giraldus Cambrensis. _See_ Barri, Gerald de
Gisors, 44, 47, 117, 129, 133, 143, 164-65, 242, 244, 246-47, 249-51;
elm of, 165, 167
Glamorgan, 34
Glanville, Ranulph de, 119, 140, 146, 186, 239
Glastonbury Abbey, 201, 231
Glendalough, 107
Gloucester, 119, 225, 242, 244, 247-48;
Cast., 21, 146
---- Rob., Earl of, 3-4;
Will Earl of, 5, 33-34, 72, 127, 146, 151;
Ctss. of, 34
---- Isabel. _See_ Isabel (of
Gloucester), wife of King John
Godred, King of Man, 41
Godstow Abbey, 152
Gorram, 246
Gorron, 249
Gospatric, son of Orm, 137, 147
Gower, 34
Grammont, 248-49;
monastery of, 160, 228
Grand Assize, the, 190
Grantham, 77
Graszay, 248
Gratian, Cardinal, 87
Gravelines, 78
Grim, Edw., 98, 238
Groby Cast., 130, 142, 145
Grosmont, 36
Gruffudd, of South Wales, 33
Guerberoi, 243
Gué St. Remy, 251
Guienne, 49, 243-44, 251
Guildford, 250
_Guillaume le Maréchal_, 239
Gundeville, Hugh de, 96
Guy, King of Jerusalem, 165
Gwynedd, Owain, King of North Wales. _See_ Owain Gwynedd
Harbottle, fortress, 137
Harcourt, Ivo de, 199
Hasculf Torkil’s son, 108, 111-12
Hastings, 220-21;
Cast., 131
---- Rich, de, 68
Haughley Cast., 135
Haverfordwest, 246
Haverholme, 77
Hawking, 214-15
Heddé, 245
Henry V., Emperor, 1
Henry I., King of England, 2-3, 33, 191
Henry II., arms of, 173;
Becket controversy, 50-102, 138, 140, 153-54;
birth, 3;
children of, _see_ Geoffrey, Henry, Joan, John, Maud, Richard, William;
coronation, 16, 41;
death, 173;
description of, 14-15, 213-14, 234-35;
England acquired by, 4-13, 25;
financial policy, 194-211;
foreign policy, 40-49, 150-53, 158-59, 164-72;
Ireland in reign of, 23, 103-21;
itinerary, 241-51;
legal and constitutional work, 175-93;
marriage, 8;
military organisation under, 217-19;
navy of, 219-22;
rebellion against, 19-22, 122-44, 160-62, 167-72;
Welsh wars of, 26-39
Henry, son of Henry I., 33
---- son of Hen. II., King, at Avranches, 123;
Becket and, 51, 65, 96;
birth, 21;
Brittany under, 49;
coronation, 51, 90, 124;
court at Bur-le-Roi, 124;
death, 161-62;
fealty sworn to, 22, 51;
French King aided by, 159;
marriage, 42, 44, 47;
rebellion, 116, 125-44;
tournaments, 215;
war with Richard, 160
---- Dk. of Saxony, 49, 150, 159
---- (of Blois), Bp. of Winchester. _See_ Winchester
---- of Pisa, Cardinal, 47, 51
Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem. _See_ Jerusalem
Hereford Cast., 21
---- Archd. of, 168
---- Gilb. Foliot, Bp. of. _See_ London, Gilb. Foliot, Bp. of;
Rob. Foliot, Bp. of (Archd. of Lincoln), 128;
Rob. of Melun, Bp. of, 65, 81
---- Rog., Earl of, 6, 21
Herefordshire, vineyards, 226
Heretics, 83
Hertford Cast., 131
---- Earl of, 66, 151
Hesdin, 251
Hilliricourt, 243
Holy Trinity, Feast of. _See_ Trinity Sunday
Houses, 231-32
Hoveden, Rog. of, 238
Howel, Welsh prince, 112
Hugh (of Lincoln), St. _See_ Lincoln,
Hugh, Bp. of
Huitdeniers, Osbern, 55
Humet, Rich, de, 16, 96
Humez, Will, de, 132
Hunting, 214-15
Huntingdon, 247;
Cast., 130, 137, 139, 141, 145;
weavers, 223
---- Earldom, 25, 127, 139
---- Hen. of, 237
Hussey, Hen., 6
Hythe, 220-21
Ilchester, Rich. of. _See_ Winchester, Rich.
of Ilchester, Bp. of (Archd. of Poitiers)
Industries. _See_ Trade and Industries
Interdict, 67, 88-89, 101-2, 152
Ipres, Will. of, 17
Ipswich, 11
Ireland, bibliography, 238-39;
conquest, 16, 22-23, 104-21;
description, 103-4;
trade with, 224
Irish Church. _See_ Church, the Irish
Iron industry, 225-26
Isabel (of Gloucester), wife of King John, 151
_Itinerarium Cambriæ_, 238
Itinerary of Hen. II., 241-51
Ivry, 248-49, 251;
Conference at, 152-53
Jedburgh Cast., 144
Jerusalem, fall of, 165;
King of, 41, 165
---- Heraclius, Patriarch of, 162-63
Jews, 199-200, 218
Joan (dau. of Hen. II.), Queen of Sicily, 150-51
John (son of Hen. II.), besieged at Châteauroux, 164;
birth, 49;
grants to, 144;
Ireland under, 118-21;
marriage schemes for, 125, 151-52, 169;
Norman castles reserved for, 171;
rebellion, 172;
war with Richard, 163, 170
---- of Anagni, Card., 169
---- the Wode, 111-12
Jordan, castellan at Malmesbury, 10
Jorweth ap Owain, 112
Jorwerth the Red, 36-37
Jousts. _See_ Tournaments
Jury, trial by. _See_ Trial by jury
Justices, itinerant, 182-84, 189
Justiciar, 183
Kavanagh, Donnell, Irish prince. _See_ Donnell
Kenilworth Cast., 131
Kent, 127, 226
Kildare, 116
Kingston-on-Thames, 251
Kirkby Cast., 145
Knaresborough, 249;
Cast., 99
Knight service, 217-18
La Châtre, 248
Lacy, Hugh de, 116-18, 120-21, 132
La Ferté Bernard, 168, 245, 251
La Haye, 136
La Haye, Ralph de, 139
L’Aigle, Richer of, 8, 55, 66
La Mote Garnier, 245
Laudabiliter, Bull, 114-15
Lauder Cast., 130
Lead mines, 225-26
Legal codes, 177-93
Legge, Rob., 97
Leicester, 131, 133, 142;
Cast., 130-31, 133, 142, 145
---- Ctss. Peronelle of, 135-36;
Rob., Earl of (d. 1168), 6, 15-16, 66, 68, 75-76, 126;
Rob., Earl of (d. 1190), 126-27, 130, 132-36, 138, 144, 146-47
Leicestershire, Bertram de Verdon, Sheriff of. _See_ Verdon
Leinster, 104, 106, 109, 111, 116-17
Le Mans, 44, 166, 168-70, 174, 243-47, 249-51
Lenton Priory, 21
Leon, 245
Les Andelys, 48
Lesnes, priory of, 158
Lichfield, 247, 249
Liddel fortress, 137
Lillebonne, 243
Limerick, 117-18;
King of, 120
Limoges, 125, 160, 242-43, 246, 249-50
Limousin, 248
Lincoln, 21, 77, 241-42, 244;
aid paid by, 203-4;
Cast., 131;
cath., 56;
local tradition, 40;
weavers, 223
---- Bpric. of, 201
---- Bp. of, 63-64, 199, 203;
Geoffrey, Bp. of. _See_ Geoff., illegitimate son of Hen. II.;
St. Hugh (of Avalon), Bp. of, 154-57, 239
---- Rob. Foliot, Archd. of. _See_ Hereford, Rob. Foliot, Bp. of
---- Aaron of, Jew. _See_ Aaron of Lincoln
Lions la-Forêt, 243, 249
Lisbon expedition, 220
Lisieux, Archd. of, 74, 102
---- Arnulf, Bp. of, 65, 82, 102, 122, 128
Llandaff, Archd. of, 114
---- bpric., 30
Llantilis, 36
Llewellyn, Alexander, 73
_Loch Cé, Annals of._ _See Annals of Loch Cé_
Loches, 245
London, 12, 21, 129, 242-45, 247-48, 250-51;
aid paid by, 203;
Bridge, 225;
Fitz-Stephen’s account of, 228-31;
gilds, adulterine, 225;
Rouen’s trading privilege, 224;
St. Mary le Strand, ch., 56;
St. Paul’s Cath., 56, 87;
Tower, 57, 131;
weavers, 223
---- bpric., 52
---- Gilb. Foliot, Bp. of (Bp. of Hereford), 50,
54, 59, 65, 74-75, 79, 81, 87, 90, 93-94, 102, 138
Longchamp, Will., 168
Loudun, 24, 125, 242
Louis VII., King of France;
alliances with Hen. II., 13, 44, 152-53;
Becket protected, 79, 86, 89, 101;
death, 158;
Hen. II.’s homage to, 24;
marriages, 7-8, 41, 47;
pilgrimage to
Canterbury, 157-58;
rebellions against Hen. II. supported, 124-26, 132-33, 136, 142-43;
wars with Hen. II., 6-9, 46-49
Luci, Rich. de, appointed justiciar, 16;
at Council of Clarendon, 66;
death, 158;
defeat near Oxford, 11;
election to see of Canterbury held, 52;
excommunication of, 82, 87;
nicknames, 84, 128;
renounces allegiance to Becket, 78;
writ suspending forest laws produced, 148;
young king’s rebellion resisted, 127-28, 133-34
Ludgershall, 247
Lusignan, Geoff. de, 126;
Guy de, 126, 165
MacDonnchadh, King of Ossory, 111
Mackelan, 107
MacMurrogh, Dermot, King of Leinster. _See_ Dermot
Madog of Powys, 36
Maine, 24, 168, 244, 246
Malannai, 143
Malcolm, King of Scotland, 25, 40-41, 45
Malmesbury Cast., 9
Malory, Ansketil, 142
Malzeard Cast., 130, 139, 145
Man, Isle of, 41
Mandeville, Earl Will. de. _See_ Essex, Will, de Mandeville, Earl of
Manor-houses, 231-32
Mantes, 7, 167, 251
Manuel, Emperor of Constantinople, 150
Map, Walt. _See_ Oxford, Walt. Map, Archd. of
Marchers, Lords, 28, 38-39
Marches, Hugh de Mortimer, lord of the. _See_ Mortimer
Margaret, Queen (French princess), 41-42,
44, 47, 90-91, 124, 138, 157, 164
Mark, 207
Marlborough Cast., 144, 244, 247-50;
Council at, 81
Marshal, John the, 70-71, 75;
Will. the, 127, 129, 161, 168-70, 173, 215-16
Martel, 161
Mary, dau. of King Stephen. _See_ Boulogne, Mary, Ctss. of
Masci, Hamo de, 130, 145, 147
Matthew, Master, 4
Matthew of Flanders. _See_ Boulogne, Matthew, Count of
Mauclerc, Hugh, 99
Maud, Empress, 1-5, 18, 23, 48, 50, 81, 85
---- Dchss. of Saxony, dau. of Hen. II., 24, 49, 80
Maurienne, Hub., Count of, 125, 151
Mauvoisin, Will., 96
Meath, 116
Melkesham, 250
Melun, Rob. of. _See_ Hereford, Rob. of Melun, Bp. of
Mercenaries, 17, 27, 36, 45, 119, 129, 132, 136, 142, 194
Merewell, 250
Merionethshire, 37
Merton Priory, 55
Meulan, Count of, 126
Miles, son of the Bp. of St. David’s, 106
Milford Haven, 112, 119, 246
Militia, 217-19
Mines, 225-26
Mirabeau, 24, 125, 242, 250
Monasteries, 226-28, 239;
vacant, 149, 178, 201
Money, 207-9
Moneyers, 208
Money-lending, 199-200
Mont Dieu, Prior of, 86
Montferrand, 125, 246
Montfort Cast., 46
---- Hugh de, 32;
Rob. de, 31-32
Montgomery, 36
Mont Louis, 247
---- Lucon, 246
Montmartre, 89, 245
Montmirail, 86, 245
Montmorency, Hervey de, 106, 108, 117
Montreleis, 251
Mont St. Michel, 243-44
Montsoreau, 9
Morgan, Welsh prince, 29
Morin, Ralph, 97
Mortain, 127, 249
Mort d’Ancestor, Assize of, 190
Mortimer, Hugh de, lord of the Welsh marches, 21-22, 199
Mortimer-en-Lions, 243
Morville, Moreville, Hugh de, 96, 98-99, 137;
John de, 137;
Rich. de, 130, 137, 140
Mountsorel Cast., 130, 142
Mowbray, Rog., 126, 130, 136, 139-40, 142, 145
Munfichet, Gilb., 141
Munster, 111, 117-18
Murder, amercement for, 199;
punishment of clerks for, 150
Mutilation, 184, 189
Nantes, 24, 44, 242, 245
Nant Pencarn, stream, 34
Navarre, King of, 150
Navy, 219-22
Néaufles Cast., 47
Neckam, Alex., 239
Nest, Welsh princess, 33
Neufbourg, 243
Neufchâtel, 245;
Cast., 47
Neufmarché, 46, 243
Nevers, Bp. of, 89
Newburgh, Will. of, 238
Newcastle, 140;
Cast., 131, 134
Newnham, 112
Newport, 246
Nonancourt, 248-49, 251
Norfolk, Hugh Bigot, Earl of, deprived of castles, 25;
excommunicated, 87;
fine paid, 199;
high steward, 16;
in rebellion of the young king, 126, 130, 134-36, 139, 141;
re-created earl, 20
Norham Cast., 130, 141
Normandy, 4, 6-7, 23, 171, 242-47
Northallerton Cast., 130, 141, 146
Northampton, 20, 25, 65, 130, 141, 241-44, 246-48, 250-51;
aid paid by, 203;
battle at, 142;
Council
of, 70-77;
St. Andrew’s Priory, 73
Northampton, Earl of, 127, 139
---- Assize of, 189
Northamptonshire, iron industry, 225
Northumberland, 25, 127, 133-34
---- Hen., Earl of, 6
North Wales. _See_ Wales, North
Norway, 41
Norwich, 242;
aid paid by, 203-4;
capture of, 139;
Cast., 24, 131
---- Bp. of, 67, 151
Nottingham, 21, 147, 241-42, 247-50;
Cast., 131, 144, 210;
plundered, 11;
sack of, 142;
weavers, 223
Novel Disseisin, Assize of, 185-86, 189
O’Brien, King of Munster, 111
O’Conor, Roderic, Irish Ard-Righ. _See_ Roderic O’Conor;
Turlogh, Irish Ard-Righ. _See_ Turlogh
Octavian. _See_ Victor III., Pope
O’Dempsey, 116
Odrone, Pass of, 110
Offaly, 116
Offelan, 107
Ongar, 242
Ordeal of battle, _see_ Duel, judicial;
of water, 184
Oreford Cast., 131
Orewell, 139
O’Rourke, Tiernan, King of Breifny. _See_ Tiernan
Ossory, King of, 107, 111
Oswestry, 36, 244
Otford, Ch., 56
O’Toole, 107;
Lawr., Archb., 108-9
Otto, Cardinal, 84
Owain Cyveliog, Welsh prince, 36-37
---- Gwynedd, King of North Wales, 26, 29, 31-33, 35-38
Oxford, 12, 19, 65, 241, 243-44, 247-51;
battle, 11;
Cast., 131, 210;
weavers, 223
---- Walt. Map, Archd. of, 214, 227, 239
---- Aubrey de Vere, Earl of, 23
Oxford, John of. _See_ Salisbury, John of Oxford, Dean of
Pacey, 8, 167, 245
Pagham, man., 70
Painel, Gerv., 145, 147
Paris, 43-44, 242
Patric, Will., 132
Pavia, Cardinal Will. of. _See_ William
Paynel, Fulk, 202
Peak, The, 25, 131, 242, 244
Peasantry, 212, 232-33
Pembroke, 112-13, 246
---- Eva, Ctss. of. _See_ Eva, Irish princess;
Gilb., Earl of, 4;
Rich., Earl of, 49, 106, 108-12, 116-18
Pembrokeshire, 35
Pencader, 34
Penny, silver, 207
Perche, 245
---- Count of, 48
Périgueux, 243, 249
Peterborough, 241;
abbey, 21
---- Abbot Benedict of, 238
Pevensey Cast., 4, 24, 55
Peverel, Will., 21
Philip II., Augustus, King of France; 157-59, 162-69, 171-72
Pierre Buffière, 249
Pipe Rolls, 236
Pisa, Cardinal Henry of. _See_ Henry
Planches, 85
Plinlimmon, Mts. of, 34
Poer, Rob. le, 118;
Will. le, 119
Poitiers, 243-44, 247, 250
---- Richd. of Ilchester, Archd. of.
_See_ Winchester, Richd. of Ilchester, Bp. of
Poitou, 8, 48-49, 137, 144, 160, 163, 242, 245, 249
Pomeray, Jolland de la, 118
Pontefract, 249
Ponthieu, 245
---- Count of, 48, 126
Pontigny, 81-83
Pont l’Evêque, Rog. of, Archb. of York. _See_ York
---- Orson, 246
Porchester, 244;
Cast., 131
Porhoet, 245
Port, Ad. de, 136, 140, 202
Portfinnan, 246
Portsea, 251
Portsmouth, 90, 122, 242, 245-49
Portugal, King of, 162
Pound (in money), 207-9
Powys, 27, 36, 244
Prendergast, Maur., 106-8, 111, 117
Prestatyn, Cast., 38
Preuilly, 136
Prices, 209
Prudhoe Cast., 131, 139
Puiset, Bp. Hugh. _See_ Durham, Hugh Puiset, Bp. of
Quency, Rob. de, 116
Quillebœuf, 249
Quincy, Saer de, 96
Radnor, 34
Ramsey, 21, 241
Rastel, Rog., 119
Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona, 45
---- the Big, 108-10, 117-18
Reading, 31-32, 243-44, 247-50;
Cast., 10
_Red Book of the Exchequer_, 237
Redon, 244
Regan, Morice, 106, 108, 239
Relief, a death duty, 201-2
Rennes, 244
Reynold, Archd. of Salisbury, Bp. of Bath. _See_ Bath
Rheims, Archb. of, 150, 171
---- Council of (1148), 56
Rhuddlan, 32-33, 35-36, 38, 244
Rhys (ap Gruffudd), King of South Wales, 33-38, 106, 112, 128, 142
---- Gwrgant ap, 29
Richard I., son of Henry II., besieged at Châteauroux, 164;
birth, 40;
cross assumed by, 166;
Hen. II.’s fortune dissipated, 211;
King, 173;
marriage scheme, 49, 152, 164, 168;
rebellions, 126, 133, 137, 143-44, 165, 168-72;
wars with brothers,
160, 163;
war with Philip of France, 166-67;
war with Toulouse, 166
Richard, Prior of St. Martin’s. _See_ St. Martin’s, Rich., Prior of
---- Strongbow, 127, 238
Richmond (Yorks.), 249;
Cast., 131
---- Conan, Earl of. _See_ Brittany, Conan, Count of
Ridel, Geoff., Bp. of Ely--Archd. of Canterbury. _See_ Ely
Robert, Duke of Normandy, 1
Rochelle, la, 162
Roche Mabille, 244
Rochester, 95;
Cast., 127, 131
---- Bp. of, 52, 90
Rochfort Cast., 46
Roderic O’Conor, Irish Ard-Righ, 107-10, 113, 115
Roger, Archb. of York. _See_ York
Romney, 69, 220
Romsey, Mary, Abbess of. _See_ Boulogne, Mary, Ctss. of
Roquemadour, 161, 245
Rosamund, Fair. _See_ Clifford, Rosamund
Rotrou, Archb. _See_ Rouen, Rotrou, Archb. of
Rouen, 44, 129, 131, 133, 152, 242-48, 250;
siege, 142-43;
surrender to Geoff. of Anjou, 4;
trading privilege in London, 224
---- Rotrou, Archb. of, 81, 89, 102, 124
---- Etienne of, 238
Roxburgh Cast., 144
Rufus, Guy, 154
Rye, 221
Sackville, Nigel de, 93
Saintes, 137, 217
St. Alban’s Abbey, 176
St. Asaph, bpric., 30
St. Barbe, 246
St. David’s, 113, 115, 246
St. David’s, bpric., 30
St. David’s, Dav. Fitz-Gerald, Bp. of, 113
St. Denis, 245
St. Edmunds, Abbot of, 199
St. Germain-en-Laye, 245
St. Giles, fair of, Winchester, 223
St. Gilles, 151
St. Gilles, Count of, 45;
Ctss. of, 45
St. Hilaire, Hasculf de, 127, 132
St. John, John, 6
St. Machaire, 245
St. Malo, 245
St Martin’s, Rich., prior of, 94
St. Mary of Wigford, ch., 40
St. Michael’s Mount, 44
St. Omer, 242;
St. Bertin, Mon., 77-78
St. Omer, Otes, or Tostes, de, 68, 141
St. Yriez, 249
Saladin, 165
---- tithe, 166
Salisbury, 242-43
---- Reynold, Archd. of. _See_ Bath, Reynold, Bp. of
---- Bp. of, 67, 87, 90, 93-94, 102
---- John of Oxford, Dean of, 80, 83-84, 93-94, 102
---- Earl of, 6, 66, 127
---- John of, 22-23, 238
Saltwood, 95, 99;
Cast., 96, 145
---- Hon. of, 93
Sandwich, 93, 220, 222
Sarthe R., 169
Saumur, 242, 251
Savigny, 122, 246, 251
Savoy, 125
Saxony, Hen., Dk. of. _See_ Henry
Scandinavians, 108, 111-12
Scarborough, 60, 225, 241;
Cast., 20
Scotland, vassalage to England, 144;
war with, 134, 136, 139-40, 239
Scutage, 204-5, 217-18
Sees, vacant, 149, 178, 201
Séez, 245;
Bp. of, 82
Selby, 147
Selby, Fulk of, 147;
Will. of, 147
Seleham, 141, 247
Sempringham, Gilb. of, 228
---- Priory, 77
Senlis, 249
Sens, 69, 79, 87
Sens, Archb. of, 101-2
Sheriffs, 184-85, 187-88, 196-98, 206-7
Sheriff’s aid, 61-62, 197-98
Ships, 219, 221
Shipway, The, 221
Shrawardine, 36
Shrewsbury, 244, 247
Shropshire lead mines, 225
Sicily, 150-51
Silver mines, 202, 225
Skating, 230
Skenfrith, 36
Smithfield horse fair, 229
Society during the reign, 212-35
Soissons, 82
_Song of Dermot and the Earl_, 239
Son of Orm, Gospatric. _See_ Gospatric
Southampton, 58, 222, 242-44, 247, 250;
Cast., 131
South Wales. _See_ Wales, South
Spalding Priory, 21
Stamford, 247;
Cast., 11
Stanstead, 248
Stephen, King, agreement with Hen. II., 12;
death, 13;
forests relinquished by, 191;
grants by, 17-19;
Henry II.’s war with, 3-6, 9-11;
Lincoln tradition defied, 40;
money, 207;
revenues, 195
Stirling Cast., 144
Stockport Cast., 130
Stokes, 248
Strongbow. _See_ Richard Strongbow
Stuteville, Rob. de, 128, 140, 146;
Rog. de, 134, 136
Surrey, Hamelin, Earl of, _see_ Warenne, Hamelin, Earl of;
Will., Earl of, _see_ Warenne, Will., Earl of
Talacharn, 246
Tallies, 207
Tamworth, Ralph of, 83-84
Tancarville, Will. de, 126, 214
Tenants-in-chief, ecclesiastical, 178;
excommunication of, 67, 181
Tenchebray, 249
Tewkesbury, 242
---- Alan of, 238
Theobald, Archb. of Canterbury. _See_ Canterbury
Thetford, 242;
Cast., 145
Thirsk Cast., 130, 139, 142, 145
Thomas of Canterbury, St. _See_ Canterbury, Thos. Becket, Archb. of
Thomond, King of, 118
Thorney, 241;
Abbey, 21
Thouars, 44, 242, 244
Tiernan O’Rourke, King of Breifny, 105, 112
Tin mines, 225-26
Tinténiac, 245
Titgrave, 247
_Topographia Hibernica_, 238
Torigny, Rob. of, 237
Torkil’s son, Hasculf. _See_ Hasculf
Toulouse, 45-46, 57, 204, 243
---- Count of, 166
Touques, 244
Touraine, 168, 242
Tournaments, 215-16
Tours, 171, 244-45, 247
---- Steph. of, 169
Tracy, Will. de, 96, 98
Trade and industries, 222-26
Tregoz, Rob., 127
Trenchemer, Will., 32
Trial by jury, 179-80, 190-91
Trihan, Will., 173
Trinity Sunday, 53
Turlogh O’Conor, Irish Ard-Righ, 105
Turville, Geoff. de, 145
Tutbury Cast., 130, 142, 145
Tyre, Archb. of, 165
Ugoccione, Cardinal, 149
Ullerwood Cast., 130
Ulster, 113, 116, 121
Umfraville, Odinell (al), de, 128, 139-40
Urban III., Pope, 121, 165
Usurers. _See_ Money-lending
Uzerche, 243
Vagabonds, 185
Valasse, 249
Valognes, 245-47, 249
Vannes, 245
Vaudreuil, 250
Vaux, Hub. de, 6;
Rob. de, 134, 137, 139
Vendome, 245-46
Venedotia. _See_ Wales, North
Verdon, Bertram de, 146
Vere, Aubrey de, Earl of Oxford. _See_ Oxford
Verneuil, 132, 246, 248
Vesci, Will. de, 128, 134, 136, 140
Vexin, the, 7, 243-44;
Norman, 47
Vézelay, 172;
abbey of, 82
Victor III., anti-Pope, 46, 80-81
Viel, John le, 176
Vigeois, 246
Villeins, 233;
ordination of, 67
_Vita Hugonis_, 239
Vivian, Cardinal, 87
Wales, bibliography, 238;
Church, _see_ Church, the Welsh;
crusade preached in, 166;
description, 26-30;
mercenaries, 45, 48, 142;
wars in, 30-39, 51, 112
---- North (Venedotia), 27, 242
---- South (Demetia), 27, 106
Wallingford, 10, 22, 242-43;
Cast., 10, 131
Waltham, 248
---- Bishops, 249
---- Abbey, 153-54
Walton, 134;
Cast., 131, 134, 146
Wareham, 6, 9
Warenne, Hamelin, Earl, 62, 76, 127;
Isabel, Ctss., 62;
Will., Earl, 11-14, 24, 62
---- Reynold de, 49, 93
Wark, 136;
Cast., 131, 134
Warkworth Cast., 134
Warwick Cast., 11, 131
---- Earl of, 6;
Gundreda, Ctss. of, 11;
Ctss. of, 202
Waterford, 108, 110-13, 116-20, 246;
synod of, 114-15
Weavers, 223
Wells, 242
Welsh Church. _See_ Church, the Welsh;
mercenaries. _See_ Wales, mercenaries; wars
Westbourne, 248
Westminster, 23, 51, 150, 241-45, 247-50;
Abbot of, 199;
Council at (1163), 64
Westmoreland, 25, 127, 134
Weston Cast., 145
Wexford, 107, 110-13, 115-18, 246
Wigmore, 242;
Cast., 21
William (the Lion), King of Scotland
(1173), 127, 133-34, 136-37, 139-40, 143-44, 164, 166
---- King of Sicily, 150
---- son of Henry II., 22
---- grandson of Hen. II., 157
---- son of Rob. of Normandy, 1
---- son of King Stephen. _See_ Warenne, Will., Earl of
---- of Pavia, Cardinal, 47, 84
Winchelsea, 221, 251
Winchester, 12, 22, 94, 124, 166, 241-42, 246-51;
Cast., 131;
description, 222-23;
fires, 230-31
---- bpric., 201
---- Hen., Bp. of, 3, 11, 22, 52, 56-57, 71, 73, 95, 112, 203;
Rich. of Ilchester, Bp. of (Archd. of Poitiers), 80, 83, 87, 128, 137
Windsor, 242-45, 247-50;
Cast., 131
Wine trade, 222, 226
Wisbeach, Cast., 131
Wissant, 93, 242, 250
Witham Priory, 154-55, 214
Woodstock, 35, 40, 105, 155, 164, 192, 197, 210, 242, 244, 247-48, 250-51
Wool, 226
Worcester, 41, 223, 242, 249-50;
Cast., 131
---- Bp. of, 79, 102, 124, 162
Wurzburg, 80
Wye, 248
Yarmouth, 220
York, 146-47, 241, 243, 247, 249;
aid paid by, 203;
Cast., 131
---- archbpric., 74, 201
---- Rog. of Pont l’Evêque, Archb.
of, 52, 56, 65, 69, 74, 79, 90-91, 93-94, 149, 158, 203
---- Lefwin of, 199
Yorkshire, lead mines, 225
---- Earl of. _See_ Aumâle, Will., Ct. of
Yvor the Little, 33-34
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
at Paul’s Work, Edinburgh
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Later writers, anxious to depreciate Henry II. even to the extent
of making him illegitimate, and his mother a bigamist, retailed a
legend to the effect that the Emperor Henry V. had not died at this
time, but had retired secretly into a monastery: Giraldus Cambrensis,
_Op._ viii. 300.
[2] Mr. Round (_Feudal England_, 491-4) rejects the “Invasion of 1147,”
of which the only mention is the account given in the _Gesta Stephani_,
and considers that the events recorded relate to Henry’s visit in
1149. He is undoubtedly right in pointing out that the chronicler
confused Henry’s unwarlike cousin, Earl William of Gloucester, with his
loyal uncle, Earl Robert, making the latter refuse to give that help
which, had he then been living, he would certainly have rendered to
the utmost of his ability. On the other hand, what we know of Henry’s
visit to England in 1149 is quite inconsistent with the wretched fiasco
described in the _Gesta_, and when Mr. Round argues that “the statement
that Henry applied for help to his mother by no means involves ...
her presence in England at the time,” it is difficult to follow his
argument. Had Henry applied for money to any one outside England it
would presumably have been to his father, and, moreover, in 1149 the
empress could not have been in straitened circumstances.
[3] See list of witnesses to charter executed at Devizes on 13th April,
1149: _Sarum Charters_ (Rolls Ser.), 16.
[4] The connection between Louis and Eleanor was very distant, but
a literal observance of the Canon Law would have invalidated the
marriages of half the nobility of Europe.
[5] It is not quite certain when Richard de Luci was associated with
the Earl of Leicester in the justiciarship, but the earl was clearly
Chief Justiciar until his death in 1168, and may have held the superior
position by priority of appointment.
[6] Nicholas Brakespere, the only Englishman to attain the papacy, was
elected pope and took the title of Adrian IV. in December 1154.
[7] Roger of Hoveden mentions in particular the Yorkshire castle of
Drax as one of the last of many destroyed by Stephen.
[8] After his description of Earl William’s great castle of
Scarborough, William de Neuburgh adds that when in course of time it
fell into decay, King Henry rebuilt it. It is rather surprising to find
how soon this occurred, but the Pipe Roll for 1159 shows £111 spent
“on the works of the castle of Scardeburc,” and £70 spent on the works
of the “tower” (_turris_), a term which Mr. Round has shown to imply a
keep. Next year £94, 3s. 4d. was spent on the keep, and the following
year £107, 6s. 8d. on the castle.
[10] The claim of the popes to the sovereignty over islands was based
upon the forged “Donation” of Constantine.
[11] This payment of 500 marks, entered under Essex on the lost Pipe
Roll for the first year of Henry II., is copied into the _Red Book of
the Exchequer_.
[12] There are numerous references to the “nova terra” of Earl Warenne
on the Pipe Roll 4 Henry II.
[13] According to the _Brut y Tywysogion_ (p. 109), an English governor
on one occasion took certain action, “knowing the manners of the people
of the country, that they would all be killing one another.”
[14] Many of these were probably merely positions of advantage
strengthened with ditch and wooden stockade.
[15] See Round, _Commune of London_, 281.
[16] Details of these proceedings are to be found on the Pipe Rolls, 11
and 12 Henry II.
[17] In justice to Henry it must be remembered that the mutilation or
execution of hostages was the natural outcome of the rebellion of those
for whose good conduct they were sureties. A hostage who cannot be
punished for the sins of those whom he represents is merely a useless
expense to his keeper.
[18] The Pipe Roll, 12 Henry II., shows both these princes on good
terms with the English.
[19] The Pipe Roll for 8 Henry II. shows “60s. paid to William Cade for
gold for the crown of the king’s son, and for preparing the regalia,”
and the Roll for the twelfth year records the expenditure of 7s. “for
carrying the regalia of the king’s son into Normandy.” It would also
seem (see below, p. 91) that the pope issued a commission for the
Archbishop of York to crown the young prince.
[20] Gervase of Canterbury (_Opera_, i. 171) says that Thomas
instituted the feast of the Holy Trinity. It would seem that the Sunday
following Whitsunday was already sacred to the Trinity, but that he
gave to the feast a position which it had not held before in England,
and which it did not attain on the Continent till a much later date.
[21] The legend that the mother of Thomas was the daughter of a Saracen
emir into whose hands Gilbert Becket had fallen during a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, and that, after helping Gilbert to escape, she followed
him to London, is of late date and absolutely without foundation.
[22] The actual salary of the chancellor was 5s. a day, but the
perquisites of the office, including the gifts which those who required
his favour had to make, were great. Becket himself was said, by Foliot,
to have paid “many thousand marks” for the office.
[23] Translation from one see to another, except in the case of
promotion to the primacy, was extremely rare, and almost unheard of, in
England at this time.
[24] A small point, not without significance as an indication of
character, is observable in the gradual degradation of the royal oath.
The Conqueror swore “by the splendour of God,” Henry “by the eyes of
God,” Richard “by the body” or “by the thighs of God,” and John “by the
feet,” or even “by the nails, of God.”
[25] Isabelle de Warenne had been the wife of William, son of King
Stephen, the cousin of William of Anjou. The connection being through
the Empress Maud there was no obstacle to her marriage, afterwards
effected, with Hamelin, the illegitimate son of Geoffrey of Anjou.
[26] Their names occur as owing these sums “pro plegio archiepiscopi”
on the Pipe Roll, 11 Henry II.
[27] The claim of the northern archbishops to have their cross carried
before them within the province of Canterbury was a continual source of
dispute for several centuries, leading to many undignified scenes.
[28] See Pipe Roll, 16 Henry II.
[29] See Pipe Roll, 12 Henry II.
[30] For a discussion of the authenticity of this letter of Pope
Adrian, see Round, _The Commune of London_, 171-200, and, on the other
side, Orpen, _Ireland under the Normans_, i. 312-8.
[31] This province had been previously offered to Herbert and William
Fitz-Herbert, half-brothers of Earl Reynold of Cornwall, and Jolland de
la Pomeray, but they had wisely declined the gift.
[32] The Pipe Roll, 19 Henry II., shows an expenditure of £32, 6s. 5d.
for the king’s maintenance at Northampton for four days; and it would
seem that he travelled without luggage, as over £72 was spent at the
same time on the outfit which the sheriff provided for the king. None
of the chroniclers notice this flying visit, but the evidence appears
to favour the end of June as the most probable date.
[33] All the authorities agree as to the rapidity of Henry’s dash to
Dol. Presumably he had with him only a small mounted escort.
[34] The Pipe Roll of 21 Henry II. shows a pension of 33s. 4d. paid to
her for the last quarter of the twentieth year. She seems to have died
in 1188, as the pension was then paid to her son John.
[35] “Fair Rosamund” was buried at Godstow Abbey, where the king set
up a wonderfully carved monument to her memory. As we find fifty marks
paid “for work at Godstow” in 1177, the first of a number of similar
payments, it is probable that she had been buried there the previous
year.
[36] She was apparently still alive in 1181, when a small allowance
was made her, the sum of 66s. 8d. paid “matri G. cancellarii ad eam
sustentandam” appearing amongst the charges on the bishopric of Lincoln.
[37] It is interesting to observe that Matthew Paris assigns to the
young king Henry a shield of arms,--per pale gules and sable, three
golden leopards; _Chron. Maj._ (Rolls Ser.), vi. 473. This bears every
mark of being an exceptionally early instance of differencing, and
makes it more than probable that Henry II. bore the red shield with the
three golden leopards, which has ever since been the arms of England.
[38] As for instance in the case of the disputed privileges of the
abbey of St. Alban’s, when his examination of their charters and his
comments thereon showed remarkable painstaking ability: _Gesta Abbatum
S. Albani_ (Rolls Ser.) i. 145-155. Another case, reported in still
greater detail, is the suit between the Bishop of Chichester and the
Abbot of Battle: _Chron. of Battle Abbey_ (ed. Lower), 78-115. For
an instance of the king’s appreciation of legal technicalities, see
_ibid._, 182.
[39] The Pipe Roll for 31 Henry II. records a fine of 500 marks imposed
on the Bishop of Durham for holding a plea touching the advowson of a
church in Court Christian.
[40] An instance of a difficult case being referred by the justiciar to
King Henry occurs in the _Chron. Mon. de Abingdon_ (Rolls Ser.), ii.
229.
[41] Instances of the blessing of the ordeal pits occur in the Pipe
Rolls. In 1166, for instance, 10s. was paid to two priests for blessing
the pits (_fossarum_) at Bury St. Edmunds, and in Wiltshire 5s. was
paid for preparing the pools (_polis_) for the ordeal of thieves, and
20s. to priests for blessing the same pools. As early as 1158 the
sheriff of Wiltshire accounted for making “the pools of the moneyers,”
and in 1175 in Hampshire there were payments made for “blessing the
ordeal pits (_fossis iuisse_), and the cost of doing justice on the
peasants who burnt their lord.”
[42] _Engl. Hist. Rev._, xxv. 709.
[43] The fragmentary return to the Inquest of Sheriffs made from the
Earl of Arundel’s lands in Norfolk has been printed as an appendix to
the _Red Book of the Exchequer_ in the Rolls Series, but was first
identified by Mr. Round.
[44] See Round, _Commune of London_, 229-233.
[45] In connection with the “sheriff’s aid” there is an interesting
entry in the _Chronicle of Abingdon_ (ii. 230), which relates that
a former abbot had granted the sheriff 100s. yearly to protect the
interests of the abbey’s tenants. The later sheriffs had continued to
draw the money while doing nothing for it, and Abbot Ingulf refused to
continue the payment, lest it should become established as a custom.
The matter was brought before King Henry, who gave his decision in the
abbot’s favour. The survey of the manors belonging to the canons of
St. Paul’s in 1181 shows that the payments due to the sheriff from the
different manors varied from 6d. to 4s. on the hide.
[46] The numerous references to Jews on the Pipe Rolls and in
contemporary chronicles have been brought together in Jacobs’ _The Jews
of Angevin England_. Examples of their dealings with monastic houses
may be found in Jocelin of Brakelond’s _Chronicle_, relating to St.
Edmund’s Abbey, and in the _Gesta Abbatum_ concerning St. Alban’s,
while an idea of their importance to the litigant in want of ready
money for legal expenses may be gathered from Richard of Anstey’s
famous story of the costs of his lawsuit (translated in Hall’s _Court
Life of the Plantagenets_), in which he accounts for some seventeen
different loans, amounting in all to £87, on which he paid £53 for
usury.
[47] The tally, the precursor of the counterfoil, was a wooden stick
on the edge of which the sum paid was indicated by a series of cuts
or notches, the various sizes of which indicated definite sums. The
stick being split parallel to its face, each party to the payment
retained one portion, with its edge thus significantly notched, and the
genuineness of either portion could at once be proved by putting the
two together, when the notches would be found to tally.
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