The grievance against him was that he made the king "to be every man"s heir, whether he were in orders or a layman," that is to say, that Flambard so stripped and exhausted the land belonging to the king"s wards as to make it almost worthless, and then demanded reliefs so enormous that when the estate had at last been restored, all its value had pa.s.sed into the hands of the king. When a bishop or an abbot died, the king appointed no successor, and appropriated the revenues of the vacant see or monastery till some one chose to buy the office from him. The king alone grew rich, whilst his va.s.sals were impoverished.
5. =Archbishop Anselm.=--In =1089= Lanfranc died, and the archbishopric of Canterbury was then left vacant for nearly four years. The Archbishop of Canterbury was more than the first of English bishops. He was not only the maintainer of ecclesiastical discipline, but also the mouthpiece of the English people when they had complaints to make to the king. Men turned their thoughts to Anselm, the Abbot of Bec. Anselm was a stranger from Aosta, on the Italian side of the Alps. He was the most learned man of the age, and had striven to justify the theology of the day by rational arguments. He was as righteous as he was learned, and as gentle as he was righteous. Tender to man and woman, he had what was in those days a rare tenderness to animals, and had caused astonishment by saving a hunted hare from its pursuers. In =1092= the king"s va.s.sals a.s.sembled in the Great Council urged William to choose a successor to Lanfranc, and asked him to allow prayers to be offered in the churches that G.o.d might move his heart to select a worthy chief pastor. "Pray as you will," said the king, scornfully. "I shall do as I think good; no man"s prayers will do anything to shake my will!" In the spring of =1093= William fell sick. Believing himself to be a dying man, he promised to amend his life, and named Anselm archbishop. On his refusal to accept the nomination, Anselm was dragged to the king"s bedside, and the pastoral staff, the symbol of the pastoral office of a bishop, was forced into his hands by the bystanders.
6. =The Council of Rockingham. 1095.=--To this well-meant violence Anselm submitted unwillingly. He was, he said, a weak old sheep to be yoked with an untamed bull to draw the plough of the English Church.
Yet, gentle as he was, he was possessed of indomitable courage in resistance to evil. William recovered, and returned to his blasphemy and his tyranny. In vain Anselm warned him against his sins. A fresh object of dispute soon arose between the king and the new archbishop.
Two Popes claimed the obedience of Christendom. Urban II. was the Pope acknowledged by the greater part of the Church. Clement III. was the Pope supported by the Emperor. Anselm declared that Urban was the true Pope, and that he would obey none other. William a.s.serted that his father had laid down a rule that no Pope should be acknowledged in England without the king"s a.s.sent, and he proposed to act upon it by acknowledging neither Clement nor Urban. His object was, perhaps, to prevent the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline by temporarily getting rid of the papal authority. Anselm wanted the authority of the Pope to check vice and disorder. The question was set aside for a time, but in =1095= Anselm, tired of witnessing William"s wicked actions, asked leave to go to Rome to fetch from Urban the pallium, a kind of scarf given by the Pope to archbishops in recognition of their office. William replied that he did not acknowledge Urban as Pope. A Great Council was summoned to Rockingham to discuss the question. The lay barons, who liked to see the king resisted, were on Anselm"s side.
The bishops, many of whom were creatures of William, appointed from amongst his clerks, took the side of the king. Anselm stated his case firmly and moderately, and then, caring nothing for the angry king, retired into the chapel and went quietly to sleep. The king, finding that the barons would give him no support, was unable to punish Anselm. Two years later, in =1097=, Anselm betook himself to Rome, and William at once seized on his estates.
7. =William II. and his Brothers.=--Normandy under Robert was even worse off than England under William. William was himself a tyrant, but in Normandy there were at least a hundred tyrants because Robert was too easy-tempered to bring any one to justice. The land was full of violence. Each baron made war on his neighbour, and, as usual, the peasant suffered most. Robert"s own life was vicious and wasteful, and he was soon in debt. He sold the Cotentin and the territory of Avranches to his youngest brother, Henry. Henry was cool-headed and prudent, and he kept order in his new possession better than either of his elder brothers would have done. The brothers coveted the well-ordered land, and in =1091=, two years before Anselm became archbishop, they marched together against Henry. Henry was besieged on St. Michael"s Mount, a rocky island surrounded by the sea at high water. After a time water ran short. The easy-tempered Robert sent in a supply. "Shall we let our brother die of thirst?" he said to William. Henry was in the end forced to surrender, and the land which he had purchased was lost to him for a time. In =1095= Henry was again in Normandy. Robert of Belleme, the lord of Domfront, was the most cruel of the cruel barons. Once he had torn out with his own hands the eyes of his G.o.dson, merely because the child"s father had displeased him. The people of Domfront called on Henry to deliver them from such a monster. Henry seized Domfront, ruled its people with justice, and soon recovered the possessions from which his brothers had driven him.
8. =William and Scotland. 1093--1094.=--William"s attention was at this time drawn to the North. Early in his reign he annexed c.u.mberland, and had secured it against the Scots by fortifying Carlisle, which had been desolate since the Danish invasion in the reign of aelfred. Malcolm, king of the Scots, was a rude warrior who had been tamed into an outward show of piety by his saintly wife, Margaret, the sister of Eadgar the aetheling. Though he could not read her books of devotion, he liked to look at the pictures in them and to kiss the relics which she honoured. Margaret gathered Englishmen round her, and spread abroad something of southern piety and civilisation amongst the fierce Celtic warriors of her husband. She could not teach them to change their natures. In =1093= Malcolm burst into Northumberland, plundering and burning, till an Englishman slew him at Alnwick. Queen Margaret died broken-hearted at the news, and was before long counted as a saint. For the moment the Scottish Celts were weary of the English queen and her English ways. They set up Malcolm"s brother, Donald Bane, as their king, refusing to be governed by any of Margaret"s sons. Donald at once "drave out all the English that before were with King Malcolm." In =1094= Duncan, Margaret"s step-son, gained the crown from Donald with the aid of a troop of English and Norman followers. The Celts soon drove out his followers, and after a while they slew him and restored Donald.
9. =Mowbray"s Rebellion. 1095.=--William had as yet too much to do at home to interfere further in Scotland. The Norman barons hated him, and in =1095= Robert of Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland--the name was now confined to the land between the Tweed and the Tyne--refused obedience. William at once marched against him, and took from him the new castle which he had built in =1080=, and which has ever since been known as Newcastle-on-Tyne. Robert held out long in his stronger fortress of Bamborough, which was only taken at last by fraud. He was condemned to a lifelong imprisonment, and it is even said that the Pope, seeing his case hopeless, allowed his wife to marry again as though her husband had been dead. Mowbray"s rebellion, like the conspiracy of the Earls against the Conqueror, shows how eagerly the Norman barons longed to shake off the yoke of the king, and how readily Englishmen and the less powerful Normans supported even a tyrannical king rather than allow the barons to have their way.
10. =The First Crusade. 1095--1099.=--These petty wars were interrupted by a call to arms from the Pope. For centuries Christians had made pilgrimages to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the holy places where their Lord had been born and had been crucified. When the Arabs conquered the Holy Land, Mohammedans as they were, they gave protection to the pilgrims from the West. The Turks, who were also Mohammedans, had lately obtained the mastery over the Arabs, and had secured dominion over the Holy Land. They were fierce warriors, ignorant and cruel, who either put the pilgrims to death or subjected them to torture and ill-usage. In =1095= Pope Urban II. came to Clermont to appeal to the Christians of the West to set out on a Crusade--a war of the Cross--to deliver the Holy City from the infidel. After he had spoken the mult.i.tude burst out with the cry, "It is the will of G.o.d!" Men of every rank placed on their garments a cross, as the sign of their devotion to the service of Christ. In =1096= a huge mult.i.tude set forth under Peter the Hermit, who had been active in urging men to take part in the Crusade. They believed it to be unnecessary to take money or food, trusting that G.o.d would supply His warriors. All these perished on the way. A better-equipped body of knights and n.o.bles set out later under G.o.dfrey of Bouillon. They fought their way through Asia Minor and Syria to Jerusalem, and in =1099= the Holy City was taken by storm. G.o.dfrey, though he became its first Christian king, refused to be crowned. "I will not," he said, "wear a crown of gold where my Saviour wore a crown of thorns." The piety of the Christian warriors was not accompanied by mercy to the vanquished. Holding Mohammedans to be the special enemies of G.o.d, they treated them as no better than savage beasts. There was a terrible butchery when Jerusalem was taken, and Christian men fancied that they did G.o.d service by dashing out the brains of Mohammedan babes against the walls.
11. =Normandy in Pledge. 1096.=--Robert was amongst the Crusaders. To raise money for his expedition he pledged Normandy to his brother William. William had no wish to take part in a holy war, but he was ready to make profit out of those who did. Normandy was the better for the change. It is true that William oppressed it himself, but he saved the people from the worse oppression of the barons.
12. =The Last Years of the Red King.=--The remaining years of William"s reign were years of varying success. An English force set up Eadgar, the son of Malcolm and Margaret, as king of the Scots, and Eadgar consented to hold his crown as William"s va.s.sal. William"s attempts to reduce the Welsh to submission ended in failure, and he was obliged to content himself with hemming them in with castles. In =1098= the wicked Robert of Belleme succeeded his brother as earl of Shrewsbury. Robert robbed and tortured Englishmen as he had robbed and tortured Normans. He was a great builder of castles, and at Bridgenorth he raised a fortress as the centre of a group of strong places which could defy the Welsh and form the basis of his operations against them. In the same year William captured Le Mans, the capital of Maine, which had recovered its independence from Robert, which was held against him by Helie de la Fleche, one of the few unselfish men of the day. Unlike his father, the Red King often began enterprises which he did not finish. In =1099= he had all his work to do over again. He was hunting in the New Forest when he heard that Helie had regained Le Mans. He rode hard to Southampton, and, leaping on board a vessel, bade the sailors put to sea. A storm was raging, and the sailors prayed him to wait till the wind fell. "I never heard," he answered, "of a king being drowned." The next morning he was in Normandy. He recovered Le Mans, but returned to England without conquering Maine.
13. =The Death of the Red King. 1100.=--On August 2, =1100=, the Red King went out to hunt in the New Forest. In the evening his body was found pierced by an arrow. Who his slayer was is unknown. The blow may have been accidental. It is more likely to have been intentional. In every part of England were men who had good cause to hate William, and nowhere were his enemies in greater numbers than round the New Forest.
Whoever was his slayer, the body of the tyrant was borne to the cathedral of Winchester and buried as the corpse of a wild beast, without funeral rites or weeping eyes. When, after a few years had pa.s.sed, the tower above the unhallowed tomb fell in, men said that it had fallen because so foul a body lay beneath it.
CHAPTER IX.
HENRY I. AND STEPHEN.
HENRY I., =1100--1135=. STEPHEN, =1135--1154=.
LEADING DATES
The Accession of Henry I. 1100 Battle of Tinchebrai 1106 Death of Henry I. and Accession of Stephen 1135 The Civil War 1139 Treaty of Wallingford 1153 Death of Stephen 1154
[Ill.u.s.tration: Henry I. and his queen Matilda. (From the west front of Rochester Cathedral.)]
1. =The Accession of Henry I. 1100.=--When the news spread that the Red King had been slain in the New Forest, his younger brother, Henry, hastened to Winchester, where he was chosen king by the barons who happened to be there. At his coronation at Westminster he swore to undo all the evil of his brother"s reign. The name by which he came to be known--the Lion of Justice--shows how well he kept his promise. He maintained order as his father had done, and his brother had not done.
Flambard, the wicked minister of the Red King, was imprisoned in the Tower, and Anselm, the good archbishop, recalled to England. Henry"s chief strength lay in the support of the English. To please them he married Eadgyth, the daughter of Malcolm and Margaret, the descendant through her mother of the old English kings. Through Eadgyth the blood of Alfred and Ecgberht was transmitted to the later kings. It was, however, necessary that she should take another name. Every one at Henry"s court talked French, and "Eadgyth" was unp.r.o.nounceable in French. The new queen was therefore known as Matilda, or Maud. The English called her the good queen. The Normans mocked her husband and herself by giving them the English nicknames of G.o.dric and G.o.dgifu.
2. =Invasion of Robert. 1101.=--One danger at least Henry had to face.
The Norman barons yearned after the weak rule of Robert, who was again in possession of Normandy. Once, we are told, he had to stay in bed till noon, because his favourites had carried off his clothes, and he had no others to put on. A duke who could not keep his own clothes was not likely to be able to rule his duchy, and Normandy was again the scene of fightings and plunderings which he made no effort to suppress. Flambard, having escaped from prison, fled to Normandy, and urged Robert to claim England as the heritage of the eldest son of the Conqueror. Robert listened to the tempter and sailed for England. When he landed at Porchester he found that the Church and the English had rallied to Henry. Robert"s position was hopeless, and he made a treaty with his brother, abandoning all claim to the crown.
3. =Revolt of Robert of Belleme. 1102.=--Henry knew that the great barons wished well to Robert, and on one pretext or another he stripped most of them of power. Robert of Belleme, the strongest and wickedest of them all, rose in revolt. After capturing many of his castles, Henry laid siege to his great fortress at Bridgenorth. The barons who served under Henry urged him to spare a rebel who was one of their own cla.s.s. The Englishmen and the inferior Norman knights thought otherwise. "Lord King Henry," they cried, "trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice.... Behold, we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to serve and help you in all things. Attack the castle vigorously; shut in the traitor on all sides, and make no peace with him till you have him alive or dead in your hands."
Bridgenorth was taken, and Robert of Belleme, having been stripped of his English land, was sent off to Normandy. Henry was now, in very truth, king of the English. "Rejoice, King Henry," ran a popular song, "and give thanks to the Lord G.o.d, because thou art a free king since thou hast overthrown Robert of Belleme, and hast driven him from the borders of thy kingdom." Never again during Henry"s reign did the great Norman lords dare to lift hand against him.
4. =The Battle of Tinchebrai. 1106.=--It was impossible for Henry to avoid interference in Normandy. Many of his va.s.sals in England possessed lands in Normandy as well, where they were exposed to the violence of Robert of Belleme and of others who had been expelled from England. The Duke of the Normans would do nothing to keep the peace, and Henry crossed the sea to protect his own injured subjects. Duke Robert naturally resisted him, and at last, in =1106=, a great battle was fought at Tinchebrai, in which Robert was utterly defeated. Duke Robert was kept for the remainder of his life a prisoner in Cardiff Castle, where he died after an imprisonment of twenty-eight years.
Henry became Duke of the Normans as well as king of the English, and all Normandy was the better for the change. Robert of Belleme was thrown into prison, and the cruel oppressor thus shared the fate of the weak ruler whose remissness had made his oppressions possible.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Seal of Milo of Gloucester, showing mounted armed figure in the reign of Henry I.]
5. =Henry and Anselm. 1100--1107.=--Though Anselm had done everything in his power to support Henry against Robert of Belleme, he was himself engaged in a dispute with the king which lasted for some years. A bishop in Anselm"s time was not only a great Church officer, whose duty it was to maintain a high standard of religion and morality amongst the clergy. He was also one of the king"s barons, because he was possessed of large estates, and was therefore bound like any other baron to send knights to the king when they were needed. Consequently, when Anselm became archbishop he had not only received invest.i.ture from William II. by accepting from him the ring and the staff which were the signs of ecclesiastical authority, but also did homage, thus acknowledging himself to be the king"s man, and obliging himself, not indeed to fight for him in person, but to send knights to fight under his orders. When, however, Henry came to the throne, and asked Anselm to repeat the homage which he had done to William, Anselm not only refused himself to comply with the king"s request, but also refused to consecrate newly-chosen bishops who had received invest.i.ture from Henry. During the time of his exile Anselm had taken part in a council of the Church, in which bishops and abbots had been forbidden by the Pope and the council either to receive invest.i.ture from laymen or to do homage to them. These decrees had not been issued merely to serve the purpose of papal ambition. At that time all zealous ecclesiastics thought that the only way to stop the violence of kings in their dealings with the Church was to make the Church entirely independent.
Anselm"s experience of the Red King"s wickedness must have made him ready to concur with this new view, and there can be no doubt that it was from the most conscientious motives that he refused to do homage to Henry. On the other hand, Henry, wishing to rule justly, thought it very hard that the archbishop should insist upon the independence of the bishops, especially as in consequence of their large estates they had so many knights to send into the field. Though the dispute was a hot one, it was carried on without any of the violence which had characterised the dispute between Anselm and the Red King, and it ended in a compromise. Henry abandoned all claim to give the ring and the pastoral staff which were the signs of a bishop"s or an abbot"s spiritual jurisdiction, whilst Anselm consented to allow the new bishop or abbot to render the homage which was the sign of his readiness to employ all his temporal wealth and power on the king"s behalf. The bishop was to be chosen by the chapter of his cathedral, the abbot by the monks of his abbey, but the election was to take place in the king"s presence, thus giving him influence over their choice. Whether this settlement would work in favour of the king or the clergy depended on the character of the kings and the clergy. If the kings were as riotous as the Red King and the clergy as self-denying as Anselm, the clergy would grow strong in spite of these arrangements. If the kings were as just and wise as Henry, and the clergy as wicked as Ralph Flambard, all advantage would be on the side of the king.
6. =Roger of Salisbury.=--After the defeat of the Norman barons the Great Council ceased for a time to have any important influence on the government. Henry was practically an absolute king, and it was well that he should be so, as the country wanted order more than discussion. Henry, however, loved to exercise absolute power in an orderly way, and he chose for his chief minister Roger, whom he made Bishop of Salisbury. Roger had first attracted his notice when he was going out hunting, by saying ma.s.s in a shorter time than any other priest, but he retained his favour by the order and system which he introduced into the government. A special body of officials and councillors was selected by the king--perhaps a similar body had been selected by his predecessor--to sit in judgment over cases in which tenants-in-chief were concerned, as well as over other cases which were, for one reason or another, transferred to it from the Baronial Courts. This council or committee was called the _Curia Regis_ (the King"s Court). The members of this _Curia Regis_ met also in the Exchequer, so called from the chequered cloth which covered the table at which they sat. They were then known as Barons of the Exchequer, and controlled the receipts and outgoings of the treasury. The Justiciar presided in both the _Curia Regis_ and the Exchequer.
Amongst those who took part in these proceedings was the Chancellor, who was then a secretary and not a judge, as well as other superior officers of the king. A regular system of finance was introduced, and a regular system of justice accompanied it. At last the king determined to send some of the judges of his court to go on circuit into distant parts of the kingdom. These itinerant Justices (_Just.i.tiarii errantes_) brought the royal power into connection with the local courts. Their business was of a very miscellaneous character. They not only heard the cases in which the king was concerned--the pleas of the crown, as they were called--but they made a.s.sessments for purposes of taxation, listened to complaints, and conveyed the king"s wishes to his people.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Monument of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury (died 1139), in his cathedral church.]
7. =Growth of Trade.=--Though Henry"s severe discipline was not liked, yet the law and order which he maintained told on the prosperity of the country, and the trade of London flourished so much as to attract citizens from Normandy to settle in it. Flemings too, trained in habits of industry, came in crowds, and with the view of providing a bulwark against the Welsh, Henry settled a colony of them in South Pembrokeshire, which has since been known as Little England beyond Wales. The foreigners were not popular, but the Jews, to whom Henry continued the protection which William had given them, were more unpopular still.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Porchester Church, Hampshire. Built about 1135.]
8. =The Benedictines.=--In the midst of this busy life the Benedictine monasteries were still harbours of refuge for all who did not care to fight or trade. They were now indeed wealthier than they had once been, as gifts, usually of land, had been made to the monks by those who reverenced their piety. Sometimes these gifts took a shape which afterwards caused no little evil. Landowners who had churches on their lands often gave to a monastery the t.i.thes which had hitherto been paid for the support of the parish priest, and the monastery stepped into the place of the parish priest, sending a vicar to act for it in the performance of its new duties. As the monks themselves grew richer they grew less ascetic. Their life, however, was not spent in idleness. They cared for the poor, kept a school for the children, and managed their own property. Some of their number studied and wrote, and our knowledge of the history of these times is mainly owing to monastic writers. When Henry I. came to the throne the Chronicle was still being written in the English tongue by the monks of Worcester, and for some years after his death was still carried on at Peterborough. The best historical compositions were, however, in Latin, the language understood by the clergy over all Western Europe.
Amongst the authors of these Latin works, the foremost was William of Malmesbury.
9. =The Cistercians.=--Useful as the Benedictines were, there were some monks who complained that the extreme self-denial of their founder, St. Benedict, was no longer to be met with, and the complainants had lately originated a new order, called the Cistercian, from Citeaux, in Burgundy, the site of their first abbey. The Cistercians made their appearance in England in =1128=. Their buildings and churches were simpler than those of the Benedictines, and their life more austere. They refused to receive gifts of t.i.thes lest they should impoverish the parish clergy. They loved to make their homes in solitary places far from the haunts of men, and some of the most beautiful of the abbeys which remain in ruins--those, for instance, of Fountains and Tintern--were Cistercian abbeys. They are beautiful, not because the Cistercians loved pleasant places, but because they loved solitude, whilst the Benedictines had either planted themselves in towns or had allowed towns to grow up round their monasteries.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Part of the nave of Durham Cathedral. Built about 1130.]
10. =The White Ship.=--Henry, in consequence of the possession of Normandy, had been frequently involved in war with France. Robert"s son, William c.l.i.to, claimed Normandy, and his claim was supported by Louis VI. the Fat, who was styled king of France, though the territory which he actually ruled was no larger than Normandy. In these wars Henry was usually successful, and at last, in =1127=, William was killed, and Henry freed from danger. His own son, also named William, had already been drowned on the voyage between Normandy and England in =1120=. The ship in which he sailed ran upon a rock, and the young man was placed in a boat, and might have escaped if he had not returned to save his half-sister, the Countess of Perche, who was still on board.
As soon as he approached the sailors and pa.s.sengers crowded into the boat and swamped it. Only one man, a butcher, was saved, by clinging to the mast of the ship when it sank. The captain, who was with him on the mast, threw himself off as soon as he learned that the king"s son had been drowned, and perished in the water. It is said that no man dared to tell Henry that his son was drowned, and that at last a little child was sent to inform him of his misfortune.
11. =The Last Years of Henry I.=--Henry had many illegitimate children, but after William"s death the only lawful child left to him was Matilda. She had been married as a child to the Emperor Henry V., but her husband had died before she was grown up, and she then returned to her father, as the Empress Matilda. There had never been a queen in England, and it would have been very hard for a woman to rule in those times of constant war and bloodshed. Yet Henry persuaded the barons to swear to accept her as their future sovereign. He then married her to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, who came of a brave and active race, and whose lands, which lay to the south of Normandy, would enlarge the French possessions of Henry"s descendants. In =1135= Henry died. The great merit of his English government was that he forsook his brother"s evil ways of violence, and maintained peace by erecting a regular administrative system, which kept down the outrages of the barons. One of the English chroniclers in recording his death prayed that G.o.d might give him the peace that he loved.[9]
[Footnote 9: Genealogy of the Conqueror"s sons and grandchildren:--
WILLIAM I. = Matilda of Flanders 1066-1087 | +------------+--------+---+---------+ | | | | Robert, Duke of WILLIAM II. HENRY I. Adela = Stephen of Blois Normandy 1087-1100 1100-1135 | | | | | | | STEPHEN William c.l.i.to William | 1135-1154 | (1) The Emperor Henry V. = Matilda = (2) Geoffrey Plantagenet | HENRY II.
1154-1189]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Keep of Rochester Castle. Built between 1126 and 1139.]
12. =Stephen"s Accession. 1135.=--Among the barons who had sworn to obey Matilda was Stephen of Blois, a son of the Conqueror"s daughter Adela, and a nephew of Henry I. As soon as Henry"s death was known Stephen made his way to London, where he was joyfully received as king. The London citizens felt that their chief interest lay in the maintenance of peace, and they thought that a man would be more likely than a woman to secure order. The barons chose Stephen king at Winchester, where his brother, Henry of Blois, was the bishop. Shortly afterwards some of these very barons rose against him, but their insurrection was soon repressed. More formidable was the hostility of David, king of the Scots. David was closely connected with the family of Henry I., his sister having been Henry"s wife, the Empress Matilda being consequently his niece. He also held in right of his own wife the earldom of Huntingdon. Under the pretext of taking up Matilda"s cause he broke into the north of England. Though he himself carried on the work of introducing English civilisation into Scotland, his Celtic followers were still savage, and ma.s.sacred women and infants. In =1137= Stephen drove David back. In =1138= David reappeared, and this time the aged Thurstan, Archbishop of York, sent the levies of the North against him. In the midst of the English army was a cart bearing a standard, at the top of which the banners of the three great churches of St. Peter"s of York, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, waved round the consecrated Host. The battle which ensued, near Northallerton, has consequently been known as the battle of the Standard. The Scots were completely defeated, but Stephen, in spite of the victory gained for him, found himself obliged to buy peace at a heavy price. He agreed that David"s son, Henry, should hold Northumberland, with the exception of the fortresses of Bamborough and of Newcastle, as a fief of the English Crown. David himself was also allowed to keep c.u.mberland without doing homage.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Keep of Castle Rising. Built about 1140-50.]
13. =Civil War.=--It would have been well for Stephen if he had learnt from the men of the North that his strength lay in rallying the English people round him against the great barons, as the Red King and Henry I. had done when their right to the crown had been challenged by Robert. Instead of this, he brought over mercenaries from Flanders, and squandered treasure and lands upon his favourites so as to have little left for the hour of need. He made friends easily, but he made enemies no less easily. One of the most powerful of the barons was Robert, Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I., who held the strong fortress of Bristol, and whose power extended over both sides of the lower course of the Severn. In =1138= Stephen, who distrusted him, ordered his castles to be seized. Robert at once declared his half-sister Matilda to be the lawful queen, and a terrible civil war began. Robert"s garrison at Bristol was a terror to all the country round. He, too, gathered foreign mercenaries, who knew not what pity was. Other barons imitated Robert"s example, fighting only for themselves whether they nominally took the part of Stephen or of Matilda, and the southern and midland counties of England were preyed upon by the garrisons of their castles.
14. =Stephen"s Quarrel with the Clergy. 1139.=--Evil as were the men who fought on either side, it was to Stephen and not to Matilda and Robert that men as yet looked to restore order. The port towns, London, Yarmouth, and Lynn, clung to him to the last. Unfortunately Stephen did not know how to make good use of his advantages. The clergy, like the traders, had always been in favour of order. Some of them, with the Justiciar, Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, at their head, had organised the Exchequer of Henry I., had gathered in the payments due to the Crown, or had acted as judges. Yet with all their zeal in the service of the Crown, they had not omitted to provide for their own interests. Roger in particular had been insatiable in the pursuit of wealth for himself and of promotion for his family. One of his nephews, Nigel, Bishop of Ely, was Treasurer, whilst another, Alexander, was Bishop of Lincoln, and his own illegitimate son, Roger, was Chancellor. In =1139= Stephen, rightly or wrongly, threw him into prison with his son and Alexander of Lincoln. The other nephew, Nigel, escaped to his uncle"s castle at Devizes, in which was the younger Roger"s mother, Matilda of Ramsbury. Stephen brought her son before the castle, and put a rope round his neck to hang him unless the castle was surrendered. The unhappy mother could not bear the sight, and opened the gates to Stephen. It might have been wise to deprive a too ambitious bishop of his castle, but it was not wise personally to maltreat the clergy. Every priest in England turned against Stephen.
His own brother, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, declared against him, and Stephen was obliged to do penance for his offence. The administration of the Exchequer was shattered, and though it was not altogether destroyed, and money was brought to it for the king"s use even in the worst times, Stephen"s financial resources were from henceforth sadly diminished.
15. =Anarchy. 1139.=--The war now lapsed into sheer anarchy. The barons on either side broke loose from all restraint. "They fought amongst themselves with deadly hatred; they spoiled the fairest lands with fire and rapine; in what had been the most fertile of counties they destroyed almost all the provision of bread." All goods and money they carried off, and if they suspected any man to have concealed treasure they tortured him to oblige him to confess where it was.
"They hanged up men by the feet and smoked them with foul smoke; some were hanged up by their thumbs, others by their head, and coats of mail were hung on to their feet. They put knotted strings about men"s heads, and twisted them till they went to the brain. They put men into prisons where adders and snakes and toads were crawling; and so they tormented them. Some they put into a chest, short and narrow and not deep, and that had sharp stones within; and forced men therein, so that they broke all their limbs. In many of the castles were hateful and grim things called neckties, which two or three men had enough to do to carry. This instrument of torture was thus made: it was fastened to a beam, and had a sharp iron to go about a man"s neck and throat, so that he might no way sit or lie or sleep, but he bore all the iron.
Many thousands they starved with hunger.... Men said openly that Christ and His saints were asleep."
16. =The End of the War. 1141--1148.=--In the autumn of =1139=, Matilda appeared in England, and in =1141= there was a battle at Lincoln, in which Stephen was taken prisoner. Henry of Winchester (see p. 131) acknowledged Matilda as queen, and all England submitted to her, London giving way most reluctantly. Her rule did not last long.