Transcriber’s Note


Words in italics are marked with _underscores_.

Words in small capitals are shown in UPPER CASE.

Please see the note at the end of the book, which is preceded by the
Index to Volumes I and II, copied from Volume II.




  ENGLAND
  UNDER
  THE ANGEVIN KINGS




[Illustration: Publisher’s colophon]




  ENGLAND
  UNDER
  THE ANGEVIN KINGS

  BY
  KATE NORGATE

  IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. I.

  WITH MAPS AND PLANS

  London
  MACMILLAN AND CO.
  AND NEW YORK
  1887

  _All rights reserved_




  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
  WITH THE DEEPEST REVERENCE AND GRATITUDE
  TO THE MEMORY OF
  MY DEAR AND HONOURED MASTER
  JOHN RICHARD GREEN




PREFACE


This attempt to sketch the history of England under the Angevin kings
owes its existence to the master whose name I have ventured to place
at its beginning. It was undertaken at his suggestion; its progress
through those earliest stages which for an inexperienced writer are the
hardest of all was directed by his counsels, aided by his criticisms,
encouraged by his sympathy; and every step in my work during the past
eleven years has but led me to feel more deeply and to prize more
highly the constant help of his teaching and his example. Of the book
in its finished state he never saw a page. For its faults no one is
answerable but myself. I can only hope that, however great may be its
errors and its defects, it may yet shew at least some traces of that
influence which is so abidingly precious to me.

I desire respectfully to express my gratitude to the Lord Bishop of
Chester and to Mr. Freeman, who, for the sake of the friend who had
commended me to their kindness, have been good enough to help me with
information and advice on many occasions during my work.

A word of acknowledgement is due for some of the maps and plans. The
map of Gaul in the tenth century is founded upon one in Mr. Freeman’s
_Norman Conquest_. The plans of Bristol and Lincoln are adapted from
those in the _Proceedings of the Archæological Institute_; for Lincoln
I was further assisted by the local knowledge kindly placed at my
disposal by the Rev. Precentor Venables. For Oxford I have followed the
guidance of the Rev. Father F. Goldie, S.J. (_A Bygone Oxford_), and of
Mr. J. Parker (_Early History of Oxford_); and for London, that of its
historian the Rev. W. J. Loftie, whom I have especially to thank for
his help on some points of London topography.

My greatest help of all has been the constant personal kindness and
ever-ready sympathy of Mrs. Green. To her, as to my dear master
himself, I owe and feel a gratitude which cannot be put into words.

KATE NORGATE.

_January 1887._




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I
                                                              PAGE
  THE ENGLAND OF HENRY I., 1100–1135                             1


  CHAPTER II

  THE BEGINNINGS OF ANJOU, 843–987                              97
    Note A.--The Sources of Angevin History                    126
    Note B.--The Palace of the Counts at Angers                132
    Note C.--The Marriages of Geoffrey Greygown                134
    Note D.--The Breton and Poitevin Wars of Geoffrey Greygown 136
    Note E.--The Grant of Maine to Geoffrey Greygown           140


  CHAPTER III

  ANJOU AND BLOIS, 987–1044                                    143
    Note A.--The Siege of Melun                                189
    Note B.--The Parents of Queen Constance                    190
    Note C.--The Pilgrimages of Fulk Nerra                     192
    Note D.--Geoffrey Martel and Poitou                        197


  CHAPTER IV

  ANJOU AND NORMANDY, 1044–1128                                200
    Note A.--The Houses of Anjou and Gâtinais                  249
    Note B.--The Heir of Geoffrey Martel                       251
    Note C.--The War of Saintonge                              252
    Note D.--The Descendants of Herbert Wake-dog               253
    Note E.--The Siege of La Flèche and Treaty of Blanchelande 256
    Note F.--The Marriage of Geoffrey and Matilda              258


  CHAPTER V

  GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET AND STEPHEN OF BLOIS, 1128–1139         261


  CHAPTER VI

  ENGLAND AND THE BARONS, 1139–1147                            308
    Note.--The Topography of the Battle of Lincoln             344


  CHAPTER VII

  THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 1136–1149                                347


  CHAPTER VIII

  HENRY DUKE OF THE NORMANS, 1149–1154                         372


  CHAPTER IX

  HENRY AND ENGLAND, 1154–1157                                 407


  CHAPTER X

  HENRY AND FRANCE, 1156–1161                                  440


  CHAPTER XI

  THE LAST YEARS OF ARCHBISHOP THEOBALD, 1156–1161             474




LIST OF MAPS


  I. GAUL _c._ 909–941                          _To face page_ 107

  II. GAUL _c._ 1027                                    ”     143




PLANS


  I. WINCHESTER. II. BRISTOL                    _To face page_  31

  III. LINCOLN. IV. OXFORD                              ”      40

  V. LONDON                                             ”      44

  VI. ANGERS                                            ”     165




CHAPTER I.

THE ENGLAND OF HENRY I.

1100–1135.


“When the green tree, cut asunder in the midst and severed by the space
of three furlongs, shall be grafted in again and shall bring forth
flowers and fruit,--then at last may England hope to see the end of her
sorrows.”[1]

        [1] _Vita Edwardi_ (Luard), p. 431.

So closed the prophecy in which the dying king Eadward the Confessor
foretold the destiny in store for his country after his departure. His
words, mocked at by one of the listeners, incomprehensible to all,
found an easy interpretation a hundred years later. The green tree of
the West-Saxon monarchy had fallen beneath Duke William’s battle-axe;
three alien reigns had parted its surviving branch from the stem; the
marriage of Henry I. with a princess of the old English blood-royal
had grafted it in again.[2] One flower sprung from that union had
indeed bloomed only to die ere it reached its prime,[3] but another
had brought forth the promised fruit; and the dim ideal of national
prosperity and union which English and Normans alike associated with
the revered name of the Confessor was growing at last into a real and
living thing beneath the sceptre of Henry Fitz-Empress.

        [2] Æthelred of Rievaux, _Vita S. Edw. Regis_ (Twysden, _X.
        Scriptt._), col. 401.

        [3] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 419 (Hardy, p. 652),
        notes that the fulfilment of the prophecy was looked for in
        William the Ætheling.

There are, at first glance, few stranger things in history than the
revival thus prefigured:--a national revival growing up, as it seems,
in the most adverse circumstances, under the pressure of an alien
government, of a race of kings who were strangers alike to the men of
old English blood and to the descendants of those who had come over
with the Conqueror: at a time when, in a merely political point of
view, England seemed to be not only conquered but altogether swallowed
up in the vast and varied dominions of the house of Anjou. It was
indeed not the first time that the island had become an appendage to a
foreign empire compared with which she was but a speck in the ocean.
Cnut the Dane was, like Henry of Anjou, not only king of England but
also ruler of a great continental monarchy far exceeding England in
extent, and forming together with her a dominion only to be equalled,
if equalled at all, by that of the Emperor. But the parallel goes no
farther. Cnut’s first kingdom, the prize of his youthful valour, was
his centre and his home, of which his Scandinavian realms, even his
native Denmark, were mere dependencies. Whatever he might be when
he revisited them, in his island-kingdom he was an Englishman among
Englishmen. The heir of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda of Normandy, on
the other hand, was virtually of no nationality, no country; but if he
could be said to have a home at all, it was certainly not on this side
of the sea--it was the little marchland of his fathers. In the case
of his sons, the southern blood of their mother Eleanor added a yet
more un-English element; and of Richard, indeed, it might almost be
said that the home of his choice was not in Europe at all, but in Holy
Land. Alike to him and to his father, England was simply the possession
which gave them their highest title, furnished them with resources
for prosecuting their schemes of continental policy, and secured to
them a safe refuge on which to fall back in moments of difficulty or
danger. It was not till the work of revival was completed, till it had
resulted in the creation of the new England which comes to light with
Edward I., that it could find a representative and a leader in the king
himself. The sovereign in whose reign the chief part of the work was
done stood utterly aloof from it in sympathy; yet he is in fact its
central figure and its most important actor. The story of England’s
developement from the break-down of the Norman system under Stephen
to the consolidation of a national monarchy under Edward I. is the
story of Henry of Anjou, of his work and of its results. But as the
story does not end with Henry, so neither does it begin with him. It
is impossible to understand Henry himself without knowing something of
the race from which he sprang; of those wonderful Angevin counts who,
beginning as rulers of a tiny under-fief of the duchy of France, grew
into a sovereign house extending its sway from one end of Christendom
to the other. It is impossible to understand his work without knowing
something of what England was, and how she came to be what she was,
when the young count of Anjou was called to wear her crown.

The project of an empire such as that which Henry II. actually wielded
had been the last dream of William Rufus. In the summer of 1100 the
duke of Aquitaine, about to join the Crusaders in Holy Land, offered
his dominions in pledge to the king of England. Rufus clutched at the
offer “like a lion at his prey.”[4] Five years before he had received
the Norman duchy on the same terms from his brother Robert; he had
bridled its restless people and brought them under control; he had won
back its southern dependency, his father’s first conquest, the county
of Maine. Had this new scheme been realized, nothing but the little
Angevin march would have broken the continuity of a Norman dominion
stretching from the Forth to the Pyrenees, and in all likelihood the
story of the Angevin kings would never have had to be told. Jesting
after his wont with his hunting-companions, William--so the story
goes--declared that he would keep his next Christmas feast at Poitiers,
if he should live so long.[5] But that same evening the Red King lay
dead in the New Forest, and his territories fell asunder at once.
Robert of Normandy came back from Palestine in triumph to resume
possession of his duchy; while the barons of England, without waiting
for his return, chose his English-born brother Henry for their king.

        [4] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 780.

        [5] Geoff. Gaimar, vv. 6296–6298 (Wright, p. 219).

Thirteen years before, at his father’s death, Henry, the only child
of William and Matilda who was actually born in the purple--the child
of a crowned king and queen, born on English soil, and thus by birth,
though not by descent, entitled to rank as an English Ætheling--had
been launched into the world at the age of nineteen without a foot of
land that he could call his own. The story went that he had complained
bitterly to the dying Conqueror of his exclusion from all share in the
family heritage. “Have patience, boy,” was William’s answer, “let thine
elder brothers go before thee; the day will come when thou shalt be
greater than either of them.” Henry was, however, not left
a penniless adventurer dependent on the bounty of his brothers; the
Conqueror gave him a legacy of ten thousand pounds as a solid provision
wherewith to begin his career. A year had scarcely passed before Duke
Robert, overwhelmed with troubles in Normandy, found himself at his
wits’ end with an empty treasury, and besought Henry to lend him some
money. The Ætheling, as cool and calculating as his brothers were
impetuous, refused; the duke in desperation offered to sell him any
territory he chose, and a bargain was struck whereby Henry received,
for the sum of three thousand pounds, the investiture of the Cotentin,
the Avranchin, and the Mont-St.-Michel--in a word, the whole western
end of the Norman duchy.[6] Next summer, while the duke was planning
an attempt on the English crown and vainly awaiting a fair wind to
enable him to cross the Channel, the count of the Cotentin managed
to get across without one, to claim the estates in Gloucestershire
formerly held by his mother and destined for him by his father’s
will. He was received by William Rufus only too graciously, for the
consequence was that some mischief-makers, always specially plentiful
at the Norman court, persuaded Duke Robert that his youngest brother
was plotting against him with the second, and when Henry returned in
the autumn he had no sooner landed than he was seized and cast into
prison.[7] Within a year he was free again, reinstated, if not in
the Cotentin, at least in the Avranchin and the Mont-St.-Michel,
and entrusted with the keeping of Rouen itself against the traitors
stirred up by the Red King. William, while his young brother was safe
in prison, had resumed the Gloucestershire estates and made them over
to his favourite Robert Fitz-Hamon. Henry in his natural resentment
threw himself with all his energies into the cause of the duke of
Normandy, acted as his trustiest and bravest supporter throughout the
war with Rufus which followed, and at the close of the year crowned
his services by the promptitude and valour with which he defeated a
conspiracy for betraying the Norman capital to the king of England.[8]
The struggle ended in a treaty between the elder brothers, in which
neither of them forgot the youngest. Their remembrance of him took
the shape of an agreement to drive him out of all his territories and
divide the spoil between themselves. Their joint attack soon brought
him to bay in his mightiest stronghold, the rock crowned by the abbey
of S. Michael-in-Peril-of-the-Sea, commonly called Mont-Saint-Michel.
Henry threw himself into the place with as many knights as were willing
to share the adventure; the brethren of the abbey did their utmost
to help, and for fifteen days the little garrison, perched on their
inaccessible rock, held out against their besiegers.[9] Then hunger
began to thin their ranks; nothing but the inconsistent generosity of
Robert saved them from the worse agonies of thirst;[10] one by one they
dropped away, till Henry saw that he must yield to fate, abide by his
father’s counsel, and wait patiently for better days. He surrendered;
he came down from the Mount, once again a landless and homeless man;
and save for one strange momentary appearance in England as a guest at
the Red King’s court,[11] he spent the greater part of the next two
years in France and the Vexin, wandering from one refuge to another
with a lowly train of one knight, three squires, and one chaplain.[12]
He was at length recalled by the townsmen of Domfront, who, goaded to
desperation by the oppressions of their lord Robert of Bellême, threw
off his yoke and besought Henry to come and take upon himself the
duty of defending them, their town and castle, against their former
tyrant. “By the help of God and the suffrages of his friends,” as his
admiring historian says,[13] Henry was thus placed in command of his
father’s earliest conquest, the key of Normandy and Maine, a fortress
scarcely less mighty and of far greater political importance than
that from which he had been driven. He naturally used his opportunity
for reprisals, not only upon Robert of Bellême, but also upon his own
brothers;[14] and by the end of two years he had made himself of so
much consequence in the duchy that William Rufus, again at war with the
duke, thought it time to secure his alliance. The two younger brothers
met in England, and when Henry returned in the spring of 1095 he came
as the liegeman of the English king, sworn to fight his battles and
further his interests in Normandy by every means in his power.[15]

        [6] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 665.

        [7] _Ib._ p. 672. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 392
        (Hardy, pp. 616, 617).

        [8] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 690. Will.
        Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 392 (Hardy, pp. 617, 618).

        [9] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 697.

        [10] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv. c. 310 (Hardy, pp. 491,
        492).

        [11] See Freeman, _William Rufus_, vol. i. pp. 293, 295, 305;
        vol. ii. pp. 535, 536.

        [12] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 697.

        [13] _Ib._ p. 698.

        [14] _Ib._ pp. 698, 706, 722.

        [15] Eng. Chron. a. 1095.

William and Henry had both learned by experience that to work with
Robert for any political purpose was hopeless, and that their true
interest was to support each other--William’s, to enlist for his own
service Henry’s clear cool head and steady hand; Henry’s, to secure for
himself some kind of footing in the land where his ultimate ambitions
could not fail to be centred. He had learned in his wanderings to adapt
himself to all circumstances and all kinds of society; personally,
he and Rufus can have had little in common except their passion for
the chase. Lanfranc’s teaching, moral and intellectual, had been all
alike thrown away upon his pupil William the Red. Henry, carefully
educated according to his father’s special desire, had early shown a
remarkable aptitude for study, was a scholar of very fair attainments
as scholarship went among laymen in his day, and retained his literary
tastes not only through all his youthful trials but also through the
crowd of political and domestic cares which pressed upon his later
life. Yet such tastes seem almost as strange in Henry as they would in
William Rufus. The one prosaic element in the story of Henry’s youth
is the personality of its hero. No man had ever less of the romantic
or poetic temperament; if he had none of the follies or the faults
of chivalry, he had just as little of its nobler idealism. From his
first bargain with Robert for the purchase of the Cotentin to his
last bargain with Fulk of Anjou for the marriage of his heir, life
was to him simply a matter of business. The strongest points in his
character were precisely the two qualities which both his brothers
utterly lacked--self-control, and that “capacity for taking trouble”
which is sometimes said to be the chief element of genius. But of the
higher kind of genius, of the fire which kindles in the soul rather
than merely in the brain, Henry had not a spark. He was essentially
a man of business, in the widest and loftiest sense of the words.
His self-control was not, like his father’s, the curb forcibly put
by a noble mind upon its own natural impetuosity; it was the more
easily-practised calmness of a perfectly cold nature which could always
be reasonable because it had to fight with no impulse of passion, which
was never tempted to “follow wandering fires” because they lit in it no
responsive flame; a nature in which the head had complete mastery over
the heart, and that head was one which no misfortunes could disturb, no
successes turn, and no perplexities confuse.

The sudden vacancy of the English throne found every one else quite
unprepared for such an emergency. Henry was never unprepared. His
quickness and decision secured him the keys of the treasury and the
formal election of those barons and prelates who had been members of
the fatal hunting-party, or who hurried to Winchester at the tidings of
its tragic issue; and before opposition had time to come to a head, it
was checked by the coronation and unction which turned the king-elect
into full king.[16] Henry knew well, however, that opposition there was
certain to be. Robert of Normandy, just returned from the Crusade and
covered with glory, was sure to assert his claim, and as sure to be
upheld by a strong party among the barons, to whom a fresh severance
of England and Normandy was clearly not desirable. In anticipation of
the coming struggle, Henry threw himself at once on the support of his
subjects. In addition to the pledges of his coronation-oath--taken
almost in the words of Æthelred to Dunstan[17]--he issued on the same
day a charter in which he solemnly and specifically promised the
abolition of his brother’s evil customs in Church and state, and a
return to just government according to the law of the land. The details
were drawn up so as to touch all classes. The Church, as including
them all, of course stood first; its freedom was restored and all
sale or farming of benefices renounced by the king. The next clause
appealed specially to the feudal vassals: those who held their lands
“by the hauberk”--the tenants by knight-service--were exempted from all
other imposts on their demesne lands, that they might be the better
able to fulfil their own particular obligation. The tenants-in-chief
were exempted from all the unjust exactions with regard to wardships,
marriages, reliefs and forfeitures, which had been practised in the
last reign; but the redress was not confined to them; they were
distinctly required to exercise the same justice towards their own
under-tenants. The last clause covered all the rest: by it Henry
gave back to his people “the laws of King Eadward as amended by King
William.”[18] Like Cnut’s renewal of the law of Eadgar--like Eadward’s
own renewal of the law of Cnut--the charter was a proclamation of
general reunion and goodwill. As a pledge of its sincerity, the Red
King’s minister, Ralf Flambard, in popular estimation the author of all
the late misdoings, was at once cast into the Tower;[19] the exiled
primate was fetched home as speedily as possible; and in November the
king identified himself still more closely with the land of his birth
by taking to wife a maiden of the old English blood-royal, Eadgyth of
Scotland, great-granddaughter of Eadmund Ironside.[20]

        [16] Eng. Chron. a. 1100.

        [17] Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 99 (3d ed.).

        [18] Charter of Henry I., _ib._ pp. 100–102.

        [19] Eng. Chron. a. 1100.

        [20] Eng. Chron. a. 1100.

His precautions were soon justified. Robert had refused the thorny
crown of Jerusalem, but the crown of England had far other charms;
and his movements were quickened by Ralf Flambard, who early in the
spring made his escape to Normandy.[21] It was probably through Ralf’s
management that the duke won over some of the sailors who guarded the
English coast and thus got ashore unexpectedly at Portsmouth while the
king was keeping watch for him at the old landing-place, Pevensey.[22]
At the first tidings of the intended invasion Henry, like Rufus in the
same case thirteen years before, had appealed to Witan and people,
and by a renewal of his charter gained a renewal of their fealty.
No sooner, however, was Robert actually in England than the great
majority of the barons prepared to go over to him in a body. But the
king born on English soil, married to a lady of the old kingly house,
had a stronger hold than ever Rufus could have had upon the English
people; and they, headed by their natural leader and representative,
the restored archbishop of Canterbury, clave to him with unswerving
loyalty.[23] The two armies met near Alton;[24] at the last moment,
the wisdom either of Anselm, of the few loyal barons, or of Henry
himself, turned the meeting into a peaceful one. The brothers came to
terms: Robert renounced his claim to the crown in consideration of a
yearly pension from England; Henry gave up all his Norman possessions
except Domfront, whose people he refused to forsake;[25] and, as in the
treaty made at Caen ten years before between Robert and William, it
was arranged that whichever brother lived longest should inherit the
other’s dominions, if the deceased left no lawful heirs.[26]

        [21] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 786, 787.

        [22] Eng. Chron. a. 1101.

        [23] Eadmer, _Hist. Novorum_ (Rule), p. 127.

        [24] See Freeman, _William Rufus_, vol. ii. p. 408.

        [25] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 788.

        [26] Eng. Chron. a. 1101.

The treaty was ratified at Winchester in the first days of August;[27]
and thus, almost on the anniversary of the Red King’s death, ended the
last Norman invasion of England. But the treaty of Winchester, like
that of Caen, failed to settle the real difficulty. That difficulty
was, how to control the barons. According to one version of the treaty,
it was stipulated that those who had incurred forfeiture in England
by their adherence to Robert and those who had done the same in
Normandy in Henry’s behalf should alike go unpunished;[28] according
to another, perhaps a more probable account, the brothers agreed to
co-operate in punishing traitors on both sides.[29] Henry set to work
to do his part methodically. One after another, at different times, in
various ways, by regular process of law, the offenders were brought to
justice in England: some heavily fined, some deprived of their honours
and exiled. It was treason not so much against himself as against
the peace and order of the realm that Henry was bent upon avenging;
Ivo of Grantmesnil was fined to the verge of ruin for the crime of
making war not upon the king in behalf of the duke, but upon his own
neighbours for his own personal gratification--a crime which was part
of the daily life of every baron in Normandy, but which had never been
seen in England before,[30] and never was seen there again as long
as King Henry lived. The most formidable of all the troublers of the
land was Henry’s old enemy at Domfront--Robert, lord of Bellême in
the border-land of Perche, earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel in England,
count of Alençon and lord of Montgomery in Normandy, and now by his
marriage count of Ponthieu. Robert was actually fortifying his castles
of Bridgenorth and Arundel in preparation for open revolt when he was
summoned to take his trial on forty-five charges of treason against
the king of England and the duke of Normandy. As he failed to answer,
Henry led his troops to the siege of Bridgenorth. In three weeks it
surrendered; Shrewsbury and Arundel did the same, and Robert of Bellême
was glad to purchase safety for life and limb at the cost of all his
English possessions.[31]

        [27] Sim. Durh. _Gesta Reg._ a. 1101.

        [28] Eng. Chron. a. 1101.

        [29] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 788.

        [30] _Ib._ p. 805.

        [31] _Ib._ pp. 807, 808. Eng. Chron. a. 1102.

From that moment Henry’s position in England was secured; but all his
remonstrances failed to make his indolent elder brother fulfil his part
of their compact. The traitors whom Henry expelled from England only
carried their treason over sea to a more congenial climate, and the
helpless, heedless duke looked passively on while Robert of Bellême,
William of Mortain the banished earl of Cornwall, and their fellows
slaked their thirst for vengeance upon King Henry by ravaging the
Norman lands of those who were faithful to him in England.[32] Their
victims, as well as Henry himself, began to see that his personal
intervention alone could re-establish order in the duchy. On his
appearance there in 1104 he was joined by all the more reasonable
among the barons. For the moment he was pacified by fresh promises of
amendment on Robert’s part, and by the cession of the county of Evreux;
but he knew that all compromise had become vain; and in the last week
of Lent 1105 he landed again at Barfleur in the full determination of
making himself master of Normandy. His Norman partisans rallied round
him at once,[33] and he was soon joined by two valuable allies, Elias
count of Maine and his intended son-in-law, the young count Geoffrey
of Anjou.[34] It was they who won for Henry his first success, the
capture of Bayeux.[35] Warned by the fate of this unhappy city, which
was burnt down, churches and all, Caen surrendered at once, and Henry
thus came into possession of the Norman treasury. A siege of Falaise
failed through the unexplained departure of Count Elias,[36] and the
war dragged slowly on till Henry, now busy in another quarter with
negotiations for the return of S. Anselm, went back at Michaelmas to
England. Thither he was followed first by Robert of Bellême, then by
Robert of Normandy,[37] both seeking for peace; but peace had become
impossible now. Next summer Henry was again in Normandy, reconciled to
S. Anselm, released from anxieties at home, free to concentrate all his
energies upon the final struggle. It was decided with one blow. As he
was besieging the castle of Tinchebray on Michaelmas Eve Duke Robert
at the head of all his forces approached and summoned him to raise the
siege. He refused, “preferring,” as he said, “to take the blame of a
more than civil war for the sake of future peace.” But when the two
hosts were drawn up face to face, the prospect of a battle seemed too
horrible to be endured, composed as they were of kinsmen and brothers,
fathers and sons, arrayed against each other. The clergy besought
Henry to stay his hand; he listened, pondered, and at length sent a
final message to his brother. He came, he said, not wishing to deprive
Robert of his duchy or to win territories for himself, but to answer
the cry of the distressed and deliver Normandy from the misrule of one
who was duke only in name. Here then was his last proposition: “Give
up to me half the land of Normandy, the castles and the administration
of justice and government throughout the whole, and receive the value
of the other half annually from my treasury in England. Thus you may
enjoy pleasure and feasting to your heart’s content, while I will take
upon me the labours of government, and guarantee the fulfilment of
my pledge, if you will but keep quiet.” Foolish to the last, Robert
declined the offer; and the two armies made themselves ready for
battle.[38] In point of numbers they seem to have been not unequally
matched, but they differed greatly in character. Robert was stronger
in footsoldiers, Henry in knights; the flower of the Norman nobility
was on his side now, besides his Angevin, Cenomannian and Breton
allies;[39] while of those who followed Robert some, as the issue
proved, were only half-hearted. Of Henry’s genuine English troops there
is no account, but the men of his own day looked upon his whole host
as English in contradistinction to Robert’s Normans, and the tactics
adopted in the battle were thoroughly English. The king of England
fought on foot with his whole army, and it seems that the duke of
Normandy followed his example.[40]

        [32] Eng. Chron. a. 1104. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c.
        397 (Hardy, p. 623).

        [33] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 814.

        [34] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1105 (Marchegay, _Eglises d’Anjou_, p.
        30).

        [35] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 818.
        Chron. S. Albin. a. 1105 (Marchegay, _Eglises d’Anjou_, p. 30).

        [36] “Helias a Normannis rogatus discessit,” says Orderic (as
        above). What can this mean?

        [37] Eng. Chron. a. 1106.

        [38] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 820.

        [39] _Ib._ p. 820. Hen. Huntingdon, l. vii. c. 25 (Arnold, p.
        235).

        [40] Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 25 (Arnold, p. 235).

The first line of the Norman or ducal host under William of Mortain
charged the English front under Ralf of Bayeux, and by the fury of
their onset compelled them to fall back, though without breaking their
ranks. The issue was still doubtful, when the only mounted division
of Henry’s troops, the Bretons and Cenomannians under Count Elias,
came up to the rescue, took the duke’s army in flank, and cut down
two hundred men in a single charge. Those Cenomannian swords which
William the Conqueror was so proud to have overcome now carried the
day for his youngest son. Robert of Bellême, as soon as he saw how
matters were going, fled with all his followers, and the duke’s army at
once dissolved.[41] In Henry’s own words, “the Divine Mercy gave into
my hands, without much slaughter on our side, the duke of Normandy,
the count of Mortain, William Crispin, William Ferrers, Robert of
Estouteville, some four hundred knights, ten thousand foot--and the
duchy of Normandy.”[42]

        [41] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 821. Eng.
        Chron. a. 1106. Hen. Hunt., as above.

        [42] Letter of Henry to S. Anselm in Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._
        (Rule), p. 184.

Forty years before, on the very same day, William the Conqueror had
landed at Pevensey to bring the English kingdom under the Norman
yoke. The work of Michaelmas Eve, 1066, was reversed on Michaelmas
Eve, 1106; the victory of Tinchebray made Normandy a dependency of
England.[43] Such was the view taken by one of the most clear-sighted
and unprejudiced historians of the time, a man of mingled Norman and
English blood. Such was evidently the view instinctively taken by all
parties, and the instinct was a true one, although at first glance it
seems somewhat hard to account for. The reign of Henry I., if judged
merely by the facts which strike the eye in the chronicles of the
time, looks like one continued course of foreign policy and foreign
warfare pursued by the king for his own personal ends at the expense
of his English subjects. But the real meaning of the facts lies deeper.
The comment of the archbishop of Rouen upon Henry’s death--“Peace be
to his soul, for he ever loved peace”[44]--was neither sarcasm nor
flattery. Henry did love peace, so well that he spent his life in
fighting for it. His early Norman campaigns are enough to prove that
without being a master of the art of war like his father, he was yet
a brave soldier and a skilful commander; and the complicated wars of
his later years, when over and over again he had to struggle almost
single-handed against France, Flanders and Anjou, amid the endless
treasons of his own barons, show still more clearly his superiority to
nearly all the other generals of his time. But his ambitions were not
those of the warrior. Some gleam of the old northman’s joy of battle
may have flashed across the wandering knight as he defied his besiegers
from the summit of his rock “in Peril of the Sea,” or swooped down
upon the turbulent lords of the Cenomannian border, like an eagle upon
lesser birds of prey, from his eyrie on the crest of Domfront; but the
victor of Tinchebray looked at his campaigns in another light. To him
they were simply a part of his general business as a king; they were
means to an end, and that end was not glory, nor even gain, but the
establishment of peace and order. In his thirteen years of wandering to
and fro between England, Normandy and France he had probably studied
all the phases of tyranny and anarchy which the three countries amply
displayed, and matured his own theory of government, which he practised
steadily to the end of his reign. That theory was not a very lofty or
noble one; the principle from which it started and the end at which
it aimed was the interest of the ruler rather than of the ruled; but
the form in which Henry conceived that end and the means whereby he
sought to compass it were at any rate more enlightened than those of
his predecessor. The Red King had reigned wholly by terror; Henry did
not aspire to rule by love; but he saw that, in a merely selfish point
of view, a sovereign gains nothing by making himself a terror to any
except evil-doers, that the surest basis for his authority is the
preservation of order, justice and peace, and that so far at least
the interests of king and people must be one. It is difficult to get
rid of a feeling that Henry enforced justice and order from motives
of expediency rather than of abstract righteousness. But, as a matter
of fact, he did enforce them all round, on earl and churl, clerk and
layman, Norman and Englishman, without distinction. And this steady,
equal government was rendered possible only by the determined struggle
which he waged with the Norman barons and their French allies. His
home policy and his foreign policy were inseparably connected; and the
lifelong battle which he fought with his continental foes was really
the battle of England’s freedom.

        [43] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 398 (Hardy, p. 625).

        [44] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 9 (Hardy, p. 702).

From the year 1103 onward the battle was fought wholly on the other
side of the Channel. In England Henry, as his English subjects joyfully
told him, became a free king on the day when he drove out Robert of
Bellême.[45] One great hindrance indeed still remained, hanging upon
him like a dead weight throughout his early struggles in Normandy; the
controversy concerning ecclesiastical investitures, with which the rest
of Europe had been aflame for a quarter of a century before it touched
England at all. The decree of the Lateran Council of 1075 forbidding
lay sovereigns to grant the investiture of any spiritual office with
ring and staff was completely ignored in practice by William the
Conqueror and Lanfranc. Their position on this and all other matters of
Church policy was summed up in their reply to Pope Gregory’s demand of
fealty: William would do what the English kings who went before him had
done, neither more nor less.[46] But the king and the primate were not
without perceiving that, as a necessary consequence of their own acts,
the English Church had entered upon a new and more complicated relation
both to the state and to the Apostolic see, and that the day must
shortly come when she would be dragged from her quiet anchorage into
the whirlpool of European controversies and strifes. Their forebodings
found expression in the three famous rules of ecclesiastical policy
which William laid down for the guidance of his successors rather than
himself:--that no Pope should be acknowledged in England and no letter
from him received there by any one without the king’s consent;--that
no Church council should put forth decrees without his permission
and approval;--and that no baron or servant of the crown should be
laid under ecclesiastical censure save at the king’s own command.[47]
These rules, famous in the two succeeding reigns under the name of
“paternal customs,” were never put to the test of practice as long as
William and Lanfranc lived. The Red King’s abuse of the two first, by
precipitating the crisis and driving S. Anselm to throw himself into
the arms of Rome, showed not so much their inadequacy as the justice
of the misgivings from which they had sprung. Henry at his accession
took his stand upon them in the true spirit of their author; but the
time was gone by; Anselm too had taken his stand upon ground whence
in honour and conscience he could not recede, and the very first
interview between king and primate threw open the whole question of
the investitures. But in England and in the Empire the question wore
two very different aspects. In England it never became a matter of
active interest or violent partisanship in the Church and the nation
at large. Only a few deep thinkers on either side--men such as Count
Robert of Meulan among the advisers of the king, perhaps such as the
devoted English secretary Eadmer among the intimate associates of
Anselm--ever understood or considered the principles involved in the
case, or its bearing upon the general system of Church and state.
Anselm himself stood throughout not upon the abstract wrongfulness of
lay investiture, but upon his own duty of obedience to the decree of
the Lateran Council; he strove not for the privileges of his order, but
for the duties of his conscience. The bishops who refused investiture
at Henry’s hands clearly acted in the same spirit; what held them
back was not so much loyalty to the Pope as loyalty to their own
metropolitan. The great mass of both clergy and laity cared nothing at
all how the investitures were given, and very little for papal decrees;
all they cared about was that they should not be again deprived of
their archbishop, and left, as they had already been left too long,
like sheep without a shepherd. In their eyes the dispute was a personal
one between king and primate, stirred up by Satan to keep the English
Church in misery.

        [45] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 808.

        [46] Lanfranc. Ep. x. (Giles, vol. i. p. 32).

        [47] Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), p. 10.

In the manner in which it was conducted on both sides, the case
compares no less favourably with its continental parallel and with
the later contest in England of which it was the forerunner, and for
which, in some respects, it unquestionably furnished a model, though
that model was very ill followed. For two years the dispute made
absolutely no difference in the general working of the Church; Anselm
was in full enjoyment of his canonical and constitutional rights as
primate of all Britain; he ruled his suffragans, held his councils,
superintended the restoration of his cathedral church, and laboured
at the reform of discipline, with Henry’s full concurrence; and the
clergy, with the archbishop at their head, were the life and soul
of the party whose loyalty saved the king in his struggle with the
barons. Even when Anselm’s position in England had become untenable,
he went over sea in full possession of his property, as the king’s
honoured friend and spiritual father. Not till Henry was provoked
by a papal excommunication of all the upholders of the obnoxious
“paternal customs” except himself, did he seize the temporalities
of the archbishopric; and even then Anselm, from his Burgundian
retreat, continued in active and unrestrained correspondence with his
chapter and suffragans, and in friendly communication not only with
Queen Matilda, but even with the king himself. And when at last the
archbishop who had gone down on his knees to the Pope to save William
Rufus from excommunication threatened to put forth that very sentence
against William’s far less guilty brother, he was only, like Henry
himself in Normandy at the same moment, preparing his most terrible
weapon of war as the surest means of obtaining peace. Henry’s tact
warned him, too, that the time for a settlement was come, and the
sincerity of his motives enabled him to strike out a line of compromise
which both parties could accept without sacrificing their own dignity
or the principles for which they were contending. The English king and
primate managed to attain in seven years of quiet decorous negotiation,
without disturbing the peace or tarnishing the honour of either Church
or crown, the end to which Pope and Emperor only came after half a
century of tumult, bloodshed and disgrace; the island-pontiff who
“loved righteousness and hated iniquity,” instead of “dying in exile”
like his Roman brother, came home to end his days in triumph on the
chair of S. Augustine. The settlement made little or no practical
difference as far as its immediate object was concerned. Henry ceased
to confer the spiritual insignia; but the elections, held as of old
in the royal court, were as much under his control as before. He
yielded the form and kept the substance; the definite concession of
the bishops’ homage for their temporalities fully compensated for the
renunciation of the ceremonial investiture. But the other side, too,
had gained something more than a mere form. It had won a great victory
for freedom by bringing Henry to admit that there were departments of
national life which lay beyond the sphere of his kingly despotism.
It had, moreover, gained a distinct practical acknowledgement of the
right of the Apostolic Curia to act as the supreme court of appeal
in ecclesiastical causes, like the Curia Regis in secular matters.
In a word, the settlement indicated plainly that the system of
William and Lanfranc was doomed to break down before long. It broke
down utterly when Anselm and Henry were gone; the complications of
legatine intervention, avoided only by careful management in Henry’s
later years, led to the most important results in the next reign;
and when the slumbering feud of sceptre and crozier broke out again,
the difference between the cool Norman temper and the fiery blood of
Anjou, between the saintly self-effacement of Anselm and the lofty
self-assertion of Thomas, was only one of the causes which gave it such
an increase of virulence as brought to nought the endeavours of king
and primate to tread in the steps of those whom they professed to have
taken for their examples.

Of more direct and wide-reaching importance, but less easy to trace, is
the working of Henry’s policy in the temporal government of England.
Like his Church policy, with which it was in strict accord, it was
grounded upon definite and consistent principles. At the outset of his
reign circumstances had at once compelled the king to throw himself
upon the support of his English subjects and enabled him to find in
them his surest source of strength. Personally, his sympathies were not
a whit more English or less despotic than those of his predecessor;
but, unlike Rufus, he fairly accepted his position with all its
consequences so far as he understood them, and throughout his reign
he never altogether forsook the standpoint which he had taken at its
beginning. That standpoint, as expressed in his coronation-charter, was
“the law of King Eadward as amended by King William.” In other words,
Henry pledged himself to carry out his father’s system of compromise
and amalgamation, to take up and continue his father’s work; and as
soon as his hands were free he set himself to fulfil the pledge. But
the scheme whose first outlines had been sketched by the Conqueror’s
master-hand had to be wrought out under conditions which had changed
considerably since his death and were changing yet farther every day.
The great ecclesiastical question was only the first and most prominent
among a crowd of social and political problems whose shadows William
had at the utmost only seen dimly looming in the future, but which
confronted Henry as present facts that he must grapple with as best he
could. At their theoretical, systematic solution he made little or no
attempt; the time was not yet ripe, nor was he the man for such work.
He was neither a great legislator nor an original political thinker,
but a clear-headed, sagacious, practical man of business. Such a man
was precisely the ruler needed at the moment. His reign is not one of
the marked eras of English history; compared with the age which had
gone before and that which came after it, the age of Henry I. looks
almost like a “day of small things.” That very phrase, which seems so
aptly to describe its outward aspect, warns us not to despise or pass
it over lightly. It is just one of those periods of transition without
which the marked eras would never be. Henry’s mission was to prepare
the way for the work of his grandson by completing that of his father.

The work was no longer where his father had left it. When the secular
side of the Norman government in England, somewhat obscured for a
while by the ecclesiastical conflict, comes into distinct view again
after the settlement of 1107, one is almost startled at the amount
of developement which has taken place in the twenty years since the
Conqueror’s death--a developement whose steps lie hidden beneath the
shadows of the Red King’s tyranny and of Henry’s early struggles. The
power of the crown had outgrown even the nominal restraints preserved
from the older system: the king’s authority was almost unlimited, even
in theory; the Great Council, the successor and representative of the
Witenagemot, had lost all share in the real work of legislation and
government; of the old formula--“counsel and consent”--the first half
had become an empty phrase and the second a mere matter of course.
The assembly was a court rather than a council, the qualification
of its members, whether earls, barons, or knights, being all alike
dependent on their position as tenants-in-chief of the crown; the
bishops alone kept their unaltered dignity as lineal successors of
the older spiritual Witan; but even the bishops had been compelled by
the compromise of 1107 to hold their temporalities on the baronial
tenure of homage and fealty to the king, a step which involved the
strict application of the same rule to the lay members of the assembly.
Moreover, the Witenagemot was being gradually supplanted in all its
more important functions by an inner circle of counsellors, forming
a permanent ministerial body which gathered into its own hands the
entire management of the financial and judicial administration of the
state. In one aspect it was the “Curia Regis” or King’s Court, the
supreme court of judicature which appropriated alike the judicial
powers of the Witenagemot, of the old court of the king’s thegns
or _theningmanna-gemot_, and of the feudal court of the Norman
tenants-in-chief. In another aspect it was the Exchequer, the court
which received the royal revenues from the sheriffs of the counties,
arranged and reviewed the taxation, transacted the whole fiscal
business of the crown, and in short had the supreme control and
management of the “ways and means” of the realm. The judicial, military
and social organization under the Norman kings rests so completely on a
fiscal basis that the working of the Exchequer furnishes the principal
means of studying that of the whole system; while the connexion between
the functions of the Exchequer and those of the Curia Regis is so close
that it is often difficult to draw a line accurately between them, and
all the more so, that they were made up of nearly the same constituent
elements. These were the great officers of the royal household:--the
justiciar, the treasurer, the chancellor, the constable, the marshal,
and their subordinates:--titles of various origin, some, as for example
the chancellor, being of comparatively recent origin, while others
seem to have existed almost from time immemorial;--but all titles
whose holders, from being mere personal attendants upon the sovereign,
had now become important officials of the state. Like a crowd of
other matters which first come distinctly to light under Henry, the
system seems to have grown up as it were in the dark during the reign
of William Rufus, no doubt under the hands of Ralf Flambard. At its
head stood the justiciar;--second in authority to the king in his
presence, his representative and vicegerent in his absence, officially
as well as actually his chief minister and the unquestioned executor
of his will. This office, of which the germs may perhaps be traced as
far back as the time of Ælfred, who acted as “secundarius” under his
brother Æthelred I., was directly derived from that which Æthelred
II. had instituted under the title of high-thegn or high-reeve, and
which grew into a permanent vice-royalty in the persons of Godwine
and Harold under Cnut and Eadward, and of Ralf Flambard under William
Rufus. Ralf himself, a clerk from Bayeux, who from the position of an
obscure dependent in the Conqueror’s household had made his way by
the intriguing, pushing, unscrupulous temper which had earned him his
nickname of the “Firebrand,” was an upstart whom the barons of the
Conquest may well have despised as much as the native English feared
and hated him. After an interval during which his office was held
by Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln--a former chancellor of the Red
King--it passed to a man who from beginnings almost as lowly as those
of Ralf rose to yet loftier and, it is but fair to add, purer fame.
Henry in his wandering youth, as he rode out from Caen one morning
with a few young companions, stopped to hear mass at a little wayside
chapel. The poor priest who served it, guessing by their looks the
temper of his unexpected congregation, rattled through the office with
a speed which delighted them; they all pronounced him just the man for
a soldier’s chaplain; Henry enlisted him as such, and soon found that
he had picked up a treasure. Roger became his steward, and discharged
his functions with such care, fidelity and good management as earned
him the entire confidence of his master.[48] Soon after Henry’s
accession he was appointed chancellor, a post whose duties involved,
besides the official custody of the royal seal, the superintendence
of the clerks of the king’s chapel or chancery, who were charged
with the keeping of the royal accounts, the conducting of the royal
correspondence, the drawing up of writs and other legal documents and
records, and who were now formed into a trained and organized body
serving as secretaries for all departments of state business. From 1101
to 1106 this office seems to have been held successively by Roger,
William Giffard, and Waldric; Roger probably resumed it in 1106 on
Waldric’s elevation to the bishopric of Laon, but if so he resigned it
again next year, to become bishop of Salisbury and justiciar.[49]

        [48] Will. Newburgh, l. i. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 36).

        [49] Flor. Worc. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 56.

Henry’s justiciar-bishop was the type of a class. The impossibility
of governing England securely by means of feudal machinery, even
with all the checks and safeguards which could be drawn from the old
English administrative system, had by this time become self-evident.
The conduct of the barons had at once proved to Henry the necessity
and given him the justification for superseding them in all the more
important functions of government, by carrying out, with a free and
strong hand, the scheme which Æthelred II. had originated under less
favourable circumstances--the organization of a distinct ministerial
body, directly dependent upon the crown. Of this body the model, as
well as the head, was the bishop of Salisbury. Under his direction
there grew up a trained body of administrators, most of them clerks
like himself, several being his own near relatives, and almost all
upstarts--_novi homines_, “new men” in the phrase of the time--compared
with the nobles whose fathers had come over with the Conqueror; forming
a sort of official caste, separate alike from the feudal nobility
and from the mass of the people, and no doubt equally obnoxious to
both, but very much better fitted than any instruments which either
could have furnished for managing the business of the state at that
particular crisis. Over and above the obloquy which naturally fell upon
them as the instruments of royal justice or royal extortion, there
was, however, another cause for the jealousy with which they were
generally regarded. Henry is charged with showing, more especially in
his later years, a preference for foreigners which was equally galling
to all his native subjects, whatever their descent might be.[50] It
was not that he set Normans over Englishmen, but that he set men of
continental birth over both alike. The words “Norman” and “English”
had in fact acquired a new meaning since the days of the Conquest. The
sons and grandsons of the men who had come over with Duke William never
lost one spark of their Norman pride of race; but the land of their
fathers was no longer their home; most of them were born in England,
some had English wives, and even English mothers; to nearly all, the
chief territorial, political and personal interests of their lives
were centred in the island. The constant wars between the Conqueror’s
successors tended still further to sever the Normans of the duchy from
those of the kingdom, and to drive the latter to unite themselves,
at least politically, with their English fellow-subjects. Already in
the wars of Rufus and Robert the change of feeling shows itself in
the altered use of names; the appellations “Norman” and “French” are
reserved exclusively for the duke and his allies, and the supporters
of the king of England are all counted together indiscriminately as
English. Tinchebray is distinctly reckoned as an English victory.
From that moment Normandy was regarded, both by its conquerors and
by its French neighbours, as a foreign dependency of the English
crown. Historians on both sides of the sea, as they narrate the wars
between Henry and Louis of France which arose out of that conquest,
unconsciously shadow forth the truth that the reunion of England and
Normandy really tended to widen the gulf between them. The greatest
French statesman of the day, Suger, abbot of S. Denis, sets the
relation between the two nationalities in the most striking light when
he justifies the efforts of his own sovereign Louis to drive Henry
out of the duchy on the express ground that “Englishmen ought not to
rule over Frenchmen, nor French over English.”[51] One of our best
authorities on the other side, the son of a Frenchman from Orléans who
had come in the train of Roger of Montgomery and married an English
wife--though he spent his whole life, from the age of ten years, in the
Norman monastery of Saint-Evroul, never ceased to regard his mother’s
country as his own, showed his love for it in the most touching
expressions of remembrance, and took care to send forth his history to
the world under the name of _Orderic the Englishman_. This last was no
doubt a somewhat extreme case. Still the fusion between the two races
had clearly begun; it was helped on directly by Henry’s whole policy,
by the impartial character of his internal administration, by the
nature and circumstances of his relations with his chief continental
neighbours, France and Anjou; indirectly it was helped on by the
sense of a common grievance in the promotion of “strangers”--men born
beyond sea--over the heads of both alike. Slight as were the bonds
between them at present, they were the first links of a chain which
grew stronger year by year; and the king’s last and grandest stroke
of policy, the marriage of his daughter and destined successor with
the count of Anjou, did more than anything else to quicken the fusion
of the two races by driving them to unite against sovereigns who were
equally aliens from both.

        [50] Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), p. 224.

        [51] Suger, _Vita Ludovici Grossi_, c. 1 (_Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 12).

Roger’s great work as justiciar was the organization of the Exchequer.
Twice every year the barons of the Exchequer met under his presidency
around the chequered table whence they derived their name, and
settled accounts with the sheriffs of the counties. As the sheriffs
were answerable for the entire revenue due to the crown from their
respective shires, the settlement amounted to a thorough review of the
financial condition of the realm. The profits of the demesne lands
and of the judicial proceedings in the shire-court, now commuted at a
fixed sum under the title of “ferm of the shire”; the land-tax, or as
it was still called, the Danegeld, also compounded for at a definite
rate; the so-called “aids” which in the case of the towns seem to have
corresponded to the Danegeld in the rural districts; the feudal sources
of income, reliefs, wardships, marriage-dues, escheats; the profits
arising out of the strict and cruel forest-law, the one grievance of
his predecessor’s rule which Henry had from the beginning refused to
redress; all these and many other items found their places in the
exhaustive proceedings of King Henry’s court of Exchequer. Hand in hand
with its financial work went the judicial work of the Curia Regis: a
court in theory comprehending the whole body of tenants-in-chief, but
in practice limited to the great officers of the household and others
specially appointed by the king, and acting under him, or under the
chief justiciar as his representative, as a supreme tribunal of appeal,
and also of first resort in suits between tenants-in-chief and in a
variety of other cases called up by special writ for its immediate
cognisance. It had moreover the power of acting directly upon the lower
courts in another way. The assessment of taxes was still based upon the
Domesday survey; but transfers of land, changes in cultivation, the
reclaiming of wastes on the one hand and the creation of new forests on
the other, necessarily raised questions which called for an occasional
revision and readjustment of taxation. This was effected by sending the
judges of the King’s Court--who were only the barons of the Exchequer
in another capacity--on judicial circuits throughout the country, to
hold the pleas of the crown and settle disputed points of assessment
and tenure in the several shires. As the justices thus employed held
their sittings in the shire-moot, the local and the central judicature
were thus brought into immediate connexion with each other, and the
first stepping-stone was laid towards bridging over the gap which
severed the lower from the higher organization.

By the establishment of a careful and elaborate administrative routine
Henry and Roger thus succeeded in binding together all branches of
public business and all classes of society in intimate connexion with
and entire dependence on the crown, through the medium of the Curia
Regis and the Exchequer. The system stands portrayed at full length
in the _Dialogue_ in which Bishop Roger’s great-nephew expounded the
constitution and functions of the fully developed Court of Exchequer;
its working in Roger’s own day is vividly illustrated in the one
surviving record which has come down to us from that time, the earliest
extant of the “Pipe Rolls” (so called from their shape) in which the
annual statement of accounts was embodied by the treasurer. The value
of this solitary roll of Henry I.--that of the year 1130--lies less in
the dry bones of the actual financial statement than in the mass of
personal detail with which they are clothed, and through which we get
such an insight as nothing else can afford into the social condition of
the time. The first impression likely to be produced by the document is
that under Henry I. and Roger of Salisbury--“the Lion of Justice” and
“the Sword of Righteousness”--every possible contingency of human life
was somehow turned into a matter of money for the benefit of the royal
treasury. It must, however, be remembered that except the Danegeld,
there was no direct taxation; the only means, therefore, of making up
a budget at all was by the feudal levies and miscellaneous incidents;
and these were no longer, as in the Red King’s days, instruments of
unlimited extortion, but were calculated according to a regular and
fairly equitable scale, subject to frequent modification under special
circumstances. Still the items look strange enough. We see men paying
to get into office and paying to get out of it; heirs paying for the
right to enter upon their inheritance; would-be guardians paying that
they may administer the estates of minors; suitors paying for leave
to marry heiresses or dowered widows; heiresses and widows paying for
freedom to wed the man of their own choice. The remittances are not
always in money; several of the king’s debtors sent coursing-dogs or
destriers; one has promised a number of falcons, and there are some
amusingly minute stipulations as to their colour.[52] There is an
endless string of land-owners, great and small, paying for all sorts
of privileges connected with their property; some for leave to make an
exchange of land with a neighbour, some to cancel an exchange already
made; some to procure the speedy determination of a suit with a rival
claimant of their estates, some on the contrary to delay or avoid
answering such a claim, and some for having themselves put forth claims
which they were unable to prove; the winner pays for his success, the
loser for failing to make good his case; the treasury gains both ways.
Jewish usurers pay for the king’s help in recovering their debts from
his Christian subjects.[53] The citizens of Gloucester promise thirty
marks of silver if the king’s justice can get back for them a sum of
money “which was taken away from them in Ireland.”[54] This last-quoted
entry brings us at once to another class of items, perhaps the most
interesting of all; those which relate to the growing liberties of the
towns.

        [52] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 111.

        [53] _Ib._ pp. 147, 148, 149.

        [54] _Ib._ p. 77.

The English towns differed completely in their origin and history
from those of the states which had arisen out of the ruins of the
Roman Empire. The great cities of Italy and Gaul were daughters of
Rome; they were the abiding depositaries of her social, municipal and
political traditions; as such, they had a vitality and a character
which, like their great mistress and model, they were able to
preserve through all the changes of barbarian conquest and feudal
reorganization. The English towns had no such imperial past; in their
origin and earliest constitution they were absolutely undistinguishable
from the general crowd of little rural settlements throughout the
country. Here and there, for one reason or another, some particular
spot attracted an unusually large concourse of inhabitants; but
whether sheltered within the walls of a Roman military encampment like
Winchester and York, or planted on the top of an almost immemorial
hill-fort like Old Sarum, or gathered in later days round some fortress
raised for defence against the Welsh or the Danes like Taunton or
Warwick, or round some venerated shrine like Beverley or Malmesbury
or Oxford, still the settlement differed in nothing but its size
from the most insignificant little group of rustic homesteads which
sent its reeve and four men to the court of the hundred and the
shire. The borough was nothing more than an unusually large township,
generally provided with a dyke and palisade, or sometimes even a
wall, instead of the ordinary quickset hedge; or it was a cluster of
townships which had somehow coalesced, but without in any way forming
an organic whole. Each unit of the group had its own parish church
and parochial machinery for both spiritual and temporal purposes,
its own assembly for transacting its own internal affairs; while the
general borough-moot, in a town of this kind, answered roughly to
the hundred-court of the rural districts, and the character of the
borough-constitution itself resembled that of the hundred rather
than that of the single township. The earlier and greater towns
must have been originally free; a few still retain in their common
lands a vestige of their early freedom. But the later towns which
grew up around the hall of a powerful noble, or a great and wealthy
monastery, were dependent from the first upon the lord of the soil
on which they stood; their inhabitants owed suit and service to the
earl, the bishop, or the abbot, whichever he might chance to be, and
their reeve was appointed by him. On the other hand, when it became
a recognized principle that everybody must have a lord, and that all
folkland belonged to the king, it followed as a natural inference that
all towns which had no other lord were counted as royal demesnes,
and their chief magistrate was an officer of the crown. In the great
cities he usually bore the title of _port-reeve_, a word whose first
syllable, though here used to represent the town in general, refers
in strict etymology to the _porta_, or place where the market was
held, and thus at once points to the element in the life of the towns
which gave them their chief consequence and their most distinctive
character. The Norman conquest had led to a great increase of their
trading importance; a sense of corporate life and unity grew up within
them; their political position became more clearly defined; they began
to recognize themselves, and to win their recognition at the hands of
the ruling powers, as a separate element in the state. The distinction
was definitely marked by the severance of their financial interests
from those of the shires in which they stood; a fixed “aid,” varying
according to their size and wealth, was substituted in their case
for the theoretically even, but practically very unfair pressure of
the Danegeld; and to avoid all risk of extortion on the part of the
sheriff, their contribution to the ferm of the shire was settled at a
fixed round sum deducted from the total and accounted for as a separate
item, under the name of _firma burgi_, either by the sheriff or, in
some cases where the privilege had been specially conferred, by the
towns themselves. At the same time the voluntary institution of the
gilds, which had long acted as a supplement to the loose territorial
and legal constitution of the boroughs, forced its way into greater
prominence; the merchant-gilds made their appearance no longer as
mere private associations, but as legally organized bodies endowed
with authority over all matters connected with trade in the great
mercantile cities; the recognition of their legal status--generally
expressed by the confirmation of the right to possess a “gild-hall”
(or, as it was called in the north, a “hans-house”)--became a main
point in the struggles of the towns for privileges and charters. The
handicraftsmen, fired with the same spirit of association, banded
themselves together in like manner; the weavers of London, Huntingdon
and Lincoln, the leather-sellers and weavers of Oxford, bought of
the crown in 1130 a formal confirmation of the customs of their
respective gilds.[55] The lesser towns followed, as well as they
could, the example of the great cities; they too won from their lords
a formal assurance of their privileges; Archbishop Thurstan’s charter
to Beverley was expressly modelled on that granted by King Henry to
York.[56]

        [55] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), Oxford, pp. 2 and 5;
        Huntingdon, p. 48; Lincoln, pp. 109, 114; London, p. 144.

        [56] Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 109, 110 (3d ed.).

[Illustration: Plan I.

  WINCHESTER in the XII century.

  Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.      London, Macmillan & Co.
]

We may glance at some of the towns of southern England in company
with some travellers from Gaul who visited them in the later years
of Henry’s reign. The cathedral church of Laon had been burnt down
and its bishop Waldric slain in a civic tumult in 1112. Waldric had
once been chancellor to King Henry,[57] and the reports which he
and others had brought to Laon of the wealth and prosperity of the
island[58] led some of the canons, after perambulating northern Gaul
to collect donations for the restoration of their church, to venture
beyond sea for the same object. They set sail from Wissant--seemingly
in an English ship, for its captain bore the English-sounding name of
Coldistan--in company with some Flemish merchants who were going to
buy wool in England, and they landed at Dover after a narrow escape
from some pirates who chased their vessel in the hope of seizing the
money which it was known to contain.[59] They naturally made their
way to Canterbury first, to enlist the sympathies of the archbishop
and his chapter, as well as those of the scarcely less wealthy and
powerful abbey of S. Augustine.[60] Thence they apparently proceeded
to Winchester.[61] The old West-Saxon capital had lost its ancient
rank; London, which had long surpassed it in commercial and political
importance, had now superseded it as the crowning-place and abode of
kings. But its connexion with the crown was far from being broken.
Its proximity to the New Forest made it a favourite residence of the
Conqueror and his sons; William himself had built not only a castle on
the high ground at the western end of the city, just below the west
gate of the Roman enclosure, but also a palace in its south-eastern
quarter, hard by the cathedral and the New Minster; it was here that
he usually held his Easter court, and his successors continued the
practice. One very important department of the royal administration,
moreover, was still permanently centred at Winchester--the Treasury,
which under its English title of the “Hoard” had been settled there
by Eadward the Confessor, and which seems not to have been finally
transferred to Westminster till late in the reign of Henry II.[62]
Of the two great religious foundations, one, the “Old Minster,” or
cathedral church of S. Swithun, the crowning-place and burial-place of
our native kings, assumed under the hands of its first Norman bishop
the aspect which, outwardly at least, it still retains. The other,
the “New Minster,” so strangely placed by Ælfred close beside the old
one, had incurred William’s wrath by the deeds of its abbot and some
of its monks who fought and fell at Senlac; to punish the brotherhood,
he planted his palace close against the west front of their church;
and they found their position so intolerable that in 1111, by Henry’s
leave, they migrated outside the northern boundary of Winchester to a
new abode which grew into a wealthy and flourishing house under the
name of Hyde Abbey, leaving their old home to fall into decay and to
be represented in modern days by a quiet graveyard.[63] As a trading
centre Winchester ranked in Henry’s day, and long after, second to
London alone; the yearly fair which within living memory was held on S.
Giles’s day upon the great hill to the east of the city[64] preserved a
faint reminiscence of the vast crowds of buyers and sellers who flocked
thither from all parts of the country throughout the middle ages.

        [57] On Waldric (or Gualdric) and Laon see Guibert of Nogent,
        _De Vitâ suâ_, l. iii. c. 4, _et seq._ (D’Achéry, _Guib.
        Noviog. Opp._, p. 498, _et seq._). Cf. above, p. 22.

        [58] “Quæ [sc. Anglia] tunc temporis magnâ divitiarum florebat
        opulentiâ pro pace et justitiâ quam rex ejus Henricus ... in
        eâ faciebat.” Herman. Mon. _De Mirac. S. Mariæ_, l. ii. c. 1
        (D’Achéry, _Guib. Noviog. Opp._, p. 534).

        [59] _Ib._ c. 4 (pp. 535, 536).

        [60] _Ib._ c. 6 (p. 536).

        [61] Herman. Mon., l. ii. c. 7 (D’Achéry, _Guib. Noviog. Opp._,
        p. 536).

        [62] At the date of the _Dialogus de Scaccario_ (A.D. 1178)
        its headquarters seem to have fluctuated between London and
        Winchester, and to have been quite recently, if they were
        not even yet, most frequently at the latter place. See the
        payments to the accountants: “Quisque iii denarios si Londoniæ
        fuerint; si Wintoniæ, quia inde solent assumi, duos quisque
        habet.”--_Dial. de Scacc._, l. i. c. 3 (Stubbs, _Select
        Charters_, p. 175, 3d ed.).

        [63] Flor. Worc. (Thorpe) vol. ii. p. 64. Ann. Waverl. a.
        1111. The king’s charter confirming the removal is dated 1114;
        Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. ii. p. 444.

        [64] It is mentioned in Henry’s charter to Hyde; Dugdale, as
        above.

At the opposite end of the New Forest the little town of Twinham,
or Christchurch as it was beginning to be called from its great
ecclesiastical establishment, whose church had been rebuilt on a grand
scale by Ralf Flambard, had, on the octave of Pentecost, a fair which
the travellers took care to attend, much to the disgust of the dean,
who was anxious to secure all the offerings of the assembled crowd
for the improvement of his own church, and had no mind to share them
with our Lady of Laon.[65] They met with a warmer welcome at Exeter at
the hands of its archdeacon and future bishop Robert.[66] In the next
reign Exeter was counted as the fourth city in the kingdom.[67] Natural
wealth of its own it had none; the bare rocky soil of the south coast
of Devon produced nothing but a few oats, and those of the poorest
quality;[68] but the mouth of the Exe furnished a safe and convenient
anchorage for small merchant vessels either from Gaul or from Ireland,
and though Bristol was fast drawing away this latter branch of her
trade, Exeter could still boast of “such an abundance of merchandise
that nothing required for the use of man could ever be asked for
there in vain.”[69] It was far otherwise with Salisbury, to which the
travellers were probably drawn chiefly by the fame of its bishop;[70]
the Salisbury of those days was not the city in the plain which now
spreads itself around the most perfect of English Gothic minsters,
but the city whose traces, in a very dry summer, may still now and
then be seen in the fields which cover the hill of Old Sarum. Crowded
as it was into that narrow circle--narrow, and without possibility
of enlargement--Bishop Roger’s Salisbury was an excellent post for
military security, but it had no chance of attaining industrial or
commercial importance, although he did not disdain to accept the
grant of its market tolls, which till 1130 formed part of the ferm of
Wilton.[71] Wilton was apparently still the chief town of the shire to
which it had originally given its name; like Christchurch it had its
fair, but, like Christchurch too, its importance was mainly derived
from its abbey, where the memory of S. Eadgyth or Edith, a daughter
of Eadgar, was venerated by English and Normans alike, by none more
than the queen who shared Eadgyth’s royal blood and had once borne
her name.[72] The visitors from Laon, however, seem to have been more
impressed by another name which one is somewhat startled to meet in
this southern region--that of Bæda, whose tomb was shown them in the
abbey church of Wilton, and was believed to be the scene of miraculous
cures.[73] They retraced their steps into Devonshire, where they found
the legends of Arthur as rife among the people as they were among the
Bretons of Gaul; they were shown the chair and oven of the “blameless
king,” and a tumult nearly arose at Bodmin out of a dispute between one
of their party and a man who persisted in asserting that Arthur was
still alive.[74] After visiting Barnstaple and Totnes[75] they turned
northward towards the greatest seaport of the west, and indeed, with
one exception, of all England: Bristol.

        [65] Herman. Mon., l. ii. cc. 10, 11 (D’Achéry, _Guib. Noviog.
        Opp._, pp. 537, 538).

        [66] _Ib._ l. ii. c. 12 (p. 539).

        [67] _Gesta Stephani_ (Sewell), p. 21.

        [68] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c. 94 (Hamilton, p.
        201).

        [69] _Ibid._

        [70] Herman. Mon., l. ii. c. 13 (p. 539).

        [71] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 13.

        [72] _Ibid._

        [73] Herman. Mon., l. ii. c. 14 (D’Achéry, _Guib. Noviog.
        Opp._, p. 539).

        [74] _Ib._ l. ii. cc. 15, 16 (pp. 539, 540).

        [75] _Ib._ l. ii. cc. 17–19 (p. 540).

[Illustration: Plan  II.

  BRISTOL in the XII century.

  Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.      London, Macmillan & Co.
]

To trace out the Bristol of the twelfth century in the Bristol of
to-day is a matter of difficulty not only from the enormous growth of
the town, but from the changes which have taken place in the physical
conformation of its site. Nominally, it still stands on the peninsula
formed by the junction of the Frome and the Avon; but the courses of
both rivers have been so altered and disguised that the earlier aspect
of the place is very hard to realize. The original Bristol stood wholly
upon the high ground which now forms the neck of the peninsula, then a
small tongue of land surrounded on the south-east by the Avon, on the
north, west and south by the Frome, which flowed round it almost in
the form of a horse-shoe and fell into the Avon on the southern side
of the town, just below the present Bristol Bridge.[76] Before the
Norman conquest, it seems, the lower course of the Frome had already
been diverted from its natural bed;[77] its present channel was not dug
till the middle of the thirteenth century, across a wide expanse of
marsh stretching all along the right bank of both rivers, and flooded
every day by the tide which came rushing up the estuary of Severn
almost to the walls of the town, and made it seem like an island in the
sea.[78] Within its comparatively narrow limits Bristol must have been
in general character and aspect not unlike what it is to-day--a busy,
bustling, closely-packed city, full of the eager, active, surging life
of commercial enterprise. Ostmen from Waterford and Dublin, Northmen
from the Western Isles and the more distant Orkneys, and even from
Norway itself, had long ago learnt to avoid the shock of the “Higra,”
the mighty current which still kept its heathen name derived from the
sea-god of their forefathers,[79] and make it serve to float them into
the safe and commodious harbour of Bristol, where a thousand ships
could ride at anchor.[80] As the great trading centre of the west
Bristol ranked as the third city in the kingdom,[81] surpassed in
importance only by Winchester and London. The most lucrative branch
of its trade, however, reflects no credit on its burghers. All the
eloquence of S. Wulfstan and all the sternness of the Conqueror had
barely availed to check for a while their practice of kidnapping men
for the Irish slave-market; and that the traffic was again in full
career in the latter years of Henry I. we learn from the experiences
of the canons of Laon. They eagerly went on board some of the vessels
in the harbour to buy some clothes, and to inspect the strange wares
brought from lands which can have had little or no intercourse with the
inland cities of Gaul. On their return they were solemnly implored by
their friends in the city not to run such a risk again, as they would
most likely find the ships suddenly put to sea and themselves sold into
bondage in a foreign land.[82]

        [76] See the description of Bristol in _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell),
        p. 37.

        [77] Seyer, _Memoirs of Bristol_, vol. ii. pp. 18–27.

        [78] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 37.

        [79] See the description of the “Higra,” and of Bristol, in
        Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. cc. 153, 154 (Hamilton, p.
        292).

        [80] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 37.

        [81] In _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 21, Exeter is called the
        fourth city in the realm. As London and Winchester are always
        counted first and second, the third can only be Bristol.

        [82] Herman. Mon., l. ii. c. 21 (D’Achéry, _Guib. Noviog.
        Opp._, p. 541).

No such dangers awaited them at Bath. With their reception there by the
bishop[83]--whom the healing virtues of its waters had induced first
to remove his bishopstool thither from its lowlier seat at Wells, and
then to buy the whole city of King Henry for the sum of five hundred
pounds[84]--their itinerary comes to an abrupt end. If they penetrated
no further up the Severn valley than Bristol they turned back from the
gates of a region which was then reckoned the fairest and wealthiest
in England. The vale of Gloucester is described as a sort of earthly
paradise, where the soil brought forth of its own accord the most
abundant and choicest fruits, where from one year’s end to another
the trees were never bare, where the apples hung within reach of the
traveller’s hand as he walked along the roads;--above all, where the
fruit of the vine, which in other parts of England was mostly sour,
yielded a juice scarcely inferior to the wines of Gaul. Another source
of wealth was supplied by the fisheries of the great river, the
fertilizer as well as the highway of this favoured district. Religion
and industry, abbeys and towns, grew and flourished by Severn-side.[85]
Worcester was still the head of the diocese; but in political rank it
had had to give way to Gloucester. Standing lower down the river,
Gloucester was more accessible for trade, while its special importance
as the key of the South-Welsh border had made it one of the recognized
places for assemblies of the court from the time of the Danish kings.
The chief town of the neighbouring valley of the Wye, Hereford, had
once been a border-post of yet greater importance; but despite its
castle and its bishop’s see, it was now a city “of no great size,”
whose broken-down ramparts told the story of a greatness which had
passed away.[86]

        [83] _Ib._ l. ii. c. 22 (p. 541).

        [84] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontiff._, l. ii. c. 90 (Hamilton, p.
        194). The grant of the city is in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. pt.
        i. p. 8; date, August 1111.

        [85] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontiff._, l. iv. c. 153 (Hamilton, pp.
        291, 292).

        [86] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontiff._, l. iv. c. 163 (Hamilton, p.
        298).

Far different was the case of Chester. What the estuary of the Severn
was to the southern part of western England, that of the Dee was to its
northern part; Chester was at once the Bristol and the Gloucester of
the north-west coast--the centre of its trade and its bulwark against
the Welsh. Beyond the Dee there was as yet little sign of industrial
life. Cultivation had made little or no progress among the moorland and
forest-tracts of western Yorkshire, and its eastern half had not yet
recovered from the harrying with which the Conqueror had avenged its
revolt in 1068. For more than sixty miles around York the ground still
lay perfectly bare. “Cities whose walls once rose up to heaven--tracts
that were once well watered, smiling meadows--if a stranger sees them
now, he groans; if a former inhabitant could see them, he would not
recognize his home.” The one thing which had survived this ruin was, as
ever, the work of the Roman.[87] York still kept its unbroken life, its
ecclesiastical primacy, its commercial greatness; the privileges of its
merchants were secured by a charter from the king; they had their gild
with its “alderman” at its head,[88] their “hans-house” for the making
of bye-laws and the transaction of all gild business; and they were
freed from all tolls throughout the shire.[89] Far to the north-west,
on the Scottish border, Carlisle, after more than two centuries of
ruin, had been restored and repeopled by William Rufus. The city had
been destroyed by the Danes in 875, and its site remained utterly
desolate till in 1092 the Red King drove out an English thegn who
occupied it under the protection of Malcolm of Scotland, and reunited
it to the English realm.[90] The place still kept some material relics
of its earlier past; fragments of its Roman walls were still there,
to be used up again in the new fortifications with which the Red King
encircled his conquest; and some years later the _triclinium_ of one
of its Roman houses called forth the admiring wonder of a southern
visitor, William of Malmesbury.[91] But the city and the surrounding
country lay almost void of inhabitants, and only the expedient of a
colony sent by Rufus from southern England, “to dwell in the land and
till it,”[92] brought the beginnings of a new life. Yet before the end
of Henry’s reign, that life had grown so vigorous that the archbishop
of York found himself unable to make adequate provision for its
spiritual needs, and was glad to sanction the formation of Carlisle and
its district into a separate diocese.

        [87] _Ib._ l. ii. c. 99 (Hamilton, pp. 208, 209).

        [88] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 34.

        [89] Charter of Beverley, Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 109,
        110 (3d ed.).

        [90] Eng. Chron. a. 1092.

        [91] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c. 99 (Hamilton, p.
        208).

        [92] Eng. Chron. a. 1092.

The chief importance of Carlisle was in its military character, as an
outpost of defence against the Scots. On the opposite coast we see
springing up, around a fortress originally built for the same purpose,
the beginning of an industrial community at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
The “customs” of the town contain provisions for the regulation of
both inland and outland trade; if a merchant vessel put in at the
mouth of the Tyne, the burghers may buy what they will; if a dispute
arise between one of them and a foreign merchant, it must be settled
before the tide has ebbed thrice; the foreign trader may carry his
wares ashore for sale, except salt and herrings, which must be sold
on board the ship. No merchant, save a burgher, may buy wool, hides,
or any other merchandise outside the town, nor within it, except
from burghers; and no one but a burgher may buy, make, or cut cloth
for dyeing.[93] Round the minster of S. John of Beverley, on the
marshy flats of Holderness, there had grown up a town of sufficient
consequence to win from the lord of the soil, Archbishop Thurstan
of York, a charter whose privileges were copied from those of the
metropolitan city itself. As a whole, however, the north was still
a wild region, speaking a tongue of which, as William of Malmesbury
complained, “we southrons could make nothing,” and living a life so
unconnected with that of southern England that even King Henry still
thought it needful to reinforce his ordinary body-guard with a troop of
auxiliaries whenever he crossed the Humber.[94]

        [93] Customs of Newcastle, Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 111,
        112.

        [94] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c. 99 (Hamilton, p.
        209).

This isolation was in great part due to physical causes. What is now
the busy West Riding was then mainly a vast tract of moor and woodland,
stretching from Wakefield to the Peak and from the Westmoreland hills
to the sources of the Don; while further east, the district between
the lower course of the Don and that of the Trent was one wide morass.
Such obstacles were still strong enough to hinder, though not to bar,
the intercourse of Yorkshire with mid-England. The only safe line of
communication was the Foss Way, which struck across the central plain
and along the eastern side of the Trent valley to Lincoln, and thence
turned north-westward to cross the Trent and wind round between forest
and fen to York. Lincoln was thus the chief station on the highway
between York and the south. Under the Norman rule the city had risen to
a new importance. Two of its quarters had been entirely transformed;
the south-western was now covered by a castle, and the south-eastern
by a cathedral church. Neither building was the first of its kind
which had occupied the spot. Few sites in England could have been
more attractive to a soldier’s eye than the crest of the limestone
ridge descending abruptly to the south into a shallow sort of basin,
watered by the little river Witham, and on the west sloping gradually
down to a broad alluvial swamp extending as far as the bank of the
Trent. The hundred and sixty-six houses which the Conqueror swept away
to make room for his castle[95] were but encroachments on an earlier
fortification, a “work” of mounds and earthen ramparts of the usual
old English type, which now served as a foundation for his walls of
stone.[96] To the ardent imagination of the medieval Church, on the
other hand, the rocky brow of Lincoln might well seem to cry out for
a holier crown, and a church of S. Mary was already in existence[97]
on the site where Bishop Remigius of Dorchester, forsaking his lowly
home in the valley of the Thames, reared his bishopstool amid the
foundations of that great minster of our Lady whose noble group of
towers now rises on the crest of the hill as a beacon to all the
country round.[98] But there were other reasons for the translation
of the bishopric than those of sentiment or of personal taste. Of
the vast Mid-Anglian diocese, which stretched from the Thames to the
Humber, Lincoln was beyond all comparison the most important town.
Even in Roman times the original quadrangular enclosure of Lindum
Colonia had been found too small, and a fortified suburb had spread
down to the left bank of the Witham. During the years of peace which
lasted from the accession of Cnut to that of William, the needs of an
increasing population, as we have seen, covered the site of the older
fortress with dwellings: when these were cleared away at William’s
bidding, their exiled inhabitants found a new home on a plot of
hitherto waste ground beyond the river; and a new town, untrammelled
by the physical obstacles which had cramped the growth of the city
on the hill, sprang up around the two churches of S. Mary-le-Wigford
and S. Peter-at-Gowts.[99] Some fifty years later Lincoln was counted
one of the most populous and flourishing cities in England.[100] The
roads which met on the crest of its hill to branch off again in all
directions formed only one of the ways by which trade poured into its
market. Not only had the now dirty little stream of Witham a tide
strong enough to bring the small merchant vessels of the day quite
up to the bridge: it was connected with the Trent at Torksey by a
canal, probably of Roman origin, known as the Foss Dyke; this after
centuries of neglect was cleared out and again made navigable by order
of Henry I.,[101] and through it there flowed into Lincoln a still more
extensive trade from the lower Trent Valley and the Humber. The “men of
the city and the merchants of the shire” were already banded together
in a merchant-gild;[102] and it is doubtless this gild which is
represented by the “citizens of Lincoln” who in 1130 paid two hundred
marks of silver and four marks of gold for the privilege of holding
their city in chief of the king.[103]

        [95] Domesday, vol. i. p. 336 b.

        [96] G. T. Clark, _Lincoln Castle_ (_Archæol. Journal_, vol.
        xxxiii. pp. 215–217).

        [97] “Sancta Maria de Lincoliâ in quâ nunc est episcopatus,”
        Domesday, vol. i. p. 336. The patron saint of this older
        church, however, was the Magdalene, not the Virgin. See John
        de Schalby’s _Life of Remigius_, in Appendix E. to Gir. Cambr.
        (Dimock), vol. vii. p. 194, and Mr. Freeman’s remarks in
        preface, _ib._ pp. lxxx., lxxxii.

        [98] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. c. 177 (Hamilton, p.
        312). Flor. Worc. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 30.

        [99] See Domesday, vol. i. p. 336 b, and Mr. Freeman’s remarks
        in _Norm. Conq._, vol. iv. pp. 218, 219.

        [100] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. c. 177 (Hamilton, p.
        312).

        [101] Sim. Durh. _Gesta Reg._ a. 1121.

        [102] Said to date from the time of Eadward; Stubbs, _Select
        Charters_, p. 166.

        [103] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 114.

[Illustration: Plan III.

  LINCOLN in the XII century.

  Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.      London, Macmillan & Co.
]

The removal of Bishop Remigius from Dorchester to Lincoln was in
accordance with a new practice, which had come in since the Norman
conquest, of placing the episcopal see in the chief town of the
diocese. The same motive had prompted a translation of the old Mercian
bishopric from Lichfield, now described as “a little town in the
woodland, with a rivulet flowing by it, far away from the throng of
cities,”[104] to Chester, whence, however, it was soon removed again to
the great abbey of Coventry.[105] The same reason, too, caused Norwich
to succeed Thetford as the seat of the bishopric of East-Anglia. It was
but very recently that Lincoln had outstripped Norwich as the chief
city of eastern England. The mouth of the Yare, which had a tideway
navigation quite up to the point where the Wensum falls into it, was
no less conveniently placed than that of the Witham for intercourse
with northern Europe; and the Scandinavian traders and settlers in the
first half of the eleventh century had raised Norwich to such a pitch
of prosperity that at the coming of the Norman it contained twenty-four
churches, and its burghers seem to have been more numerous than those
of any town in the realm except London and York.[106] Twenty years
later their number was indeed greatly diminished; the consequences of
Earl Ralf’s rebellion had wrought havoc in the city. But if its native
population had decreased, a colony of Norman burghers was growing up
and flourishing in a “new borough,” now represented by the parishes
of S. Peter Mancroft and S. Giles; the number of churches and chapels
had risen to forty-four,[107] and in the Red King’s last years the
foundations of the cathedral were laid by Bishop Herbert Lozinga,
whose grave may still be seen before its high altar.[108] Once in the
next reign Norwich supplanted Gloucester as the scene of the Midwinter
Council; King Henry kept Christmas there in 1121.[109] It may have been
on this occasion that the citizens won from him their first charter;
but the charter itself is lost, and we only learn the bare fact of its
existence from the words of Henry II., confirming to the burghers of
Norwich “all the customs, liberties and acquittances which they had in
the time of my grandfather.”[110]

        [104] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. c. 172 (Hamilton, p.
        307).

        [105] _Ib._ cc. 172–175 (pp. 307–311).

        [106] Domesday, vol. ii. pp. 116, 117.

        [107] _Ib._ pp. 116–118.

        [108] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c. 74 (Hamilton, p.
        151).

        [109] Eng. Chron. a. 1122.

        [110] Charter printed in Blomefield, _Hist. of Norfolk_, vol.
        iii. p. 34.

[Illustration: Plan IV.

  OXFORD in the XII century.

  Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.      London, Macmillan & Co.
]

It was, however, in the valley of the Thames that English town-life was
growing up most vigorously. Tried by the test of statistics, indeed,
Oxford was still but a small place; in the time of the Confessor
it had only contained about a thousand dwellings, and before the
Domesday survey was made the town had, through some unexplained cause,
suffered such decay that more than half of these were waste.[111] But
the “waste” was quickly repaired under the wise government of Robert
of Oilly, to whom the chief command at Oxford was entrusted by the
Conqueror, and of his nephew and namesake who succeeded to his office.
Before the close of Henry’s reign every side of that marvellously
varied life of Oxford which makes its history seem like an epitome of
the history of all England was already in existence, though only in
germ. The military capabilities of the site, recognized long ago by
Eadward the Elder, had been carefully strengthened; within the natural
protection of its encircling rivers, the town was “closely girt about
with rampart and ditch,”[112] and the mound, raised probably by Eadward
himself, at its western end had been made the nucleus of a mighty
fortress which was soon to become famous in the struggle of Stephen
and Matilda.[113] Nor was fortification the sole care of the D’Oillys;
within and without the city, works of piety and of public utility
sprang up under their direction. The ancient ford which had given the
town a name was no longer the sole means of crossing the network of
streams which fenced it in on every side save one; the High Bridge of
our own day represents one built by the first Robert of Oilly.[114]
Of the sixteen churches and chapels which Oxford now contained,[115]
S. George’s-in-the-Castle was certainly and S. Peter’s-in-the-East
probably founded by him;[116] several of the older parish churches
which had fallen into decay were restored at his expense;[117] and
those of S. Michael and S. Mary the Virgin, as well as that of S.
Mary Magdalene without the walls, were all founded in his time or in
that of his nephew, if not actually by their munificence.[118] One of
these, S. Mary the Virgin, was to become famous in after-days as the
University church. As yet, the centre of intellectual life at Oxford
was the ancient monastery of S. Fritheswith or Frideswide, which after
many vicissitudes had finally passed into the hands of the Austin
canons,[119] and entered upon a new career of prosperity under its
learned prior Guimund, the builder of the beautiful church which now
stands hidden away beneath the later splendours of Christ Church, like
a buried and yet living relic of an earlier and simpler age. Even S.
Frideswide’s, however, had a formidable rival in the priory of Oseney
which the younger Robert of Oilly founded, also for Austin canons, in
the island-meadow overlooked by his castle-tower.[120] The Augustinians
were a new order whose rise was closely associated with the revival of
intellectual and social culture; their houses were the best schools
of the time--schools in which the scholars were trained for secular
no less than for clerical careers--and their presence at Oseney and
S. Frideswide’s was already preparing the intellectual soil of Oxford
to receive, at the close of Henry’s reign, the seeds of the first
English University in the divinity lectures of Robert Pulein.[121]
The burgher-life of the city had long gathered round the church of S.
Martin; in its churchyard was held the portmannimot or general assembly
of the citizens; they had their merchant-gild and their gild-hall;[122]
they had their common pasture-land,[123] the wide green “Port-meadow”
beyond the Isis; and we see the growth of a local industry in the
appearance of the leather-sellers’ and weavers’ gilds. Shortly before
Henry’s death, there were indications that Oxford was soon to regain
the political position which it had held under the old English and
Danish kings, but had entirely lost since their time. A strange legacy
of awe had been left to the city by its virgin patroness. The story
went that Fritheswith, flying from the pursuit of her royal lover,
sank down exhausted at the gate, and, despairing of further escape,
called upon Heaven itself to check him; as he entered the town he was
struck blind, and though her prayers afterwards restored his sight,
no king after him dared set foot within the boundaries of Oxford for
fear of incurring some similar punishment.[124] It must be supposed
that the councils held at Oxford under Æthelred and Cnut met outside
the walls; we cannot tell whether any countenance was given to the
legend by the circumstances of Harald Harefoot’s death; but from that
time forth we hear of no more royal visits to Oxford till 1133--the
very year of Robert Pulein’s lectures. Then we find that Henry I.,
whose favourite country residence was at Woodstock, had been so drawn
to the neighbouring town as to build himself a “new hall” there,[125]
just outside the northern wall, on the ground afterwards known as
Beaumont-fields. He held but one festival there, the last Easter which
he ever spent in England; but each in turn of the rival candidates for
the throne left vacant by his death found Oxford ready to become a
political as well as a military centre of scarcely less importance than
London itself.

        [111] Domesday, vol. i. p. 154. Mr. Parker, in his _Early Hist.
        of Oxford_ (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), pp. 200, 201, suggests that the
        damage was done by the army of Eadwine and Morkere on their
        southward march in 1065.

        [112] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 88.

        [113] The chief stronghold of the new fortress, however, was
        not on the mound; it was a lofty tower--still standing--on the
        western side of the enclosure. It was built by the first Robert
        of Oilly, in 1071; Ann. Osen. ad ann. See Parker, _Early Hist.
        Oxf._, pp. 202–204.

        [114] _Hist. Monast. de Abingdon_ (Stevenson), vol. ii. pp. 15,
        284. See also Parker, _Early Hist. Oxf._, p. 219.

        [115] See lists in Parker as above, pp. 284–286.

        [116] He founded S. George’s in 1074; Ann. Osen. ad ann. On S.
        Peter’s see Parker as above, pp. 250–254.

        [117] _Hist. Abingdon_ (Stevenson), vol. ii. p. 15.

        [118] See the evidence in Parker’s _Early Hist. of Oxford_, pp.
        209, 223, 258–261.

        [119] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. c. 178 (Hamilton, pp.
        315, 316). Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. ii. pp. 143, 144. The
        Augustinians came there in 1111, according to the chronicle
        of Tynemouth, quoted in _Monast._ (as above), p. 143; but the
        local record in p. 144 gives 1121.

        [120] Ann. Osen. a. 1129.

        [121] _Ib._ a. 1133.

        [122] Charter of Henry II., Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 167.

        [123] Domesday, vol. i. p. 154.

        [124] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. c. 178 (Hamilton p.
        315).

        [125] “Ad Pascha fuit rex apud Oxineford in novâ aulâ.” Rob. of
        Torigni, a. 1133.

[Illustration: Plan V.

  LONDON in the XII century.

  Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.      London, Macmillan & Co.
]

Our great picture of medieval London belongs in all its completeness
to a somewhat later date; it was painted in the closing years of the
twelfth century. But, as in the case of so many other things which only
come out into full light under Henry II., although the colouring and
the details may belong more especially to his time, the main features
were already there in the time of his grandfather. The outline of
the city was a sort of irregular half-ellipse, fenced in upon the
northern or land side by a girdle of massive walls pierced with gates
and fortified with lofty towers; the wall on the south side, being
built close upon the river bank, was gradually washed away by the ebb
and flow of the tide constantly beating upon its foundations. On this
side the river itself was an all-sufficient protection. The eastern
extremity of the city, where the wall came down towards the water’s
edge, was guarded by a mighty fortress, founded by King William in the
earliest days of his conquest to hold his newly-won capital in check,
and always known by the emphatic name of “the Tower.” The western
end was protected by two lesser fortresses,[126]--Castle Baynard and
Montfichet, whose sokes filled up the space between the cathedral
precincts and the city wall. Another, which must have stood in the
same neighbourhood, seems to have been partly destroyed by the fire
which ravaged London a few months before the Conqueror’s death, and
in which the cathedral of S. Paul entirely perished.[127] Part of the
ditch of this fortress was surrendered by King Henry to make room for
a wall with which Bishop Richard was now enclosing his precincts;[128]
while within this enclosure a new church, gorgeous with all the latest
developements of Norman architectural skill, was now fast approaching
completion.[129] S. Paul’s was the rallying-point, as it had been the
nucleus, of municipal life in London. In time of peace the folkmoot
assembled at the eastern end of its churchyard at the summons of its
great bell; in time of war the armed burghers gathered at its west door
and beneath its banner, with the lord of Baynard’s castle as their
standard-bearer.[130] The internal constitution of London, however, was
scarcely a town-constitution of any kind; it was more like an epitome
of the organization of all England. The ordinary system of the parish
and the township, the special franchises and jurisdictions of the
great individual landowners, of the churches, of the gilds--all these
were loosely bundled together under the general headship of the bishop
and the port-reeve, to whom King William addressed his one surviving
English writ, just as he would have addressed the bishop and sheriff
of a county. The writ itself merely confirmed to the citizens “all the
law whereof they had been worthy in King Eadward’s day”;[131] but by
the end of Henry I.’s reign the Londoners had got far beyond this. By
virtue of a royal charter, they had exchanged their regally-appointed
port-reeve for a sheriff of their own choice, and this officer served
at once for the city and for the shire of Middlesex, which was granted
in ferm to the citizens for ever, as the other shires were granted
year by year to their respective sheriffs; they were exempted from
all tolls and mercantile dues throughout the realm, and from suit and
service to all courts outside their own walls, even the pleas of the
crown being intrusted to a special justiciar elected by themselves. Yet
there was no complete civic organization; the charter confirmed all the
old separate jurisdictions and franchises, the various “sokens” and
“customs” of churches, barons and burghers, the wardmoots or assemblies
of the different parishes or townships, as well as the husting or
folkmoot in which all were gathered together,[132]--and left London as
it found it, not a compact, symmetrical municipality, but, as it has
been truly called, simply “a shire covered with houses.”

        [126] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Memorials of Becket_, vol.
        iii.), p. 3.

        [127] Eng. Chron. a. 1087.

        [128] Dugdale, _Hist. of S. Paul’s_, app. xxiv. (Ellis), p.
        305. Stow (_London_, ed. Thoms, p. 26) says that this fortress
        “stood, as it may seem, where now standeth the house called
        Bridewell.” But this is impossible; for the later palace of
        Bridewell stood on the right bank of the Fleet, separated from
        S. Paul’s by the course of that river and the whole width of
        the soke of Castle Baynard, so that the gift of the ditch of a
        castle on its site would have been perfectly useless for the
        enlargement of the precincts.

        [129] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c. 73 (Hamilton, p.
        146).

        [130] Stow, _London_ (Thoms, p. 121). For the rights and duties
        of the lord of Castle Baynard, see _ib._ p. 24.

        [131] Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 82, 83.

        [132] Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 108.

This mass of growing life lay chiefly north-east of S. Paul’s, where
a crowd of lesser churches, conventual and parochial, rose out of a
network of close-packed streets and alleys thronged with busy craftsmen
and noisy, chaffering traders. Through the heart of it flowed the
“Wall-brook,” on whose bank there lingered, long after the stream
itself was buried and built over, a tradition of the barges laden with
merchandise which were towed up from the Thames to a landing-place
at the eastern end of the Cheap.[133] Beyond the Walbrook lay the
East-Cheap, almost busier and more crowded still; while to the
north, along the upper course of the Walbrook, was a thriving Jewish
quarter.[134] Population was spreading, too, beyond the walls. Many of
the wealthier citizens dwelt in pleasant suburban houses, surrounded
with bright gardens and shady trees.[135] Some two miles higher up the
river, the populous suburb of Westminster clustered round the famous
abbey built in honour of S. Peter by the last Old-English king, and
the palace of William Rufus, a splendid edifice with a breast-work
and bastion stretching down to the water’s edge.[136] North-west of
the city, just outside the wall, lay the plain of Smithfield, where
a great horse-fair was held every Friday.[137] Beyond was an expanse
of fruitful tillage-lands and rich pastures, watered by running
streams and made merry with the rush of countless watermills;[138]
and this tract was sheltered by a wide belt of woodland stretching
away across the northern part of Middlesex to the foot of the Chiltern
Hills. Here the stag and the fallow-deer, the boar and the wild bull,
had their coverts, beside a multitude of lesser game; all of which
the citizens were by a special privilege entitled to hunt at their
pleasure.[139] Such quasi-regal sport was doubtless only enjoyed by the
greater and wealthier among them; the mass of the young burghers were
content, in the summer evenings when their day’s work was done, with
a saunter among the shady gardens and fresh springs which enlivened
the northern suburbs; while in winter their favourite resort was a
tract of low-lying moor or marsh--the Moorfields of later times--on
whose frozen surface they could enjoy to their heart’s content the
exercises of sliding, sledging and skating.[140] Business, pleasure,
piety, intellectual culture, all had their places in the vigorous life
of the great city. Each of the two great minsters, S. Paul’s and S.
Peter’s, had a school attached to it, and so had the abbey of our Lady
at Bermondsey, just over the water.[141] Money-getting did not absorb
all the energies of the burghers; “they were respected and noted above
all other citizens for their manners, dress, table and discourse.”[142]
“Moreover, almost all the bishops, abbots and great men of England
are, in a manner, citizens and freemen of London; as they have
magnificent houses there, to which they resort, spending large sums of
money, whenever they are summoned thither to councils and assemblies
by the king or their metropolitan, or are compelled to go there by
their own business.”[143] And between these visitors and the resident
citizens there was no hard and fast line of demarcation. Neither the
knight-errant’s blind contempt for practical industry nor the still
blinder contempt of the merely practical man for everything which has
not its value in hard cash had as yet come into existence. Under the
old English system the merchant who had made three long voyages over
sea on his own account was entitled to rank as a thegn, and to take
his place among the nobles of the land. Under the Norman system a link
between the two classes was supplied by the citizens of Norman origin,
to whom London in no small measure owed the marked importance which
it attained under Henry I. The Norman knights had no monopoly of the
enterprizing spirit of their race; the victorious host had scarcely
settled down upon the conquered soil when it was followed by a second
invasion of a very different character. Merchants, traders, craftsmen
of all sorts, came flocking to seek their fortunes in their sovereign’s
newly-acquired dominions, not by forcible spoliation of the native
people, but by fair traffic and honest labour in their midst. The
fusion of races in this class, the class of which the town population
chiefly consisted, began almost from the first years of the conquest.
The process was very likely more helped than hindered by the grinding
tyranny which united all the Red King’s victims in a community of
suffering; but its great working-out was in the reign of Henry I. His
restoration of law and order, his administrative and judicial reforms,
gave scope for a great outburst of industrial and commercial energy.
England under him had her heavy burthens and her cruel grievances; they
stand out plainly enough in the complaints of her native chronicler.
But to men who lived amidst the endless strife of the French kingdom
or the Flemish border-land, or of the Norman duchy under the nominal
government of Robert Curthose, a country where “no man durst misdo with
other,” and where the sovereign “made peace for man and deer,”[144]
may well have looked like a sort of earthly paradise. It is no wonder
that peaceable citizens who only wanted to be quiet and get an honest
living came across the sea to find shelter and security in the rich
and prosperous island. For settlers of this kind it was easy enough to
make a home. No gulf of hatred and suspicion, no ever-present sense
of wrong suffered and wrong done, stood fixed between them and their
English fellow-burghers. Even before the Conqueror’s reign had closed,
English and Normans were living contentedly side by side in all the
chief cities of England: sometimes, as we have noticed in the case of
Norwich, the new-comers dwelt apart in a suburb or quarter of their
own, but the distinction was one of locality only; the intercourse was
perfectly free and perfectly amicable; Norman refinement, Norman taste,
Norman fashions, especially in dress, made their way rapidly among the
English burghers; and intermarriages soon became frequent.[145] In the
great cities, where the sight of foreign traders was nothing new or
strange, and the barriers of prejudice and ignorance of each other’s
languages had been worn away by years of commercial intercourse,
the fusion was naturally more easy; in London, whither the “men of
Rouen” had come in their “great ships,” with their cargoes of wine or
sturgeons,[146] long before their countrymen came with bow and spear
and sword, it was easiest of all. The great commercial centre to which
the Norman merchants had long been attracted as visitors attracted them
as settlers now that it had become the capital of their own sovereign;
and the attraction grew still stronger during the unquiet times in
Normandy which followed the Conqueror’s death. “Many natives of the
chief Norman cities, Rouen and Caen, removed to London, and chose them
out a dwelling there, because it was a fitter place for their trade,
and better stored with the goods in which they were wont to deal.”[147]

        [133] Stow, _London_ (Thoms), p. 97.

        [134] The only body of Jews who appear in the Pipe Roll of 31
        Hen. I are those of London.

        [135] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.) p. 3.

        [136] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.) p. 3.

        [137] _Ib._ p. 6.

        [138] _Ib._ p. 3.

        [139] _Ib._ p. 12.

        [140] _Ib._ p. 11.

        [141] _Ib._ p. 4.

        [142] _Ibid._

        [143] _Ib._ p. 8.

        [144] Eng. Chron. a. 1135.

        [145] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 520.

        [146] _De Institutis Lundoniæ_, Thorpe, _Anc. Laws_, p. 127
        (folio ed.).

        [147] _Vita S. Thomæ_, Anon. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol.
        iv.) p. 81.

That the influence of these Norman burghers was dominant in the city
there can be little doubt; but they seem to have won their predominance
by fair means and to have used it fairly. If they, as individuals,
prospered in the English capital, they contributed their full share
to its corporate prosperity, and indirectly to that of the nation at
large. They brought a great deal more than mere wealth; they brought
enterprize, vigour, refinement, culture, social as well as political
progress. In their pleasant, cheerful, well-ordered dwellings many a
noble knight or baron may have been glad to accept a hospitality such
as his own stately but comfortless and desolate castle could never
afford; many a learned and dignified ecclesiastic may have enjoyed a
refinement of society such as he could rarely hope to meet among the
rough and reckless swordsmen with whom the ranks of the high-born
laity were filled. We are not dependent on mere general statements;
we can do as did these barons and prelates themselves; we can go
with them to visit the home of a typical London citizen of the early
twelfth century. In the heart of the busiest trading quarter, on the
spot where Mercer’s Hall now stands in Cheapside, under the shadow of
S. Mary Colechurch, and well within sound of the bells of the more
famous S. Mary-at-Bow, was the house of Gilbert Becket and Rohesia his
wife. When their son, grown to manhood and high in office, was asked
of his origin and extraction, he answered simply that his parents
were citizens of London, dwelling blameless and respected among their
fellow-burghers.[148] Had not the inquisitive zeal of his biographers
led them to search more closely into his pedigree, we might never have
known that his father and mother were foreigners--Gilbert, born at
Rouen, of a respectable burgher family; Rohesia, sprung from the same
rank of life at Caen.[149] Gilbert once filled the office of port-reeve
of London,[150] and bore a high character for intelligence, industry
and upright dealing. Rohesia was the pattern of wives and mothers. Her
domestic affections and her wider Christian sympathies, her motherly
love and her charity to the needy, are seen exquisitely blended
together in her habit of weighing her little son at stated intervals
against money, clothes and food which she gave to the poor, trusting
thereby to bring a blessing on the child.[151] As soon as he was old
enough, he was sent to school at Merton Priory in Surrey,[152] where
his father seems to have been treated as a friend by the prior; and
when the boy came home for his holidays, it was to spend them in riding
and hawking with Richer de L’Aigle, a young knight sprung from one of
the noblest families of Normandy, and a constant visitor and intimate
friend of the little household in Cheapside.[153] It is plain from the
simple, matter-of-fact way in which that household is described that
it in nowise differed from the generality of burgher-households around
it. Its head was wealthy, but not to such a degree as to excite special
notice or envy; he and his wife lived in comfort and affluence, but
only such as befitted their station; they seem to have been in no way
distinguished from the bulk of respectable, well-to-do, middle-class
citizens of their day. The one peculiarity of their home was the
circumstance to which we owe our knowledge of its character and its
history:--that in it had been born a child who was to begin his career
as Thomas of London the burgher’s son, and to end it as Thomas of
Canterbury, archbishop, saint and martyr.

        [148] _S. Thomæ Ep._ cxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p.
        515).

        [149] Anon. II. _Vita S. Thomæ_ (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 81.

        [150] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii. p. 14) calls him
        _vicecomes_, which in relation to London at this period can
        only mean port-reeve; and a constant tradition of later days
        pointed to the father of S. Thomas as the most venerated
        predecessor of the mayor.

        [151] Anon. I. _Vita S. Thomæ_ (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.),
        p. 7.

        [152] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 14.

        [153] E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 359. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol.
        iv.), p. 6. Garnier, _Vie de S. Thomas_ (Hippeau), p. 3.

The Norman settlers were not the only new element in the population
of the English towns. Flanders, the border-land of Normandy, France
and the Empire, the immediate neighbour of the Norman dukes, the ally
of the English kings, had been for ages associated with the destinies
of England. The relation between the two countries was primarily a
political one; but kindred blood, kindred speech and kindred temper
drew Fleming and Englishman together in the bonds of a natural sympathy
which grew with the growth of both nations. The merchants of Bruges
were even more familiar visitors in London than those of Rouen and
Caen. The trade with Flanders was the most important part of the trade
of eastern England. Not only was the estuary of the Scheld a high-way
of communication with the more distant regions of central Europe,
but Flanders herself was the head-quarters of a flourishing industry
for which the raw material was in great part furnished by England.
The cloth which all Europe flocked to buy at the great yearly fairs
of Bruges and Ghent was made chiefly from the wool of English sheep.
Dover was the chief mart for this export; in the itinerary of the
canons of Laon we see Flemish merchants dispersing to buy wool all over
the country and bringing it up to Dover in great bales, which were
deposited in a warehouse built for that special purpose till they could
be shipped over sea.[154] As yet the Flemings had almost a monopoly
of this weaving trade, although the appearance of weavers’ gilds at
Huntingdon, Lincoln, Oxford and London may show that Englishmen were
already beginning to emulate their example; it may, on the other hand,
point to a Flemish element in the population of these towns. In the
time of William the Conqueror some fellow-countrymen of his Flemish
queen had come not merely to traffic but to dwell in England; in the
time of Henry I. they seem to have become numerous and prosperous
enough to excite the jealousy of both Normans and English. It may have
been partly to allay this jealousy, but it was surely, nevertheless,
a marked testimony to their character as active and trustworthy
members of the state, that in 1111 Henry, casting about for a means of
holding in check the turbulent Welsh whose restlessness was the one
remaining element of disturbance in his realm, planted a colony of
these Flemings in the extremity of South Wales, the southern part of
our Pembrokeshire.[155] The experiment was a daring one; cut off as
they were from all direct communication with England, there must have
seemed little chance that these colonists could hold their own against
the Welsh. The success of the experiment is matter not of history but
of present fact; South Pembrokeshire remains to this day a Teutonic
land, a “little England beyond Wales.” But the true significance of
the Flemish settlements under Henry I. is for England rather than
for Wales. They are the first links of a social and industrial, as
distinguished from a merely political, connexion between England and
the Low Countries, which in later days was to exercise an important
influence on the life of both peoples. They are the forerunners
of two greater settlements--one under Edward III. and one under
Elizabeth--which were to work a revolution in English industry.

        [154] Herman. Mon., l. ii. c. 5 (D’Achéry, _Guib. Noviog.
        Opp._, p. 536).

        [155] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 401 (Hardy, p. 628).
        Flor. Worc. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 64; Ann. Camb. a. 1107; Brut
        y Tywysogion, a. 1105.

A third class of foreign settlers stood in a totally different position
from both the Fleming and the Norman. These were the Jews. Their first
appearance in England is said to have been due to the Conqueror, who
brought over a Jewish colony from Rouen to London.[156] They were
special favourites of William Rufus; under Henry they play a less
conspicuous part; but in the next reign we find them at Lincoln,
Oxford, and elsewhere, and there can be no doubt that they were already
established in most of the chief English towns. They formed, however,
no part of the townsfolk. The Jew was not a member of the state; he
was the king’s chattel, not to be meddled with, for good or for evil,
save at the king’s own bidding. Exempt from toll and tax and from the
fines of justice, he had the means of accumulating a hoard of wealth
which might indeed be seized at any moment by an arbitrary act of
the king, but which the king’s protection guarded with jealous care
against all other interference. The capacity in which the Jew usually
appears is that of a money-lender--an occupation in which the scruples
of the Church forbade Christians to engage, lest they should be
contaminated with the sin of usury. Fettered by no such scruples, the
Hebrew money-lenders drove a thriving trade; and their loans doubtless
contributed to the material benefit of the country, by furnishing means
for a greater extension of commercial enterprize than would have been
possible without such aid. But, except in this indirect way, their
presence contributed nothing to the political developement of the
towns; and in their social developement the Jewry, a distinct quarter
exempt from the jurisdiction of merchant-gild or port-reeve as well as
from that of sheriff or bishop, shut off by impassable barriers from
the Christian community around it, had no part at all.

        [156] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv. c. 317 (Hardy, p. 500,
        note).

Outside this little separate world of the Jewry the general manner
of life was much the same in all ranks of society. The domestic
arrangements of the castle or manor-house differed little from those
of the citizen’s dwelling. In both the accommodation usually consisted
merely of a hall, a “solar” or upper chamber raised on a substructure
of cellars, and a kitchen with its appendant offices.[157] The hall
was the general living, eating, and sleeping-apartment for the whole
household. Its floor was of wood, strewn with hay or rushes;[158] a
fire blazed upon a great stone hearth in its centre, or in a wide
recess at one end; and round the fire were ranged in due order the
tables and benches at which the family, guests and servants all
assembled for meals. In the higher ranks of society the king’s friend
Count Robert of Meulan had set a fashion of taking but one daily
repast--the mid-day dinner--and those who wished to ape courtly manners
followed his example; the practice, however, found little favour with
the mass of the people, who attributed it to aristocratic stinginess,
and preferred their four meals a day according to ancient English
custom.[159] It was in the hall that noble or merchant transacted
his business or conversed with his friends; and it was in the hall
too that at nightfall, when the tables were cleared and the wooden
shutters which closed the unglazed windows safely barred,[160] guests
and servants, divided at most by a curtain drawn across the room, lay
down to sleep in the glow of the dying fire.[161] The solar was used
at once as bedroom and private sitting-room by the master and mistress
of the house;[162] a curtainless bed and an oaken chest,[163] serving
as a wardrobe and fastened with lock and hinges often of elaborate
ironwork,[164] made up its ordinary furniture; in the story of S.
Thomas we catch a glimpse, too, of the cradle in which a burgher-mother
rocked her baby to sleep, wrapped in a dainty silken coverlet.[165] The
whole house, whether in town or country, was commonly of wood.[166]
With open hearths and chimneys ill-constructed, or more probably
altogether lacking, the natural consequence was that fires in towns
were of constant occurrence and disastrous extent; Gilbert Becket’s
house was burnt over his head several times, and in each case a large
part of London shared in the destruction.[167] But the buildings thus
easily destroyed were as easily replaced; while the cost of a stone
house was beyond the means of any but the great nobles, unless it
were here and there some exceptionally wealthy Jew; and there was
no other building material to be had except wood or rubble, for the
nearest approach to a brick which had yet come into general use was
a tile;[168] and although these were sometimes used for roofing, the
majority of houses, even in great cities like London, were covered with
thatch.[169] All the architectural energy of the time spent itself in
two channels--military and ecclesiastical; and even the castle was
as yet a very simple edifice. The various buildings which occupied
its outer ward were mere huts of wood or rubble; and the stone wall
of the keep itself, though of enormous thickness and solidity, was
often nothing more than a shell, the space inside it being divided by
wooden partitions into rooms covered with lean-to roofs of thatch. Even
where the keep was entirely of stone, all thought of accommodation or
elegance was completely subordinated to the one simple, all-important
purpose of defence. It is this stern simplicity which gives to the
remains of our early castles a grandeur of their own, and strikes the
imagination far more impressively than the elaborate fortifications
of later times. But it left no scope to the finer fancies of the
architect. His feeling for artistic decoration, his love of beauty,
of harmonious light and shade, had free play only in his work for the
Church; while the more general taste for personal luxury and elegance
had to find expression chiefly in minor matters, and especially in
dress. During the last reign the extravagance of attire among the
nobles had been carried to a pitch which called forth the energetic
remonstrances of serious men; prelate after prelate thundered against
the unseemly fashions--the long hair curled and scented like a woman’s,
the feminine ornaments, the long pointed shoes and loose flowing
garments which rendered all manly exercises impossible.[170] After
the Red King’s death a reforming party, headed by the new sovereign
and his friend Robert of Meulan,[171] succeeded in effecting a return
to the more rational attire of the ordinary Norman knighthood; a
close-fitting tunic with a long cloak, reaching almost to the feet,
thrown over it for riding or walking.[172] The English townsfolk, then
as now, endeavoured to copy the dress of their neighbours from beyond
the Channel. Among the rural population, however, foreign fashions
were slow to penetrate; and the English countryman went on tilling his
fields clad in the linen smock-frock which had once been the ordinary
costume of all classes of men among his forefathers, and which has
scarcely yet gone out of use among his descendants.

        [157] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, vol. i. pp. 2, 5.

        [158] _Ib._ p. 16.

        [159] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 407 (Hardy, p. 636).

        [160] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, vol. i. p. 13.

        [161] _Ib._ pp. 2, 15.

        [162] _Ib._ p. 5.

        [163] _Ib._ p. 16.

        [164] _Ib._ p. 10.

        [165] Ed. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 357. Anon.
        I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 4.

        [166] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, pp. 8, 17, 18.

        [167] According to Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_,
        vol. iii. p. 8), fires and drunkenness were the two plagues of
        London.

        [168] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, p. xxvii. (introduction).

        [169] _Ib._ p. 18.

        [170] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 816.
        Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv. c. 314 (Hardy, p. 498).

        [171] Will. Malm. as above, and l. v. c. 407 (p. 636).

        [172] We see this long cloak in a story of Robert of Bellême
        (Hen. Hunt. _De Contemptu Mundi_, ed. Arnold, p. 310), and in
        that of Henry “Curt-Mantel” (Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._,
        dist. iii. c. 28., ed. Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 157).

The life of the English country folk had changed since the first days
of the Norman settlement almost as little as their dress. The final
transformation, now everywhere complete, of the ancient township into
the feudal manor was but the last step in a process which had begun
at least as far back as the time of Eadgar. The castle or manor-house
of the baron or lord, into which the thegn’s hall had now developed,
was the centre of rural life. Around it lay the home-farm, the lord’s
demesne land, cultivated partly by free tenants, partly by the
customary labour due from the villeins whose cottages clustered on
its border, and whose holdings, with a tract of common pasture and
common woodland, made up the remainder of the estate. In the portion
thus held in villenage, the arable land was distributed in large
open fields in strips of an acre or half an acre in extent, each man
holding a certain number of strips scattered one in one field and one
in another; while in proportion to the total amount of land which he
thus held he contributed one ox or more to the team that drew the
heavy plough wherewith each whole field was ploughed in common. On the
estates of the great abbey of Peterborough the holdings were mostly of
virgates or half-virgates--that is, land to the extent of some thirty
or fifteen acres, and furnishing in the former case two oxen, in the
latter one ox, to the common plough team, which usually consisted of
four; those belonging to the demesne were usually of six or eight.
Each tenant had, besides his land, a right to his share of the common
pasture and the common hay-meadow, as well as of the common woodland
where he fed his pigs on the oak-mast, and cut turf and brushwood for
fuel and other household uses. Some of the lesser tenants had no land,
but were merely “cottiers,” occupying their little cottage with or
without a garden. Whatever the extent and character of their holding,
they held it in consideration of certain services due to the lord,
discharged partly by labour upon his demesne land, partly by customary
payments in money or in kind, partly in work for specified purposes
on particular occasions, known as “boon” or “bene-work.”[173] The
superintendence of all these matters was in the hands of the reeve
or bailiff of the manor, who was charged with the regulation of its
labour, the maintenance of its farming-stock, the ingathering of its
dues, the letting of its unoccupied land, and the general account of
its revenues. Under his orders every villein was bound to do a certain
amount of “week-work”--to plough, sow, or reap, or otherwise labour
on the demesne land a certain number of days every week; generally
the obligation, on every virgate held in villenage, was for two or
three days a week throughout the year, sometimes with an extra day at
harvest-tide. The customary dues and services varied with the special
custom of each manor; they consisted partly of payments either in kind
or money, or both, and partly of services such as hewing, carting,
and drying wood, cutting turf, making thatch, making malt, mowing and
carrying hay, putting up fences, providing ploughs and labour for a
specified length of time at particular seasons, ploughing, sowing,
harrowing and reaping a given extent of the demesne land. Some of the
rents were paid by the discharge of a special duty; the cowherds,
oxherds, shepherds, swineherds, usually held a piece of land “by their
service,” that is, in consideration of their charge over the flocks
and herds of the lord; sometimes we find a further labour-rent paid
by their wives, who winnow and reap so much corn on the demesne.[174]
Many of the cotters doubtless held their little dwellings on a similar
tenure, by virtue of their offices as the indispensable craftsmen of
the village community, such as the blacksmith, the carpenter, or the
wheelwright. The mill, too, an important institution on every large
manor, paid a fixed money rent, and sometimes a tribute of fish from
the mill-stream.[175]

        [173] “Præcaria” or “præcationes.”

        [174] _Liber Niger_ (App. to Chron. Petroburgense, ed.
        Stapleton, Camden Soc.), pp. 158, 163, 164, 165.

        [175] _Liber Niger Petrob._ (Stapleton), p. 158, “i molendinus
        cum i virgâ terræ reddit xl solidos et cc anguillas.”

We may draw some illustrations of the life of these rural communities
from the “Black Book” of Peterborough, in which the manors belonging
to the abbey were described about the year 1125. On the manor of Thorp
there were twelve “full villeins” holding eleven acres each, and
working on the demesne three days a week; there were also six half
villeins who did the like in proportion to their holdings. All these
paid of custom ten shillings annually, besides five sheep for eating,
ten ells of linen cloth, ten porringers, and two hundred loaves for
the love-feast of S. Peter; moreover they all ploughed sixteen acres
and a half for their lord. Six _bordarii_ paid seven shillings a year;
and they all rendered twenty-two bushels of oats for their share of
the dead wood, twenty-two loaves, sixty-four hens, and one hundred and
sixty eggs.[176] At Colingham twenty villeins worked each one day a
week, and three boon-days in August; they brought sixty waggon-loads
of wood to the manor-house, dug and carried twenty loads of turf and
twenty of thatch, harrowed all the winter-ploughing, and paid annually
four pounds in money. There were also fifty sokemen who paid twelve
pounds a year, ploughed, harrowed and reaped eighteen acres, besides
ploughing with their own ploughs three times in Lent; each of them
worked three days in August, and served of custom six times a year in
driving the deer for the abbot’s hunting.[177] At Easton twenty-one
villeins holding a virgate each worked twice a week throughout the
year and three boon-days in August; they had twelve ploughs with which
they worked once in winter and once in spring, and then harrowed; they
ploughed fifteen acres and three roods, whereof five acres and one
rood were to be sown with their own seed; in spring they had to plough
ten acres and a half and sow twenty and a half with their own seed; in
summer, for fifteen days, they had to do whatsoever the lord commanded.
They also made seventy-three bushels of malt from the lord’s barley;
and they paid seventeen shillings and sixpence a year. A man named Toli
held one virgate at a rent of five shillings a year; and eleven sokemen
held thirteen virgates and a half by a payment of twelve shillings,
two days’ work in summer and winter, and fifteen days in summer at the
lord’s bidding. The miller, with a holding of six acres of arable land
and two of meadow, rendered one mark of silver to the lord.[178]

        [176] _Liber Niger Petrob._ (Stapleton), pp. 158, 159.

        [177] _Liber Niger Petrob._ (Stapleton), p. 159.

        [178] _Ib._ pp. 159, 160.

Fisherton, again, supplies illustrations of a great variety of
services. On this manor there were twenty-six “full villeins,” twelve
“half villeins,” one “cotsetus” and three “bordarii.” The full villeins
worked two days a week, the half villeins one day, throughout the year;
the four cottagers worked one day a week in August, their food being
supplied by the lord. The villeins had among them nine ploughs, which
were all brought into requisition once in winter and three times in
spring. The full villeins carted a load of wood, the half villeins
in proportion; the full villeins moreover ploughed and harrowed of
custom an acre in spring, and half an acre in winter; they also lent
their ploughs once in summer for fallowing. At Pentecost the lord
received one penny for every villein plough-ox. Each full villein paid
twopence at Martinmas and thirty-two pence on the four quarter-days;
the half villeins paid half the sum. Every one of them gave a hen at
Christmas. The mill brought three shillings a year, the fishing five
shillings. Land enough for twelve full villeins lay unoccupied; the
reeve had to discharge its dues out of his own purse, and hire it out
at the best rent he could get. There were twenty sokemen, holding three
ploughlands, and lending their ploughs once in winter, twice in spring,
and once for fallowing; each of them reaped one acre, and did two days
bene-work in August; at hay-harvest they gave of custom three days’
work, one for mowing, one for turning the hay, and one for carrying it;
each gave a hen at Christmas, and they all paid four pounds a quarter.
On the demesne were three ploughs, each with a team of eight oxen;
these were under the care of five ox-herds, who held five acres each,
and whose wives reaped one day a week in August, the lord supplying
their food.[179] At Oundle we get a glimpse not only of the rural
township, but of the little dependent town growing up on it. “In Oundle
are four hides paying geld to the king. Of these hides, twenty-five
men hold twenty virgates, and pay of custom twenty shillings a year,
forty hens, and two hundred eggs. The men of the township have nine
ploughs; from Michaelmas to Martinmas they find ploughs for the lord’s
use once a week, and from Martinmas to Easter once a fortnight, and
ten acres fallow. Each virgate owes three days’ work a week. There are
ten _bordarii_, who work one day a week; and fifteen burghers, who pay
thirty shillings. The market of the township renders four pounds and
three shillings. A mill with one virgate renders forty shillings and
two hundred eels. The abbot holds the wood in his own hand. The men of
the township, with six herdsmen, pay five shillings a year poll-tax.
The church of this township belongs to the altar of the abbey of
Borough.”[180]

        [179] _Liber Niger Petrob._ (Stapleton), p. 164.

        [180] _Ib._ p. 158.

Services such as these were doubtless an irksome and a heavy burthen;
to modern ideas of independence, the life of the rural population was
the degraded life of serfdom. But there was another side to the system.
The lord had his duties as well as the villein; the villein had his
rights as well as the lord. When their work for the lord was done and
their customary dues were paid, the villagers were free to make their
own arrangements one with another for the yoking of their oxen to the
common ploughs and the tillage of the common fields; and the rest
of their time and produce of their labour was theirs to do with as
they would, subject merely to such restrictions as to grinding at the
lord’s mill, or obtaining his license for the sale of cattle, as were
necessary for maintaining the integrity of the estate. While they owed
suit and service to their lord, he was bound by his own interest as
well as by law and duty to guard them against external interference,
oppression, or injury; the extent of his rights over them, no less
than of their duties to him, was defined by a strict and minute code
of custom to which long prescription gave all and more than all the
force of law, and law itself could occasionally step in to avenge the
wronged villein even upon his lord; Alfred of Cheaffword is recorded in
the Pipe Roll as having paid a fine of forty shillings for scourging
a rustic of his own.[181] The villein’s life was not harder than that
of the poor free man; it was quite as secure from wrong, and far more
secure from want. The majority of the cultivators were indeed tied to
their land; but their land was equally tied to them; the lord was bound
to furnish each little bundle of acre-strips with its proper outfit of
plough-oxen, to provide each tenant with his little cottage, and to
see that the heritage passed on to the next generation, just as the
manor itself, and with it the tenants and their services, passed from
father to son in the case of a lay proprietor, or from one generation
of monks to another in a case like that of Peterborough. Even if a
villein failed in his dues, the worst punishment that could befall him
was the seizure of his little household goods; eviction was out of the
question. The serfdom of the villein was after all only the lowest
link in a chain of feudal interdependence which ended only with the
king himself. If the “rustics” possessed their homesteads only on
condition of work done at the lord’s bidding and for his benefit, the
knight held his “fee” and the baron his “honour” only on condition
of a service to the king, less laborious indeed, but more dangerous,
and in reality not a whit more morally elevating. If they had to ask
their lord’s leave for giving a daughter in marriage, the first baron
of the realm had to ask a like permission of the king, and to pay for
it too. If their persons and their services could be transferred by
the lord to another owner together with the soil which they tilled,
the same principle really applied to every grade of feudal society;
Count William of Evreux only stated a simple fact in grotesque language
when he complained that his homage and his services had been made
over together with the overlordship of his county by Robert Curthose
to Henry I., with no more regard to his own will than if he had been
a horse or an ox.[182] The mere gift of personal freedom, when it
meant the uprooting of all local and social ties and the withdrawal
of all accustomed means of sustenance, would have been in itself but
a doubtful boon. There were, however, at least three ways in which
freedom might be attained. Sometimes the lord on his death-bed, or in
penance for some great sin, would be moved by the Church’s influence
to enfranchise some of his serfs. Sometimes a rustic might flee to one
of the chartered towns, and if for the space of a year and a day he
could find shelter under its protecting customs from the pursuit of
his lord’s justice, he was thenceforth a free burgher. And there was a
greater city of refuge whose protection was readier and surer still.
The Church had but to lay her consecrating hands upon a man, and he was
free at once. To ordain a villein or admit him as a monk without his
lord’s consent was indeed forbidden; but the consecration once bestowed
was valid nevertheless; and the storm of indignation which met the
endeavour of Henry II. to enforce the prohibition shows that it had
long been almost a dead letter.

        [181] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 55.

        [182] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 814.

If the spiritual life of the English Church in the time of Henry I.
were to be judged solely from her highest official representatives, it
would certainly appear to have been at a low ebb. S. Anselm had lived
just long enough to accomplish the settlement of the investitures,
but not to direct its working or experience its results. On his death
early in 1109 Henry so far fell back into his brother’s evil ways as to
keep the metropolitan see vacant for five years. The supreme direction
of affairs in the Church as well as in the state was thus left in the
hands of the party represented by Roger of Salisbury. Roger’s policy
and that of his master was indeed less flagrantly insulting to religion
than that of Rufus and Flambard; but it was hardly less injurious in
a moral and spiritual point of view. The most important sees were
no longer farmed by Jewish usurers for the king’s benefit; the most
sacred offices of the Church were no longer openly sold to the highest
bidder; but they were made appendages to the great offices of the
state; the Church herself was practically turned into a mere handmaid
of the state, and her ministers into tools for the purposes of secular
government. The system had undoubted advantages in a worldly point of
view. A great deal of the most important political and administrative
work was of a nature which, in the condition of society then existing,
required the services of a clerk rather than of a layman; moreover,
a man in holy orders, incapable of founding a family, and standing,
so to say, alone in the world, was less exposed to the temptations
and corruptions of place and power than a layman surrounded with
personal and social ties and open to all sorts of personal and social
ambitions, and could thus be safely intrusted with a freedom of action
and authority such as in the hands of a lay baron with territorial
and family influence might have led to the most dangerous results. On
these and similar grounds Henry made a practice of choosing his chief
ministers from the ranks of the clergy, and bestowing vacant bishoprics
upon them, by way either of rewarding their past labours or of insuring
a continuance of their zeal and devotion in the discharge of their
temporal functions. Thereby he undoubtedly secured to the state the
services of a more able, vigorous and honest set of administrators than
could have been obtained by any other means; but from another side
the system lay open to grave objection. The men whom it set over the
dioceses of England were, beyond all question, men of very superior
intelligence and energy, and, on the whole, of fair moral character,
men whom it would be most unjust to compare for a moment with the
hirelings who bought their sees of William Rufus. But they were
essentially of the world, worldly; their minds and their hearts were
both alike fixed on their thoroughly well fulfilled duties as treasurer
or justiciar, not on their too often neglected duties as bishop of Ely
or Salisbury. And as were the bishops, so were the priests. When once
it became clear that the main road to ecclesiastical preferment lay
through the temporal service of the crown, the whole body of secular
clergy turned into a nursery of statesmen, and while they rose to their
highest point of worldly importance the little spiritual influence
which they still retained passed altogether away. But the Church’s life
was not in her bishops and her priests; it was in her humble, faithful
laity. Down below the dull utilitarianism, the “faithless coldness of
the times,” the finer sympathies and higher instincts of the soul lay
buried but not dead; ready to spring to the surface with a burst of
enthusiasm at the touch first of the Austin canons, and then of the
monks of Citeaux.

Of the two religious movements which at this time stirred the depths
of English society, the earlier, that of the Austin canons, was in
its origin not monastic but secular. It arose, in fact, out of a
protest against monasticism. About the middle of the eleventh century
an attempt had been made to redress the balance between the regular
and secular clergy, and restore to the latter the influence and
consideration in spiritual matters which they had, partly by their own
fault, already to a great extent lost. Some earnest and thoughtful
spirits, distressed at once by the abuse of monastic privileges and by
the general decay of ecclesiastical order, sought to effect a reform
by the establishment of a stricter and better organized discipline in
those cathedral and other churches which were served by colleges of
secular priests. For this end a rule composed in the eighth century by
Archbishop Chrodegang of Metz for the members of his own chapter, and
generally followed in the collegiate churches of Gaul, was the model
adopted by cathedral reformers in England in the reigns of Eadward
the Confessor and William the Conqueror. Bishops Gisa of Wells and
Leofric of Exeter under the former king, Archbishop Thomas of York
under the latter, severally attempted to enforce it upon their canons,
but without success. The English clergy were accustomed to the full
enjoyment not only of their separate property but of their separate
houses; many were even yet, in spite of Pope Gregory, married men
and fathers of families; and the new rule, which required them to
break up their homes and submit to community of table and dwelling,
was naturally resented as an attempt to curtail their liberty and
bring them under monastic restraint. Lanfranc soon found that the
only way to get rid of the old lax system was to get rid of the
canons altogether; accordingly, from some few cathedrals the secular
clerks were once again, as in Eadgar’s days, driven out and replaced
by monks, this time to return no more till the great secularization
in the sixteenth century. But in the greater number of churches the
canons were influential enough to resist expulsion as well as reform,
and to maintain the old fashion with its merits and its abuses, its
good and evil sides, all alike undisturbed and unrestrained. On the
Continent, too, the rule of Chrodegang proved unequal to the needs
of the time. Those who had the attainment of its object really at
heart ended by taking a lesson from their rivals and challenging the
monks with their own weapons. Towards the beginning of the twelfth
century the attempts at canonical reform issued in the foundation of
what was virtually a new religious order, that of the Augustinians
or Canons Regular of the order of S. Augustine. Like the monks and
unlike the secular canons, from whom they were carefully distinguished,
they had not only their table and dwelling but all things in common,
and were bound by a vow to the observance of their rule, grounded
upon a passage in one of the letters of that great father of the
Latin Church from whom they took their name.[183] Their scheme was a
compromise between the old-fashioned system of canons and that of the
monastic confraternities; but a compromise leaning strongly towards
the monastic side, tending more and more towards it with every fresh
developement, and distinguished from it chiefly by a certain simplicity
and elasticity of organization which gave scope for an almost unlimited
variety in the adjustment of the relations between the active and
the contemplative life of the members of the order, thus enabling it
to adapt itself to the most dissimilar temperaments and to the most
diverse spheres of religious activity.

        [183] On Austin canons see Mosheim, _Eccles. Hist._ (Eng.
        trans. ed. Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 47; on canons in general, _ib._
        vol. i. pp. 494, 495, 538; Stubbs, pref. to _Tract. de Inv. S.
        Crucis_; and Freeman, _Norm. Conq._, vol. ii. pp. 84, 85, 452,
        453, and vol. iv. p. 374.

The Austin canons, as they were commonly called, made their way across
the Channel at the beginning of Henry’s reign. The circumstances of
their earliest settlement illustrate the intimate connexion between the
religious and the national revival in England. Their first priory was
founded in 1108 by the English queen Matilda--“Maude the good queen,”
as they gratefully called her--in the soke of Aldgate, just within the
eastern wall of London. Part of its endowment was furnished by the
estates of an old English cnihtengild whose members surrendered their
property for the benefit of the new community. The house was dedicated
to the Holy Trinity; its first prior, Norman by name, was a native of
Kent who had studied in Gaul under S. Anselm; through Anselm he was
enabled to bring the Augustinian order under the notice of Matilda,
whose confessor he afterwards became. How he lavished all his funds on
the furnishing of his church and the stocking of his library; how the
starving brotherhood set out a row of empty plates in the refectory
to attract the sympathy of the citizens who were taking their Sunday
stroll round the suburb and peeping curiously in at the windows of
the new building; how the pitying burgher-wives vowed each to bring
a loaf every Sunday; and how the plates in the refectory were never
empty again[184]--is a story which need not be repeated in detail.
Some fifteen years later Rahere the king’s minstrel threw up his post
at court to become the head of an Austin priory which he built on a
plot of waste marshy ground along the eastern border of Smithfield. He
dedicated his establishment to S. Bartholomew and attached to it an
hospital for the relief of the sick and needy. Every day--so tradition
told--Alfhun, the master of the hospital, went about the city as the
Little Sisters of the Poor do to this day, begging in the shops and
markets for help towards the support of the sick folk under his care.
Most likely he was himself a London citizen; his name is enough to
prove him of genuine English birth.[185] Another famous Augustinian
house was that of Merton in Surrey. There the brotherhood devoted
themselves to educational work. Their most illustrious scholar--born
in the very year in which their house was founded, 1117--is known to
us already as Thomas the son of Gilbert Becket. At the other end of
England, Walter Lespec, the noblest character among the lay barons of
the time, found comfort for the loss of an only son in “making Christ
his heir”--devoting to God’s service the heritage which had been
destined for his boy, and founding the priory of Kirkham in Yorkshire
on the spot where the lad had expired.[186] Before the close of
Henry’s reign the Austin canons had acquired such importance that two
of their order were raised to the episcopate, one even to the primacy
of all Britain. After five years of vacancy the metropolitan chair of
Canterbury was still too vividly haunted by memories of S. Anselm for
Henry and Roger to venture on trying to fill it from the ranks of the
latter’s party; they gave it to Anselm’s old friend and suffragan,
Ralf, bishop of Rochester.[187] But when Ralf, who at the time of his
election was already an aged man, died in 1122, the seculars, headed by
Roger of Salisbury, made a successful effort to secure a non-monastic
primate. Not daring, however, to go the full length of appointing one
of themselves, they took a middle course and chose a canon regular,
William of Corbeil, prior of S. Osyth’s at Chiche in Essex.[188] The
strict monastic party counted the new sort of canons very little better
than the old ones. William himself, however, was a perfectly blameless
churchman, whose worst fault was a constitutional timidity and
shrinking from political responsibilities which made him powerless to
stem the tide of worldliness among his suffragans, though he at least
kept the metropolitan chair itself safe from contaminating influences.
The case of the other Augustinian prelate is a specially interesting
one. Henry, who so irritated both his English and Norman subjects by
his general preference for foreign churchmen, had nevertheless chosen
for his own spiritual adviser a priest whose name, Eadwulf, shows him
to have been of English origin, and who was prior of an Augustinian
house at Nostell in Yorkshire. The king’s last act before he left
England in 1133, never to return, was to promote his confessor to a
bishopric. Twenty-three years before, following out a cherished plan
of S. Anselm’s, he had caused the overworked bishop of Lincoln to be
relieved of part of his enormous diocese by the establishment of a new
see with the great abbey of Ely for its cathedral and the monks for its
chapter.[189] He now lightened the cares of the archbishop of York
in like manner by giving him a new suffragan whose see was fixed at
Carlisle. Eadwulf was appointed bishop; naturally enough he constituted
his chapter on the principles of his own order; and Carlisle, the last
English bishopric founded before the Reformation, was also the only one
whose cathedral church was served by canons regular of the order of S.
Augustine.[190]

        [184] The history of H. Trinity, Aldgate, is printed in the
        appendix to Hearne’s edition of William of Newburgh, vol. iii.
        pp. 688–709.

        [185] The story of S. Bartholomew’s and its founder comes from
        “Liber fundacionis ecclesiæ S. Bartholomæi Londoniarum,” a MS.
        of Henry II.’s time, part of which is printed in Dugdale’s
        _Monast. Angl._, vol. vi. pt. i. pp. 292–295. The remainder is
        as yet unprinted; but Dr. Norman Moore has published in the _S.
        Bartholomew’s Hospital Reports_, vol. xxi. pp. xxxix.–cix., a
        translation made about A.D. 1400; the 22d chapter of this (pp.
        lxix., lxx.) contains the account of Alfhun.

        [186] The stories of all these Austin priories are in Dugdale,
        _Monast. Angl._, vol. vi. pts. i. and ii. Merton is in pt. i.
        pp. 245–247; Kirkham, _ib._ pp. 207–209.

        [187] Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), pp. 221–223; Will. Malm.,
        _Gesta Pontif._, l. i. c. 67 (Hamilton, p. 126). The king
        wanted to appoint Faricius, abbot of Abingdon; his choice was
        opposed by the seculars, who wanted one of their own party.
        This the monks of Christ Church resisted, but, as Faricius was
        obnoxious because he was an Italian, they finally all agreed
        upon Ralf, and the king confirmed their choice.

        [188] Eng. Chron. a. 1123; Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol.
        ii. p. 7; Gerv. Cant., _Actus Pontif._ (Stubbs, vol. ii.), p.
        380. On S. Osyth’s see Will. Malm., _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c.
        731 (Hamilton, p. 146).

        [189] Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), pp. 195, 211; Flor. Worc.
        (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 60; Will. Malm., _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c.
        445 (Hardy, p. 680); _Gesta Pontif._, l. iv. c. 185 (Hamilton,
        p. 325).

        [190] On Carlisle and Eadwulf (or Æthelwulf) see Joh. Hexham,
        a. 1133 (Raine, vol. i. pp. 109, 110); and Dugdale, _Monast.
        Angl._, vol. vi. pt. i. pp. 141–145.

Meanwhile a mightier influence than theirs was regenerating all the
Churches of the West--our own among the number. Its root was in a
Burgundian wilderness; but the seed from which it sprang was of English
birth. Harding was an Englishman who spent his boyhood in the monastery
of Sherborne in Dorset, till he was seized with a passion for wandering
and for study which led him first to Scotland, then to Gaul, and at
last to Rome. It chanced that on his return thence, passing through
the duchy of Burgundy, he stopped at the abbey of Molêmes. As he saw
the ways and habits familiar to his childhood reproduced in those of
the monks, the wanderer’s heart yearned for the peaceful life which he
had forsaken; he took the vows, and became a brother of the house. But
when, with the zeal of a convert, he began to look more closely into
his monastic obligations, he perceived that the practice of Molêmes,
and indeed of most other monasteries, fell very far short of the strict
rule of S. Benedict. He remonstrated with his brethren till they had
no rest in their minds. At last, after long and anxious debates in
the chapter, the abbot determined to go to the root of the matter,
and appointed two brethren, whose learning was equalled by their
piety, to examine diligently the original rule and declare what they
found in it. The result of their investigations justified Harding’s
reproaches and caused a schism in the convent. The majority refused
to alter their accustomed ways; finding they were not to be reformed,
the zealous minority, consisting of Robert the abbot, Harding himself
(or Stephen, as he was called in religion), and sixteen others equally
“stiff-necked in their holy obstinacy,” left Molêmes, and sought a new
abode in the wilderness. The site which they chose--in the diocese of
Chalon-sur-Saône, not far from Dijon--was no happy valley, no “green
retreat” such as the earlier Benedictine founders had been wont to
select. It was a dismal swamp overgrown with brushwood, a forlorn,
dreary, unhealthy spot, from whose marshy character the new house took
its name of “the Cistern”--_Cistellum_, commonly called Citeaux. There
the little band set to work in 1098 to carry into practice their views
of monastic duty. The brotherhood of Molêmes, left without a head
by their abbot’s desertion, presently appealed to the archbishop of
Lyons and the Pope, and after some negotiation Robert, willingly or
unwillingly, returned to his former post. His departure gave a shock
to the foundations of the new community; zeal was already growing
cold, and of those who had followed him out from Molêmes all save
eight followed him back again. Those eight--“few in number, but a host
in merit”--at once chose their prior Alberic to be abbot in Robert’s
stead, while the true founder, Stephen Harding, undertook the duties of
prior. Upon Alberic’s death in 1110 Stephen became abbot in his turn,
and under him the little cistern in the wilderness became a fountain
whose waters flowed out far and wide through the land. Three-and-twenty
daughter-houses were brought to completion during his life-time. One of
the earliest was Pontigny, founded in 1114, and destined in after-days
to become inseparably associated with the name of another English
saint. Next year there went forth another Cistercian colony, whose
glory was soon to eclipse that of the mother-house itself. Its leader
was a young monk called Bernard, and the place of its settlement was
named Clairvaux.[191]

        [191] For the Life of S. Stephen Harding, and the early history
        of Citeaux and its order, see Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv.
        cc. 334–337 (Hardy, pp. 511–517); Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist.
        Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 711–714; and _Gallia Christiana_, vol.
        iv. pp. 980–984.

From Burgundy and Champagne the “White Monks,” as the Cistercians were
called from the colour of their habit, soon spread over France and
Normandy. In 1128 they crossed the sea and made an entrance into their
founder’s native land; William Giffard, bishop of Winchester, founded
the abbey of Waverley in Surrey for twelve monks from the Cistercian
house of Aumône in Normandy.[192] The movement spread rapidly in all
directions. In 1131 Walter Lespec the founder of Kirkham, zealous
in every good work, established in the heart of the Yorkshire wolds
a “daughter of S. Bernard,” the abbey of Rievaux;[193] far away on
the Welsh border, in the valley of the Wye, Tintern was founded in
the same year by Walter de Clare.[194] The story of another famous
Yorkshire house, Fountains, is a curious repetition of that of Citeaux
itself. Thirteen monks of the Benedictine convent of S. Mary at York,
fired by the example of the newly-established brotherhood at Rievaux,
determined, like Stephen Harding and his friends at Molêmes, to go
forth into the wilderness where they might follow the Cistercian rule
in freedom. But when they asked their abbot’s leave to depart it
was sternly refused. Archbishop Thurstan, to whom they appealed for
support, came in person to plead their cause with the abbot, and was
so insolently received that after a stormy scene in the chapter-house
he laid the convent under interdict, and walked out followed by the
zealous thirteen “with nothing but the clothes on their backs.” The
warmly-sympathizing primate gave them a temporary shelter in his own
home; at Christmas he bestowed upon them for their dwelling a lonely
valley called Skeldale, near Ripon, “full of thorns and enclosed by
rocks,” and for their maintenance the little township of Sutton. They
at once chose one of their number, Richard by name, as abbot, and
went forth under his guidance to settle in their new abode, although
the cold of a Yorkshire winter was at its bitterest, and they had not
where to lay their heads. In the middle of the valley stood a great
elm--“thick and leafy as elms are wont to be.”[195] That tree was the
original abbey of our Lady of Fountains. Its spreading branches formed
a roof to shelter the little band of monks; “their bread was supplied
to them by the archbishop, their drink by the streamlet which ran
through the valley,” and which, as in the case of Citeaux, suggested a
name for the future house. In this primitive dwelling they fulfilled
their religious exercises in peace and contentment till the winter
was past, when they began to think of constructing a more substantial
abode. They had no mind to follow their own inspirations and set up an
independent rule of their own; in all humility they wrote to S. Bernard
(who since the death of S. Stephen Harding was universally looked up
to as the head of the Cistercian order), telling him all their story,
and beseeching him to receive them as his children. Bernard answered
by sending to them, with a letter full of joyous welcome and hearty
sympathy, his friend and confidant, Godfrey, to instruct them in
the Cistercian rule. They had now been joined by ten more brethren.
But the elm-tree was still their only shelter, and their means of
subsistence were as slender as at the first. Presently there came a
famine in the land; they were reduced to eke out their scanty store
of bread with leaves and stewed herbs. When they had just given away
their two last loaves--one to the workmen engaged on the building,
the other to a passing pilgrim--this supreme act of charity and faith
was rewarded with a supply sent them by the lord of Knaresborough,
Eustace Fitz-John. At last, after struggling on bravely for two years,
they found it impossible to continue where they were, with numbers
constantly increasing and means at a standstill; so the abbot went to
Clairvaux and begged that some place might be assigned to them there.
S. Bernard granted the request; but when Abbot Richard came back to
fetch the rest of the brotherhood he found that all was changed. Hugh,
dean of York, had just made over himself and all his property to
Fountains. It was the turn of the tide; other donations began to flow
in; soon they poured. Five years after its own rise the “Fountain”
sent out a rivulet to Newminster; after that her descendants speedily
covered the land. Justly did the brotherhood cherish their beloved
elm-tree as a witness to the lowly beginnings whence had sprung the
mightiest Cistercian house in England. It bore a yet more touching
witness four centuries later, when it still stood in its green old
age, the one remnant of the glory of Fountains which the sacrilegious
spoiler had not thought it worth his while to touch.[196]

        [192] Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. v. pp. 237, 241.

        [193] _Ib._ pp. 274, 280, 281.

        [194] _Ib._ pp. 265, 267, 270.

        [195] So says the historian of Fountains. How this can have
        been, in Yorkshire and at Christmas-time, I cannot pretend to
        explain.

        [196] The story of Fountains is in the _Narratio_ of Hugh of
        Kirkstall, in _Memorials of Fountains_ (Walbran, Surtees Soc.),
        and Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. v. pp. 292 _et seq._ See
        also Will. Newb., l. i. c. 14 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 50). The elm
        was standing in Leland’s day.

The influence of the Cistercians was different in kind from that of the
earlier monasticism. The life of the Benedictines was, so to say, in
the world though not of it. They sought tranquillity and retirement,
but not solitude; the site of an abbey was chosen with a careful eye
to the natural resources of the place, its accessibility, and the
advantages which it offered for cultivation and production of all
kinds. A Benedictine house almost invariably became, and indeed was
intended to become, the nucleus of a flourishing lay population, either
a cluster of rural settlements, or, not unfrequently, a busy, thriving
town. But by the close of the tenth century, although the palmy days
of the Benedictine fathers as the guardians of art and literature were
in part still to come, the work in which they had been unrivalled for
five hundred years, as the missionaries, cultivators and civilizers of
Europe, was well-nigh accomplished; and the position into which they
had unavoidably drifted as owners of vast landed property protected by
special privileges was beginning to show its dangerous side. On the
one hand, the secularizing spirit which had made such inroads upon the
Church in general was creeping even into the cloister. On the other,
the monasteries were growing rich and powerful at the expense of the
parochial and diocesan organization. The laity were too apt, while
showering their pious gifts upon the altars of the religious houses, to
leave those of their own parish churches naked and uncared-for; and the
growing habit of diverting the tithes of various estates and districts
to the endowment of some abbey with which they were quite unconnected
was already becoming a distinct abuse. Against all this the scheme of
the Cistercians was a direct protest. They refused to have anything to
do with tithes in any shape, saying that monks had no right to them;
their houses were of the plainest possible construction: even in their
churches scarcely an ornament was admitted to soften the stern grandeur
of the architecture; there were no broidered hangings, no delicate
paintings, no gold and silver vessels, no crucifixes glittering with
enamel and precious gems; they hardly allowed, even for the most
solemn rite, the use of any vestment more ornate than the simple white
surplice or alb; and their ordinary habit, made from the wool of their
flocks, was not black like that of the Benedictines, but the natural
white or gray, for they looked upon dyeing as a refinement useless to
men who had renounced the cares and pleasures of this life as well as
the deceitfulness of riches.[197] Their aim was to be simply voices
crying in the wilderness--a wilderness wherein they were resolved to
dwell, as much as possible, alone. Their rule absolutely forbade the
erection of a house even of their own order within a certain distance
of another. But the cry that came forth from the depth of their
solitude thrilled through the very hearts of men, and their influence
spread far beyond the number of those who actually joined the order. It
was the leaven of that influence, more than all others, which worked
on and on through the nineteen years of anarchy that followed Henry’s
death till it had leavened the whole lump, regenerated the Church,
and made her ready to become in her turn the regenerator of the state
and the nation. Already, before the order of Citeaux had been half a
century in existence, William of Malmesbury, himself a member of one
of the most ancient and famous of English Benedictine abbeys, could
describe it as the unanimously acknowledged type of the monastic
profession, the ideal which served as a mirror to the diligent, a goad
to the negligent, and a model to all.[198]

        [197] See abstract of rule in Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. v.
        pp. 224, 225.

        [198] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv. c. 337 (Hardy, p. 517).

How deeply the spirit of religious enthusiasm had penetrated among
the people we see in the story of S. Godric. Godric was born in the
last years of the Conqueror or the earliest years of the Red King at
Walpole, a village in the north-western marshlands of Norfolk; thence
his parents, Ælward and Ædwen, seem to have removed to a place on the
river Welland, near Spalding in Lincolnshire. They were apparently free
rustics of the poorest class, simple, unlearned, upright folk, who
taught their three children to say the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and
brought them up in the fear of God; other education they could give
them none, and of worldly goods just as little. In the dreary fenland
round the shores of the Wash agriculture and industry were almost
unknown, and the population subsisted chiefly on whatever they found
left behind by the waves on the long reaches of shining sand that lay
exposed whenever the tide was out. As a boy Godric once wandered thus
nearly three miles out to sea in search of food for himself and his
parents; as he was retracing his steps, laden with part of a large fish
which he had at length found dead upon the sand, he was overtaken by
the returning tide; press onward as he might, the waves came surging
higher and higher, first to his knees, then to his waist, then to his
shoulders, till to the boy’s excited fancy their gurgling rose even
above his head, and when at last he struggled to land with his burthen,
it seemed to him that only a miracle had brought him through the waters
in safety. Presently he began an independent life as a wandering
chapman, trudging from village to village and selling small wares to
country-folk as poor as himself. The lad was gifted with a wisdom and
seriousness beyond his age; after some four years of this life he
became associated with some merchants in the neighbouring towns; with
them he visited the castles of the local nobles, the markets and fairs
of the local trading centres, and at length made his way as far as S.
Andrews in Scotland, and after that to Rome. He next, entering into
partnership with some other young men, acquired a fourth share in the
profits of one trading-vessel and half the ownership of another. Very
soon his partners made him captain of the ship. In the long, blank
days of his boyhood by the shore of the Wash he had learned to discern
the face of both sea and sky; and his sturdy frame, steady hand, and
keen observant eye, as well as his stedfast thoughtful temper, fitted
him for a skilful seaman no less than for a successful merchant. The
young sailor’s heart, however, was not wholly set upon money-getting.
As he tramped over the fens with his pack upon his back he had been
wont to soothe his weariness with the holy words of prayer and creed
learnt at his mother’s knee; as he guided his bark through the storm,
or outran the pirates who were ever on the look-out for such prey, he
did not miss the lesson specially addressed to those who “go down to
the sea in ships.” Wherever his business took him--Scotland, Britanny,
Flanders, Denmark--he sought out the holy places of the land and
made his offerings there. One of the places he visited most frequently
was S. Andrews; and on his way back from thence he rarely failed to
turn aside to S. Cuthbert’s old home at Holy Isle and his yet more
lonely retreat at Farne, there to spend hours in ecstatic meditation
upon the hermit-life which he was already longing to imitate. At last
he took the cross and went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On his return,
weary of independence, he became steward to a rich man who intrusted
him with the whole management of his household; soon, however, he grew
so disgusted with the thievery among the servants, which he saw but
could not prevent, and with the master’s indifference to it, that he
threw up his situation and went off on another pilgrimage, first to S.
Gilles in Provence and then to Rome. He came home to his parents, but
he could not stay; he must go back yet a third time, he told them, to
the threshold of the Apostles; and this time his mother accompanied
him. At a period when religious men of greater experience in this
world’s affairs were pouring out heart-rending lamentations over
the corruptions of Rome, it is touching to see that she still cast
over this simple English rustic the spell which she had cast of old
over Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop. It was in the land of Wilfrid and
Benedict, in the wild Northumbria, with its long reaches of trackless
moor and its mighty forests, scarcely penetrated save by the wild
beasts, that Godric at last found refuge from the world. He sought it
first at Carlisle, then a lonely outpost on the western borders of the
moors, just beginning a new life after its conquest by William Rufus.
His hopes of remaining there in obscurity were, however, defeated
by the recognition of a kinsman, doubtless one of the Red King’s
colonists, and he fled yet further into the wilderness. Weeks and
months of lonely wandering through the forest brought him unexpectedly
to an aged hermit at Wolsingham; there he remained nearly three years,
tending the old man until his death; then a vision of S. Cuthbert sent
Godric off again, first on another journey to Holy Land, and then to
a hermitage in Eskdale near Whitby. Thence the persecution of the
lord of the soil drove him to a surer refuge in the territory of S.
Cuthbert. He settled for a while in Durham and there gave himself up to
practical works of piety, frequenting the offices of devotion, giving
alms out of his penury to those who were yet poorer than himself, and
constantly sitting as a scholar among the children in the church of
S. Mary. His kinsman at Carlisle had given him a Psalm-book; whether
he ever learned actually to read it is not clear; but he already knew
by heart a considerable part of the Psalter; at Durham he learned the
whole; and the little book, which he had carried in all his wanderings,
was to the end of his life his most cherished possession. When asked in
later years how one of his fingers had grown crooked, he answered with
a smile that it had become cramped with constantly grasping this book.
Meanwhile he was seeking a place of retirement within easy distance
of the chief object of his devotion--S. Cuthbert’s shrine. His choice
was decided by the chance words of a shepherd to his comrade: “Let
us go water our flocks at Finchale!” Godric offered the man his sole
remaining coin--a farthing--to lead him to the spot, and saw at once
that he had reached the end of his wanderings.

Even to-day the scene is wild and solemn enough, to the traveller who,
making his way from Durham over the lonely country-side, suddenly dips
down into a secluded hollow where the ruins of Finchale Priory stand on
a low grassy ledge pressed close between the rushing stream of Wear and
the dark wooded hills which, owing to the sharp bend made by the river,
seem to close round it on every side. But in Godric’s day the place
was wilder still. The road which now leads through the wood was a mere
sheep-track worn by the feet of the flocks as they made their way down
to the river; the site of the priory was a thicket of briars, thorns
and nettles, and it was only on a narrow strip of rocky soil hanging
over the water’s edge and thinly covered with scant herbage that the
sheep could find a foothold and the hermit a place for his dwelling.
His first abode was a cave scooped in the rock; later on he seems to
have built himself a little hut with an oratory attached. A large stone
served him at once for table and pillow; but only when utterly worn
out with a long day’s toil in clearing away the thickets and preparing
the soil for cultivation would he lie down for a few hours of quiet
vigil rather than of sleep; and on moonlight nights the rustics of the
country-side woke with a start at the ring of the hermit’s axe, echoing
for miles through the woodland. The spirit of the earlier Northumbrian
saints seems to breathe again in Godric’s ceaseless labour, his stern
self-mortification, his rigid fasts, his nightly plunges into the Wear,
where he would stand in the hollow of the rocks, up to his neck in the
stream, singing Psalms all through the winter nights, while the snow
fell thick on his head or the waters froze around him. With the fervour
of the older asceticism he had caught too its poetic tenderness. As
he wandered through forest after forest from Carlisle to the Tees
he had found like S. Guthlac of old that “he who denies himself the
converse of men wins the converse of birds and beasts and the company
of angels.” Noxious reptiles lay passive beneath his feet as he walked
along and crawled harmlessly about him as he lay on the bare ground at
night; “the hissing of a viper scared him no more than the crowing of
a cock.” The woods of Finchale were thronged with wild beasts of every
kind; on his first arrival he was confronted by a wolf of such enormous
size that he took it for a fiend in wolf’s shape, and the impression
was confirmed when at the sign of the Cross the animal lay down for a
moment at his feet and then slunk quietly away. The toads and vipers
which swarmed along the river-side played harmlessly about the floor
of his hut, and basked in the glow of his fire or nestled between his
feet, till finding that they disturbed his devotions he gently bade
them depart, and was at once obeyed. A stag browsing upon the young
shoots of the trees in his little orchard suffered him to put a halter
about its neck and lead it away into the forest. In the long hard
frosts of the northern winter he would roam about seeking for frozen
or starving animals, carry them home in his arms and restore them to
warmth and animation at his fire. Bird and beast sought shelter from
the huntsman in the hermit’s cell; one stag which he had hidden from
the followers of Bishop Ralf came back day after day to be petted and
caressed. Amid the silence of the valley, broken only by the rustling
of the wind through the trees, the ripple of the stream over its rocky
bed, and the chirping of the birds who had probably given their name to
the “Finches-haugh,” strains of angel-harps and angel-voices sounded
in the hermit’s ears; and the Virgin-Mother came down to teach him how
to sing to her in his own English tongue. As the years went on Godric
ceased to shrink from his fellow-men; his mother, his sister, came to
dwell near him in religious retirement; a little nephew was admitted
to tend his cow. Some of the younger monks of Durham, among them the
one to whom we owe the record of Godric’s life, were the devoted
attendants of his extreme age; while from the most distant quarters
men of all ranks flocked to seek counsel and guidance in every variety
of circumstances, temporal and spiritual, from one whom not only all
Durham but almost all England looked upon as a saint and a prophet.[199]

        [199] The story of S. Godric is in _Libellus de Vitâ S.
        Godrici_, by Reginald of Durham (Surtees Society).

It was in 1122--two years after the wreck of the _White Ship_--that
Godric settled at Finchale, and he dwelt there sixty years. He is the
last of the old English saints; his long life, beginning probably
before the Conqueror’s death and ending only seven years before that
of Henry II., is a link between the religious life of the earlier
England which had passed away and that of the newer England which was
arising in its place. The spiritual side of the revival was in truth
closely connected with its national side. All the foreign influences
which the Norman conquest had brought to bear upon the English Church
had failed to stamp out her intensely national character; nay, rather,
she was already beginning to lead captive her conquerors. One of the
most striking signs of the times was the renewal of reverence for
those older English saints whose latest successor was striving to
bury himself in the woodlands of S. Cuthbert’s patrimony. Normans and
English hushed their differences before the grave of the Confessor;
Lanfranc was forced to acknowledge the sanctity of Ælfheah. At
Canterbury itself the memory not only of Lanfranc but even of Anselm
was still eclipsed by that of Dunstan. The very changes introduced by
Norman prelates or Norman patrons, their zeal for discipline or their
passion for architectural display, worked in the same direction. It
was in the old minster of S. Werburg that Earl Hugh of Chester had
placed the Benedictine colony whose settlement helped to bring about
the appointment of Anselm as primate; it was in honour of another
early Mercian saint, Milburg, that Roger of Shrewsbury reared his
abbey at Wenlock. Bishop Richard of London planted the Austin canons
at Chiche over the shrine of S. Osyth; Bishop Roger of Salisbury
planted them at Oxford over that of S. Frideswide. The foundation
of a bishop’s see at Ely brought a fresh lustre to the glory of S.
Etheldreda; and the matchless church at Durham on which two of the
very worldliest and worst of Norman prelates, William of S. Calais and
Ralf Flambard, lavished all the splendour that art could devise or
wealth procure, was one vast monument to the honour of S. Cuthbert.
Literary activity was re-awakened by a like impulse. Two successive
precentors of Canterbury, Osbern and Eadmer, had already worked up into
more elaborate biographies the early memorials of S. Dunstan. Eadmer’s
best inspiration came to him indeed from a nearer source; his most
valuable work is the history of his own time, which he grouped, as in
a picture, around the central figure of his own master, Anselm. It was
doubtless from that master that he had learnt a breadth of sympathy
which extended far beyond his local associations at Canterbury. The
saints of the rival archbishopric, Wilfrid and Oswald, found in him a
new biographer. In the northern province, Simeon and his fellow-monks
were busy at Durham with the story of their own church and its
patron, Cuthbert. In the south, again, Faricius, the Italian abbot
of Abingdon, was writing a life of S. Ealdhelm; while almost every
church of importance in central and southern England was throwing open
its archives to the eager researches, and contributing its memorials
of early Mercian and West-Saxon saints to swell the hagiological
collections of a young monk at Ealdhelm’s own Malmesbury.

There was one cathedral monastery in the west of England where
the traditions of a larger historical sentiment had never died
out. The scriptorium at Worcester had been for more than a century
the depository of the sole contemporary edition of the English
Chronicle;[200] and there alone the national history continued to be
recorded in the national tongue down to the early years of Henry I.
In the middle of his reign the monks of Peterborough, probably in
consequence of the loss of their own records in a fire which destroyed
their abbey in 1116, borrowed a copy of the Chronicle from Worcester,
and wrote it out afresh for their own use, with additions from local
history and other sources. It is only in their version that the
earliest Chronicle of Worcester has been preserved to us. But they
did more than transcribe the story of the past. When the copyist had
brought his work down to the latest event of his own day--the sinking
of the _White Ship_ in 1120--another scribe carried on the annals of
Peterborough and of England for ten more years, in the native speech of
the land; and when he laid down his pen it was taken up by yet another
English writer whose notices of contemporary history, irregular and
fragmentary though they are, still cast a gleam of light across the
darkness of the “nineteen winters” which lie between the death of the
first King Henry and the coming of the second.[201]

        [200] In strictness, we must except the years 1043–1066, when
        the Abingdon Chronicle is also contemporary.

        [201] On the school of Worcester and its later influence,
        and the relations between the Chronicles of Worcester and
        Peterborough, see Green, _Conquest of England_, pp. 341,
        342 and notes, and p. 370, note 2; and Earle, _Parallel
        Chronicles_, Introd.

Precious as it is to us, however, this English chronicle-work at
Peterborough was a mere survival. Half its pathetic interest indeed
springs from the fact that it stands utterly alone; save in that one
abbey in the Fens, English had ceased to be a written tongue; the
vernacular literature of England was dead. If the reviving national
sentiment was to find a literary expression which could exercise any
lasting and widespread influence, the vehicle must be not English but
Latin. This was the work now taken up by the historical school of
Worcester. Early in the twelfth century a Worcester monk named Florence
made a Latin version of the Chronicle. Unhappily, he infused into his
work a violent party spirit, and overlaid the plain brief statements of
the annals with a mass of interpolations, additions and alterations,
whose source it is impossible to trace, and which, adopted only too
readily by later writers, have gone far to bring our early history into
what until a very recent time seemed well-nigh hopeless confusion.
But the very extent of his influence proves how true was the instinct
which led him--patriot of the most narrow, insular, exaggerated type,
as the whole tone of his work shows him to have been--to clothe the
ancient vernacular annals in a Latin dress, in the hope of increasing
their popularity. If English history has in one way suffered severely
at his hands, it owes him a debt of gratitude nevertheless upon another
ground. While the last English chronicle lay isolated and buried in
the scriptorium at Peterborough, it was through the Latin version
of Florence that the national and literary tradition of the school
of Worcester made its way throughout the length and breadth of the
land, and inspired a new generation of English historians. Simeon of
Durham, copying out and piecing together the old Northumbrian annals
which had gone on growing ever since Bæda’s death, no sooner met with
the chronicle of Florence than he made it the foundation of his own
work for the whole space of time between Ælfred’s birth in 848 and
Florence’s own death in 1118; and from Simeon it was handed down,
through the work of another local historian, to be incorporated in the
great compilation of Roger of Howden.[202] Henry of Huntingdon, who
soon after 1125, at the instigation of Bishop Alexander of Lincoln,
began to collect materials for a history of the English, may have
learnt from the same source his method of dealing with the English
Chronicle, though he seems, naturally enough, to have chiefly used the
copy which lay nearest to his own hand at Peterborough. Meanwhile, at
the opposite end of England, a finer and subtler intellect than that of
either Florence or Simeon or Henry had caught the historical impulse in
an old West-Saxon monastery.

        [202] On Simeon, see Bishop Stubbs’s preface to Roger of
        Howden, vol. i. (Rolls ed.); Mr. Arnold’s prefaces to Simeon,
        vol. i., and Henry of Huntingdon (_ibid._); and Mr. Hodgson
        Hinde’s preface to Simeon (Surtees Soc.).

William of Malmesbury was born some three or four years before the
Conqueror’s death,[203] in or near the little town in Wiltshire from
which his surname was derived. One of his parents seems to have been
Norman, the other English.[204] They early destined their son to a
literary career; “My father,” he says, “impressed upon me that if
I turned aside to other pursuits, I should but waste my life and
imperil my good name. So, remembering the recommendation to make a
virtue of necessity, I persuaded myself, young as I was, to acquire
a willing taste for that to which I could not in honour show myself
disinclined.” It is plain that submission to the father’s wishes cost
no great effort to the boy. As he tells us himself, “Reading was the
pleasure whose charms won me in my boyhood and grew with my growing
years.”[205] His lot was cast in a pleasant place for one of such a
disposition. Fallen though it was from its ancient greatness, some
remnants of its earlier culture still hung about Malmesbury abbey. The
place owed its rise to an Irish recluse, Maidulf, who, in the seventh
century sought retirement from the world in the forest which at that
time covered all the northern part of Wiltshire. Maidulf, however, was
a scholar as well as a saint; and in those days, when Ireland was the
light of the whole western world, no forest, were it never so gloomy
and impenetrable, could long hide an Irish scholar from the eagerness
of the disciples who flocked to profit by his teaching. The hermitage
grew into a school, and the school into a religious community. Its
second abbot, Ealdhelm, is one of the most brilliant figures in the
history of early West-Saxon learning and culture. The architecture
of Wessex owed its birth to the churches which he reared along the
edge of the forest-tract of Dorset and Wiltshire, from the seat of
his later bishopric at Sherborne to his early home at Malmesbury;
its Latin literature was moulded by the learning which he brought
back from Archbishop Theodore’s school at Canterbury; and the whole
ballad literature of southern England sprang from his English songs.
The West-Saxon kings, from Ine to Eadgar, showered their benefactions
upon the house of one whom they were proud to call their kinsman.
It escaped as by a miracle from the destruction of the Danish wars;
and in the Confessor’s reign its wealth and fame were great enough
to tempt the diocesan bishop, Herman of Ramsbury, into a project for
making it the seat of his bishopric. Darker times began with the
coming of the first Norman abbot, Turold, whose stern and warlike
character, more befitting a soldier than a monk, soon induced the king
to transfer him to Peterborough, as a check upon the English outlaws
and their Danish allies in the camp of refuge at Ely. His successor
at Malmesbury, Warin, alienated for his own profit the lands and the
treasures which earlier benefactors had lavished upon the abbey, and
showed his contempt for the old English abbots by turning the bones
of every one of them, except Ealdhelm, out of their resting-places on
either side the high altar, and thrusting them into a corner of one of
the lesser churches of the town, with the mocking comment: “Whosoever
is mightiest among them may help the rest!” William’s boyhood, however,
fell in happier days. About the time of his birth Warin died, and
the next abbot, Godfrey, set himself to a vigorous work of material,
moral and intellectual reform which must have been in full career when
William entered the abbey-school.[206] The bent of the lad’s mind
showed itself in the subjects which he chose for special study out of
the general course taught in the school. “Logic, which serves to give
point to our discourse, I tasted only with my ears; to physic, which
cures the diseases of our bodies, I paid somewhat closer heed. But I
searched deeply into the various branches of moral philosophy, whose
dignity I hold in reverence, because it is self-evident to those who
study it, and disposes our minds to virtuous living;--and especially
into history, which, preserving in a pleasing record the manners of
times gone by, by example excites its readers to follow that which is
good and shun that which is evil.”[207] Young as he was, his studious
habits gained him the confidence of the abbot. Godfrey’s darling scheme
was the formation of a library; and when at length he found time and
means to attempt its execution, it was William who became his most
energetic assistant. “Methinks I have a right to speak of this work,”
he tells us with pardonable pride, “for herein I came behind none of my
elders, nay, if it be not boastful to say so, I far outstripped them
all. I rivalled the good abbot’s own diligence in collecting that pile
of books; I did my utmost to help in his praiseworthy undertaking. May
those who now enter into our labours duly cherish their fruits!”[208]

        [203] This conclusion, which seems the only one possible, as to
        the date of William’s birth is that of Mr. W. de Gray Birch,
        _On the Life and Writings of Will. of Malmesbury_, pp. 3, 4
        (from _Trans. R. Soc. of Lit._, vol. x., new series).

        [204] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, prolog. l. iii. (Hardy, p. 389).

        [205] _Ib._ prolog. l. ii. (Hardy, p. 143).

        [206] The history of Malmesbury is in Will. Malm.’s _Vita S.
        Aldhelmi_, i.e. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. (Hamilton, pp. 332 _et
        seq._)

        [207] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, prolog. l. ii. (Hardy, p. 143).

        [208] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 271 (Hamilton, p.
        431).

It is not difficult to guess in what department of the library William
took the deepest interest. Half Norman as he was by descent, the
chosen literary assistant of a Norman abbot,[209] it was natural that
his first endeavour should be to “collect, at his own expense, some
histories of foreign nations.” As he pondered over them in the quiet
cloisters of the old English monastery which by this time had become
his home, the question arose--could nothing be found among our own
people worthy of the remembrance of posterity?[210] He had but to
look around him, and the question answered itself. To the antiquary
and the scholar Malmesbury was already classic ground, where every
step brought him face to face with some memory of the glories of
Wessex under the old royal house from which Ealdhelm sprang. To
Ealdhelm’s own fame indeed even the prejudices of Abbot Warin had
been forced to yield, and a new translation of the saint’s relics in
1078 had been followed by a fresh outburst of popular devotion and
a fresh influx of pilgrims to his shrine. Every year his festival
brought together a crowd of devotees, of sick folk seeking the aid of
his miraculous powers, and--as generally happened in such cases--of
low jesters seeking only to make their profit out of the amusement
which they afforded to the gaping multitude. The punishment of one of
these, who was smitten with frenzy and only cured after three days’
intercession on the part of the monks, during which he lay chained
before the shrine, was one of the most vivid recollections of William’s
childhood.[211] In the vestiary of the abbey-church he beheld with
wonder and awe the chasuble which, as a quaint legend told, the saint
in his pious abstraction of mind had once hung upon a sunbeam, and
whose unusual length helped to furnish a mental picture of his tall
stately form.[212] Among the older literary treasures which served as a
nucleus for the new library, he gazed with scarcely less reverence on
a Bible which Ealdhelm had bought of some foreign merchants at Dover
when he visited Kent for his consecration.[213] The muniment-chest was
full of charters granted by famous kings of old, Ceadwalla and Ine,
Ælfred and Eadward, Æthelstan and Eadgar. In the church itself a golden
crucifix, a fragment of the wood of the Cross, and several reliquaries
containing the bones of early Gaulish saints were shown as Æthelstan’s
gifts, and the king himself lay buried beneath the tower.[214] On the
left of the high altar, facing S. Ealdhelm’s shrine, stood a tomb
which in William’s day was believed to cover the remains of a scholar
of wider though less happy fame than Ealdhelm himself--John Scotus,
who, flying from his persecutors in Gaul, was said to have established
a school under Ælfred’s protection at Malmesbury, and to have been
there pricked to death by his pupils with their styles in the little
church of S. Laurence.[215] The scanty traces of a vineyard on the
hill-side which sheltered the abbey to the north were associated with a
visitor from a yet more distant land. In the time of the Danish kings
there came seeking for admission at Malmesbury a stranger of whom the
brotherhood knew no more than that he was a Greek and a monk, and that
his name was Constantine. His gentle disposition, abstemious habits,
and quiet retiring ways won him general esteem and love; his whole time
was spent in prayer and in the cultivation of the vineyard which he
planted with his own hands for the benefit of the community; and only
when at the point of death he arrayed himself in a pallium drawn from
the scrip which he always carried at his side, was it revealed to the
astonished Englishmen that he had been an archbishop in his Eastern
home.[216]

        [209] Godfrey was a monk of Jumièges; Will. Malm. _Gesta
        Pontif._, l. v. c. 271 (Hamilton, p. 431).

        [210] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, prolog. l. ii. (Hardy, p. 142).

        [211] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 275 (Hamilton, pp.
        438, 439).

        [212] _Ib._ c. 218 (p. 365).

        [213] _Ib._ c. 224 (pp. 376–378).

        [214] _Ib._ c. 246 (p. 397).

        [215] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 240 (Hamilton, p.
        394), and _Gesta Reg._, l. ii. c. 122 (Hardy, p. 190). The
        story seems however to be false. It probably originated in a
        confusion, first between John Scotus and John the Old-Saxon,
        who was nearly murdered by the monks of Athelney; and secondly,
        between both these Johns and a third scholar bearing the same
        name, who is mentioned by Gotselin of Canterbury as buried
        at Malmesbury, but whose real history seems to be lost. See
        Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. iii. pp. 300, 301,
        315, 316, 318–320.

        [216] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 260 (Hamilton, p.
        415).

Under the influence of surroundings such as these William began his
studies in English history. But he was brought to a standstill at the
very threshold for lack of a guide. From the death of Bæda to his own
day, he could not by the most diligent researches discover a single
English writer worthy of the name of historian. “There are indeed
certain records of antiquity in the native tongue, arranged according
to the years of our Lord after the manner of a chronicle, whereby the
times which have gone by since that great man (Bæda) have been rescued
from complete oblivion. For of Æthelweard, a noble and illustrious man
who set himself to expound those chronicles in Latin, it is better
to say nothing; his aim indeed would be quite to my mind, if his
style were not unbearable to my taste.”[217] The work of Florence
was probably as yet altogether unpublished; it was certainly not yet
finished, nor does it appear to have been heard of at Malmesbury. That
of Eadmer, whose first edition--ending at the death of Anselm--must
have been the last new book of the day, received from William a just
tribute of praise, both as to its subject-matter and its style; but it
was essentially what its title imported, a _History of Recent Events_;
the introductory sketch prefixed to it was a mere outline, and,
starting as it did only from Eadgar’s accession, still left between its
beginning and Bæda’s death a yawning chasm of more than two centuries
which the young student at Malmesbury saw no means of bridging over
save by his own labour.[218] “So, as I could not be satisfied with what
I found written of old, I began to scribble myself.”[219]

        [217] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, prolog. l. i. (Hardy, pp. 1, 2).

        [218] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, prolog. l. i. (Hardy, p. 2).

        [219] _Ib._ prolog. l. ii. (Hardy, pp. 143, 144).

Such, as related by the author himself, was the origin of William’s
first historical work, the _Gesta Regum Anglorum_ or _Acts of the
English Kings_, followed a few years later by a companion volume
devoted to the acts of the bishops. He was stirred by the same impulse
of revived national sentiment which stirred Florence of Worcester to
undertake his version of the Chronicle. But the impulse acted very
differently on two different minds. William’s _Gesta Regum_ were first
published in 1120, two years after the death of Florence. The work
of Florence, although he never mentions it, had doubtless reached
him by this time, and must certainly have been well known to him
before he issued his revised edition in 1128. To William, indeed, the
Chronicle had no need of a Latin interpreter; and he probably looked
upon Florence in no other light. He set before himself a loftier aim.
In his own acceptation of the word, he is the first English historian
since Bæda; he is in truth the founder of a new school of historical
composition. William’s temper, as displayed in his works, might form
the subject of a curious psychological study. It is a temper which,
in many respects, seems to belong rather to a man of the world in our
own day than to a monk of the twelfth century. He has none of the
narrowness of the cloister; he has little of the prejudices common
to his profession or his age; he has still less prejudice of race.
The Norman and the English blood in his veins seem completely to
neutralize each other; while Florence colours the whole story not only
of the Norman but even of the Danish conquest with his violent English
sympathies, William calmly balances the one side against the other,
and criticizes them both with the judicial impartiality of a spectator
to whom the matter has a purely philosophical interest. The whole bent
of his mind indeed is philosophical, literary, artistic, rather than
political. With him the study of history is a scientific study, and its
composition a work of art. His aim is to entertain his readers quite as
much as to instruct them. He utterly discards the old arrangement of
events “by the years of our Lord,” and groups his materials in defiance
of chronology on whatever plan seems to him best adapted to set them
in the most striking and effective light. He never loses sight of
his reader; he is always in dread of wearying him with dry political
details, always seizing an opportunity to break in upon their monotony
with some curious illustration, some romantic episode, some quaint
legend, or--when he reaches his own time--some personal scandal which
he tells with all the zest of a modern newspaper-writer. His love of
story-telling, his habit of flying off at a tangent in the midst of
his narrative and dragging in a string of irrelevant tales, sometimes
of the most frivolous kind, is positively irritating to a student bent
only upon following the main thread of the history. But in William of
Malmesbury the main thread is often of less real value than the mass of
varied adornment and illustration with which it is overlaid. William is
no Bæda; but, Bæda excepted, there are few of our medieval historians
who can vie with him in the telling of a story. His long and frequent
digressions into foreign affairs are often of great intrinsic value,
and they show a depth of insight into the history of other nations and
a cosmopolitan breadth of thought and feeling quite without parallel
in his time. His penetration into individual characters, his power of
seizing upon their main features and sketching them to the life in a
few rapid skilful strokes--as in his pictures of the Norman kings or
of the Angevin counts--has perhaps not many rivals at any time. Even
when his stories are most utterly worthless in themselves, there is a
value in the light which they throw upon the writer’s own temper or on
that of the age in which he lived. Not a few of them have a further
interest as fragments saved from the wreck of a popular literature
whose very existence, but for William and his fellow-historians, we
might never have known. The Norman conquest had doomed to gradual
extinction a vast growth of unwritten popular verse which, making
its way with the wandering gleeman into palace and minster, hall and
cottage, had coloured the whole social life and thought of England for
four hundred years. The gleeman’s days were numbered. He had managed to
hold his ground against the growing hostility of the Church; but the
coming of the stranger had fatally narrowed his sphere of influence.
His very language was unintelligible to the nobles who sat in the seat
of his former patrons; _jongleur_ and _ménestrel_ from over sea had
taken in the king’s court and the baron’s castle the place which the
gleeman had once filled in the halls of ealdorman and thegn, and only
the common people still hailed his appearance as a welcome break in
the monotonous drudgery of their daily life. Before his day was quite
over, however, the new school of patriotic historians had arisen; and
they plunged into the mass of traditional and romantic lore of which
he was the depositary as into a treasure-house from whose stores they
might fill up the gaps and deck the bare outlines of the structure
which they were building up on the meagre foundations of the Chronicle.
Florence was the first to enter upon this somewhat dangerous process.
William drank more deeply of a stream whose source lay at his own door:
a simple English ballad which the country-folk around Malmesbury in
his day still chanted as they went about their work was the spell by
which S. Ealdhelm had drawn their forefathers to listen, first to his
singing and then to his preaching, four hundred years before.[220]
The same spell of song, handed on from generation to generation, and
passing from the gleeman’s lips into the pages of the twelfth century
historians with William at their head, has transformed the story of
the later royal house of Wessex into a romance that too often only
serves to darken the true character of the period which it professes to
illustrate. What it does illustrate is not the tenth century but the
twelfth. It helps us to learn something of the attitude of the national
revival towards the national past, by showing us the England of
Æthelstan and Eadmund, of Eadgar and Dunstan, not as it actually was,
but as it appeared to the England of Henry I. and Roger of Sarum,--to
the England of Florence of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon and William
of Malmesbury.

        [220] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. v. c. 190 (Hamilton, p.
        336).

We must not take William as an average specimen of the monastic culture
and intelligence of his day. In any age and in any circumstances he
would probably have been a man of exceptional genius. But his outward
life and surroundings were those of the ordinary monk of his time;
and those surroundings are set in a very striking light by the fact,
abundantly evident from his writings, that such a man as William could
feel himself thoroughly at home in them, and could find in them full
scope for the developement of his powers. It was in truth precisely
his monastic profession which gave him opportunities of acquiring by
personal experience, even more than by wide reading, such a varied and
extensive knowledge of the world as could hardly be obtained in any
other circumstances. A very slight acquaintance with William is enough
to dispel all notions of the medieval monk as a solitary student, a
mere bookworm, knowing no more of the world and of mankind than he
could learn from the beatings of his own heart and within the narrow
circle of the brotherhood among whom he dwelt. A community like that
of Malmesbury was in active and constant relations with every rank
and class of society all over the kingdom. Its guest-hall stood open
alike to king and bishop, to Norman baron or English yeoman, to the
high-born pilgrim who came back from a distant shore laden with relics
and with tales of the splendours of Byzantium or the marvels of Holy
Land, to the merchant who came to sell his curious foreign wares at
the local fair and to pay his devotions, like S. Godric, at the local
shrine, as well as to the monk of another house who came, perhaps,
to borrow a book from the library, to compare notes with the local
history, or to submit some literary question to the judgement of the
great local scholar, whoever he might happen to be. All the political
news, all the latest intellectual speculations, all the social
gossip of the day, found its way thither by one or other of these
channels, and was discussed within the safe shelter of the inviolable
convent-walls with a boldness and freedom impossible amid the society
of the outside world, fettered by countless bonds of custom, interest,
and mutual dependence. The abbot ranked as a great noble who sat among
earls and bishops in the meetings of the Great Council, whom they
treated almost as an equal, and whom they came, with a train of secular
clerks and lay followers, to visit and consult on matters of Church or
state or of their own personal interests. If the king himself chanced
to pass that way, it was matter of course that he should lodge in the
monastery. William’s vivid portraits of all the three Norman kings
were doubtless drawn, if not from the observation of his own eyes,
at any rate from that of his friend Abbot Godfrey; his portrait of
Henry I. was in all likelihood painted from life as the king paid his
devotions before S. Ealdhelm’s shrine or feasted at the abbot’s table
in the refectory, or--quite as probably--as William, in his turn, sat
in the royal hall discussing some literary question with his friend and
patron, the king’s son Earl Robert of Gloucester, if not actually with
the king himself. The hospitality of the abbey was repaid by that which
greeted its brethren wherever they went, on business for their house or
for themselves. The monk went in and out of castle or town, court or
camp, as a privileged person. Such a man as William, indeed, might be
sure of a welcome anywhere; and William, indefatigable as a student,
was almost equally so as a traveller. The little sketches of town and
country which illustrate his survey of the dioceses of England in the
_Gesta Pontificum_ must have been made on the spot. He had seen the
marvels of Glastonbury;[221] he had probably taken down the legend
of S. Eadmund of East-Anglia on the very site of the martyrdom;[222]
he had seen with his own eyes the Roman walls of Carlisle, and heard
with his own ears the rough Yorkshire speech, of which, puzzling as
it was to a southerner, he yet learned enough to catch from some
northern gleeman the echo of Northumbria’s last heroic lay, the lay of
Waltheof at the gate of York;[223] he had, we cannot doubt, wandered
with delight up that vale of Severn which he paints in such glowing
colours, and been drawn to write the life of S. Wulfstan by a sight of
his church and his tomb at Worcester. His own cell at Malmesbury was
the garner in which treasures new and old, of every kind, gathered from
one end of England to the other, were stored up to be sifted and set in
order at leisure amid that perfect tranquillity, that absolute security
from outward disturbance and worldly care, which to the modern student
is but a hopeless dream.

        [221] Will. Malm. _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c. 91 (Hamilton, pp.
        196–198); _Gesta Reg._, l. i. c. 20 (Hardy, pp. 32–34); _Antiq.
        Glaston._, _passim_.

        [222] _Gesta Pontif._, l. ii. c. 74 (Hamilton, pp. 152–155);
        _Gesta Reg._, l. ii. c. 213 (Hardy, p. 366).

        [223] _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 253 (Hardy, p. 427).

The new intellectual movement, however, was by no means confined to
the cloister. Clerk and layman had their share in it; king and queen
encouraged it warmly, and their sympathy with the patriotic revival
which animated it was marked enough to excite the mockery of their
Norman courtiers, who nicknamed them “Godric and Godgifu.”[224]
Learning and culture of every kind found a ready welcome at the
court; Henry never forgot the favourite maxim of his youth, that “an
unlettered king is but a crowned ass.”[225] His tastes were shared by
his good queen Maude, who had received in her aunt’s convent at Romsey
such an education as was probably given to few women of her time; and
in her later years, when the king’s manifold occupations beyond sea
left her alone in her palace at Westminster, the crowd of poor and
sick folk on whom she bestowed her boundless charities was almost
equalled by that of the scholars and poets who vied with each other to
gain her ear by some new feat of melody or of rime.[226] Her stepson
Earl Robert of Gloucester was renowned as a scholar no less than as a
warrior and a statesman; to him William of Malmesbury dedicated his
chief historical works, as to a comrade and an equal in the world of
letters; it may even be that the “Robert” of whom we once catch a
glimpse, sitting in the library at Malmesbury, eagerly turning over
its treasures, and suggesting plans of work to the willing friend at
his side, is no other than the king’s son.[227] The secular clergy
had no mind to be outstripped by the regulars in literary activity;
Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, a nephew of the justiciar, urged his
archdeacon Henry of Huntingdon to compose a _History of the English_
in emulation of the _Gesta Regum_. Nor did history alone absorb the
intellectual energy of the time. Natural science had its followers,
among them the king himself, who studied it in characteristically
practical fashion at Woodstock, where he kept a menagerie full of
lions, leopards, camels, lynxes and other strange beasts collected from
all parts of the world;[228] and the “Bestiary” of an Anglo-Norman
poet, Philip de Thaun, found a patroness in his second queen, Adeliza
of Louvain. A scholar of old English race, Adelard of Bath, carried
his researches into a wider field. Towards the close of the eleventh
century he had crossed the sea to study in the schools of Tours and
Laon. At the latter place he set up a school of his own, but he soon
quitted it to enter upon a long course of wandering in distant lands.
He crossed the Alps, made his way to the great medical school at
Salerno, thence into Greece and Asia Minor, and finally, it seems,
to the great centre of Arab culture and learning at Bagdad, or what
we now call Cairo. Thence, after seven years’ absence, he returned
to England soon after the accession of Henry I., and published his
first book, a philosophical allegory dedicated to Bishop William of
Syracuse, whose acquaintance he had made in his travels. He next opened
a school, apparently in Normandy, for the diffusion of the scientific
lore which he had acquired in the East. He had picked up, among other
things, an Arabic version of Euclid, and the Latin translation which
he made of this became the text-book of all succeeding mathematicians
for centuries after. But his teaching of the physical science of the
East was vehemently opposed by western scholars; his own nephew, who
had been one of his pupils at Laon, was among his opponents, and it was
in the shape of a discussion with this nephew that Adelard put forth,
under the title of _Quæstiones Naturales_, a plea for a more free
inquiry into the principles of natural science, instead of the blind
following of old authorities which had hitherto contented the scholars
of the West.[229] In the last years of Henry’s reign he seems to have
returned once more to settle in his native land.[230] His career shows
how daring was the spirit of enterprize now stirring among Englishmen,
and how vast was the range of study and experience now thrown open to
English scholars. We see that England was already within reach of that
wider world of which her Angevin kings were soon to make her a part.

        [224] _Ib._ l. v. c. 394 (p. 620).

        [225] _Ib._ c. 390 (p. 616).

        [226] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 418 (Hardy, p. 650).

        [227] “In historicis nos narrationibus occupatos detorsit
        a proposito tua, Rodberte, voluntas. Nuper enim cum in
        bibliothecâ nostrâ sederemus, et quisque pro suo studio libros
        evolveret, impegisti in Amalarium de Ecclesiasticis Officiis.
        Cujus cum materiam ex primâ statim tituli fronte cognosceris,
        amplexus es occasionem quâ rudimenta novæ professionis
        animares. Sed quia confestim animi tui alacritatem turbavit
        testimoniorum perplexitas et sermonum asperitas, rogasti ut
        eum abbreviarem. Ego autem ... munus injunctum non aspernanter
        accepi.” ... (Will. Malm. _Abbreviatio Amalarii_, prolog.) Mr.
        Birch (_Will. Malm._, p. 43) takes this Robert to be the earl.
        But does not the phrase about “nova professio” rather suggest a
        new-made monk of the house?

        [228] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 409 (Hardy, p. 638).

        [229] On Adelard, see Wright, _Biog. Britt. Litt._, vol. ii.
        pp. 94–100.

        [230] “In Perdonis ... Adelardo de Bada, 4s. et 6d.” Pipe Roll,
        31 Hen. I. (Hunter) p. 22--among the “Nova placita et novæ
        conventiones” of Wiltshire. Mr. Hunter (_ib._, pref. p. xxi.)
        takes this to be the traveller, but Mr. Wright doubts it.

What gave scope for all this social, moral and intellectual
developement was, to borrow a phrase from the Peterborough Chronicler,
“the good peace” that Henry, like his father, “made in this land.”[231]
The foundations of the political and administrative system by which
that peace was preserved inviolate to the end of his reign were laid
in the three years succeeding the battle of Tinchebray--the brightest
period of Henry’s prosperity, and the only time in his life when he
himself could enjoy, on both sides of the sea, the tranquillity which
he fought to secure. In England, indeed, from the day when he drove out
Robert of Bellême in 1103 to his own death in 1135, the peace was never
broken save by an occasional disturbance on the Welsh border. Even in
Wales, however, the settlement of the Flemings and the appointment of
a “Saxon” bishop to the see of St. David’s[232] were doing their work;
and though in Henry’s later years the restlessness of the Welsh princes
and people twice provoked him to march into their country, the danger
from them was never great enough to mar the general security of the
realm. From Scotland there was still less to fear; its three successive
kings, Eadgar, Alexander and David, were the brothers of the good queen
Maude and the faithful allies of her husband. But in Henry’s dominions
beyond the sea, the state of things was very different. In the duchy of
Normandy the year 1110 saw the opening of a new phase of politics, the
beginning of a train of complications in which England seemed at the
moment less directly concerned than in the earlier struggles between
the king and the barons, but which in the end exercised an important
influence on the course of her after history by bringing her into
contact with the power of Anjou. Before we can trace the steps whereby
this came to pass, we must change our line of thought and study. We
must turn aside from the well-worn track of English history to travel
awhile in less familiar paths; we must leave our own land and make our
way into the depths of Gaul; we must go back from the broad daylight of
the twelfth century into the dim dawn of the ninth, there to seek out
the beginnings and thence to follow the romantic story of the house of
Anjou.

        [231] Eng. Chron. a. 1087.

        [232] Flor. Worc. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 68.




CHAPTER II.

THE BEGINNINGS OF ANJOU.

843–987.


The cradle-land of our Angevin kings, the original county of Anjou,
was a small territory in central Gaul, lying about the lower course of
the river Loire and that of its affluent the Mayenne[233] or Maine.
Its chief portion consisted of a wedge-shaped tract hemmed in between
the right bank of the Loire, which bounded it on the south, and the
streams of Loir, Sarthe and Mayenne, which flowed round it on the north
and west; along its southern border stretched a belt of alluvial soil
which in winter and in rainy seasons became a vast flood-drowned fen,
swallowed up by the overflowing waters of the Loire; to the northward,
the country consisted chiefly of level uplands broken here and there by
patches of forest and tiny river-valleys, and rising in the west into
a range of low hills, which again died down into a fringe of swampy
meadow-land along the eastern bank of the Mayenne. A narrow strip of
ground on the southern bank of the Loire, with a somewhat wider strip
of hilly and wooded country beyond the Mayenne, completed the district
to which its earliest known inhabitants, a Gallic tribe called Andes
or Andegavi, have left their name. A few miles above the angle formed
by the confluence of the two rivers, a lofty mass of black slate rock
thrown out from the upland furnished a ready-made fortress important
alike by its natural strength and by its geographical position,
commanding the main lines of communication with central, northern and
southern Gaul through the valleys of the Loire and its tributaries.
Under the Roman conquerors of Gaul the place was called Juliomagus;
the hill was crowned by a lofty citadel, and strengthened by a circuit
of rampart walls; while from its crest a road struck eastward along
Loire-side into the heart of central Gaul, another followed the
westward course of the river to its junction with the sea, and others
struck southward and northward into Aquitania and across the upland
into the basin of the Seine. In the middle of the fourth century a
Christian bishop, probably one of a band of mission-preachers who
shared with the famous S. Martin of Tours the work of evangelizing
central Gaul, laid beside the citadel of Juliomagus the foundations of
a church, which in after-time grew into the cathedral of S. Maurice;
and it is from the extent of the diocese over which his successors
ruled that we learn the extent of the civil jurisdiction of Juliomagus.
A later bishop, Albinus, left his name to the great abbey of S. Aubin,
founded in Merovingian days on the slope of the hill just outside the
city wall; a monastery dedicated to S. Sergius grew up to the north,
in a low-lying marshy meadow by the river-side; while the place of
the Roman prefects was taken by a succession of Frankish counts, the
delegates first of the Merovingian kings of Neustria and then of the
Karolingian emperors; and the Roman name of Juliomagus itself gave way
to a native appellation cognate with that of the district of which it
was the head--“Andegavis,” Angers.[234]

        [233] From the point where the Sarthe joins it, this river is
        now called the Maine. In the middle ages it had but one name,
        _Meduana_, from its source to its junction with the Loire. The
        old nomenclature is far more convenient for historical purposes.

        [234] The ecclesiastical history of Angers is in _Gallia
        Christiana_, vol. xiv. col. 543 _et seq._

City and county acquired a new importance through the political
arrangements by which the Karolingian realms were divided between the
three sons of the Emperor Louis the Gentle. By a treaty made at Verdun
in 843, the original Frankish kingdom and its Saxon dependencies,
answering roughly to what we call Germany now-a-days, fell to the
second brother Louis; the Gallic conquests of the Franks, between the
Moselle, the Rhone, the Pyrenees and the ocean, were the share of the
youngest, Charles the Bald; while the necessity that the eldest brother
Lothar, as Emperor, should hold the two capitals, Rome and Aachen,
involved the creation in his favour of a middle kingdom consisting of
a long narrow string of countries reaching from the Frisian to the
Pontine marshes. Although the limits thus fixed were afterwards altered
more than once, the main lines of this treaty left indelible traces,
and from that day we may date the beginning of modern France and modern
Germany. The tripartite division, however, was soon overthrown by the
extinction of the elder or Lotharingian line; the incongruous middle
kingdom fell asunder and became a bone of furious contention between
its two neighbours, and the imperial crown itself was soon an object
of rivalry no less fierce. On the other hand, the extent of territory
actually subject to Charles the Bald fell far short of the limits
assigned to him by the treaty. Even Charles the Great had scarcely been
able to maintain more than a nominal sway over the vast region which
stretched from the southern shores of the Loire to the Pyrenees and the
Mediterranean Sea, and was known by the general name of Aquitania; its
princes and its people, wrapped in the traditions of Roman culture and
Roman greatness, held disdainfully aloof from the barbarian conquerors
of the north, and remained utterly indifferent to claims of supremacy
which each succeeding Karolingian found it more and more hopeless to
enforce. To the west, again, in the peninsula of Britanny or Armorica,
the ancient Celtic race preserved, as in the Welsh hills of our own
island, its native tongue, its primitive laws and customs, and its
separate political organization under a dynasty of native princes who
owed, indeed, a nominal allegiance to the West-Frankish overlord at
Laon, but whose subjection to him was scarcely more real than that of
the princes of Aquitania, while their disaffection was far more active
and far more threatening; for the pirate fleets of the northmen were
now hovering about the coast of Gaul as about that of Britain; and
the Celts of the Breton peninsula, like the West-Welsh of Cornwall,
were ever ready to make common cause with these marauders against the
Teutonic conquerors of the land.

The work of the northmen in West-Frankland was a work both of union and
disunion. There, as in England, the need for organization and defence
against their attacks produced a new upgrowth of national life; but
while in England this life was moulded by the consolidation of the
earlier Engle and Saxon realms into a single state under the leadership
of the West-Saxon kings, in Frankland it was created through the
forcible breaking-up of an outward unity already threatened with the
doom which never fails sooner or later to overtake a kingdom divided
against itself. The West-Frankish king was not, like the king of
Wessex, the leader, the natural exponent, the impersonation almost, of
the dawning national consciousness; it was not he who led and organized
the struggle for existence against the northern foe; the nation had
to fight for itself, with but little help from its sovereign. This
difference was caused partly by the political circumstances of the
Karolingian realms, partly by geographical conditions. The brunt of
the battle necessarily fell, not upon the royal domains lying far from
the sea around the inland fortress of Laon, but on the coast, and
especially on the districts around the great river-inlets by which the
pirates made their entrance into the country. Of these, the estuary of
the Seine lay nearest to them, and was their first point of attack.
Between it and the other great inlet, the mouth of the Loire, lay the
Breton peninsula; once round that, and the broad lands of Aquitania,
rich with the natural wealth of a southern soil and with the remains
of a luxury and splendour in which its cities had almost outdone Rome
herself, would tempt the northmen with a fairer harvest of spoil than
they could find on the shores of the Channel. The desolate rocky coast
and barren moorlands of the intervening peninsula offered little
chance of booty; but if the pirates could secure the alliance or even
the neutrality of the Bretons, they had but to force an entrance
into the Loire, and not only Aquitaine, but the inmost heart of the
West-Frankish realm would be laid open to their attacks. Two barriers,
however, would have to be overcome before such an entrance could be
gained. The first was the city of Nantes, which stood on the northern
bank of the Loire, some thirty miles above its mouth. Politically,
Nantes was the extreme western outpost of the Karolingian power, for
its count held his fief directly of the king at Laon, not of the nearer
Breton under-king at Rennes; but by its geographical position and the
character of its people it was far more Breton than Frankish. The true
corner-stone of the West-Frankish realm lay on the other side of the
Mayenne. The county of Anjou or “Angevin march,” the border-land of
Neustria and Aquitaine, was for all practical purposes the border-land
also of Neustria and of Britanny. Angers, with its Roman citadel and
its Roman walls, perched on the crest of its black slate-rock, at once
guarding and guarded by the two rivers which flowed round its foot, was
a far mightier fortress than Nantes; Angers, rather than Nantes, was
the true key of the Loire valley, and the stronghold of the Neustrian
border against all attacks from the west, whether by land or by sea.

In the first days of Charles the Bald, when the new king was struggling
with his brothers, and the pirate ships were beginning again to strike
terror into the coasts of Gaul, Lambert, a Breton-born count of the
Angevin march, sought from Charles the investiture of the neighbouring
and recently-vacated county of Nantes. On the refusal of his demand,
he threw off his allegiance, offered his services to the Breton king
Nomenoë, and on failing to obtain the coveted prize by his help,
called in that of a pirate fleet which was cruising about the shores
of Britanny. It was thus at the invitation and under the guidance
of a man who had been specially intrusted with its defence that the
northmen made their first entrance into the hitherto peaceful estuary
of the Loire. Nantes was stormed and sacked;[235] the desolate city
was left in the hands of Lambert and the Bretons, and the ravagers
sailed away, probably to swell the forces and share the spoil of a
fleet which in the following year made its way to the estuary of the
Garonne, and pushed inland as far as Toulouse. Nearly ten years passed
away before the northmen repeated their dash upon central Gaul. The
valley of the Seine and the city of Paris were the victims of their
next great expedition, in 845; and a series of plundering raids upon
the Aquitanian coast were crowned in 848 by the conquest of Bordeaux.
For a moment, in 851, the fury of the pirates’ attack seemed to be
turning away from Gaul to spend itself on Britain; but a great victory
of the West-Saxons under Æthelwulf at Aclea threw them back upon
their old field of operations across the Channel, and in the terror
of their threatened onset Charles sought to detach the Bretons from
their alliance by a formal cession of the counties of Rennes and Nantes
and the district west of the Mayenne, which had passed into Breton
hands by the treason of Count Lambert.[236] His precautions failed to
avert the blow which he dreaded. Next year the pirates made their way
back again round the Armorican coast, up the mouth of the Loire, past
Nantes, and through the Angevin march--now shrunk to a little corner of
territory wedged in between the Mayenne and the Loire--as far inland as
Tours, where they sacked and burned the abbey of S. Martin and drove
its canons into exile with the hardly-rescued body of their patron
saint.[237]

        [235] Chron. Namnet. in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. pp.
        217, 218; Chronn. Rainald. Andeg., S. Serg., Vindoc., a. 843
        (Marchegay, _Eglises d’Anjou_, pp. 5, 129–132, 158).

        [236] Ann. Bertin. a. 851 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. p.
        68) mention the cession of Nantes, etc. That the Mayenne was
        made the boundary of the two kingdoms appears from a charter
        of the Breton king Herispoë, dated August 23, 852; “Erispoë
        princeps Britanniæ provinciæ et usque ad Medanum fluvium....
        Dominante Erispoë ... in totam Britanniam et usque ad Medanum
        fluvium.” Lobineau, _Hist. de Bretagne_, vol. ii. p. 55.

        [237] Ann. Bertin. a. 853 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. p.
        70).

In a breathing-space which followed upon this last attack, Charles
received from Æthelwulf of Wessex a personal visit and an overture of
mutual alliance against the common foe. The scheme was shattered by
a political revolution in Wessex which followed Æthelwulf’s return;
and meanwhile a new danger to the Karolingian power arose in the
threatening attitude of Robert the Brave, a warrior of obscure birth
who was now count of the Angevin march. Under pretext, as it seems, of
securing their aid against the northmen, Robert leagued himself with
the foes of the monarchy beyond his two frontier rivers, and made a
triple alliance with the revolted Bretons and the king’s rebel nephew,
Pepin of Aquitaine.[238] Charles, more and more hard pressed every year
by domestic and political difficulties, and haunted by the perpetual
horror of the pirate ships always in the background, felt that this
second wavering lord of the marchland must be won back at any cost. Two
years later, therefore, the count of the Angevin march was invested
with a vast duchy comprising the whole territory between Seine and
Loire as far as the sea and the Breton border; and with this grant the
special work of keeping out both Bretons and northmen was distinctly
laid upon his shoulders.[239]

        [238] Ann. Bertin. a. 859 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._ vol. vii. p.
        75).

        [239] Regino a. 861 (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. i. p.
        571). Ann. Mettens. a. 861 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. p.
        190).

Robert fulfilled his trust gallantly and successfully till he fell
in a Scandinavian ambush at Brissarthe in 866.[240] His territories
were given to a cousin of the king, Hugh of Burgundy, who was either
so incapable or so careless of their defence that before six years
had passed he suffered the very corner-stone of his duchy, the most
important point in the whole scheme of operations against the northmen
in central Gaul, to fall into the enemies’ hands. A band of pirates,
sailing unopposed up the Loire and the Mayenne after Robert’s death,
found Angers deserted and defenceless, and settling there with their
families, used it as a centre from which they could securely harry
all the country round. The bulk of the pirate forces, however, was
now concentrated upon a great effort for the conquest of Britain, and
while the invaders of Angers lay thus isolated from their brethren
across the Channel, Charles the Bald seized his opportunity to attempt
the recovery of the city. In concert with the Breton king, Solomon, he
gathered his forces for a siege; the Franks encamped on the eastern
side of the Mayenne, the Bretons on the opposite shore. Their joint
blockade proved unavailing, till one of the Bretons conceived the bold
idea of turning the course of the Mayenne, so as to leave the pirate
ships stranded and useless. The whole Breton army at once set to work
and dug such an enormous trench that the northmen saw their retreat
would be hopelessly cut off. In dismay they offered to purchase, at
a heavy price, a free withdrawal from Angers and its district; their
offer was accepted, and Angers was evacuated accordingly.[241]

        [240] Ann. Bertin. a. 866 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. p.
        94).

        [241] Regino, a. 873 (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. i. pp.
        585, 586). Ann. Bertin. and Mettens. and Chron. Namnet. a. 873
        (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. pp. 117, 200, 220, 221).
        Chron. Sigebert. a. 875 (_ib._ p. 252). Chron. S. Serg., a.
        873. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 132, 133).

But the long keels sailed away only to return again. Amid the gathering
troubles of the Karolingian house, as years passed on, the cry rose up
ever louder and louder from the desolated banks of Seine, and at last
even from the inland cities of Reims and Soissons, perilously near the
royal abode at Laon itself: “From the fury of the northmen, good Lord,
deliver us!” It was not from Laon that deliverance was to come. The
success of Charles the Bald at Angers, the more brilliant victory of
his grandson Louis III. over Guthrum at Saucourt, were but isolated
triumphs which produced no lasting results. At the very moment when the
Karolingian empire was reunited under the sceptre of Charles the Fat
came the crisis of the struggle with the northmen in West-Frankland;
and the true national leader shewed himself not in the heir of Charles
the Great, but in Count Odo of Paris, the son of Robert the Brave. It
was Odo who saved Paris from the northmen when they besieged it with
all their forces throughout the winter of 885; and by saving Paris he
saved the kingdom. Before the siege was raised the possessions which
his father had held as duke of the French were restored to him by the
death of Hugh of Burgundy. A few months later the common consent of
all the Karolingian realms deposed their unworthy Emperor, and the
acclamations of a grateful people raised their deliverer Odo to the
West-Frankish throne.

The times, however, were not yet ripe for a change of dynasty, and the
revolution was followed by a reaction which on Odo’s death in 898 again
set a Karolingian, Charles the Simple, upon the throne; but though
the monarchy of Laon lingered on till the race of Charles the Great
became extinct, it was being gradually undermined and supplanted by the
dukes of the French, the rulers of the great duchy between Seine and
Loire. Paris was now, since the siege of 885, the chief seat of the
ducal power; and in the new feudal organization which grew up around
this centre, the cradle of the ducal house, the border-stronghold
of Angers, sank to a secondary position. The fiefs which the dukes
parcelled out among their followers fell to the share of men of the
most diverse origin and condition. In some cases, as at Chartres and
Tours, the Scandinavian settler was turned into a peaceful lieutenant
of the Frankish chief against whom he had fought. In others the reward
of valour was justly bestowed on men who had earned it by their prowess
against the invaders. It may be that the old alliance of Count Robert
the Brave with the Bretons had sowed the seeds of a mighty tree. In the
depths of a gloomy forest-belt which ran along the Breton border at the
foot of a range of hills that shelter the western side of the valley
of the Mayenne, there dwelt in Robert’s day--so the story went--a
valiant forester, Tortulf. He quitted the hardy, hazardous borderer’s
life--half hunter, half bandit--to throw himself into the struggle of
Charles the Bald and Robert the Brave against the northmen: Charles
set him to keep the pirates out of Touraine, and gave him a congenial
post as forester of a wooded district known as the “Nid-de-Merle”--the
Blackbird’s Nest. In its wild fastnesses Tortulf lay in wait for the
approach of the marauders, and sprang forth to meet them with a daring
and a success which earned him his sovereign’s favour and the alliance
of the duke of the French. His son, Ingelger, followed in his steps;
marriage came to the help of arms, and with the hand of Ælendis, niece
of the archbishop of Tours, Ingelger acquired her lands at Amboise.
The dowry was a valuable one; Amboise stood in the midst of one of the
most rich and fertile districts of central France, half way between
Tours and Blois, on the south bank of the Loire, which was spanned at
this point by a bridge said to have been built by Julius Cæsar; two
centuries later tradition still pointed out the site of Cæsar’s palace
on the banks of the little river Amasse, at the western end of the
town; while opposite the bridge a rocky brow, crowned to-day by the
shell of a magnificent castle of the Renascence, probably still kept
in Ingelger’s days some traces of a fortress built there by a Roman
governor in the reign of the Emperor Valens. A mightier stronghold
than Amboise, however, was to be the home of Ingelger’s race. His son,
a ruddy youth named Fulk, early entered the service of Count Odo of
Paris and remained firmly attached to him and his house; and one of
the earliest acts of Odo’s brother Robert, who succeeded him as duke
of the French--if indeed it was not rather one of the last acts of
King Odo himself--was to intrust the city of Angers to Fulk the Red
as viscount.[242] The choice was a wise one; for Fulk was gifted with
a sound political instinct which found and kept the clue to guide him
through all the revolutions and counter-revolutions of the next forty
years. He never swerved from his adherence to the dukes of the French;
and by his quiet tenacity he, like them, laid the foundation of his
house’s greatness. Preferments civil and ecclesiastical--the abbacies
of S. Aubin and S. Licinius at Angers, the viscounty of Tours, though
this was but a momentary honour--were all so many stepping-stones to
his final investiture, shortly before the death of Charles the Simple,
as count of the Angevin March.

        [242] On the whole story of Tortulf, Ingelger and Fulk, see
        note A at end of chapter.

[Illustration: Map I.

  GAUL c. 909–941.

  Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.      London, Macmillan & Co.
]

This little county of Anjou, of which Fulk thus became the first
hereditary count, ended by overshadowing in political importance
all the other divisions which made up the duchy of France. In point
of territorial extent Anjou, at its present stage, was one of the
smallest of the under-fiefs of the duchy. The dominions of Theobald
the Trickster, the first count of Blois and Chartres, were far larger
than those of Fulk; and so was the county of Maine or Cenomannia,
which lay to the north of Anjou on the right bank of the Loire. Yet in
a few generations Blois and Maine were both alike outstripped by the
little Angevin march. The proud independence of Maine proved her ruin
as well as her glory. She too was a border-land; her western frontier
marched with that of Britanny, her northern with that of a great
Scandinavian settlement which was growing into the duchy of Normandy.
But her political status was altogether undefined and insecure. France
and Normandy alike claimed the overlordship of Maine; Maine herself
acknowledged the claims of neither; and this uncertain condition placed
her at the mercy of her neighbours to north and south, and made her a
bone of contention between them and a battle-ground for their quarrels
till the day when all three were united. Blois and Chartres, on the
other hand, with their dependency Touraine, stood like Anjou on a
perfectly definite footing as recognised under-fiefs of the duchy of
France. In the extent of their territory, and in the natural resources
derived from the fertility of its soil and the number and wealth of
its towns, the counts of Blois had at starting a very considerable
advantage over the Angevins. But this seeming advantage proved in a
few years to be a disadvantage. The house of Blois grew too fast, and
soon outgrew its strength; its dominions became straggling; and when
they straggled out eastward into Champagne, what was gained at one end
was lost at the other, and Touraine, the most precious possession of
the counts of Blois, was absorbed in the gradual steady advance of the
Angevins.

Anjou’s position as a marchland marked her out for a special career.
Forming the extreme south-western corner of France properly so called,
divided from Aquitania by the Loire, from Britanny by the Mayenne,
she had the advantage of a strong and compact geographical situation
to start with. Her political position was equally favourable; she was
neither hindered and isolated like Maine by a desperate endeavour
to reclaim a lost independence, nor led astray by a multiplicity of
scattered interests like Blois. She had simply to take her choice
between the two alternatives which lie before every marchland. Such a
land must either submit to be swallowed up piecemeal by its neighbours,
or it must in sheer self-defence swallow up some of them; to keep
what it has got, it must get more. Anjou, as represented by Fulk the
Red and his successors, strongly embraced this latter alternative.
The growth of the Angevin power during the next two centuries was due
chiefly to the character of its rulers, working in a sphere which gave
exceptional scope for the exercise of their peculiar gifts. Whoever
Fulk’s real ancestors may have been, there can be no question that his
descendants were a very remarkable race. From first to last there is
a strong family likeness among them all. The first thing that strikes
one about them is their thoroughness; whatsoever their hands found to
do, whether it were good or evil, they did it with all their might.
Nearly all of them were men of great and varied natural powers, gifted
with a lofty military capacity and a deep political insight, and with
a taste and a talent for all kinds of pursuits, into which they threw
themselves with the full ardour of their stirring, restless temper.
Daring, but not rash; persevering, watchful, tenacious; sometimes
seeming utterly unscrupulous, yet with an odd vein of irregular
piety running through the characters of many of them, and coming to
light in the strangest shapes and at the most unexpected moments;
passionate almost as madmen, but with a method in their madness--the
Angevin counts were patriots in their way; for their chief aim was
aggrandizement, but it was the aggrandizement of Anjou as well as of
themselves. They were not to be led away, like their rivals of Blois,
by visionary schemes of merely personal promotion involving neglect of
their own little home-county; they were proud and fond of their “black
Angers” on its steep above the Mayenne, and never forgot that there was
the centre whence their power was to spread to the ends of the earth.
It is easy to see how exactly such a race as this was fitted for its
post in Anjou. Given such men in such a place, we can scarcely wonder
at what they made of it.

The Angers in which Fulk came to rule as count, about the time when
Æthelstan succeeded Eadward the Elder as king of Wessex, was a town
not of dark slate walls as it is chiefly now, but of red flintstone
and redder brick, such as the medieval builders long copied from the
works of their Roman masters, and such as may still be found embedded
in the outer walls of the bishop’s palace and half hidden behind the
mighty black bastions of the later castle. That castle covers, or
rather encloses, the site of a hall which Count Odo, the successor of
the traitor Lambert, had built about the year 851 on ground acquired
by exchange with Bishop Dodo. For some time after Frankish counts
had been substituted for Roman prefects, the spiritual and temporal
rulers of Angers had continued to dwell side by side on the hill-top;
Odo, however, instead of again occupying the palace which Lambert had
deserted, made it over to the bishop in return for a plot of ground
lying just outside the south-west corner of the city wall. There he
built himself a house, with the river at its feet and a vine-clad hill
at its back; and there from that time forth was the dwelling-place of
the Angevin counts.[243] Fulk the Red took up his abode there in the
early days of a great political transition which was to change the
kingdom of the West-Franks into a kingdom of Parisian France. Half
a century had yet to elapse before the transition was accomplished;
at its present stage indeed few could foresee its ultimate issue. If
the ducal house of Paris had many friends, it had also many foes. The
old Karolingian nobility was slowly dying out or sinking into the
background before the new nobility of the sword; the great house of
Vermandois had thrown its weight into the scale with the advancing
power; but there were still many who looked with contempt and disgust
on the new order of things, on the house of Paris and all its
connexions. The count of Anjou was wedged in between powers anything
but favourably disposed towards him and his patrons. The princes of
Aquitania looked scornfully across the Loire at the upstarts on its
northern bank; little as they recked of any authority beyond their
river-barrier, the only one which they acknowledged at all was that
of the Karolingian king at Laon. The Bretons beyond the Mayenne were
as far from being subdued as ever. Within the duchy of France itself,
one little corner was equally scornful of the dukes and of their
partisans; Maine, although from its geographical position necessarily
reckoned part of the duchy “between Seine and Loire,” still refused to
acknowledge any such reckoning; its ruling house, as well as the great
nobles of the South, claimed to have inherited the traditions of the
Roman Empire and the blood of its Frankish conquerors. In the eyes of
the Cenomannian counts, who traced their pedigree from a nephew of
Charles the Great, the heirs of Tortulf the Forester were nothing but
upstart barbarians.

        [243] See note B at end of chapter.

Their disdain, however, mattered little to Fulk. In those critical
times, he who had the keenest sword, the strongest arm, the clearest
head and the boldest heart, had the best title to nobility--a title
whose validity all were sooner or later compelled to acknowledge. Fulk
held Anjou by the grace of God, the favour of his lord the duke, and
the might of his own good sword. He was, however, no mere man of war;
he was quite willing to strengthen his position by peaceful means. One
method of so doing was suggested by his father’s example; it was one
which in all ages finds favour with ambitious men of obscure origin,
and which was to be specially characteristic of the Angevin house. As
Ingelger had married Ælendis of Amboise, so Fulk sought and won the
hand of another maiden of Touraine, Roscilla, the daughter of Warner,
lord of Loches, Villentras and Haye. It can only have been as the dowry
of his wife that Fulk came into possession of the most valuable portion
of her father’s lands, the township of Loches.[244] It lay some twenty
miles south of Amboise, on the left bank of the Indre, a little river
which takes its rise in the plains of Berry and winds along a wooded
valley, through some of the most romantic scenery of southern Touraine,
to fall into the Loire about half way between Amboise and Angers. In
a loop of the river, sheltered on the south and west by a belt of
woodland which for centuries to come was a favourite hunting-ground of
Roscilla’s descendants, rose a pyramidal height of rock on whose steep
sides the houses of the little township clustered round a church said
to have been built in the sixth century by a holy man from southern
Gaul, named Ursus, the “S. Ours” whom Loches still venerates as its
patron saint.[245] By the acquisition of Loches Fulk had gained in the
heart of southern Touraine a foot-hold which, coupled with that which
he already possessed at Amboise, might one day serve as a basis for the
conquest of the whole district.

        [244] _Gesta Cons. Andeg._ (Marchegay, _Comtes d’Anjou_), pp.
        65, 66. The pedigree there given to Roscilla is impossible.

        [245] The life of S. Ours is in Gregory of Tours, _Vitæ
        Patrum_, c. xviii.

A few years before Fulk’s investiture as count of Anjou, the relations
between the West-Frankish kingdom and its northern foes had entered
upon a new phase. In 912 King Charles the Simple and Duke Hugh of
Paris, finding themselves unable to wrest back from a pirate leader
called Hrolf the Ganger the lands which he had won around the mouth
of the Seine, made a virtue of necessity, and by a treaty concluded
at St.-Clair-sur-Epte granted to Hrolf a formal investiture of his
conquest, on condition of homage to the king and conversion to the
Christian faith. Tradition told how a rough Danish soldier, bidden to
perform the homage in Hrolf’s stead, kissed indeed the foot of Charles
the Simple, but upset him and his throne in doing so; and although to
the declining Karolingian monarchy the new power thus established at
the mouth of the Seine was useful as a counterpoise to that of the
Parisian dukes, yet the story is not altogether an inapt parable of
the relations between the duchy of Normandy and its royal overlord
during several generations. The homage and the conversion of Hrolf and
his comrades were alike little more than nominal. His son, William
Longsword, strove hard to force upon his people the manners, the
tongue, the outward civilization of their French neighbours; but to
those neighbours even he was still only a “leader of the pirates.” The
plundering, burning, slaughtering raids did indeed become less frequent
and less horrible under him than they had been in his father’s heathen
days; but they were far from having ceased. Politically indeed it was
William’s support alone that enabled Charles the Simple to carry on
to his life’s end a fairly successful struggle with a rival claimant
of his crown, Rudolf of Burgundy, a brother-in-law of Hugh, duke of
the French. No sooner was Charles dead and Rudolf seated on his throne
than the hostility of the northmen to the new king broke out afresh
in a pirate-raid which swept across the Norman border, past Orléans
and through the Gâtinais, into the very heart of the kingdom, to the
abbey of S. Benedict at Fleury on the Loire. It was not the first time
the monastery had been ravaged by pirates; the abbot was now evidently
expecting their attack, for he had called to his aid Count Gilbald of
Auxerre and Ingelger of Anjou, Fulk’s eldest son, who, young as he was,
had already made himself a name in battle with the northmen. The fight
was a stubborn one; the defenders of Fleury had resolved to maintain
it to their last gasp, and when at length all was over there was
scarcely a man of them left to tell the tale. The young heir of Anjou,
taken prisoner by the pirates, was slaughtered beneath the shadow of
S. Benet’s abbey as Count Robert the Brave had been slaughtered long
ago at the bridge of Sarthe.[246] Fortunately, however, the future
of the Angevin house did not depend solely on the life thus cut off
in its promise. Two sons yet remained to Fulk. The duty of stepping
into Ingelger’s place fell upon the youngest, for the second, Guy, was
already in holy orders. Eight years later, in 937, Duke Hugh of Paris,
the great maker of kings and bishops, who had just restored Louis
From-over-sea to the throne of his father Charles the Simple, procured
Guy’s elevation to the see of Soissons.[247] The son’s promotion was
doubtless owed to the long and steady service of the father; but the
young bishop soon shewed himself worthy of consideration on his own
account. He played a conspicuous part in the politics of his time, both
ecclesiastical and secular; he adhered firmly to the party of Duke Hugh
and his brother-in-law Herbert of Vermandois, and even carried his
devotion to them so far as to consecrate Herbert’s little son Hugh, a
child six years old, to the archbishopric of Reims in 940;[248] and
through all the scandals and censures which naturally resulted from
this glaringly uncanonical appointment Guy stuck to his boy-archbishop
with a courage worthy of a better cause. He could, however, shew
zeal for the Karolingian king as well as for the Parisian duke. When
in 945 Louis From-beyond-sea fell a prisoner into the hands of the
Normans, they demanded as the condition of his release that his two
sons should be given them as hostages. On Queen Gerberga’s refusal to
trust them with her eldest boy, the bishop of Soissons offered himself
in the child’s stead, and the Normans, well knowing his importance in
the realm, willingly accepted the substitution.[249] The dauntless
Angevin was possibly more at home in the custody of valiant enemies
than amid the ecclesiastical censures which fell thick upon him for
his proceedings in connexion with Hugh of Reims, and from which he was
only absolved in 948 by the synod of Trier.[250] His father was then no
longer count of Anjou. A year after Hugh’s consecration, in the winter
of 941 or the early spring of 942, Fulk the Red died “in a good old
age,” leaving the marchland which his sword had won and guarded so well
to his youngest son, Fulk the Good.[251]

        [246] _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 239.
        The true date is shewn by a charter of Fulk, in Mabille’s
        Introd. to _Comtes d’Anjou, pièces justif._ no. vi., p. ci.

        [247] Chron. Frodoard, a. 937 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        viii. p. 192).

        [248] Richer, l. ii. c. 82.

        [249] Richer, l. ii. c. 48; _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay,
        _Comtes_), p. 66, where the king is miscalled Charles the
        Simple.

        [250] Chron. Frodoard, a. 948 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        viii. p. 204). Richer, l. ii. c. 82.

        [251] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 67. The date is
        proved by two charters, one dated August 941, signed by “Fulco
        comes” and “Fulco filius ejus” (Mabille, _ibid._, introd.,
        _pièces justif._, no. viii. p. cv); the other, dated May 942,
        and signed by one Fulk only (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. ix. p.
        723).

The reign of the second Count Fulk is the traditional golden age of
Anjou. Under him, she is the proverbially happy land which has no
history. While the name of the bishop of Soissons is conspicuous in
court and camp, that of his brother the count is never once heard; he
waged no wars,[252] he took no share in politics; the annalists of the
time find nothing to record of him. But if there is no history, there
is plenty of tradition and legend to set before us a charming picture
of the Good Count’s manner of life. The arts he cultivated were those
of peace; his gentle disposition and refined taste led him to pursuits
and habits which in those rough days were almost wholly associated
with the clerical profession. His favourite place of retirement,
the special object of his reverence and care, was the church of S.
Martin at Châteauneuf by Tours. There were enshrined the relics of the
“Apostle of the Gauls”; after many a journey to and fro, many a narrow
escape from the sacrilegious hands of the northmen, they had been
finally brought back to their home, so local tradition said, under the
care of Fulk’s grandfather Ingelger. The church was now a collegiate
foundation, served by a body of secular canons under the joint control
of a dean and--according to an evil usage of the period--a lay-abbot
who had only to enjoy his revenues on pretence of watching over the
temporal interests of the church. Since the time of Hugh of Burgundy
the abbacy of S. Martin’s had always been held by the head of the ducal
house of France; and it was doubtless their influence which procured
a canonry in their church for Fulk of Anjou. His greatest delight was
to escape from the cares of government and go to keep the festival
of S. Martin with the chapter of Châteauneuf; there he would lodge
in the house of one or other of the clergy, living in every respect
just as they did, and refusing to be called by his worldly title; not
till after he was gone did the count take care to make up for whatever
little expense his host might have incurred in receiving the honorary
canon.[253] While there he diligently fulfilled the duties of his
office, never failing to take his part in the sacred services. He was
not only a scholar, he was a poet, and had himself composed anthems in
honour of S. Martin.[254] One Martinmas eve King Louis From-beyond-sea
came to pay his devotions at the shrine of the patron saint of Tours.
As he and his suite entered the church at evensong, there they saw
Fulk, in his canon’s robe, sitting in his usual place next the dean,
and chanting the Psalms, book in hand. The courtiers pointed at him
mockingly--“See, the count of Anjou has turned clerk!” and the king
joined in their mockery. The letter which the “clerk” wrote to Louis,
when their jesting came round to his ears, has passed into a proverb:
“Know, my lord, that an unlettered king is but a crowned ass.”[255]
Fulk was indeed a living proof that it is possible to make the
contemplative life of the scholar a help and not a hindrance to the
active life of the statesman. The poet-canon was no mere dreamer; he
was a practical, energetic ruler, who worked hard at the improvement
and cultivation, material as well as intellectual, of his little
marchland, rebuilding the churches and the towns that had been laid
waste by the northmen, and striving to make up for the losses sustained
during the long years of war. The struggle was completely over now; a
great victory of King Rudolf, in the year after Ingelger’s death,[256]
had finally driven the pirates from the Loire; and there was nothing
to hinder Fulk’s work of peace. The soil had grown rich during the
years it had lain fallow, and now repaid with an abundant harvest the
labours of the husbandman; the report of its fertility and the fame of
Fulk’s wise government soon spread into the neighbouring districts; and
settlers from all the country round came to help in re-peopling and
cultivating the marchland.[257] This idyl of peace lasted for twenty
years, and ended only with the life of Fulk. In his last years he
became involved in the intricacies of Breton politics, and storm-clouds
began to gather on his western border; but they never broke over Anjou
itself till the Good Count was gone.

        [252] “Iste Fulco nulla bella gessit.” _Gesta Cons._
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 69.

        [253] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 70.

        [254] _Ib._ pp. 71, 72.

        [255] “Scitote, domine, quod rex illitteratus est asinus
        coronatus.” _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 71. It
        is curious that John of Salisbury, writing at the court of
        Henry of Anjou some years before the compilation of the _Gesta
        Consulum_, quotes the saying as coming from “literis quas
        _Regem Romanorum_ ad Francorum regem transmisisse recolo”
        (_Polycraticus_, l. iv. c. 6; Giles, vol. iii. p. 237). The
        proverb was well known in the time of Henry I.; see Will. Malm.
        _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 390 (Hardy, p. 616).

        [256] _Fragm. Hist. Franc._ in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        viii. p. 298.

        [257] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 74, 75.

The old Breton kingdom had now sunk into a duchy which was constantly
a prey to civil war. The ruling house of the counts of Nantes were at
perpetual strife with their rivals of Rennes. Alan Barbetorte, count
of Nantes, had been compelled to flee the country and take shelter in
England, at the general refuge of all exiles, the court of Æthelstan,
till a treaty between Æthelstan’s successor Eadmund and Louis
From-over-sea restored him to the dukedom of Britanny for the rest of
his life. He died in 952, leaving his duchy and his infant son Drogo to
the care of his wife’s brother, Theobald, count of Blois and Chartres,
a wily, unscrupulous politician known by the well-deserved epithet
of “the Trickster,” who at once resolved to turn his brother-in-law’s
dying charge to account for purposes of his own. But between his own
territories and the Breton duchy lay the Angevin march; his first step
therefore must be to make a friend of its ruler. For this end a very
simple means presented itself. Fulk’s wife had left him a widower with
one son;[258] Theobald offered him the hand of his sister, the widow
of Alan, and with it half the city and county of Nantes, to have and
to hold during Drogo’s minority; while he gave the other half to the
rival claimant of the duchy, Juhel Berenger of Rennes, under promise of
obedience to himself as overlord.[259] Unhappily, the re-marriage of
Alan’s widow was soon followed by the death of her child. In later days
Breton suspicion laid the blame upon his step-father; but the story has
come down to us in a shape so extremely improbable that it can leave no
stain on the memory of the Good Count.[260] Two sons of Alan, both much
older than Drogo, still remained. But they were not sons of Drogo’s
mother; Fulk therefore might justly think himself entitled to dispute
their claims to the succession, and hold that, in default of lawful
heirs, the heritage of Duke Alan should pass, as the dowry of the
widow, to her second husband--a practice very common in that age. And
Fulk would naturally feel his case strengthened by the fact that part
at least of the debateable land--that is, nearly half the territory
between the Mayenne and Nantes itself--had once been Angevin ground.

        [258] Her name was Gerberga, as appears by a charter of her
        son, Geoffrey Greygown, quoted in _Art de vérifier les Dates_,
        vol. xiii. p. 47.

        [259] Chron. Brioc. in Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i.
        cols. 29, 30. Chron. Namnet., _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. viii.
        p. 277.

        [260] The Chron. Brioc. (Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol.
        i. col. 30) tells how “ille comes Fulco Andegavensis, vir
        diabolicus et maledictus,” bribed the child’s nurse to kill him
        by pouring boiling water on his head when she was giving him
        a bath. The fact that the Angevin count is further described
        as “Fulco Rufus” (_ib._ col. 29), would alone throw some doubt
        on the accuracy of the writer. Moreover, this Chronicle of S.
        Brieuc is a late compilation, and such a circumstantial account
        of a matter which, if it really happened, must have been
        carefully hushed up at the time, is open to grave suspicion
        when unconfirmed by any other testimony. The Angevin accounts
        of Fulk’s character may fairly be set against it: they rest on
        quite as good authority. But the sequel of the story furnishes
        a yet stronger argument, for it shows that the murder would
        have been what most of the Angevin counts looked upon as much
        worse than a crime--a great blunder for Fulk’s own interest.

Just at this crisis the Normans made a raid upon Britanny, of which
their dukes claimed the overlordship. They captured the bishop of
Nantes, and the citizens, thus left without a leader of any kind, and
in hourly fear of being attacked by the “pirates,” sent an urgent
appeal to Fulk for help. Fulk promised to send them succour, but some
delay occurred; at the end of a week’s waiting the people of Nantes
acted for themselves, and succeeded in putting the invaders to flight.
Indignant at the Angevin count’s failure to help, they threw off all
allegiance to him and chose for their ruler Hoel, one of the sons of
Alan Barbetorte.[261]

        [261] Chron. Brioc., Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i.
        cols. 30, 31. Chron. Namnet., _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. viii.
        p. 277.

These clouds on the western horizon did not trouble the peace of Fulk’s
last hour. As he knelt to receive the holy communion in S. Martin’s
church on one of the feasts of the patron saint, a slight feeling of
illness came over him; he returned to his place in the choir, and
there, in the arms of his brother-canons, passed quietly away.[262]
We cannot doubt that they laid him to rest in the church he had loved
so well.[263] With him was buried the peace of the Marchland. Never
again was it to have a ruler who “waged no wars”; never again, till
the title of count of Anjou was on the eve of being merged in loftier
appellations, was that title to be borne by one whose character might
give him some claim to share the epithet of “the Good,” although
circumstances caused him to lead a very different life. Fulk the
Second stands all alone as the ideal Angevin count, and it is in this
point of view that the legends of his life--for we cannot call them
history--have a value of their own. The most famous of them all
is, in its original shape, a charming bit of pure Christian poetry.
One day--so the tradition ran--the count, on his way to Tours, was
accosted by a leper desiring to be carried to S. Martin’s. All shrank
in horror from the wretched being except Fulk, who at once took him on
his shoulders and carried him to the church-door. There his burthen
suddenly vanished; and at the midnight service, as the count-canon sat
in his stall, he beheld in a trance S. Martin, who told him that in
his charity he had, like another S. Christopher, unwittingly carried
the Lord Himself.[264] Later generations added a sequel to the story.
Fulk, they said, after his return to Angers, was further rewarded by a
second vision; an angel came to him and foretold that his successors to
the ninth generation should extend their power even to the ends of the
earth.[265] At the time when this prophecy appears in history, it had
already reached its fulfilment. In all likelihood it was then a recent
invention; in the legend to which it was attached it has obviously no
natural place. But its introduction into the story of Fulk the Good
was prompted by a significant instinct. At the height of their power
and their glory, the reckless, ruthless house of Anjou still did not
scorn to believe that their greatness had been foretold not to the
warrior-founder, not to the bravest of his descendants, but to the good
count who sought after righteousness and peace. Even they were willing,
in theory at least, to accept the dominion of the earth as the promised
reward not of valour but of charity.

        [262] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 75. According to
        _Gallia Christiana_ (vol. xiv. col. 808) the Norman attack on
        Nantes took place about 960. It is probable that Fulk died soon
        after; but no charters of his successor are forthcoming until
        966.

        [263] The _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 67, 75) say
        that Ingelger, Fulk the Red and Fulk the Good were all buried
        in S. Martin’s. Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 376) says
        the place of their burial is unknown to him. The statement of
        the later writers therefore is mere guess-work or invention;
        but in the case of Fulk the Good it is probably right.

        [264] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 73, 74.

        [265] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 149.

Whatever may be the origin of the prophecy, however, it was in the
reign of Fulk’s son and successor Geoffrey Greygown that the first
steps were taken towards its realization. Legend has been as busy with
the first Geoffrey of Anjou as with his father; but it is legend of
a very different kind. The epic bards of the marchland singled out
Geoffrey for their special favourite; in their hands he became the hero
of marvellous combats, of impossible deeds of knightly prowess and
strategical skill, of marvellous stories utterly unhistoric in form,
but significant as indications of the character popularly attributed
to him--a character quite borne out by those parts of his career which
are attested by authentic history. Whatever share of Fulk’s more
refined tastes may have been inherited by either of his sons seems to
have fallen to the second, Guy, who early passed into the quiet life of
the monk in the abbey of S. Paul at Corméri in Touraine.[266] The elder
was little more than a rough, dashing soldier, whose careless temper
shewed itself in his very dress. Clad in the coarse grey woollen tunic
of the Angevin peasantry,[267] Geoffrey Greygown made himself alike by
his simple attire and by his daring valour a conspicuous figure in the
courts and camps of King Lothar and Duke Hugh.

        [266] _Gall. Christ._, vol. xiv. col. 258.

        [267] “Indutus tunicâ illius panni quem Franci Grisetum vocant,
        nos Andegavi Buretum.” _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p.
        81.

The receiver of Fulk’s famous letter had gone before him to the grave;
Louis From-over-sea, the grandson of Eadward the Elder, the last
Karolingian worthy of his race, had died in 954. His death brought the
house of France a step nearer to the throne; but it was still only one
step. Lothar, the son of Louis, was crowned in his father’s stead; two
years later the king-maker followed the king; and thenceforth his son,
the new duke of the French, Hugh Capet, steadily prepared to exchange
his ducal cap for a crown which nevertheless he was too prudent to
seize before the time. In the face of countless difficulties, Louis in
his eighteen years’ reign had contrived to restore the monarchy of Laon
to a very real kingship. His greatest support in this task had been his
wife’s brother, the Emperor Otto the Great. The two brothers-in-law,
who had come to their thrones in the same year, were fast friends
in life and death; and Otto remained the faithful guardian of his
widowed sister and her son. So long as he lived, Hugh’s best policy
was peace; and while Hugh remained quiet, there was little scope for
military or political action on the part of his adherent Geoffrey of
Anjou. In 973, however, the great Emperor died; and soon after he was
gone the alliance between the Eastern and Western Franks began to shew
signs of breaking. Lothar and Otto II. were brothers-in-law as well
as cousins, but they were not friends as their fathers had been. In
an evil hour Lothar was seized with a wild longing to regain the land
which bore his name,--that fragment of the old “Middle Kingdom,” known
as the duchy of Lotharingia or Lorraine, which after long fluctuating
between its attachment to the imperial crown and its loyalty to the
Karolingian house had finally cast in its lot with the Empire, with the
full assent of Louis From-over-sea. Lothar brooded over its loss till
in 978, when Otto and his queen were holding their court at Aachen,
his jealousy could no longer endure the sight of his rival so near
the border, and he summoned the nobles of his realm to an expedition
into Lorraine.[268] Nothing could better fall in with the plans of
Hugh Capet than a breach between Lothar and Otto; the call to arms was
readily answered by the duke and his followers, and the grey tunic of
the Angevin count was conspicuous at the muster.[269] The suddenness
of Lothar’s march compelled Otto to make a hasty retreat from Aachen;
but all that the West-Franks gained was a mass of plunder, and the
vain glory of turning the great bronze eagle on the palace of Charles
the Great towards the east instead of the west.[270] While they were
plundering Aachen Otto was preparing a counter-invasion.[271] Bursting
upon the western realm, he drove the king to cross the Seine and seek
help of the duke, and before Hugh could gather troops enough to stop
him he had made his way to the gates of Paris. For a while the French
and the Germans lay encamped on opposite banks of the river, the duke
waiting till his troops came up, and beguiling the time with skirmishes
and trials of individual valour.[272] But as soon as Otto perceived
that his adversaries were becoming dangerous he struck his tents and
marched rapidly homewards, satisfied with having inflicted on his rash
cousin a far greater alarm and more serious damage than he had himself
suffered from Lothar’s wild raid.[273]

        [268] Richer, l. iii. c. 68.

        [269] Chron. Vindoc. a. 954 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 163).

        [270] Richer, l. iii. c. 71.

        [271] The exact date of Lothar’s attack on Lotharingia seems to
        be nowhere stated. That of Otto’s invasion of Gaul, however,
        which clearly followed it immediately, is variously given as
        977 (Chronn. S. Albin. and Vindoc., Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp.
        21, 163) and 978 (Chronn. S. Flor. Salm. and S. Maxent., _ib._
        pp. 186, 381). The later date is adopted by Mr. Freeman, _Norm.
        Conq._, vol. i. p. 264.

        [272] Among these the Angevin writers (_Gesta Cons._,
        Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 79, 80) introduce Geoffrey Greygown’s
        fight with a gigantic Dane, Æthelwulf. It seems to be only
        another version, adorned with reminiscences of David and
        Goliath, of Richer’s account (l. iii. c. 76) of a fight between
        a German champion and a man named Ivo; and the whole story of
        this war in the _Gesta_ is full of hopeless confusions and
        anachronisms.

        [273] Richer, l. iii. cc. 72–77.

From that time forth, at least, Geoffrey Greygown’s life was a busy and
a stirring one. It seems to have been in the year of the Lotharingian
raid that he married his second wife, Adela, countess in her own right
of Chalon-sur-Saône, and now the widow of Count Lambert of Autun.[274]
By his first marriage, with another Adela, he seems to have had only
a daughter, Hermengard, who had been married as early as 970[275] to
Conan the Crooked, count of Rennes. There can be little doubt that
this marriage was a stroke of policy on Geoffrey’s part, intended to
pave the way for Angevin intervention in the affairs of Britanny. The
claims of Fulk the Good to the overlordship of Nantes had of course
expired with him; whatever rights the widow of Duke Alan might carry
to her second husband, they could not pass to her stepson. Still
Geoffrey could hardly fail to cherish designs upon, at least, the
debateable ground which lay between the Mayenne and the original county
of Nantes. Meanwhile the house of Rennes had managed to establish,
by the right of the stronger, its claim to the dukedom of Britanny.
Hoel, a son of Alan Barbetorte, remained count of Nantes for nearly
twenty years after Fulk’s death; his career was ended at last by the
hand of an assassin;[276] and as his only child was an infant, his
brother Guerech, already bishop of Nantes, was called upon to succeed
him, as the only surviving descendant of Alan who was capable of
defending the state. Guerech was far better fitted for a secular than
for an ecclesiastical ruler; as bishop, his chief care was to restore
or rebuild his cathedral, and for this object he was so eager in
collecting contributions that he made a journey to the court of Lothar
to ask help of the king in person. His way home lay directly through
Anjou. Geoffrey felt that his opportunity had come; and he set the
first example of a mode of action which thenceforth became a settled
practice of the Angevin counts. He laid traps in all directions to
catch the unwary traveller, took him captive, and only let him go after
extorting homage not merely for the debateable land, but also for
Nantes itself; in a word, for all that part of Britanny which had been
held or claimed by Fulk as Drogo’s guardian.[277]

        [274] See note C at end of chapter.

        [275] Morice, _Hist. Bret._, vol. i. p. 63. See note C at end
        of chapter.

        [276] Chron. Brioc., Morice, _preuves_, vol. i., p. 31. Chron.
        Namnet., _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. viii. p. 278. “C. 980,”
        notes the editor in the margin.

        [277] Chron. Brioc., Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i.
        col. 32.

Geoffrey had gained his hold over Nantes; but in so doing he had
brought upon himself the wrath of his son-in-law. Conan, as duke of
Britanny, claimed for himself the overlordship of Nantes, and regarded
Guerech’s enforced homage to Geoffrey as an infringement of his own
rights. His elder sons set out to attack their step-mother’s father,
made a raid upon Anjou, and were only turned back from the very gates
of Angers by a vigorous sally of Geoffrey himself.[278] Conan next
turned his vengeance upon the unlucky count-bishop of Nantes. The
Angevin and his unwilling vassal made common cause against their common
enemy, who marched against their united forces, bringing with him a
contingent of the old ravagers of Nantes--the Normans.[279] The rivals
met not far from Nantes, on the _lande_ of Conquereux, one of those
soft, boggy heaths so common in Britanny; and the issue of the fight
was recorded in an Angevin proverb--“Like the battle of Conquereux,
where the crooked overcame the straight.”[280] Conan was, however,
severely wounded, and does not appear to have followed up his victory;
and the Nantes question was left to be fought out ten years later, on
the very same ground, by Geoffrey’s youthful successor.

        [278] See note D at end of chapter.

        [279] Chron. Brioc., as above.

        [280] See note D at end of chapter.

The death of Lothar, early in March 986, brought Hugh Capet within
one step of the throne. The king’s last years had been spent in
endeavouring to secure the succession to his son by obtaining for him
the homage of the princes of Aquitaine and the support of the duke
of the French--two objects not very easy to combine, for the great
duchies north and south of the Loire were divided by an irreconcileable
antipathy. In 956 William “Tête-d’Etoupe,” or the “Shockhead,” strong
in his triple power as count of Poitou, count of Auvergne and duke
of Aquitaine--strong, too, in his alliance with Normandy, for he had
married a sister of his namesake of the Long Sword--had bidden defiance
not unsuccessfully to Lothar and Hugh the Great both at once.[281] In
961 Lothar granted the county of Poitiers to Hugh;[282] but all he
could give was an empty title; when William Shockhead died in 963,[283]
his son William Fierabras stepped into his place as count of Poitou,
duke of Aquitaine, and leader of the opposition to Hugh Capet.

        [281] Richer, l. iii. cc. 3–5.

        [282] _Ib._ c. 13.

        [283] Chron. S. Maxent. ad ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 381).

It was now evident that the line of Charles the Great was about
to expire in a worthless boy. While the young King Louis, as the
chroniclers say, “did nothing,”[284] the duke of the French and his
followers were almost openly preparing for the last step of all. The
count of Anjou, following as ever closely in the wake of his overlord,
now ventured on a bold aggression. Half by force, half by fraud, he
had already carried his power beyond the Mayenne; he now crossed the
Loire and attacked his southern neighbour the count of Poitou. Marching
boldly down the road which led from Angers to Poitiers, he took Loudun,
and was met at Les Roches by William Fierabras, whom he defeated in
a pitched battle and pursued as far as a place which in the next
generation was marked by the castle of Mirebeau. Of the subsequent
details of the war we know nothing; it ended however in a compromise;
Geoffrey kept the lands which he had won, but he kept them as the “man”
of Duke William.[285] They seem to have consisted of a series of small
fiefs scattered along the valleys of the little rivers Layon, Argenton,
Thouet and Dive, which furrow the surface of northern Poitou.[286] The
most important was Loudun, a little town some eighteen miles north-west
of Poitiers. Even to-day its gloomy, crooked, rough-paved streets,
its curious old houses, its quaintly-attired people, have a strangely
old-world look; lines within lines of broken wall wind round the hill
on whose slope the town is built, and in their midst stands a great
square keep, the work of Geoffrey’s successors. He had won a footing
in Poitou; they learned to use it for ends of which, perhaps, he could
as yet scarcely dream. Loudun looked southward to Poitiers, but it
looked northward and eastward too, up the valley of the Thouet which
led straight up to Saumur, the border-fortress of Touraine and Anjou,
and across the valley of the Vienne which led from the Angevin frontier
into the heart of southern Touraine. Precious as it might be in itself,
Loudun was soon to be far more precious as a point of vantage not so
much against the lord of Poitiers as against the lord of Chinon, Saumur
and Tours.

        [284] “Ludovicus qui nihil fecit” is the original form of the
        nickname usually rendered by “le Fainéant.”

        [285] See note D at end of chapter.

        [286] Fulk Nerra’s Poitevin castles, Maulévrier, Thouars, etc.,
        must have been built on the ground won by Geoffrey.

The little marchland had thus openly begun her career of aggression on
the west and on the south. It seems that a further promise of extension
to the northward was now held by Hugh Capet before the eyes of his
faithful Angevin friend. Geoffrey’s northern neighbour was as little
disposed as the southern to welcome the coming king. The overlordship
of Maine was claimed by the duke of the Normans on the strength of a
grant made to Hrolf in 924 by King Rudolf; it was claimed by the duke
of the French on the strength of another grant made earlier in the same
year by Charles the Simple to Hugh the Great,[287] as well as in virtue
of the original definition of their duchy “between Seine and Loire”;
but the Cenomannian counts owned no allegiance save to the heirs of
Charles the Great, and firmly refused all obedience to the house of
France. Hugh Capet, now king in all but name, laid upon the lord of
the Angevin march the task of reducing them to submission. He granted
Maine to Geoffrey Greygown[288]--a merely nominal gift at the moment,
for Hugh (or David) of Maine was in full and independent possession
of his county; and generation after generation had to pass away before
the remote consequences of that grant were fully worked out to their
wonderful end. Geoffrey himself had no time to take any steps towards
enforcing his claim. Events came thick and fast in the early summer of
987. King Louis V. was seized at Senlis with one of those sudden and
violent sicknesses so common in that age, and died on May 22. The last
Karolingian king was laid in his grave at Compiègne; the nobles of
the realm came together in a hurried meeting; on the proposal of the
archbishop of Reims they swore to the duke of the French a solemn oath
that they would take no steps towards choosing a ruler till a second
assembly should be held, for which a day was fixed.[289] Hugh knew
now that he had only a few days more to wait. He spent the interval
in besieging a certain Odo, called “Rufinus”--in all likelihood a
rebellious vassal--who was holding out against him at Marson in
Champagne; and with him went his constant adherent Geoffrey of Anjou.
At the end of the month the appointed assembly was held at Senlis.
Passing over the claims of Charles of Lorraine, the only surviving
descendant of the great Emperor, the nobles with one consent offered
the crown to the duke of the French. From his camp before Marson Hugh
went to receive, at Noyon on the 1st of June,[290] the crown for which
he had been waiting all his life. Geoffrey, whom he had left to finish
the siege, fell sick and died before the place, seven weeks after his
patron’s coronation;[291] and his body was carried back from distant
Champagne to be laid by his father’s side in the church of S. Martin at
Tours.[292]

        [287] Chron. Frodoard, a. 924 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        viii. p. 181).

        [288] See note E at end of chapter.

        [289] Richer, l. iv. cc. 5 and 8.

        [290] Richer, l. iv. c. 12. On this Kalckstein (_Geschichte
        des französischen Königthums unter den ersten Capetingern_,
        vol. i. p. 380, note 2), remarks: “Aus Rich. iv. 12 wäre zu
        schliessen, dass Hugo in Noyon gekrönt wurde ... aber eine
        gleichzeitige Urkunde von Fleury entscheidet für Reims. Richer
        gibt wohl in Folge eines Gedächtnissfehlers den 1 Juli (wie für
        Juni zu verbessern seine wird) als Krönungstag. Hist. Francica
        um 1108 verfasst, Aimoin Mirac. S. Bened. ii. 2 (Bouq., x. 210
        u. 341).” The _Hist. Franc. Fragm._ here referred to places
        the crowning at Reims on July 3. Aimoin, however, places it at
        Noyon and gives no date. The question therefore lies really
        between Richer and the Fleury record referred to, but not
        quoted, by Kalckstein; for the two twelfth century writers
        are of no authority at all in comparison with contemporaries.
        We must suppose that the Fleury charter gives the same date
        as the _Hist. Franc. Fragm._ But is it not possible that Hugh
        was really crowned first at Noyon on 1st June, and afterwards
        recrowned with fuller state at Reims a month later?

        [291] Chronn. S. Albin., S. Serg., and Vindoc., a. 987; Rain.
        Andeg. a. 985; S. Maxent. a. 986 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 21,
        134, 164, 9, 382). Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 376.

        [292] Fulk Rechin, as above, and _Gesta Cons._ (_ib._), p. 89,
        say he was buried in S. Martin’s. R. Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. p.
        165) buries him in S. Aubin’s at Angers.

The century of preparation and transition was over; the great change
was accomplished, not to be undone again for eight hundred years.
The first period of strictly French history and the first period of
Angevin history close together. The rulers of the marchland had begun
to shew that they were not to be confined within the limits which
nature itself might seem to have fixed for them; they had stretched
a hand beyond their two river-boundaries, and they had begun to cast
their eyes northward and dream of a claim which was to have yet more
momentous results. In the last years of Geoffrey Greygown we trace a
foreshadowing of the wonderful career which his successor is to begin.
From the shadow we pass to its realization; with the new king and the
new count we enter upon a new era.


NOTE A.

ON THE SOURCES AND AUTHENTICITY OF EARLY ANGEVIN HISTORY.

Our only detailed account of the early Angevins, down to Geoffrey
Greygown, is contained in two books: the _Gesta Consulum
Andegavensium_, by John, monk of Marmoutier, and the _Historia Comitum
Andegavensium_, which goes under the name of Thomas Pactius, prior of
Loches. Both these works were written in the latter part of the twelfth
century; and they may be practically regarded as one, for the latter
is in reality only an abridgement of the former, with a few slight
variations. The _Gesta Consulum_ is avowedly a piece of patchwork. The
author in his “Proœmium” tells us that it is founded on the work of a
certain Abbot Odo which had been recast by Thomas Pactius, prior of
Loches, and to which he himself, John of Marmoutier, had made further
additions from sundry other sources which he enumerates (Marchegay,
_Comtes d’Anjou_, p. 353. This “Proœmium” is there printed at the
head of the _Historia Abbreviata_ instead of the _Gesta Consulum_,
to which, however, it really belongs; see M. Mabille’s introduction,
_ib._ p. xxxi.). The _Historia Comitum Andegavensium_ (_ib._ p. 320)
bears the name of Thomas of Loches, and thus professes to be the
earlier version on which John worked. But it is now known that the work
of Thomas, which still exists in MS., is totally distinct from that
published under his name (see M. Mabille’s introduction to _Comtes
d’Anjou_, pp. xviii., xix.), and, moreover, that the printed _Historia
Comitum_ is really a copy of a series of extracts from Ralf de Diceto’s
_Abbreviationes Chronicorum_--extracts which Ralf himself had taken
from the _Gesta Consulum_ (see Bishop Stubbs’ preface to R. Diceto,
vol. ii. pp. xxiii.–xxix). There is, however, one other source of
information about the early Angevins which, if its author was really
what he professed to be, is of somewhat earlier date and far higher
value, although of very small extent. This is the fragment of the
_Angevin History_ which goes under the name of Count Fulk Rechin. Its
authorship has been questioned, but it has never been disproved; and
one thing at least is certain--the writer, whoever he may have been,
had some notion of historical and chronological possibilities, whereas
John of Marmoutier had none. Fulk Rechin (as we must for the present
call him, without stopping to decide whether he has a right to the
name) gives a negative testimony against all John’s stories about the
earlier members of the Angevin house. He pointedly states that he knows
nothing about the first three counts (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 376),
and he makes no mention of anybody before Ingelger. Now, supposing he
really was Count Fulk IV. of Anjou, it is fairly safe to assume that if
anything had been known about his own forefathers he would have been
more likely to know it than a monk who wrote nearly a hundred years
later. On the other hand, if he was a twelfth-century forger, such a
daring avowal of ignorance, put into the mouth of such a personage,
shews the writer’s disregard of the tales told by the monk, and can
only have been intended to give them the lie direct.

The two first members of the Angevin house, then--Tortulf of Rennes
and his son Tertullus--rest solely on the evidence of these two late
writers. Their accounts are not recommended by intrinsic probability.
We are roused to suspicion by the very first sentence of the _Gesta
Consulum_:--“Fuit vir quidam de Armoricâ Galliâ, nomine Torquatius.
Iste a Britonibus, proprietatem vetusti ac Romani nominis ignorantibus,
corrupto vocabulo Tortulfus dictus fuit” (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 35).
When one finds that his son is called Tertullus, it is impossible not
to suspect that “Torquatius” and “Tertullus” are only two different
attempts to Latinize a genuine Teutonic “Tortulf.” For the lives of
these personages John of Marmoutier gives no distinct dates; but he
tells us that Torquatius was made Forester of Nid-de-Merle by Charles
the Bald, “eo anno quo ab Andegavis et a toto suo regno Normannos
expulit” (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 35). Now this is rather vague, but it
looks as if the date intended were 873. We are next told that Tertullus
went to seek his fortune in France “circa id temporis quo Karolus
Calvus ... ex triarcho monarchus factus, non longo regnavit spatio”
(_ib._ pp. 36, 37), whatever that may mean. The next chronological
landmark is that of the “reversion” of S. Martin, which John copies
from the Cluny treatise _De Reversione B. Martini_, and copies wrong.
Then comes Fulk the Red, on whom he says the whole county of Anjou was
conferred by Duke Hugh of Burgundy, guardian of Charles the Simple, the
county having until then been divided in two parts; and he also says
that Fulk was related to Hugh through his grandmother (_ib._ pp. 64,
65).

There are several unmanageable points in this story. 1. The pedigree
cannot be right. It is clear that John took Hugh the Great (“Hugh
of Burgundy,” as he calls him) to be a son of the earlier Hugh of
Burgundy (one copy of the _Gesta_, that printed by D’Achéry in his
_Spicilegium_, vol. iii. p. 243, actually adds “filius alterius
Hugonis”), and this latter to have been the father of Petronilla, wife
of Tertullus.

The chronology of the life of Fulk the Red, long a matter of mingled
tradition and guess-work, has now been fairly established by the
investigations of M. E. Mabille. This gentleman has examined the
subject in his introduction to MM. Marchegay and Salmon’s edition of
the _Chroniques des Comtes d’Anjou_, and in an article entitled “Les
Invasions normandes dans la Loire,” in the _Bibliothèque de l’Ecole
des Chartes_, series vi. vol. v. pp. 149–194; to each of these works
is appended by way of _pièces justificatives_ a series of charters of
the highest importance for establishing the facts of the early history
of Anjou and Touraine. The first appearance of Fulk is as witness to a
charter given at Tours by Odo, as abbot of S. Martin’s, in April 886.
(Mabille, introd. _Comtes_, p. lxix. note). Now if Fulk the Red was
old enough to be signing charters in 886, his parents must have been
married long before the days of Louis the Stammerer--in 870 at the very
latest, and more likely several years earlier still. His grandparents
therefore (_i.e._ Tertullus and Petronilla) must have been married
before 850. It is possible that Hugh the Abbot who died in 887 may have
had a daughter married as early as this; but it does not seem very
likely.

2. The story of Ingelger’s investiture with Orleans and the Gâtinais
is suspicious. His championship of the slandered countess of Gâtinais
(Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 40–45) is one of those ubiquitous tales which
are past confuting. Still the statement that he somehow acquired lands
in the Gâtinais is in itself not impossible. But the coupling together
of Gâtinais and Orléans is very suspicious. Not one of the historical
descendants of Ingelger had, as far as is known, anything to do with
either place for nearly two hundred years. There is documentary proof
(see the signatures to a charter printed in Mabille’s introd. _Comtes_,
p. lxiv, note 1; the reference there given to Salmon is wrong) that in
942, the year after the death of Fulk the Red, the viscount of Orléans
was one Geoffrey; and he belonged to a totally different family--but
a family which, it seems, did in time acquire the county of Gâtinais,
and in the end became merged in the house of Anjou, when the son of
Geoffrey of Gâtinais and Hermengard of Anjou succeeded his uncle
Geoffrey Martel in 1061. It is impossible not to suspect that the late
Angevin writers took up this story at the wrong end and moved it back
two hundred years.

3. Comes the great question of Ingelger’s investiture with half the
county of Anjou.

In not one of the known documents of the period does Ingelger’s name
appear. The only persons who do appear as rulers of the Angevin march
are Hugh the Abbot and his successor Odo, till we get to Fulk the
Viscount. Fulk’s first appearance in this capacity is in September 898,
when “Fulco vicecomes” signs a charter of Ardradus, brother of Atto,
viscount of Tours (Mabille, Introd. _Comtes_, p. xciii). He witnesses,
by the same title, several charters of Robert the Abbot-Count during
the next two years. In July 905 we have “signum Fulconis Turonorum et
Andecavorum vicecomitis” (_ib._ p. xcv); in October 909 “signum domni
Fulconis Andecavorum comitis” (_ib._ p. xcviii); and in October 912
he again signs among the counts (_ib._ p. lxi, note 4). But in May
914, and again as late as August 924, he resumes the title of viscount
(_ib._ pp. c and lxii, note 2). Five years later, in the seventh year
of King Rudolf, we find a charter granted by Fulk himself, “count of
the Angevins and abbot of S. Aubin and S. Licinius” (_ib._ p. ci); and
thenceforth this is his established title.

These dates at once dispose of R. Diceto’s statement (Stubbs, vol. i.
p. 143) that Fulk succeeded his father Ingelger as second count in
912. They leave us in doubt as to the real date of his appointment as
count; but whether we adopt the earlier date, in or before 909, or the
later one, between 924 and 929, as that of his definite investiture, we
cannot accept the _Gesta’s_ story that it was granted by Hugh the Great
on behalf of Charles the Simple. For in 909 the duke of the French
was not Hugh, but his father Robert; and in 924–929 the king was not
Charles, but Rudolf of Burgundy.

But the chronology is not the only difficulty in the tale of Count
Ingelger. The _Gesta_-writers admit that “another count” (_i.e._ the
former count, Duke Hugh) went on ruling beyond the Mayenne. This at
once raises a question, very important yet very simple--Did the Angevin
March, the March of Robert the Brave and his successors, extend on both
sides of the Mayenne? For the assumption that it did is the ground of
the whole argument for the “bipartite” county.

The old territory of the Andes certainly spread on both sides of
the river. So also, it seems, did the march of Count Lambert. The
commission of a lord marcher is of necessity indefinite; it implies
holding the border-land and extending it into the enemy’s country if
possible. It appears to me that when Lambert turned traitor he carried
out this principle from the other side; when Nantes became Breton,
the whole land up to the Mayenne became Breton too. This view is
distinctly supported by a charter in which Herispoë, in August 852,
styles himself ruler of Britanny and up to the river Mayenne (Lobineau,
_Hist. Bretagne_, vol. ii. col. 55); and it gives the most rational
explanation of the Breton wars of Fulk the Good, Geoffrey Greygown and
Fulk Nerra, which ended in Anjou’s recovery of the debateable ground.
If it is correct, there is an end at once of the “bipartite county”
and of Count Ingelger; “the other count” cannot have ruled west of the
Mayenne, therefore he must have ruled east of it, and there is no room
for any one else.

The one writer whose testimony seems to lend some countenance to that
of the _Gesta_ need not trouble us much. Fulk Rechin (Marchegay,
_Comtes_, p. 374) does call Ingelger the first count; but his own
confession that he knew nothing about his first five ancestors beyond
their names gives us a right to think, in the absence of confirmatory
evidence, that he may have been mistaken in using the title. He says
nothing about the county having ever been bipartite, and his statement
that his forefathers received their honours from Charles the Bald,
not from the house of Paris (_ib._ p. 376), may be due to the same
misconception, strengthened by a desire, which in Fulk Rechin would
be extremely natural, to disclaim all connexion with the “genus impii
Philippi,” or even by an indistinct idea of the investiture of Fulk I.
For, if this is regarded as having taken place between 905 and 909, it
must fall in the reign of Charles the Simple, and might be technically
ascribed to him, though there can be no doubt that it was really owing
to the duke of the French. Every step of Fulk’s life, as we can trace
it in the charters, shows him following closely in the wake of Odo,
Robert and Hugh; and the dependance of Anjou on the duchy of France is
distinctly acknowledged by his grandson.

The latter part of the account of Ingelger in the _Gesta_ (Marchegay,
_Comtes_, pp. 47–62) is copied bodily from the _Tractatus de reversione
B. Martini a Burgundiâ_, which professes to have been written by S. Odo
of Cluny at the request of his foster-brother, Count Fulk the Good.
The wild anachronisms of this treatise have been thoroughly exposed by
its latest editor, M. A. Salmon (_Supplément au Recueil des Chroniques
de Touraine_, pp. xi–xxviii), and M. Mabille (“Les Invasions normandes
dans la Loire et les pérégrinations du corps de S. Martin,” in _Bibl.
de l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. vi. vol. v. pp. 149–194). It is certain,
from the statement of S. Odo’s own biographer John, that the saint was
born in 879 and entered religion in 898; at which time it is evident
that Fulk the Good, the Red Count’s youngest son, must have been quite
a child, if even he was in existence at all. The letters in which he
and the abbot address each other as foster-brothers are therefore
forgeries; and the treatise which these letters introduce is no better.
The only part of it which directly concerns our present subject is
the end, recounting how the body of the Apostle of the Gauls, after a
thirty years’ exile at Auxerre, whither it had been carried to keep it
safe from the sacrilegious hands of Hrolf and his northmen when they
were ravaging Touraine, was brought back in triumph to its home at
Tours on December 13, 887, by Ingelger, count of Gâtinais and Anjou,
and grandson of Hugh, duke of Burgundy. Now there is no doubt at all
that the relics of S. Martin were carried into Burgundy and afterwards
brought back again, and that the feast of the Reversion of S. Martin
on December 13 was regularly celebrated at Tours in commemoration of
the event; but the whole history of the adventures of the relics as
given in this treatise is manifestly wrong in its details; _e.g._ the
statements about Hrolf are ludicrous--the “reversion” is said to have
taken place after his conversion. M. Salmon has gone carefully through
the whole story: M. Mabille has sifted it still more thoroughly. These
two writers have shewn that the body of S. Martin really went through
a great many more “peregrinations” than those recounted in the Cluny
treatise, that the real date of the reversion is 885, and in short that
the treatise is wrong in every one of its dates and every one of the
names of the bishops whom it mentions as concerned in the reversion,
save those of Archbishop Adaland of Tours and his brother Raino, who,
however, was bishop of Angers, not of Orléans as the treatise says. The
passages in the Tours chronicle where Ingelger is described as count of
Anjou are all derived from this source, and therefore prove nothing,
except the writer’s ignorance about counts and bishops alike.

The mention of Archbishop Adaland brings us to another
subject--Ingelger’s marriage. Ralf de Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 139)
says that he married Ælendis, niece of Archbishop Adaland and of Raino,
bishop of Angers, and that these two prelates gave to the young
couple their own hereditary estates at Amboise, in Touraine and in the
Orléanais. The _Gesta Consulum_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 45) say the
same, but afterwards make Raino bishop of Orléans. This story seems to
be a bit of truth which has found its way into a mass of fiction; at
any rate it is neither impossible nor improbable. The author of the
_De Reversione_ is quite right in saying that Archbishop Adaland died
shortly after the return of the relics; his statement, and those of the
Tours Chronicle, that Adaland was consecrated in 870 and died in 887,
are borne out by the same charters which enable us to track the career
of Fulk the Red. As to Raino--there was a Raino ordained bishop of
Angers in 881 (Chron. Vindoc. ad ann. in Marchegay, _Eglises d’Anjou_,
p. 160). The version which makes Orléans his see is derived from the
false Cluny treatise.

Fulk the Red was witnessing charters in 886 and died in 941 or 942. He
must have been born somewhere between 865 and 870; as the traditional
writers say he died “senex et plenus dierum, in bonâ senectute,” it
may have been nearer the earlier date. There is thus no chronological
reason why these two prelates should not have been his mother’s uncles;
and as the house of Anjou certainly acquired Amboise somehow, it may
just as well have been in this way as in any other.


NOTE B.

THE PALACE OF THE COUNTS AT ANGERS.

Not only ordinary English tourists, but English historical scholars
have been led astray in the topography of early Angers by an obstinate
local tradition which long persisted in asserting that the counts and
the bishops of Angers had at some time or other made an exchange of
dwellings; that the old ruined hall within the castle enclosure was
a piece of Roman work, and had served, before this exchange, as the
synodal hall of the bishops. The date adopted for this exchange, when
I visited Angers in 1877 (I have no knowledge of the place since that
time) was “the ninth century”; some years before it was the twelfth
or thirteenth century, and the synodal hall of the present bishop’s
palace, with its undercroft, was shown and accepted as the home of
all the Angevin counts down to Geoffrey Plantagenet at least. The
whole history of the two palaces--that of the counts and that of the
bishops--has, however, been cleared up by two local archæologists, M.
de Beauregard (“Le Palais épiscopal et l’Eglise cathédrale d’Angers,”
in _Revue de l’Anjou et de Maine-et-Loire_, 1855, vol. i. pp. 246–256),
and M. d’Espinay, president of the Archæological Commission of
Maine-et-Loire (“Le Palais des Comtes d’Anjou,” _Revue historique de
l’Anjou_, 1872, vol. viii. pp. 153–170; “L’Evêché d’Angers,” _ib._ pp.
185–201). The foundation and result of their arguments may be briefly
summed up. The first bit of evidence on the subject is a charter
(printed by M. de Beauregard, _Revue de l’Anjou et de Maine-et-Loire_,
as above, vol. i. pp. 248, 249; also in _Gallia Christiana_, vol.
xiv. instr. cols. 145, 146) of Charles the Bald, dated July 2,
851, and ratifying an exchange of lands between “Dodo venerabilis
Andegavorum Episcopus et Odo illustris comes.” The exchange is thus
described:--“Dedit itaque præfatus Dodo episcopus antedicto Odoni
comiti, ex rebus matris ecclesiæ S. Mauricii, æquis mensuris funibusque
determinatam paginam terræ juxta murum civitatis Andegavensis, in quâ
opportunitas jam dicti comitis mansuræ sedis suorumque successorum
esse cognoscitur. Et, e contra, in compensatione hujus rei, dedit idem
Odo comes ex comitatu suo terram S. Mauricio æquis mensuris similiter
funibus determinatam prænominato Dodoni episcopo successoribusque suis
habendam in quâ predecessorum suorum comitum sedes fuisse memoratur.”
As M. de Beauregard points out, the traditionary version--whether
placing the exchange in the ninth century or in the twelfth--is based
on a misunderstanding of this charter. The charter says not a word of
the bishop giving up his own actual abode to the count; it says he gave
a plot of ground near the city wall, and suitable for the count to
build himself a house upon. Moreover the words “sedes fuisse memoratur”
seem to imply that what the count gave was not his own present dwelling
either, but only that which had been occupied by his predecessors.
There can be little doubt that the Merovingian counts dwelt on the site
of the Roman citadel of Juliomagus; and this was unquestionably where
the bishop’s palace now stands. That it already stood there in the
closing years of the eleventh century is proved by a charter, quoted by
M. d’Espinay (_Revue historique de l’Anjou_, vol. viii. p. 200, note 2)
from the cartulary of S. Aubin’s Abbey, giving an account of a meeting
held “in domibus episcopalibus _juxta S. Mauricium Andegavorum matrem
ecclesiam_,” in A.D. 1098.

So much for the position of the bishop’s dwelling from 851 downwards.
Of the position of the count’s palace--the abode of Odo and his
successors, built on the piece of land near the city wall--the first
indication is in an account of a great fire at Angers in 1132: “Flante
Aquilone, accensus est in mediâ civitate ignis, videlicet apud S.
Anianum; et tanto incendio grassatus est ut ecclesiam S. Laudi et
omnes officinas, deinde comitis aulam et omnes cameras miserabiliter
combureret et in cinerem redigeret. Sicque per Aquariam descendens,”
etc. (Chron. S. Serg. a. 1132, Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 144). The
church of S. Laud was the old chapel of S. Geneviève,--“capella B.
Genovefæ virginis, infra muros civitatis Andegavæ, ante forum videlicet
comitalis aulæ posita,” as it is described in a charter of Geoffrey
Martel (_Revue Hist. de l’Anjou_, 1872, vol. viii. p. 161)--the exact
position of a ruined chapel which was still visible, some twenty years
ago, within the castle enclosure, not far from the hall which still
remains. A fire beginning in the middle of the city and carried by a
north-east wind down to S. Laud and the Evière would not touch the
present bishop’s palace, but could not fail to pass over the site of
the castle. The last witness is Ralf de Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. pp.
291, 292), who distinctly places the palace of the counts in his own
day--the day of Count Henry Fitz-Empress--in the south-west corner
of the city, with the river at its feet and the vine-clad hills at
its back; and his description of the “thalami noviter constructi”
just fits in with the account of the fire, the destruction thereby
wrought having doubtless been followed by a rebuilding on a more regal
scale. It seems impossible to doubt the conclusion of these Angevin
archæologists, that the dwelling of the bishops and the palace of the
counts have occupied their present sites ever since the ninth century.
In that case the present synodal hall, an undoubted work of the early
twelfth century, must have been originally built for none other than
its present use; and to a student of the history of the Angevin
counts and kings the most precious relic in all Angers is the ruined
hall looking out upon the Mayenne from over the castle ramparts. M.
d’Espinay denies its Roman origin; he considers it to be a work of the
tenth century or beginning of the eleventh--the one fragment, in fact,
of the dwelling-place of Geoffrey Greygown and Fulk the Black which has
survived, not only the fire of 1132, but also the later destruction in
which the apartments built by Henry have perished.


NOTE C.

THE MARRIAGES OF GEOFFREY GREYGOWN.

The marriages of Geoffrey Greygown form a subject at once of some
importance and of considerable difficulty. It seems plain that Geoffrey
was twice married, that both his wives bore the same name, Adela
or Adelaide, and that the second was in her own right countess of
Chalon-sur-Saône, and widow of Lambert, count of Autun. There is no
doubt about this second marriage, for we have documentary evidence
that a certain Count Maurice (about whom the Angevin writers make
great blunders, and of whom we shall hear more later on) was brother
at once to Hugh of Chalon, son of Lambert and Adela, and to Fulk, son
of Geoffrey Greygown, and must therefore have been a son of Geoffrey
and Adela. A charter, dated between 992 and 998 (see Mabille, Introd.
_Comtes_, pp. lxx–lxxi), wherein Hugh, count of Chalon, describes
himself as “son of Adelaide and Lambert who was count of Chalon in
right of his wife,” is approved by “Adelaide his mother and Maurice his
brother.” Now as R. Glaber (l. iii. c. 2; _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
x. p. 27) declares that Hugh had no brother, Maurice must have been his
half-brother, _i.e._ son of his mother and her second husband; and that
that second husband was Geoffrey Greygown appears by several charters
in which Maurice is named as brother of Fulk Nerra.

It is by no means clear who this Adela or Adelaide of Chalon was. Perry
(_Hist. de Chalon-sur-Saône_, p. 86) and Arbois de Jubainville (_Comtes
de Champagne_, vol. i. p. 140) say she was daughter of Robert of
Vermandois, count of Troyes, and Vera, daughter of Gilbert of Burgundy
and heiress of Chalon, which at her death passed to Adela as her only
child. But the only authority for this Vera, Odorannus the monk of S.
Peter of Sens, says she was married in 956, and Lambert called himself
count of Chalon in 960 (Perry, _Hist. Chalon, preuves_, p. 35. See
also Arbois de Jubainville as above), so that if he married Vera’s
daughter he must have married a child only three years old. And to
add to the confusion, Robert of Troyes’s wife in 959 signs a charter
by the name of “Adelais” (Duchesne, _Maison de Vergy, preuves_, p.
36). What concerns us most, however, is not Adela’s parentage, but the
date of her marriage with Geoffrey Greygown; or, which comes to much
the same thing, the date of her first husband’s death. The cartulary
of Paray-le-Monial (Lambert’s foundation) gives the date of his death
as February 22, 988. If that were correct, Geoffrey, who died in July
987, could not have married Adela at all, unless she was divorced and
remarried during Lambert’s life. This idea is excluded by a charter
of her grandson Theobald, which distinctly says that Geoffrey married
her after Lambert’s death (Perry, _Hist. Chalon, preuves_, p. 39);
therefore the _Art de vérifier les Dates_ (vol. xi. p. 129) proposes
to omit an x and read 978. Adela and Geoffrey, then, cannot have
married earlier than the end of 978. Geoffrey, however, must have been
married long before this, if his daughter Hermengard was married in
970 to Conan of Britanny (Morice, _Hist. Bret._, vol. i. p. 63. His
authority seems to be a passage in the Chron. S. Michael. a. 970,
printed in Labbe’s _Bibl. Nova MSS. Librorum_, vol. i. p. 350, where,
however, the bride is absurdly made a daughter of Fulk Nerra instead
of Geoffrey Greygown). And in Duchesne’s _Maison de Vergy, preuves_,
p. 39, is the will, dated March 6, 974, of a Countess Adela, wife of a
Count Geoffrey, whereby she bequeathes some lands to S. Aubin’s Abbey
at Angers; and as the Chron. S. Albin. a. 974 (Marchegay, _Eglises_,
p. 20) also mentions these donations, there can be little doubt that
she was the wife of Geoffrey of Anjou. M. Mabille (Introd. _Comtes_,
p. lxx) asserts that this Adela, Geoffrey Greygown’s first wife, was
Adela of Vermandois, sister of Robert of Troyes, and appeals to the
will above referred to in proof of his assertion; the will, however,
says nothing of the sort. He also makes the second Adela sister-in-law
instead of daughter to Robert (_ib._ p. lxxi). It seems indeed hopeless
to decide on the parentage of either of these ladies; that of their
children is, however, the only question really important for us.
Hermengard, married in 970 to the duke of Britanny, was clearly a child
of Geoffrey’s first wife; Maurice was as clearly a child of the second;
but whose child was Fulk the Black? Not only is it a matter of some
interest to know who was the mother of the greatest of the Angevins,
but it is a question on whose solution may depend the solution of
another difficulty:--the supposed, but as yet unascertained, kindred
between Fulk’s son Geoffrey Martel and his wife Agnes of Burgundy. If
Fulk was the son of Geoffrey Greygown and Adela of Chalon, the whole
pedigree is clear, and stands thus:

              1                      2
           Lambert  =  Adela  =  Geoffrey
                    |         |
     Adalbert = Gerberga     Fulk
  of Lombardy |               |
              |               |
        Otto William          |
              |               |
             Agnes    =    Geoffrey.

The two last would thus be cousins in the third degree of kindred
according to the canon law. The only apparent difficulty of this
theory is that it makes Fulk so very young. The first child of Adela
of Chalon and Geoffrey cannot have been born earlier than 979, even if
Adela remarried before her first year of widowhood was out; and we find
Fulk Nerra heading his troops in 992, if not before. But the thing is
not impossible. Such precocity would not be much greater than that of
Richard the Fearless, or of Fulk’s own rival Odo of Blois; and such a
wonderful man as Fulk the Black may well have been a wonderful boy.


NOTE D.

THE BRETON AND POITEVIN WARS OF GEOFFREY GREYGOWN.

The acts of Geoffrey Greygown in the _Gesta Consulum_ are a mass of
fable. The fight with the Dane Æthelwulf and that with the Saxon
Æthelred are mythical on the face of them, and the writer’s habitual
defiance of chronology is carried to its highest point in this
chapter. From him we turn to the story of Fulk Rechin. “Ille igitur
Gosfridus Grisa Gonella, pater avi mei Fulconis, cujus probitates
enumerare non possumus, excussit Laudunum de manu Pictavensis comitis,
et in prœlio superavit eum super Rupes, et persecutus est eum usque ad
Mirebellum. Et fugavit Britones, qui venerant Andegavim cum prædatorio
exercitu, quorum duces erant filii Isoani (Conani). Et postea fuit cum
duce Hugone in obsidione apud Marsonum, ubi arripuit eum infirmitas
quâ exspiravit; et corpus illius allatum est Turonum et sepultum in
ecclesiâ B. Martini” (Fulk Rechin, Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 376).

Whoever was the author of this account, he clearly knew or cared
nothing about the stories of the monkish writers, but had a perfectly
distinct source of information unknown to them. For their legends he
substitutes two things: a war with the count of Poitou, and a war with
the duke of Britanny. On each of these wars we get some information
from one other authority; the question is how to make this other
authority tally with Fulk.

1. As to the Breton war, which seems to be the earlier in date.

No one but Fulk mentions the raid of Conan’s sons upon Angers; and M.
Mabille (Introd. _Comtes_, p. xlviii) objects to it on the ground that
Conan’s sons were not contemporaries of Geoffrey.

Conan of Rennes was killed in 992 in a battle with Geoffrey’s son. He
had been married in 970 to Geoffrey’s daughter Hermengard (see above,
pp. 121, 135). Now a daughter of Geoffrey in 970 must have been almost
a child, but it by no means follows that her husband was equally young.
On the contrary, he seems to have been sufficiently grown up to take
a part in politics twenty years before (Morice, _Hist. Bret._ vol. i.
p. 62). It is certain that he had several sons; it is certain that two
at least of them were not Hermengard’s; it is likely that none of them
were, except his successor Geoffrey. Supposing Conan was somewhat over
fifty when killed (and he may have been older still) that would make
him about thirty when he married Hermengard; he might have had sons ten
years before that, and those sons might very easily head an attack upon
their stepmother’s father in 980 or thereabouts. Surely M. Mabille here
makes a needless stumbling-block of the chronology.

If no other writer confirms Fulk’s story, neither does any contradict
it. But in the _Gesta Consulum_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 91–93) an
exactly similar tale is told, only in much more detail and with this
one difference, that Fulk Nerra is substituted for Geoffrey Greygown,
and the raid is made to take place just before that other battle of
Conquereux, in 992, in which Conan perished. The only question now is,
which date is the likeliest, Fulk’s or John’s? in other words, which of
these two writers is the better to be trusted? Surely there can be no
doubt about the choice, and we must conclude that, for once, the monk
who credits Greygown with so many exploits that he never performed has
denied him the honour of one to which he is really entitled.

Fulk Rechin’s account of Geoffrey’s Breton war ends here. The Breton
chroniclers ignore this part of the affair altogether; they seem
to take up the thread of the story where the Angevin drops it. It
is they who tell us of the homage of Guerech, and of the battle of
Conquereux; and their accounts of the latter are somewhat puzzling.
The Chron. Britann. in Lobineau (_Hist. Bret._, vol. ii. col. 32)
says: “982. Primum bellum Britannorum et Andegavorum in Concruz.”
The Chron. S. Michael. (Labbe, _Bibl. Nova_, vol. i. p. 350; _Rer.
Gall. Scriptt._, vol. ix. p. 98) says: “981. Conanus Curvus contra
Andegavenses in Concurrum optime pugnavit.” But in the other two
Breton chronicles the Angevins do not appear. The Chron. Namnetense
(_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. viii. p. 278) describes the battle as
one between Conan and Guerech; the Chron. Briocense (Morice, _Hist.
Bret., preuves_, vol. i. col. 32) does the same, and moreover adds
that Conan was severely wounded in the right arm and fled defeated.
This last is the only distinct record of the issue of the battle;
nevertheless there are some little indications which, taken together,
give some ground for thinking its record is wrong. 1st. There is the
negative evidence of the silence of the Angevin writers about the whole
affair; they ignore the first battle of Conquereux as completely as
the Bretons ignore the unsuccessful raid of Conan’s sons. This looks
as if each party chronicled its own successes, and carefully avoided
mentioning those of its adversaries. 2d. In the _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._
(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 260) is a proverb “Bellum Conquerentium quo
tortum superavit rectum”--an obvious pun on Conan’s nickname, “Tortus”
or “Curvus.” It is there quoted as having arisen from the battle of
Conquereux in 992--the only one which it suits the Angevin writers
to admit. But this is nonsense, for the writer has himself just told
us that in that battle Conan was defeated and slain. Therefore “the
crooked overcame the straight,” _i.e._ Conan won the victory, in an
earlier battle of Conquereux.

But how then are we to account for the Chronicle of St. Brieuc’s very
circumstantial statement of Conan’s defeat?--This chronicle--a late
compilation--is our only authority for all the details of the war; for
Guerech’s capture and homage, and in short for all matters specially
relating to Nantes. The tone of all this part of it shews plainly
that its compiler, or more likely the earlier writer whom he was here
copying, was a violently patriotic man of Nantes, who hated the Rennes
party and the Angevins about equally, and whose chief aim was to
depreciate them both and exalt the house of Nantes in the person of
Guerech. So great is his spite against the Angevins that he will not
even allow them the credit of having slain Conan at the second battle
of Conquereux, but says Conan fell in a fight with some rebel subjects
of his own! He therefore still more naturally ignores the Angevin share
in the first battle of Conquereux, and makes his hero Guerech into a
triumphant victor. The cause of his hatred to Anjou is of course the
mean trick whereby Geoffrey obtained Guerech’s homage. There can be
little doubt that the battle was after this homage--was in fact caused
by it; but the facts are quite enough to account for the Nantes writer
putting, as he does, the battle first, before he brings the Angevins in
at all, and giving all the glory to Guerech.

2. As to the Poitevin war. “Excussit Laudunum,” etc. (Fulk Rechin,
Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 376. See above, p. 137).

The only other mention of this war is in the Chron. S. Maxent.
(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 384), which says: “Eo tempore gravissimum
bellum inter Willelmum ducem et Gofridum Andegavensem comitem peractum
est. Sed Gaufridus, necessitatibus actus, Willelmo duci se subdidit
seque in manibus præbuit, et ab eo Lausdunum castrum cum nonnullis
aliis in Pictavensi pago beneficio accepit.” M. Mabille pronounces
these two accounts incompatible; but are they? The Poitevin account,
taken literally and alone, looks rather odd. William and Geoffrey
fight; Geoffrey is “compelled by necessity” to make submission to
William--but he is invested by his conqueror with Loudun and other
fiefs. That is, the practical gain is on the side of the beaten party.
On the other hand, Fulk Rechin, taken literally and alone, gives no
hint of any submission on Geoffrey’s part. But why cannot the two
accounts be made to supplement and correct each other, as in the case
of the Breton war? The story would then stand thus: Geoffrey takes
Loudun and defeats William at Les Roches, as Fulk says. Subsequent
reverses compel him to agree to terms so far that he holds his
conquests as fiefs of the count of Poitou.

The case is nearly parallel to that of the Breton war; again the
Angevin count and the hostile chronicler tell the story between them,
each telling the half most agreeable to himself, and the two halves fit
into a whole.

M. Mabille’s last objection is that the real Fulk Rechin would have
known better than to say that Geoffrey pursued William as far as
Mirebeau, a place which had no existence till the castle was built by
Fulk Nerra in 1000. Why should he not have meant simply “the place
where Mirebeau now stands”? And even if he did think the name existed
in Greygown’s day, what does that prove against his identity? Why
should not Count Fulk make slips as well as other people?

The date of the war is matter of guess-work. The S. Maxentian
chronicler’s “eo tempore” comes between 989 and 996, _i.e._ after
Geoffrey’s death. One can only conjecture that it should have come just
at the close of his life.


NOTE E.

THE GRANT OF MAINE TO GEOFFREY GREYGOWN.

That a grant of the county of Maine was made by Hugh Capet to a count
of Anjou is pretty clear from the later history; that the grant was
made to Geoffrey Greygown is not so certain. The story comes only from
the Angevin historians; and they seem to have systematically carried
back to the time of Greygown all the claims afterwards put forth by
the counts of Anjou to what did not belong to them. They evidently
knew nothing of his real history, so they used him as a convenient lay
figure on which to hang all pretensions that wanted a foundation and
all stories that wanted a hero, in total defiance of facts and dates.
They have transferred to him one exploit whose hero, if he was an
Angevin count at all, could only have been Fulk Nerra--the capture of
Melun in 999. An examination of this story will be more in place when
we come to the next count; but it rouses a suspicion that after all
Geoffrey may have had no more to do with Maine than with Melun.--The
story of the grant of Maine in the _Gesta Consulum_ (Marchegay,
_Comtes_, pp. 77, 78) stands thus: David, count of Maine, and Geoffrey,
count of Corbon, refuse homage to king Robert. The king summons his
barons to help him, among them the count of Anjou. The loyal Geoffrey
takes his rebel namesake’s castle of Mortagne and compels him to submit
to the king; David still holds out, whereupon Robert makes a formal
grant of “him and his Cenomannia” to Greygown and his heirs for ever.

On this M. l’abbé Voisin (_Les Cénomans anciens et modernes_, p. 337)
remarks: “Cette chronique renferme avec un fonds de vérité des détails
évidemment érronés; le Geoffroy d’Anjou, dont il est ici question,
n’est pas suffisamment connu. C’est à lui que Guillaume de Normandie
fait rendre hommage par son fils Robert; c’est lui, sans doute, qui,
suivant les historiens de Mayenne, fut seigneur de cette ville et
commanda quelque temps dans le Maine et l’Anjou, sous Louis d’Outremer;
au milieu d’une assemblée des comtes et des barons de son parti, Robert
l’aurait investi de ce qu’il possédait alors dans ces deux provinces.”

The Abbé’s story is quite as puzzling as the monk’s. His mention of
Robert of Normandy is inexplicable, for it can refer to nothing but
the homage of Robert Curthose to Geoffrey the Bearded in 1063. His
meaning, however, seems to be that the Geoffrey in question was not
Greygown at all, but another Geoffrey of whom he says in p. 353 that
he was son of Aubert of Lesser Maine, and “gouverneur d’Anjou et du
Maine, sous Louis IV. roi de France; il avait épousé une dame de la
maison de Bretagne, dont on ignore le nom; il eu eut trois fils; Juhel,
Aubert et Guérin; il mourut l’an 890.” This passage M. Voisin gives
as a quotation, but without a reference. He then goes on: “Nous avons
cherché précédemment à expliquer de quelle manière ce Geoffroi se
serait posé en rival de Hugues-David;” and he adds a note: “D’autres
aimeront peut-être mieux supposer une erreur de nom et de date dans la
Chronique” [what chronicle?] “et dire qu’il s’agit de Foulques-le-Bon.”
There is no need to “suppose”; a man who died in 890 could not be
count of anything under Louis IV. But where did M. Voisin find this
other Geoffrey, and how does his appearance mend the matter? He seems
to think the Gesta-writers have transferred this man’s doings to
their own hero Greygown, by restoring them to what he considers their
rightful owner he finds no difficulty in accepting the date, _temp._
King Robert. But the Abbé’s King Robert is not the Gesta-writers’ King
Robert. _He_ means Robert I., in 923; _they_ mean Robert II., though
no doubt they have confused the two. In default of evidence for M.
Voisin’s story we must take that of the _Gesta_ as it stands and see
what can be made of it.

In 923, the time of Robert I., Geoffrey Greygown was not born, and
Anjou was held by his grandfather Fulk the Red. In 996–1031, the time
of Robert II., Geoffrey was dead, and Anjou was held by his son Fulk
the Black. Moreover, according to M. Voisin, David of Maine died at
latest in 970, and Geoffrey of Corbon lived 1026–1040.

From all this it results:

1. If Maine was granted to a count of Anjou by Robert I., it was not to
Geoffrey Greygown.

2. If it was granted by Robert II., it was also not to Geoffrey.

3. If it was granted to Geoffrey, it can only have been by Hugh Capet.

There is one writer who does bring Hugh into the affair: “Electo
autem a Francis communi consilio, post obitum Lotharii, Hugone
Capet in regem ... cum regnum suum circuiret, Turonisque descendens
_Cenomannensibusque consulem imponeret_,” etc. (_Gesta Ambaz. Domin._,
Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 160). He does not say who this new count was,
but there can be little doubt it was the reigning count of Anjou; and
this, just after Hugh’s accession, would be Fulk Nerra. On the other
hand, the writer ignores Louis V. and makes Hugh succeed Lothar. Did
he mean to place these events in that year, 986–7, when Hugh was king
_de facto_ but not _de jure_? In that case the count would be Geoffrey
Greygown.

The compilers of the _Gesta_, however, simplify all these old claims
by stating that the king (_i.e._ the duke) gave Geoffrey a sort
of carte-blanche to take and keep anything he could get: “dedit
Gosfrido comiti quidquid Rex Lotarius in episcopatibus suis habuerat,
Andegavensi scilicet et Cenomannensi. Si qua vero alia ipse vel
successores sui adquirere poterant, eâ libertate quâ ipse tenebat sibi
commendata concessit.” _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 76.

[Illustration: Map II.

  GAUL c. 1027.

  Key: _Fulk the Black_
       _Odo II._
       _Royal Domain_

  Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.      London, Macmillan & Co.
]




CHAPTER III.

ANJOU AND BLOIS.

987–1044.


One of the wildest of the legends which have gathered round the Angevin
house tells how a count of Anjou had wedded a lady of unknown origin
and more than earthly beauty, who excited the suspicions of those
around her by her marked dislike to entering a church, and her absolute
refusal to be present at the consecration of the Host. At last her
husband, urged by his friends, resolved to compel her to stay. By his
order, when the Gospel was ended and she was about to leave the church
as usual, she was stopped by four armed men. As they laid hold of her
mantle she shook it from her shoulders; two of her little children
stood beneath its folds at her right hand, two at her left. The two
former she left behind, the latter she caught up in her arms, and,
floating away through a window of the church, she was seen on earth no
more. “What wonder,” was the comment of Richard Cœur-de-Lion upon this
story; “what wonder if we lack the natural affections of mankind--we
who come from the devil, and must needs go back to the devil?”[293]

        [293] Girald. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. iii. c. 27
        (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 154).

One is tempted to think that the excited brains of the closing tenth
century, filled with dim presages of horror that were floating about
in expectation of the speedy end of the world, must have wrought
out this strange tale by way of explaining the career of Fulk the
Black.[294] His contemporaries may well have reckoned him among the
phenomena of the time; they may well have had recourse to a theory of
supernatural agency or demoniac possession to account for the rapid
developement of talents and passions which both alike seemed almost
more than human. When the county of Anjou was left to him by the death
of his father Geoffrey Greygown, Fulk was a child scarce eight years
old.[295] Surrounded by powerful foes whom Geoffrey’s aggressions had
provoked rather than checked--without an ally or protector unless
it were the new king--Fulk began life with everything against him.
Yet before he has reached the years of manhood the young count meets
us at every turn, and always in triumph. Throughout the fifty-three
years of his reign Fulk is one of the most conspicuous and brilliant
figures in French history. His character seems at times strangely
self-contradictory. Mad bursts of passion, which would have been the
ruin of an ordinary man, but which seem scarcely to have made a break
in his cool, calculating, far-seeing policy; a rapid and unerring
perception of his own ends, a relentless obstinacy in pursuing them, an
utter disregard of the wrong and suffering which their pursuit might
involve; and then ever and anon fits of vehement repentance, ignorant,
blind, fruitless as far as any lasting amendment was concerned, yet
at once awe-striking and touching in its short-lived, wrong-headed
earnestness--all these seeming contradictions yet make up, not a
puzzling abstraction, but an intensely living character--the character,
in a word, of the typical Angevin count.

        [294] “Fulco Nerra” or “Niger,” “Palmerius” and
        “Hierosolymitanus” are his historical surnames. I can find no
        hint whether the first was derived from his complexion or from
        the colour of the armour which he usually wore (as in the case
        of the “Black Prince”); the origin of the two last will be seen
        later.

        [295] This is on the supposition that Adela of Chalon was his
        mother; see note C to chap. ii. above.

For more than a hundred years after the accession of Hugh Capet,
the history of the kingdom which he founded consists chiefly of the
struggles of the great feudataries among themselves to get and to
keep control over the action of the crown. The duke of the French had
gained little save in name by his royal coronation and unction. He
was no nearer than his Karolingian predecessors had been to actual
supremacy over the Norman duchy, the Breton peninsula, and the whole
of southern Gaul. Aquitaine indeed passed from cold contempt to open
aggression. When one of her princes, the count of Poitou, had at
length made unwilling submission to the northern king, a champion of
southern independence issued from far Périgord to punish him, stormed
Poitiers, marched up to the Loire, and sat down in triumph before
Tours, whose count, Odo of Blois, was powerless to relieve it. The king
himself could find no more practical remonstrance than the indignant
question, “Who made thee count?” and the sole reply vouchsafed by
Adalbert of Périgord was the fair retort, “Who made thee king?” Tours
fell into his hands, and was made over, perhaps in mockery, to the
youthful count of Anjou. The loyalty of its governor and citizens,
however, soon restored it to its lawful owner, and Adalbert’s dreams of
conquest ended in failure and retreat.[296] Still, Aquitaine remained
independent as of old; Hugh’s real kingdom took in little more than
the old duchy of France “between Seine and Loire”; and even within
these limits it almost seemed that in grasping at the shadow of the
crown he had loosened his hold on the substance of his ducal power.
The regal authority was virtually a tool in the hands of whichever
feudatary could secure its exercise for his own ends. As yet Aquitaine
and Britanny stood aloof from the struggle; Normandy had not yet
entered upon it; at present therefore it lay between the vassals of
the duchy of France. Foremost among them in power, wealth, and extent
of territory was the count of Blois, Chartres and Tours. His dominions
pressed close against the eastern border of Anjou, and it was on her
ability to cope with him that her fate chiefly depended. Was the house
of Anjou or the house of Blois to win the pre-eminence in central
Gaul? This was the problem which confronted Fulk the Black, and to
whose solution he devoted his life. His whole course was governed
by one fixed principle and directed to one paramount object--the
consolidation of his marchland. To that object everything else was
made subservient. Every advantage thrown in his way by circumstances,
by the misfortunes, mistakes or weaknesses of foes or friends--for he
used the one as unscrupulously as the other--was caught up and pursued
with relentless vigour. One thread of settled policy ran through the
seemingly tangled skein of his life, a thread never broken even by the
wildest outbursts of his almost demoniac temper or his superstitious
alarms. While he seemed to be throwing his whole energies into the
occupation of the moment--whether it were the building or the besieging
of a fortress, the browbeating of bishop or king, the cajoling of an
ally or the crushing of a rival on the battle-field--that work was in
reality only a part of a much greater work. Every town mirrored in
the clear streams that water the “garden of France”--as the people of
Touraine call their beautiful country--has its tale of the Black Count,
the “great builder” beneath whose hands the whole lower course of the
Loire gradually came to bristle with fortresses; but far above all his
castles of stone and mortar there towered a castle in the air, the plan
of a mighty political edifice. Every act of his life was a step towards
its realization; every fresh success in his long career of triumph was
another stone added to the gradual building up of Angevin dominion and
greatness.

        [296] Ademar of Chabanais, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
        146. The date seems to be about 990; but Ademar has confused
        Odo I. of Blois with his son Odo of Champagne.

Fulk’s first victory was won before he was fourteen, over a veteran
commander who had been more than a match for his father ten years
earlier. The death of Geoffrey Greygown was soon followed by that of
Count Guerech of Nantes; he, too, left only a young son, Alan; and
when Alan also died in 990, Conan of Rennes, already master of all the
rest of Britanny, seized his opportunity to take forcible possession
of Nantes,[297] little dreaming of a possible rival in his young
brother-in-law beyond the Mayenne. While his back was turned and he
was busy assembling troops at Bruerech, at the other end of Britanny,
the Angevin worked upon the old hatred of the Nantes people to the
house of Rennes; with the craft of his race he won over some of the
guards, by fair words and solid bribes, till he gained admittance into
the city and received oaths and hostages from its inhabitants. He
then returned home to collect troops for an attack upon the citadel,
which was held by Conan’s men. Conan, as soon as he heard the tidings,
marched upon Nantes with all his forces; as before, he brought with
him a body of Norman auxiliaries, likely to be of no small use in
assaulting a place such as Nantes, whose best defence is its broad
river--for the “Pirates” had not yet forgotten the days when the water
was their natural element and the long keels were their most familiar
home. While the Norman ships blocked the river, Conan’s troops beset
the town by land, and thus, with the garrison shooting down at them
from the citadel, the townsfolk of Nantes were between three fires when
Fulk advanced to their rescue.[298] Conan at once sent the audacious
boy a challenge to meet him, on such a day, in a pitched battle on the
field of Conquereux, where ten years before a doubtful fight had been
waged between Conan and Fulk’s father. This time the Bretons trusted
to lure their enemies to complete destruction by a device which, in
days long after, was successfully employed by Robert Bruce against
the English army at Bannockburn; they dug a series of trenches right
across the swampy moor, covered them with bushes, branches, leaves and
thatch, supported by uprights stuck into the ditches, and strewed the
surface with ferns till it was indistinguishable from the surrounding
moorland. Behind this line of hidden pitfalls Conan drew up his host,
making a feint of unwillingness to begin the attack. Fulk, panting for
his first battle with all the ardour of youth, urged his men to the
onset; the flower of the Angevin troops charged right into the Breton
pitfalls; men and horses became hopelessly entangled; two thousand
went down in the swampy abyss and were drowned, slaughtered or crushed
to death.[299] The rest fled in disorder; Fulk himself was thrown
from his horse and fell to the ground, weighed down by his armour,
perhaps too heavy for his boyish frame. In an instant he was up again,
wild with rage, burning to avenge his overthrow, calling furiously
upon his troops. The clear, young voice of their leader revived the
courage of the Angevins; “as the storm-wind sweeps down upon the thick
corn-rigs”[300]--so their historian tells--they rushed upon the foe;
and their momentary panic was avenged by the death of Conan and the
almost total destruction of his host.[301] The blow overthrew the power
of Rennes; the new duke Geoffrey, the son of Conan and Hermengard, was
far indeed from being a match for his young uncle. In the flush of
victory Fulk marched into Nantes; the citizens received him with open
arms; the dismayed garrison speedily surrendered, and swore fealty to
the conqueror; the titular bishop, Judicaël, a young son of Count Hoel,
was set up as count under the guardianship of Aimeric of Thouars, a
kinsman of the Angevin house, who ruled solely in Fulk’s interest;[302]
while the territory on the right bank of the Mayenne, lost a century
and a half before by the treason of Count Lambert, seems to have been
reunited to the Angevin dominions.

        [297] Morice, _Hist. de Bret._, vol. i. p. 64 (from a seemingly
        lost bit of the Chron. Namnet.).

        [298] Richer, l. iv. c. 81.

        [299] _Ib._ cc. 82–85. Rudolf Glaber, l. ii. c. 3 (_Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 15).

        [300] R. Glaber, l. ii. c. 3 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
        15).

        [301] Richer, l. iv. c. 86. R. Glaber (as above) says that
        Conan was not slain, but only taken prisoner with the loss
        of his right hand--a confusion with the first battle of
        Conquereux. Conan’s death appears in all the chief Breton
        chronicles, especially Chron. S. Michael. a. 992 (_Rer.
        Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 175), etc. See also Fulk Rechin
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 377. The _Gesta Cons._ copy R. Glaber.

        [302] Richer, l. iv. c. 86. The first viscount of Thouars,
        a brother of Ebles, count of Poitou, had married Roscilla,
        daughter of Fulk the Red. Chron. Com. Pictaviæ in _Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. x. pp. 294, 295.

The boy count had well won his spurs on the field of Conquereux. With
the control over Nantes he had secured the control over the whole
course of the Loire from his own capital down to the sea--a most
important advantage in an age when the water-ways were the principal
channels of communication, whether for peace or war. The upper part of
the Loire valley, its richest and most fertile part, was in the hands
of the count of Blois. But his sway was not unbroken. Midway between
his two capitals, Blois and Tours, stood Amboise, the heritage of the
Red Count’s mother; farther south, in the valley of the Indre, stood
Loches, the heritage of his wife. It was not in human nature--certainly
not in Angevin nature--that the owner of Amboise and Loches should
not seek to extend his power a little further at the expense of his
neighbour in Touraine; and no great provocation on the part of Odo
of Blois was needed to make the fiery young Angevin dash into his
territories, and ride plundering, wasting and burning to the outskirts
of Blois itself.[303] Raid and counter-raid went on almost without
ceasing, and once it seems that King Hugh himself came to help his
Angevin ally.[304] In 995 Odo died, and his widow, Bertha, shortly
afterwards married Robert of France, who next year became king on the
death of his father Hugh Capet. Robert and Bertha were cousins; the
Church pronounced their marriage illegal, and punished it with an
interdict on the realm; amid the general confusion which followed, Fulk
carried on a desultory warfare with Odo’s two elder sons, Thierry and
Theobald, till the death of the latter in 1004 brought him face to face
with his lifelong antagonist, Odo II. The contest made inevitable by
circumstances was to be rendered all the more bitter by the character
of the two men who were now to engage in it. Odo, indeed, was even
yet scarcely more than a boy;[305] but, like Fulk, he had begun his
public career at a very early age. His beginning was as characteristic
as Fulk’s beginning at Conquereux. In 999 he openly insulted his
royal step-father by wresting the castle of Melun from Robert’s most
trusty counsellor, Count Burchard of Vendôme; and no might short of
that of the Norman duke, who had now grown from a “leader of the
Pirates” into the king’s most valued supporter, sufficed to avenge
the outrage.[306] The boy’s hasty, unprovoked spoliation of Burchard,
his insolent defiance of the king, his overweening self-confidence,
ending suddenly in ignominious flight, were typical of his whole
after-career. Odo’s life was as busy and active as Fulk’s, but his
activity produced no lasting effects. His insatiable ambition lacked
the restraint and regulation of the Angevin practical sagacity, and
ran hopelessly to seed without bringing forth any lasting fruit. There
was no fixed purpose in his life. New ideas, daring schemes, sprang
up in his brain almost as quickly as in that of Fulk; but he never
waited till they were matured; he never stopped to count their cost;
and instead of working together to one common end, they only drove him
into a multiplicity of irreconcileable and often visionary undertakings
which never came to perfection. He was entirely a creature of impulse;
always ready to throw himself into a new project, but generally lacking
patience and perseverance enough to carry it through; harassed by
numberless conflicting cares;[307] breaking every engagement as soon as
made, not from any deep-laid policy, but simply from sheer inability to
keep long to anything. “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,” might
have been the burthen of Odo and of Odo’s whole race. The house of
Blois failed through their utter lack of the quality which was the main
strength of their rivals: thoroughness. The rivalry and the characters
of the two houses have a bearing upon English history; for the quarrel
that began between them for the possession of Touraine was to be fought
out at last on English ground, and for no less a stake than the crown
of England. The rivalry of Odo and Fulk was a foreshadowing of the
rivalry between Stephen of Blois and Henry of Anjou. The end was the
same in both cases. With every advantage on their side, in the eleventh
century as in the twelfth, in Gaul as in England, the aimless activity
of the house of Blois only spent itself against the indomitable
steadiness, determination and persistency of the Angevins, as vainly
as the storm-wind might beat upon the rocky foundations of Black Angers.

        [303] Richer, l. iv. c. 79.

        [304] Richer, l. iv. cc. 90–94. His account of the war, and
        indeed his whole account of Fulk and of Odo, is extremely
        strange and confused; it has been examined by M. Léon Aubineau
        in a “Notice sur Thibaut-le-Tricheur et Eudes I.” in the _Mém.
        de la Soc. Archéol. de Touraine_, vol. iii. (1845–1847), pp.
        41–94, but the result is far from convincing.

        [305] He is called “puerulus” at the time of his mother’s
        second marriage, _i.e._ in 995–996. _Hist. Franc. Fragm._ in
        _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 211. But considering the date
        of the Melun affair, this can hardly be taken literally.

        [306] _Vita Burchardi_, in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. pp.
        354, 355. Will. Jumièges, l. v. c. 14 (_ib._ p. 189; Duchesne,
        _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 255). Richer, l. iv. cc. 74–78. See
        note A at the end of chapter.

        [307] See the character given of him by R. Glaber, l. iii. cc.
        2, 9 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. pp. 27, 40).

In the ten years of misery and confusion which followed the death
of Odo I. and the re-marriage of his widow, Fulk had time nearly to
complete a chain of fortresses which, starting from Angers and sweeping
along the line of Geoffrey Greygown’s Poitevin conquests in a wide
irregular half-circle up again to Amboise, served the double purpose of
linking his own outlying possessions in Touraine with his head-quarters
in Anjou, and of cutting in halves the dominions of his neighbour.
The towers of Montreuil, Passavant and Maulévrier, of Loudun and the
more remote Mirebeau, were a standing menace to Saumur and Chinon.
Sᵗᵉ·-Maure was an eyesore to the garrison of Ile-Bouchard.[308] Farther
east, on a pile of rock with the little blue Indre winding round its
foot, rose, as it rises still in ruined majesty, the mighty keep of
Loches; and on the banks of the Indrois that of Montrésor, whose lord,
Roger, rejoiced in the surname of “the devil.”[309] To Roger Fulk also
intrusted the command of another great fortress, Montrichard, whose
dark donjon frowned down upon the Cher from a plot of ground stolen
from the metropolitan see of Tours.[310] At Amboise itself, the site
of the Roman governor’s palace--now crowned by the modern castle--was
occupied by a strong _domicilium_ of the Angevin count,[311] and the
place was a perpetual obstacle between the archiepiscopal city of S.
Martin and the secular capital of its rulers. Langeais and Montbazon,
which for a while threatened Tours more closely still, were soon
wrested from their daring builder;[312] but the whole course of the
Indre above Montbazon was none the less in Fulk’s hands, for either by
force or guile, the lords of all the castles on its banks had been
won over to his cause; he had gained a foothold on every one of the
affluents of the Loire upon its southern side; while on the north, in
the valley of the Loir, Hugh of Alluye, the lord of Château-la-Vallière
and St.-Christophe, was so devoted to the Angevin interest that the
count’s usual route to and from Amboise lay through his lands.[313]

        [308] Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 377.

        [309] _Gesta Cons._ (_ibid._), p. 107; _Gesta Amb. Domin._
        (_ibid._), p. 167.

        [310] _Gesta Cons._, as above.

        [311] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (as above), p. 175.

        [312] That Montbazon was built by Fulk appears by a charter of
        King Robert (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. pp. 577, 578), date
        seemingly about A.D. 1000. It had, however, passed into Odo’s
        hands. Langeais, whose building is recorded by Fulk Rechin (as
        above), was probably taken by Odo I. in 995; there is a charter
        of his dated “at the siege of Langeais” in that year. Mabillon,
        _Ann. Bened._, vol. iv. p. 96.

        [313] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 91. _Gesta Amb.
        Domin._ (_ibid._), p. 164.

The early part of the eleventh century was an age of castle-building;
Fulk, however, had begun his line of fortifications before the century
dawned, in those gloomy years of interdict when the royal power was at
its lowest ebb, when the people, cut off from the helps and comforts
of religion, lay in hopeless anarchy and misery, and half in terror,
half in longing, men whispered to each other that the end of the world
was near. The superstitious terrors which paralyzed gentler souls only
goaded Fulk into more restless activity and inflamed his fierce temper
almost to madness. He had married the heiress of Vendôme, the daughter
of Count Burchard;[314] but this union came to a terrible end while its
only child was still in her cradle. In the very dawn of the dreaded
year 1000 Countess Elizabeth expiated her real or supposed sins as a
wife by death at the stake; and a conflagration which destroyed a large
part of the city of Angers immediately after her execution may well
have caused the horror-stricken subjects of her husband to deem that
judgement was indeed at their gates.[315]

        [314] They were already married in 990; see a charter in
        Mabillon, _Ann. Bened._, vol. iv. p. 59.

        [315] This, or something like it, must be the meaning of the
        not very intelligible accounts given in the Angevin chronicles
        of the death of Elizabeth and the fire which followed it.
        “Incensa est urbs Andegavensis post incensionem Comitissæ
        Elizabeth.” Chron. S. Michael. in Peric. Maris, a. 1000 (_Rer.
        Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 175). “Prima incensio urbis
        Andegavæ, quæ evenit paucis diebus post combustionem comitissæ
        Helisabeth.” Chron. S. Albin., a. 1000 (Marchegay, _Eglises_,
        p. 22). “Urbs Andecava incensa est post combustionem comitissæ
        Elisabeth.” Breve Chron. S. Flor. Salm. a. 999 (_ib._ p.
        187). “Fulco ... cum Elysabeth conjugem suam Andegavis, post
        immane præcipitium salvatam, occidisset, ipsamque urbem paucis
        defendentibus flammarum incendiis concremâsset.” _Hist. S.
        Flor. Salm._ (_ibid._), p. 273. Cf. _ib._ p. 260.

After the paroxysm came the reaction. When the dreaded year had passed
over and the world found itself still alive; when the king had at
last consented to purchase relief from the interdict by parting from
his beloved Bertha, and the nation was rousing itself to welcome the
new queen who stepped into Bertha’s place; then the blood which he had
shed at Conquereux and elsewhere--one may surely add, the ashes of
his wife--began to weigh heavily on the Black Count’s soul; “the fear
of Gehenna” took possession of him, and leaving the marchland to the
care of his brother Maurice he set out for the Holy Sepulchre.[316]
This journey was the first link in a chain which, through the later
pilgrimages of Fulk Nerra himself and those of his great-grandson Fulk
V., brought the counts of Anjou into a specially intimate relation with
the Holy Land and led to the establishment of an Angevin dynasty upon
its throne. Legend has not been slack to furnish Fulk the Palmer with
characteristic adventures, to tell how his craft outwitted that of the
Turks who tried to exclude him from the Sepulchre, and how he not only
procured a piece of the true Cross, but while kissing the sacred stone
in the fervour of his devotion, detected a loose fragment which he
managed to bite off and bring home as the most precious trophy of his
journey.[317] His first care on his return was to build an abbey for
the reception of this relic. From the rocky angle by the winding Indre
where the great “Square Tower”--as the natives emphatically call the
keep of Loches--was rising in picturesque contrast to a church reared
by Geoffrey Greygown in honour of our Lady,[318] the land which the
wife of the first count of Anjou had transmitted to her descendants
stretched a mile eastward beyond the river in a broad expanse of
green meadow to a waste plot of ground full of broom, belonging to a
man named Ingelger. From its original Latin name, _Belli-locus_, now
corrupted into Beaulieu, it seems possible that the place was set apart
for trials by ordeal of battle.[319]

        [316] R. Glaber, l. ii. c. 3 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
        15). On the regency of Maurice see note C at end of chapter,
        and Mabille, Introd. _Comtes d’Anjou_, p. lxxvi.

        [317] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 102, 103.
        There is a versified account of the pious theft in the
        Beaulieu office of the Holy Sepulchre, Salies, _Hist. de
        Foulques-Nerra_, p. 529.

        [318] In 963; Chron. Turon. Abbrev. ad ann. (Salmon, _Chron.
        de Touraine_, p. 185). From the foundation-charter, cited
        by M. l’abbé Bardet (_La Collégiale de Loches_, p. 8), it
        seems that Geoffrey founded the church on his return from a
        pilgrimage to Rome. A fragment of his work possibly remains in
        the present church (now called S. Ours), which was built by the
        historian-prior, Thomas Pactius, in the time of Henry II.

        [319] This is a remark quoted by M. de Salies
        (_Foulques-Nerra_, pp. 115, 361) from Dufour, “Dict. hist. de
        l’arrond. de Loches,” and grounded on the fact that while the
        many other Beaulieus, in France and in England, all appear in
        Latin as “_Bellus_-locus,” this one is “_Belli_-locus” in its
        foundation charter. See a similar case of verbal corruption
        below, p. 187.

This field Fulk determined to purchase for the site of his abbey. A
bargain was struck; the count paid down the stipulated sum, carried the
former owner on his shoulders from the middle of the field to the foot
of the bridge, and there set him down, saying, “A man without wit his
freehold must quit”--by which ceremony the contract was completed.[320]
Despite his fiery haste, Fulk did all things with due method,[321] and
his next anxiety was to decide upon the dedication of his intended
minster. He found his best counsellor in his newly-married wife, the
Lady Hildegard, and by her advice the church was placed under the
direct invocation, not of saint or angel, but of the most Holy Trinity
Itself.[322] By the time it stood ready for consecration the son of
Fulk and Hildegard was nearly three years old:[323] he had been nursed
by a blacksmith’s wife at Loches;[324] and many a time, as the count
and countess went to inspect the progress of architect and builder in
the meadow beyond the river, they must have lingered beside the forge
to mark the growth of their little Geoffrey, the future conqueror
of Tours. The consecration of the church proved a difficulty; the
archbishop of Tours refused to perform it unless Fulk would restore to
his see the stolen land of Montrichard.[325] Fulk swore--doubtless
his customary oath, “by God’s souls”[326]--that he would get the
better of the primate, and went straight off to Rome to lay his case
before the Pope. After several years’ wrangling it was decided in his
favour,[327] and one morning in May 1012 the abbey-church of the Holy
Trinity at Beaulieu was hallowed with all due pomp and solemnity by a
Roman cardinal-legate. But though Rome had spoken, the case was not
ended yet. That very afternoon a sudden storm of wind blew up from the
south, whirled round the church, and swept the whole roof completely
off. Clergy and laity alike seized on the prodigy as an evident token
of Heaven’s wrath against the insolence and presumption of Fulk;[328]
not so the Black Count himself, who simply replaced the roof and
pushed on the completion of the monastic buildings as if nothing had
happened.[329] He had successfully defied the Church; he next ventured
to defy the king and the count of Blois both at once. The divorced
queen Bertha, mother of young Odo of Blois, still lived and was still
loved by the king; Fulk, if he was not actually, as tradition relates,
a kinsman of the new Queen Constance,[330] was at any rate fully alive
to the policy of making common cause with her against their common
rivals of Blois. He crushed King Robert’s last hope of reunion with
Bertha by sending twelve armed men to assassinate at a hunting-party,
before his royal master’s eyes, the king’s seneschal or _comes palatii_
Hugh of Beauvais who was the confidant of his cherished scheme.[331]
It is a striking proof not only of the royal helplessness but also
of the independence and security which Fulk had already attained
that his crime went altogether unpunished and even uncensured save
by one bishop,[332] and almost immediately after its commission he
could again venture on leaving his dominions under the regency of his
brother Maurice, while he set off upon another long journey which the
legendary writers of Anjou, by some strange confusion between their own
hero and the Emperor Otto III., make into a mission of knight-errantry
to deliver the Pope from a tyrant named Crescentius, but which seems
really to have been a second pilgrimage to Holy Land.[333] He came
back to find the storm which had so long been gathering on his eastern
border on the point of breaking at last.

        [320] 11th lesson of the Beaulieu Office, Salies,
        _Foulques-Nerra_, p. 528. “Stultus a proprio expellitur alodo.”

        [321] “Ut semper curiose agebat,” R. Glaber, l. ii. c. 4 (_Rer.
        Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 15).

        [322] _Ibid._ (pp. 15, 16).

        [323] He was born October 14, 1006, according to Chronn.
        Vindoc. and S. Flor. Salm. ad ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp.
        164, 187). The Chron. S. Serg. (_ib._ p. 134) gives the same
        day, but makes the year 1007; the Chron. S. Maxent. (_ib._ p.
        387) places the event on April 12, 1005. The Chron. S. Albin.
        (_ib._ p. 22) gives no day, but confirms the two first-named
        authorities for the year, 1006.

        [324] _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 260.

        [325] R. Glaber, as above (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
        16). Cf. _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 107).

        [326] “Fulco Nerra, cui consuetudo fuit Animas Dei jurare,”
        begins his history in the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_),
        p. 89.

        [327] R. Glaber, l. ii. c. 4 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        x. p. 17). See also a bull of Pope John XVIII. in Migne’s
        _Patrologia_, vol. cxxxix., cols. 1491, 1492; and two of
        Sergius IV., _ib._ cols. 1525–1527.

        [328] R. Glaber, as above (p. 16).

        [329] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 99. This writer
        copies the whole story of Beaulieu from R. Glaber.

        [330] See note B at end of chapter.

        [331] R. Glaber, l. iii. c. 2 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x.
        p. 27).

        [332] Fulbert of Chartres; see his letter to Fulk, _Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. x. pp. 476, 477.

        [333] See note C at end of chapter.

The adherents of the count of Blois, headed by Landry of Châteaudun,
had profited by Fulk’s absence to concert a scheme for the expulsion
of the Angevins from Touraine. In spite of a vigorous resistance made
by Fulk’s lieutenant at Amboise, Sulpice, treasurer of S. Martin’s at
Tours, they seemed in a fair way to succeed, when Fulk himself dropped
like a thunderbolt in their midst, dashed right through the county of
Blois into that of Chartres, punished Landry by sacking Châteaudun
and harrying the surrounding district, and marched home in triumph
to Amboise.[334] A raid such as this was a distinct declaration of
war, not upon Landry, but upon Landry’s lord. Fulk had intended it
as such, and he went home to set in action every possible means that
could gain him help and support in a fight to the uttermost with
Odo for the possession of Touraine. At that very moment the county
of Maine was thrown virtually into his hands by the death of its
aged count Hugh; with the alliance of Hugh’s youthful successor he
secured the northern frontier of Touraine and the support of a body
of valiant fighting-men whose co-operation soon proved to be of the
highest value and importance. The rapid insight which singled out at
a glance the most fitting instruments for his purpose, the gifts of
attraction and persuasion by which he knew how to attach men to his
service, and seemed almost to inspire them with some faint reflex of
his own spirit, while making them devoted creatures of his will,
were all brought into play as he cast about in all directions for
aid in the coming struggle, and were strikingly shown in his choice
of a lieutenant. The instinct of genius told him that he had found
the man he wanted in young Lisoy, lord of the castle of Bazogers, in
Maine. As prudent in counsel as he was daring in fight, Lisoy was a
man after Fulk’s own heart; they understood each other at once; Lisoy
was appointed to share with the now aged Sulpice the supreme command
of Loches and Amboise; and while Sulpice provided for the defence of
Amboise by building on his own land there a lofty tower of stone,[335]
the burned and plundered districts of St.-Aignan, Chaumont and Blois
soon had cause to know that the “pride of Cenomannian knighthood”
had thrown himself heart and soul into the service of the count of
Anjou.[336]

        [334] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 88, 89–91.

        [335] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 169.

        [336] _Ib._ pp. 160–164.

The crisis came in the summer of 1016, when Odo of Blois gathered all
his forces for an attack upon Montrichard. His rival was fully prepared
to meet him. Before he set out from Blois, the allied hosts of Anjou
and Maine had assembled at Amboise, and thence separated again to post
themselves in such a manner as to render a battle unavoidable. Fulk
turned eastward, and took up a position close to Pontlevoy, seemingly
in a wood now known as the Bois-Royal, which in that day was skirted
by the high road from Blois to Montrichard. Herbert of Maine rode down
to the banks of the Cher, and pitched his camp just above Montrichard,
at Bourré.[337] If Odo followed the high road he would be met by the
Angevins; if he contrived to turn their position by taking a less
direct route to the eastward, he must encounter the Cenomannians, with
the garrison of Montrichard at their back; while whichever engaged him
first, the distance between the two bodies of troops was so slight
that either could easily come to the other’s assistance. It was well
for Anjou and for her count that his strategical arrangements were so
perfect, and so faithfully carried out by his young ally; for never in
all his long life, save in the panic at Conquereux, was Fulk the Black
so near to complete overthrow as on that Friday morning in July 1016,
when he met Odo of Blois face to face in the battle-field.

        [337] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 107. The
        topography of the battle of Pontlevoy is cleared up by Salies,
        _Foulques-Nerra_, p. 175 _et seq._

Odo, who always trusted to be saved by the multitude of an host,[338]
was greatly astonished, on arriving with all his forces opposite
Pontlevoy, to find the Angevins drawn up against him in battle array.
With a few hurried words he urged his men to the onset. Fortune seemed
for a while to favour the stronger side; Fulk and his troops were sore
bested; Fulk himself was thrown from his horse and severely stunned,
and the fate of Anjou hung trembling in the balance, when the scale was
turned by the sword of Herbert of Maine. A messenger hurried off to
tell the Cenomannian count that his friend was defeated, nay, captured.
Herbert and his knights flew to the rescue; they charged the left
wing of the enemies with a vigour which changed the whole position of
affairs, and snatched from the count of Blois the victory he had all
but won; the chivalry of Blois fled in confusion, leaving the foot
to be cut to pieces at will, and their camp to be plundered by the
victorious allies, who returned in triumph to Amboise, laden with rich
spoils and valuable prisoners.[339]

        [338] “More suo, nimiâ multitudine confisus.” _Gesta Cons._
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 107.

        [339] _Ib._ pp. 107, 108. The date--July 6--is given in Chronn.
        S. Serg., Vindoc. and S. Flor. Salm., a. 1016 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 134, 164, 187). There is an account of the
        battle in _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (_ib._), p. 274, but it has a
        very impossible look.

The victory of Pontlevoy was the turning-point of Fulk’s career.
Nine years passed away before Odo recovered from the check enough
to make any attempt to avenge it. It seems at first glance strange
that Fulk did not employ the interval in pushing forward his conquest
of Touraine. But in the eyes of both Fulk and Odo the possession of
Touraine was in reality a means rather than an end; and a sort of
armed truce, so long as Odo did not provoke him to break it, suited
Fulk’s purpose better than a continued war. His western frontier had
been secured by his first victory at Conquereux; his eastern frontier
was now secured, at any rate for a time, by his victory at Pontlevoy;
from the south there was nothing to fear, for the duke of Aquitaine,
to whom he owed homage for Loudun, was his staunch friend, and
presently gave proof of his friendship by bestowing on him the city of
Saintes.[340] Fulk at once made use of the gift as a means of extorting
something yet more valuable from a neighbour to whom he owed a far
deeper obligation--Herbert of Maine. It may be that they had quarrelled
since the days of Pontlevoy; it may be that Herbert had begun that
career of nocturnal raids against the fortified towns of Anjou which
scared men and beasts from their rest, and gained him his unclassical
but expressive surname of “Wake-the-dog.”[341] If so, the wily Angevin
took effectual measures to stop them. He enticed the count of Maine
to pay him a visit at Saintes, proposing to grant him the investiture
of that city. Suddenly, in the midst of conversation, Herbert was
seized by Fulk’s servants and flung into prison, whence he was only
released at the end of two years, and on submission to such conditions
as Fulk chose to dictate.[342] What those conditions were history
does not tell; but there can be little doubt that they included some
acknowledgment of the suzerain rights of Anjou over Maine, with which
Geoffrey Greygown had been invested by Hugh Capet, but which he had not
had time to make good, and which Fulk had only enforced for a moment,
at the sword’s point, when the aged count Hugh was dying.[343] Fulk’s
dealings with Maine are only an episode in his life; but they led even
more directly than his struggle with the house of Blois to consequences
of the utmost importance. They paved the way for an Angevin conquest of
Maine which extended the Angevin power to the Norman border, brought it
into contact and collision with the Norman ducal house, and originated
the long wars which were ended at last by the marriage of Geoffrey
Plantagenet and the Empress Matilda. The imprisonment of Herbert is
really the first step in the path which leads from Anjou to England.

        [340] Ademar of Chabanais, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
        149.

        [341] “Vulgo, sed parum Latine, cognominari Evigilans-canem
        pro ingenti probitate promeruit. Nam ... in eundem [sc.
        Fulconem] arma levans nocturnas expeditiones crebro agebat, et
        Andegavenses homines et canes in ipsâ urbe, vel in munitioribus
        oppidis terrebat, et horrendis assultibus pavidos vigilare
        cogebat.” Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._) p.
        532. It is however only fair to add that in another place
        (_ib._ p. 487) Orderic says Herbert “vulgo Evigilans-canem
        cognominabatur, propter gravissimas infestationes quas
        a perfidis affinibus suis Andegavensibus incessanter
        patiebatur”--as if he kept the Cenomannian dogs awake to give
        notice of the enemy’s approach, we must suppose.

        [342] Ademar of Chabanais (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x.),
        p. 161; Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p.
        189; Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 235 (Hardy, p. 401).
        Ademar says Herbert’s imprisonment lasted two years; and the
        Chronn. S. Albin. and Vindoc. a. 1027 (Marchegay, _Eglises_,
        pp. 22, 167), give us the date of his release, by giving that
        of the Breton invasion which followed it.

        [343] “Hugonis ... quem Fulco senior sibi violentur
        subjugârat.” Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._),
        p. 532. The terms of Herbert’s submission to Fulk are matter
        of inference from what followed his release. He at once
        began to quarrel with Avesgaud, the bishop of Le Mans, and
        being by him defied and excommunicated, called in the help
        of Duke Alan of Britanny (_Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 30, in
        Mabillon, _Vet. Analecta_, p. 304). Alan, when he had helped
        to defeat the bishop, marched down to besiege Le Lude, one
        of the chief Angevin fortresses on the Cenomannian border,
        and only desisted when he had extorted from Fulk the hostages
        given him by Herbert on his release; Chron. Vindoc. a. 1027
        (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 166). It is not hard to see why the
        rival overlord of Nantes should be ready to make war, on any
        pretext, upon the count of Anjou; but, making due allowance
        for Fulk’s possible difficulties--Odo’s last attack occurred
        in this year--still it is very hard to see why Fulk, “the
        ingenious Fulk,” as the writer of the _Gesta Amb. Domin._
        calls him (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 165), could find no better
        way of raising the siege of a petty border-fortress than by
        making restitution to Herbert at the bidding of Alan, unless
        he felt so sure of his hold over Herbert as not to think the
        hostages worth keeping. The striking resemblance between Fulk’s
        treatment of Herbert and his father’s treatment of Guerech also
        suggests that there was probably a like resemblance in the
        terms of release.

But the step could never have been followed up as it was by Fulk’s
successor had not Fulk himself at once turned back to his special work
of clearing away the obstacle to Angevin progress formed by the rivalry
of Blois, which once again threatened to become a serious danger in the
very year of Herbert’s capture. Odo had lately[344] succeeded to the
inheritance of his cousin Stephen, count of Champagne, an acquisition
which doubled his wealth and power, and gave him a position of such
importance in the French kingdom as enabled him to overawe the crown
and cause a complete change in its policy. In 1025 King Robert, “or
rather his queen Constance,” as the chroniclers significantly add,
made peace with Count Odo who had hitherto been their enemy, and
left their old friend Fulk of Anjou to carry on alone the struggle
which he had begun with their good will, and, ostensibly at least,
partly in their interest.[345] Odo thought his hour was come; “with
all his might he set upon” Fulk;[346] and his might now included all
the forces of Touraine, Blois, Chartres and Champagne, aided, it
seems, by a contingent from the Royal Domain itself.[347] With this
formidable host Odo laid siege to a great fortified camp known as
the Montboyau, which Fulk had reared some ten years before on the
northern bank of the Loire almost opposite Tours, as a standing menace
to the city and a standing defiance to its ruler.[348] Fulk, to whom
the besieged garrison appealed for succour, had advanced[349] as far
as Brain-sur-Alonnes when he was met by tidings which induced him to
change his course.[350] Nearly over against the spot where he stood,
a ridge of white chalk-cliff rising sheer above the southern bank of
the Loire was crowned by the fortress of Saumur, the south-western
key of Touraine, close to the Angevin border. It had belonged to the
counts of Tours since the days of Theobald the Trickster at least;
but in an earlier time it had probably formed a part of the Angevin
March, as it still formed a part of the diocese of Angers. Its lord,
Gelduin, was the sole human being whom the Black Count feared; “Let
us flee that devil of Saumur!” was his cry, “I seem always to see him
before me.”[351] But now he learned that Gelduin had joined his count
at the siege of the Montboyau. A hurried night-ride across Loire and
Vienne brought Fulk at break of day to the gates of Saumur,[352] and
before sunset he was master of the place, although its inhabitants,
with a spirit worthy of their absent leader, fired the town before they
surrendered, and only admitted the victors into a heap of ashes. Not
the least valiant of its defenders had been the monks of S. Florence, a
little community who dwelt within the castle-enclosure, keeping guard
over the relics of a famous local saint. As they came forth with their
patron’s body from the blazing ruins, the Black Count’s voice rose
above the din: “Let the fire burn, holy Florence! I will build thee a
better dwelling at Angers.” The relics were placed in a boat and rowed
down the stream till they reached the limit of the lands of Saumur,
at Trèves. Once the boundary had been further west, at Gennes; till
Fulk, despite his terror of the “devil,” had taken courage to march
against him, doubtless at a moment when Gelduin was unprepared for
defence, for he at once asked a truce. It was granted, but not exactly
as he desired; on the spot where Gelduin’s envoy met him Fulk planted
a castle and called it mockingly “Treva,” _truce_. Opposite this
alien fortress the boat which carried the relics of S. Florence now
stuck fast in one of the sandbanks of treacherous Loire, and all the
efforts of the rowers failed to move it. The saint--said the monks--was
evidently determined not to be carried beyond his own territory. Fulk,
who was superintending the voyage in person, began to rail at him as
“an impious rustic who would not allow himself to be well treated”: but
there was a grain of humour in the Black Count’s composition, and he
was probably as much amused as angered at the saint’s obstinacy; at any
rate he suffered the monks to push off in the opposite direction--which
they did without difficulty--and deposit their charge in the church
of S. Hilary, an old dependency of their house, till he should find
them a suitable place for a new monastery.[353] Thus far Odo’s grand
expedition had brought him nothing but the loss of the best stronghold
he possessed on the Angevin border. There was apparently nothing to
prevent Fulk from marching in triumph up the valley of the Vienne,
where Chinon and Ile-Bouchard now held out alone for the count of
Blois amid a ring of Angevin fortresses. His present object, however,
was to relieve the Montboyau; and turning northward he laid siege
to a castle of his own building which had somehow passed into the
enemy’s hands, Montbazon[354] on the Indre, only three leagues distant
from Tours. Odo, whose siege operations had proved a most disastrous
failure,[355] at once broke up his camp and marched to the relief of
Montbazon. To dislodge him from the siege of Montboyau was all that
Fulk wanted; simulating flight, he retreated up the valley to Loches
and thence retired gradually upon Amboise.[356] A month later Odo
made an ineffectual attempt to regain Saumur. Some time afterwards he
tried again, pitching his tents among the vineyards on the banks of
the Thouet, hard by the rising walls of the new abbey of S. Florence;
the monks acted as mediators between their former lord and their new
patron, and peace was made, Odo definitely relinquishing Saumur, and
Fulk agreeing to raze the Montboyau[357]--that is, to raze the keep on
its summit; for the white chalky slopes of the mighty earthwork itself
rise gleaming above the river to this day. The struggle between Fulk
and Odo was virtually over. Once again, in the following year, the
count of Blois attempted to surprise Amboise, in company with the young
King Henry, Robert’s son and recently crowned colleague. The attack
failed;[358] it was Odo’s last effort to stem the tide of Angevin
progress. Fulk had done more than beat his rival in the battle-field;
he had out-generalled him in every way, and won a triumph which made
the final issue of their rivalry a foregone conclusion. That issue he
never sought to hasten, for with all his fiery vehemence Fulk knew how
to wait; unlike Odo, he could look beyond the immediate future, beyond
the horizon of his own life, and having sown and watered his seed he
could be content to leave others to gather its fruit, rather than risk
the frustration of his labours by plucking at it before the time.

        [344] Stephen seems to have died in 1019; _Art de vérifier les
        dates_, vol. xi. p. 347.

        [345] Chron. Rain. Andeg. a. 1026 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p.
        10); Chron. Vindoc. a. 1025 (_ib._ p. 165). This last is
        probably the right date, as the Angevin capture of Saumur,
        which follows, is dated in 1026 by the Chronn. S. Albin. and S.
        Serg. (_ib._ pp. 22, 134), and in 1025 by the Chronn. S. Flor.
        Salm. and S. Maxent. (_ib._ pp. 187, 388).

        [346] “Totis nisibus adorsus est.” Chronn. Rain. Andeg. and
        Vindoc. as above.

        [347] “Cum _Francis_,” says the _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._
        (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 276). This writer afterwards speaks
        of Odo’s whole host as “Franci.” He has already done the same
        at Pontlevoy (_ib._ p. 274); but surely there cannot have been
        any royal vassals fighting under Odo there. What can be the
        writer’s real meaning?

        [348] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 108. _Gesta Amb.
        Domin._ (_ibid._), p. 165. See, for dates, Chron. Rain. Andeg.
        a. 1026 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 10).

        [349] The _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (as above), p. 165, say that Fulk
        was accompanied by Herbert of Maine. But, on calculating dates,
        it seems that Herbert must have been by this time in prison.
        It is however highly probable that Cenomannian troops would be
        supplied to Fulk by Bishop Avesgaud.

        [350] _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 276.

        [351] _Ib._ p. 275.

        [352] _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p.
        276.--“Ligerique _ac Vigennâ_ transvadatis.” The writer, living
        close to the spot, can hardly have mistaken its topography; but
        unless he has done so, the confluence of the Vienne and the
        Loire must at that time have been considerably farther west
        than at present; it is now at Candes, some distance to the east
        of Saumur and Brain.

        [353] _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), pp.
        276–278.

        [354] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 109. _Gesta Amb.
        Domin._ (_ibid._), p. 165.

        [355] Chron. Rain. Andeg. a. 1026 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 10).

        [356] _Gesta Cons._ and _Gesta Amb. Domin._ as above.

        [357] _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 280.

        [358] Chron. Vindoc. a. 1027 (_ib._ p. 165). Cf. Chron. S.
        Albin. a. 1027 (_ib._ p. 22).

[Illustration: Plan VI.

  MEDIEVAL ANGERS.

  Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.      London, Macmillan & Co.
]

Fulk was now at the height of his prosperity. He had been count of
Anjou for forty years, and his reign had been one of unbroken success.
Each in turn of the greater neighbours who had stood, a threatening
ring, around Geoffrey Greygown’s boy-heir had been successfully dealt
with in some way or other, till the little Marchland had grown to be a
power in the realm second only to Normandy and perhaps to Aquitaine;
and before Fulk’s reign closed, even Aquitaine, the only one of
Anjou’s immediate neighbours which had not had to bow before him, fell
prostrate at the feet of his son. Fulk’s last years were to be years
of peace. Only once again did he take part in the general affairs of
the French kingdom; and then, as ever, his action was in strict accord
with the policy which he had begun and which his descendants followed
consistently down to the time of Henry Fitz-Empress: a policy of steady
loyalty to the lawful authority of the French Crown, against which the
counts of Blois lived in perpetual opposition. After Robert’s death,
in 1031, Fulk appeared in the unexpected character of peace-maker
between Queen Constance and her son, the young King Henry, whom she
was trying to oust from his throne;[359] and he afterwards accompanied
Henry on an expedition to dislodge Odo of Champagne from Sens, which
however succeeded no better than the attempt once made by Odo and
Henry to dislodge Fulk himself from Amboise.[360] But peace or war,
it mattered not to the Black Count; he was never at a loss for work.
When there was no enemy to fight or to outwit, his versatile energies
flung themselves just as readily into the encouragement of piety or the
improvement and embellishment of his capital. Over the black bastions
of the castle with which the French King Philip Augustus, when he had
wrested Angers from a degenerate descendant of its ancient counts,
found it needful to secure his hold on “this contemptuous city,” there
still looks out upon the river a fragment of a ruined hall, chiefly
of red flintstone; it is the sole remains of the dwelling-place of
Fulk Nerra--in all likelihood, his own work.[361] A poetic legend
shows him to us for once quietly at home, standing in that hall and
gazing at the view from its windows. At his feet flowed the purple
Mayenne between its flat but green meadows--for the great suburb
beyond the river did not yet exist--winding down beneath a bridge of
his own building to join the Loire beyond the rising hills to the
south-west. His eyes, keen as those of the “Falcon” whose name he
bore, reached across river and meadow to the slope of a hill directly
opposite him, where he descried a dove flying to and fro, picking up
fragments of earth and depositing them in a cavity which it seemed to
be trying to fill. Struck by the bird’s action, he carefully marked
the spot, and the work of the dove was made the foundation-stone of a
great abbey in honour of S. Nicolas, which he had vowed to build as a
thank-offering for deliverance from a storm at sea on his return from
his second pilgrimage.[362] This abbey, with a nunnery founded near
it eight years later--in 1128--by his countess Hildegard, on the site
of an ancient church dedicated to our Lady of Charity,[363] became
the nucleus round which gathered in after-years a suburb known as
Ronceray, scarcely less important than the city itself. These tranquil
home-occupations, however, could not long satisfy the restless temper
of Fulk. The irresistible charm exercised by the Holy Land over so many
of the more imaginative spirits of the age drew him to revisit it in
1035. One interesting event of the journey is recorded: his meeting
at Constantinople with Duke Robert of Normandy, father of William
the Conqueror.[364] The old and the young penitent completed their
pilgrimage together; but only the former lived to see his home again;
and when he reached it, he found the gates of Angers shut in his face
by his own son. The rebellion was soon quelled. Saddled and bridled
like a beast of burthen, Geoffrey came crawling to his father’s feet.
“Conquered art thou--conquered, conquered!” shouted the old count,
kicking his prostrate son. “Aye, conquered by thee, for thou art my
father; but unconquered by all beside!” The spirited answer touched
Fulk’s paternal pride, and Geoffrey arose forgiven.[365] The power
which he had thus undutifully tried to usurp was soon to be his by
right; not, however, till the Black Count had given one last proof
that neither his hand nor his brain had yet forgotten its cunning. Odo
of Champagne had long ago left Touraine to its fate, and for the last
four years he had been absorbed in a visionary attempt to wrest from
the Emperor Conrad II., first the kingdom of Burgundy, then that of
Italy, and at last the imperial crown itself; while Fulk’s conquests
of the valleys of the Indre and the Cher had been completed by the
acquisition of Montbazon and St.-Aignan.[366] When at the close of
1037 tidings came that Odo had been defeated and slain in a battle with
the imperial forces at Bar, the Angevin at once laid siege to Langeais,
and took it.[367] One more stronghold still remained to be won in the
valley of the Vienne. From the right bank of the little river, winding
down silvery-blue between soft green meadows to join the Loire beyond
the circle of the distant hills to the north-west, the mighty steep of
Chinon rises abruptly, as an old writer says, “straight up to heaven”;
range upon range of narrow streets climb like the steps of a terrace up
its rocky sides; acacias wave their bright foliage from every nook; and
on the crest of the ridge a long line of white ruins, the remains of a
stately castle, stand out against the sky. A dense woodland of oaks and
larches and firs, stretching north-eastward almost to the valley of the
Indre, and crowded with game of every kind, formed probably no small
part of the attractions which were to make Chinon the favourite retreat
of Fulk Nerra’s greatest descendant. In those ruined halls, where a
rich growth of moss and creepers has replaced the tapestried hangings,
earlier and later memories--memories of the Black Count or of the Maid
of Orleans--seem to an English visitor only to flit like shadows around
the death-bed of Henry Fitz-Empress. But it was Fulk who won Chinon
for the Angevins. The persuasion of his tongue, as keen as his sword,
sufficed now to gain its surrender.[368] The Great Builder’s work was
all but finished; only the keystone remained to be dropped into its
place. Tours itself stood out alone against the conqueror of Touraine.
One more blow, and the count of Anjou would be master of the whole
valley of the Loire from Amboise to the sea.

        [359] R. Glaber, l. iii. c. 9 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x.
        p. 40). Fulk’s mediation was done in characteristic fashion; he
        asked Constance “cur bestialem vesaniam erga filios exerceret.”
        It took effect, however.

        [360] Chron. S. Petr. Senon. and Chronolog. S. Marian.
        Autissiod. a. 1032 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xi. pp. 196,
        308).

        [361] See note B to chapter ii. above.

        [362] _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_) p. 275. The
        church was consecrated December 1, 1020; Chronn. S. Serg. ad
        ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 134.) The foundation-charter is
        in Le Pelletier’s _Breviculum S. Nicolai_, p. 4.

        [363] The foundation-charter, dated July 14, 1128, is in Hiret,
        _Antiquitez d’Anjou_, pp. 100, 101. The whole history of the
        church is fully discussed by M. d’Espinay, in the _Revue
        Historique de l’Anjou_, vol. xii. (1874), pp. 49–64, 143–155.
        A grotesque legend, which yet has a somewhat characteristic
        ring, was told of the origin of this nunnery. Fulk one day,
        watching a potter at his work, was seized with a desire to try
        his hand. He succeeded in producing a well-shaped pan, which
        he carried home in triumph and gave to his wife, telling her
        that it was made by the man whom she loved best. Hildegard,
        mistaking the jest for a serious charge, vowed to disprove it
        at once by undergoing the ordeal of water, and flung herself
        out of the window and into the river, before her husband could
        stop her. The spot where she came to land was marked by the
        abbey of our Lady (_Revue hist. de l’Anjou_, as above, pp. 54,
        55, and note 1; Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 279 note.) Its later
        name of “Ronceray” was derived from a bramble-bush (_ronce_)
        which forced its way through the pavement of the choir, despite
        all attempts to uproot it. This however was in the sixteenth
        century.

        [364] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 101. See note C
        at end of chapter.

        [365] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 235 (Hardy, pp. 401,
        402).

        [366] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 116.

        [367] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (_ibid._), p. 168.

        [368] _Ibid._

Strangely, yet characteristically, that final blow Fulk left to be
struck by his successor. As his life drew to its close the ghostly
terrors of his youth came back to him with redoubled force; and the
world which had marvelled at his exploits and his crimes marvelled no
less at his last penance. For the fourth time he went out to Jerusalem,
and there caused two servants, bound by an oath to do whatsoever
he should bid them, to drag him round the Holy City in the sight of
all the Turks, one holding him by a halter round his neck, the other
scourging his naked back, while he cried aloud for Heaven’s mercy on
his soul as a perjured and miserable sinner.[369] He made his way
homeward as far as Metz.[370] There, on June 21st, 1040, the Black
Count’s soul passed away;[371] and his body was embalmed, carried home
to Beaulieu, and buried in the chapter-house of the abbey which had
been the monument of his earliest pilgrimage, the first-fruits of his
youthful devotion and daring.[372]

        [369] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 235 (Hardy, p. 402).

        [370] “Metensem urbem,” _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_)
        p. 117. From the last word one would imagine this could only
        mean Metz in Lorraine; but there is another Metz in the
        Gâtinais; and although it is, and clearly always has been,
        an insignificant little town, quite undeserving the title
        of “urbs,” it seems more likely than its greater namesake
        to be the place really meant. For Metz in Lorraine would be
        completely out of the way of a traveller from Palestine to
        Anjou, while Metz in the Gâtinais was not merely close to
        Fulk’s home, but was actually in the territory of his own
        son-in-law (of whom we shall hear again later). It would
        be as natural for him to stop there on his way as it would
        be unnatural for him to fetch a compass through the remote
        dominions of the duke of Lorraine; and, on the other hand, the
        place is so insignificant that a careless and ignorant writer,
        such as John of Marmoutier, even though dwelling at no great
        distance, might easily forget its existence.

        [371] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1040 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 24, 135). Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p.
        377. _Gesta Cons._ (_ibid._), p. 117.

        [372] Fulk Rechin and _Gesta Cons._, as above.

From Beaulieu, at least, he had deserved nothing but gratitude, and
Beaulieu never forgot the debt. For seven centuries the anniversary of
his death was solemnly observed in the abbey; so was that of his widow,
who as a bride had helped to the dedication of the church, and who now,
following her husband’s last steps, went out to die at Jerusalem.[373]
For seven centuries, as the monks gathered in the church to keep their
yearly festival in honour of his gift, the fragment of sacred stone,
they read over in the office of the day the story of his pilgrimage,
and chanted the praise of his pious theft.[374] Next to that trophy,
his tomb was their pride; it vanished in the general wreck of 1793; but
research within the last few years has happily succeeded in bringing
the Black Count’s earthly resting-place to light once more.[375] But
it was not Beaulieu alone that kept his memory green. His own little
Angevin marchland, his fairer conquest Touraine, are sown thick with
memorials of him. So strong was the impression made by his activity
in one direction that after-generations have persisted in attributing
to him almost every important architectural work in his dominions,
and transferred the credit of several constructions even of Henry
Fitz-Empress to the first “great builder” of Anjou, who was believed to
have had command over more than mortal artificers. Popular imagination,
with its unerring instinct, rightly seized upon the Black Count as the
embodiment of Angevin glory and greatness. The credit of the astute
politician, the valiant warrior, the consummate general, the strenuous
ruler--all this is his due, and something more; the credit of having,
by the initiative force of genius, launched Anjou upon her career
with an impetus such as no opposing power could thenceforth avail to
check. One is tempted to wonder how far into the future of his house
those keen eyes of the Black Falcon really saw; whether he saw it or
not, that future was in a great measure of his own making; for his
fifty-three years of work and warfare had been spent in settling the
question on which that future depended--the question whether Anjou or
Blois was to be the chief power of central Gaul. When his place was
taken by Geoffrey Martel, there could no longer be any doubt of the
answer.

        [373] See extract from Martyrology of Ronceray in Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, p. 395, note 3.

        [374] See the office in Salies, _Foulques-Nerra_, pp. 499 _et
        seq._

        [375] See Salies, _Foulques-Nerra_, pp. 456 _et seq._

The new count of Anjou began his reign in circumstances very unlike
those of his father half a century before. Not only had Fulk wholly
changed the political position of Anjou, but Geoffrey’s own position
as an individual was totally different. He was no untried boy, left
to fight his own way with no weapons save the endowments which nature
had given him; he was a full-grown man, trained in the school of Fulk
Nerra, and already experienced in politics and war. In his own day
Geoffrey Martel was looked up to with as much respect as his father,
and with even more dread. His career is an illustration of the saying
that nothing succeeds like success. Till he came into collision with
the duke of Normandy, he carried all before him like chaff before the
wind. He crushed Aquitaine; he won Tours; he won Le Mans. It was no
wonder if he delighted to commemorate in the surname of Martel, “the
Hammer,” the victorious blows which laid opponent after opponent at
the feet of the blacksmith’s foster-son.[376] But Geoffrey was not
the artificer of his own fortune. He owed his pre-eminence among
the great vassals of the Crown to his extended possessions and his
military reputation; he owed his extended possessions more to his
father’s labours and to a series of favourable accidents than to his
own qualities as a statesman; and he owed his military reputation--as
one writer who understood the Angevins thoroughly has very plainly
hinted--more to luck than to real generalship.[377] Geoffrey stands at
a disadvantage thus far, that in contemplating him one cannot avoid
two very trying comparisons. It was as unlucky for his after-fame
as it was lucky for his material prosperity that he was the son of
Fulk the Black; it was unlucky for him in every way that he was the
rival of William the Conqueror. Neither as a statesman, a ruler, a
strategist, or a man was Geoffrey equal to his father. As a statesman
he showed no very lofty capacity; his designs on Aquitaine, sweeping
but pointless, came to nothing in the end: and with regard to Touraine
and Maine, politically, he had little to do but to reap the fruit of
Fulk’s labours and use the advantages which the favour of the king in
one case, the rashness of the bishop in the other, and the weakness of
the rival count in both, threw absolutely into his hands. As a ruler
he seems to have been looked up to with simple dread; there is little
trace of the intense personal following which others of his race knew
so well how to inspire;[378] the first time he was intrusted with the
government of Anjou his harshness and oppression roused the indignation
alike of his subjects and of his father; his neighbours looked on him
to the last as a tyrant,[379] and his own people seem to have feared
far more than they loved him. As a strategist there is really no proof
that he possessed any such overwhelming superiority as he himself
boasted, and as others were led to believe. His two great victories,
at Montcontour and Montlouis, dazzled the world because the one was
gained over a prince who by the tradition of ages counted as the first
potentate in the realm after the duke of Normandy, and the other led to
the acquisition of Tours; but the capture of William of Aquitaine was
really nothing more than the fortune of war; while in the case of the
victory over Theobald of Blois at Montlouis, a considerable part of the
credit is due to Geoffrey’s lieutenant Lisoy of Amboise; and moreover,
to have beaten the successor of Odo II. is after all no very wonderful
achievement for the successor of Fulk the Black. Twice in his life
Geoffrey met his master. The first time he owned it himself as he lay
at his father’s feet. The second time he evaded the risk of open defeat
by a tacit withdrawal far more shameful in a moral point of view. It
is small blame to Geoffrey Martel that he was no match for William the
Conqueror. Had he, in honest consciousness of his inferiority, done
his best to avoid a collision, and when it became inevitable stood to
face the consequences like a man, it would have been small shame to him
to be defeated by the future victor of Senlac. The real shame is that
after courting an encounter and loudly boasting of his desire to break
a lance with William, when the opportunity was given him he silently
declined to use it. It was but a mean pride and a poor courage that
looked upon defeat in fair fight as an unbearable humiliation, and
could not feel the deeper moral humiliation of shrinking from the mere
chance of that defeat. And it is just this bluntness of feeling, this
callousness to everything not visible and tangible to outward sense,
which sets Geoffrey as a man far below his father. There is in Fulk a
living warmth, a quickness of susceptibility, which breaks out in all
sorts of shapes, good and bad, in all the stories of the Black Count,
but which seems wholly lacking in Geoffrey. Fulk “sinned bravely,”
ardently, impulsively; Geoffrey sinned meanly, coldly, heartlessly.
His was altogether a coarser, lower nature. Fulk was truly the falcon
that wheels its swift and lofty flight ever closer and closer above the
doomed quarry till it strikes it down irresistibly with one unerring
swoop. Geoffrey rightly thought himself better represented by the
crashing blows of the insensible sledge-hammer.

        [376] Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_) p. 379; cf. _Hist. S.
        Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 260, and Will. Malm.
        _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 231 (Hardy, p. 395).

        [377] “Gaufredus cognomento Martellus, quod ipse sibi
        usurpaverat, quia videbatur sibi _felicitate quâdam_ omnes
        obsistentes contundere.” Will. Malm. as above.

        [378] Even the devotion of Lisoy of Amboise seems to have been
        given to Geoffrey chiefly because he was his father’s son. Fulk
        was its real object.

        [379] See the Norman writers, Orderic and William of Poitiers.

Geoffrey had been an independent ruler in a small sphere for nearly ten
years before his father’s death. In 1030 or 1031 he became master of
the little county of Vendôme by purchase from his half-sister Adela,
the only child of Fulk’s ill-starred first marriage, and the heiress
of her maternal grandfather Count Burchard. After doing homage to King
Henry for the fief, Geoffrey’s first act was to found in the capital
of his new dominions an abbey dedicated to the Holy Trinity.[380] The
appointment of an abbot proved the occasion for the first recorded
outbreak of that latent discord between Fulk and his heir which, as we
have seen, culminated at last in open war. A monk named Reginald had
just been sent at Fulk’s request from the great abbey of Marmoutier
near Tours, to take the place of Baldwin, abbot of S. Nicolas at
Angers, who had fled to bury himself in a hermitage. Before the day
came for Reginald’s ordination, however, he deserted to a younger
patron, and accepted the abbotship of Geoffrey’s newly-founded abbey
at Vendôme. Fulk, thus disappointed by two abbots in succession,
“flew,” as he himself said, “into a mighty rage,” summarily ordered
the whole colony of monks whom he had brought from Marmoutier to S.
Nicolas back to their parent monastery, and replaced them with some
of the brethren of S. Aubin’s at Angers, with Hilduin, prior of that
convent, as their head.[381] Fulk’s wrath seems to have been directed
against the monks rather than against his son; but the incident serves
as an illustration of the tendency to opposition that was springing
up in Geoffrey’s mind. The quiet, waiting policy of Fulk’s latter
years was evidently irksome to the young man’s impatient spirit, and
he chose to strike out a path for himself in a direction which, it is
not surprising to learn, did not please the old count. The only one of
his neighbours with whom Fulk seems to have been always on peaceable
terms was the count of Poitou. William Fierabras, the count from whom
Geoffrey Greygown had wrested Loudun, died about two years after the
second battle of Conquereux.[382] His wife was a daughter of Theobald
the Trickster,[383] and his son and successor was therefore first
cousin to Odo II. of Blois; but William IV.--whom Aquitaine reckoned
as her “William the Great”--seems to have had little in common with
his erratic kinsman, and to have always, on the other hand, maintained
a friendly understanding with Anjou. Like Odo, he once received an
offer of the crown of Italy; Fulk appears in the negotiations as the
friendly advocate of the duke’s interests with King Robert,[384] and
though the project came to nothing, it may have been in return for
Fulk’s good offices on this occasion that William bestowed on him the
investiture of Saintes, a gift which was to form the pretext for more
than one war between their descendants. On January 31st, 1029, William
died,[385] leaving as his successor a son who bore the same name, and
whose mother seems to have been a sister of Queen Constance.[386]
It was this new duke of Aquitaine, known as William the Fat, whom
Geoffrey Martel selected as the first victim of his heavy hand. An
Angevin story attributes the origin of the war to a dispute about
Saintes or Saintonge,[387] but it will not bear examination. Geoffrey
Martel simply trod in the steps of Geoffrey Greygown, and with more
marked success. In the autumn of 1033 he started on an expedition
against the duke of Aquitaine; William encountered him on September
20th in a pitched battle near the abbey of S. Jouin-de-Marne, not far
from Montcontour in Poitou; the Poitevins were defeated, partly, it
seems, through treason in their own ranks, and their duke was taken
prisoner.[388] For three years the duke of Aquitaine, the second
great feudatary of the realm, was kept in a dungeon by the count
of Vendôme;[389] not till the whole district of Saintonge[390] and
several important towns were ceded to Geoffrey, and an annual tribute
promised, would he release his captive. From the execution of the
last humiliating condition William was delivered by death; the cruel
treatment he had suffered in prison had done its work; Geoffrey had
exacted the ransom for his prisoner just in time, and sent him home
only to die three days after his liberation.[391]

        [380] _Origo Com. Vindoc._, in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xi.
        p. 31. See also Mabillon, _Ann. Bened._, vol. iv. pp. 378, 379.

        [381] The whole story is told only by Fulk himself, in a
        charter to the abbey of S. Nicolas; _Breviculum S. Nicolai_ (Le
        Pelletier), quoted in Mabillon, _Ann. Bened._, vol. iv. p. 379.

        [382] See editor’s note to Peter of Maillezais, _Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 183, note _g_.

        [383] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 972 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 380).

        [384] Adem. Chabanais, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 161.
        Letters of William of Poitou, _ib._ pp. 483, 484; of Fulk to
        Robert, _ib._ pp. 500, 501.

        [385] Chron. S. Maxent. ad ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 390).

        [386] She was Adelmodia, widow of Boso, count of La Marche, and
        daughter of William count of Arles and “Candida,” otherwise
        Adelaide the White; see Pet. Maillezais, l. i. c. 6 (_Rer.
        Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 182), and note B at end of chapter.

        [387] See note C at end of chapter iv. below.

        [388] Chronn. S. Maxent. a. 1032, S. Albin. and S. Flor. Salm.
        a. 1033 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 391, 392, 23, 188); S. Serg.
        a. 1028 (_ib._ p. 135). Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p.
        378. Cf. _Gesta Cons._ (_ibid._), pp. 128–130, and note C to
        chapter iv. below.

        [389] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1036 (as above, p. 392).

        [390] “Sanctonas cum toto pago.” Chron. Tur. Magn., Salmon,
        _Chron. de Touraine_, p. 122. (The date, “anno Henrici
        Imperatoris iv et Henrici regis xiii,” is of course absurd,
        like most of the dates in the Tours chronicle at this period,
        except those which relate to local matters). Cf. _Gesta Cons._
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 126, and note C to chapter iv. below.

        [391] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 231 (Hardy, p. 395).
        Cf. Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 182.

Then Geoffrey threw off the mask. William had no children; his next
heir was his half-brother Odo, the son of his father’s second marriage
with Brisca, heiress of Gascony.[392] But after Brisca’s death, William
the Great had married a third wife, whom he had left a still young
widow with three little children. Before William the Fat had been many
months dead, his stepmother the widowed Countess Agnes gave her hand
to Geoffrey of Vendôme.[393] Geoffrey’s motive is plain; he sought
to prevent the union of Poitou and Gascony and to get the former
practically into his own hands as stepfather and guardian to the young
sons of Agnes. But in Anjou the wedding gave great scandal; Geoffrey
and Agnes were denounced in the harshest terms as too near akin to
marry.[394] They seem in fact to have been, by the reckoning of the
canon law, cousins in the third degree, as being, one a grandson, the
other a great-granddaughter of Adela of Chalon, the second wife of
Geoffrey Greygown.[395] At any rate they were looked upon as sinners,
and by no one more than the bridegroom’s father. The whole scheme
of Geoffrey’s meddlings in Aquitaine was repugnant to Fulk Nerra’s
policy; he looked to his son to complete his own labours in Touraine
and Maine, and it was no good omen for the fulfilment of his hopes when
Geoffrey thus turned his back upon his appointed work for the love of
Countess Agnes or of her late husband’s possessions. The capture of
William the Fat had been the signal for the first outbreak of a “more
than civil war” between father and son;[396] Geoffrey’s misconduct
during his regency in Anjou brought matters to the crisis which ended
in his first and last public defeat. Nevertheless he obstinately
pursued his projects. The Poitevins, by the death of their count, were
left, as their own chronicler says, “as sheep having no shepherd”;
there was a party among them ready to support the claims of Agnes’s
sons against their elder half-brother Odo of Gascony; and one of the
leaders of this party, William of Parthenay, built with Angevin help
a fortress at Germont in which he held out successfully against the
besieging forces of Odo. The count of Gascony then proceeded to Mausé,
another stronghold of his enemies, and in assaulting this place he
was slain.[397] He left no children; the elder of Geoffrey Martel’s
stepsons was now therefore heir to Poitou. The boys were twins; the
third child of Agnes was a girl, who bore her mother’s name, and for
whom her mother and stepfather contrived in 1043 to arrange a marriage
with no less important a personage than the Emperor Henry III.,[398]
whose first wife had been a daughter of Cnut. It was not till the year
after this imperial wedding that the troubled affairs of Aquitaine were
definitely settled. In 1044 Countess Agnes came to Poitiers accompanied
by her two sons, Peter and Geoffrey, and her husband, their stepfather,
Geoffrey Martel; there they held with the chief nobles of Poitou a
council at which Peter, or William as he was thenceforth called, was
solemnly ordained as duke of Aquitaine, and his brother sent into
Gascony to become its count.[399] Agnes at least must now have attained
her object; whether Geoffrey Martel was equally satisfied with the
result of his schemes may be a question, for we do not clearly know
how wide the range of those schemes really was. If, as seems likely,
they included the hope of acquiring a lasting hold over Aquitaine,
then their issue was a failure. By the victory of Montcontour Geoffrey
had gained for himself at one blow a great military reputation; but
for Anjou the only solid gain was the acquisition of Saintonge, and
this, like some of the outlying possessions of the house of Blois, soon
proved more trouble than profit. If Martel expected that his stepsons
would hold themselves indebted to him for their coronets and remain his
grateful and dutiful miscalculation. The marriage of a duchess-dowager
of Aquitaine with Geoffrey Martel naturally suggests thoughts of the
marriage of a duchess-regnant with a later count of Anjou; but the
resemblance between the two cases is of the most superficial kind; the
earlier connexion between Anjou and Aquitaine did little or nothing
to pave the way for their later union. Geoffrey himself, indeed, had
already discovered that although the count of Vendôme might go seeking
adventures in the south, the duties and the interests of the count of
Anjou still lay to the north, or at the utmost no farther away than the
banks of the great frontier-river.

        [392] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1010 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 387,
        388).

        [393] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p.
        182. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 231 (Hardy, p. 395).
        Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1037 (as above, pp. 392, 393); Chronn. S.
        Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1032 (_ib._ pp. 23, 135). On the date
        see note D at end of chapter.

        [394] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1032 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 23, 135).

        [395] See note D at end of chapter.

        [396] Chronn. S. Albin. a. 1032, 1033 (Marchegay, _Eglises_,
        p. 23); S. Serg. a. 1028 (_ib._ p. 135); Rain. Andeg. a.
        1036, 1037 (_ib._ p. 11). The Chron. S. Albin. a. 1033, says:
        “Gaufridus ... Willelmum comitem Pictavorum sumpsit in bello;
        quare orta est discordia inter patrem et filium.” Labbe in his
        _Bibl. MSS. Librorum_ printed this “patrem et _matrem_,” and
        thereby originated a perfectly groundless story of a quarrel
        between Fulk and Hildegard.

        [397] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1037 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 392,
        393).

        [398] Hermann. Contract., a. 1043 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        xi. p. 19). Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. ad ann. (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 24, 135, 136). The Chron. S. Maxent. (_ib._ p.
        398) dates the marriage vaguely “per hæc tempora” under 1049.

        [399] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1044 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 394,
        395). It seems quite plain that the elder boy’s baptismal name
        was Peter, but he signs his charters “William” (see Besly,
        _Comtes de Poitou, preuves_, pp. 314, 317). The Chron. S.
        Maxent. a. 1058 (as above, p. 400) calls him “Willelmus qui et
        Petrus, cognomento Acer.” In recording the birth of the two
        boys (a. 1023, _ib._ p. 388) the same writer calls them “Petrum
        cognomine Acerrimum, et Gaufredum qui et Wido vocatus est”; and
        he afterwards speaks of the latter by both names indifferently.
        It seems however to have been an established rule that the
        reigning duke of Aquitaine must be officially called William;
        for Guy-Geoffrey also assumed the name when he succeeded his
        brother in 1058.

The visions of empire to which Odo of Champagne had sacrificed the
latter years of his life had perished with him on the field of Bar. Not
a foot of land outside the limits of the kingdom of France had he left
to his heirs. He had two sons, Theobald and Stephen, whose very names
seemed to mark out their destined shares in his dominions. Stephen,
the younger, became count of Champagne; to Theobald, the elder, fell
the original territories of his house--Blois, Chartres and Tours.[400]
Theobald’s heritage however was shorn of its fairest portion. The
county of Tours now comprised little more than the capital; all
Touraine south of the Loire--by far the most fertile and valuable
half--was in the power of the Angevin; Tours itself, once a secure
central post, had become a closely threatened border-city. Theobald’s
first duty was to protect it, but it seems to have been the last thing
he thought of. Odo’s sons had inherited all his wrongheadedness without
his quickness of thought and action. Shut in as they were on all sides
by powerful foes, the two young men began their career by rebelling
after the manner of their forefathers;[401] and the king’s youngest
brother Odo was lured, by a promise of dethroning Henry in his favour,
into joining in their rebellion. Odo, a youth of weak intellect, was
in himself no very formidable person, but he might for the very same
reason become a dangerous tool in the hands of his fellow-conspirators;
and a rebellious coalition of Blois and Champagne threatened to be a
serious difficulty for the king at a moment when there was scarcely one
of the great feudataries on whom he could reckon for support. The death
of Duke Robert of Normandy had plunged his duchy into confusion and
deprived Henry of all chance of help in the quarter which had hitherto
been his chief source of strength. The county of Burgundy was governed
by the king’s brother Robert, who had with difficulty been induced to
accept it as compensation for the failure of his hopes of the crown.
Flanders and Britanny were always indifferent to the troubles and
necessities of the king; the count of Vermandois was a kinsman and ally
of Champagne; Aquitaine was as powerless as Normandy. The one vassal to
whom Henry could look for aid was the count of Anjou. Had the rebels
possessed sense and spirit they might have given Henry quite as much
trouble as their father had given Robert; but they seem to have had no
well-concerted plan; each acted independently, and each was crushed
singly. Young Odo, their puppet pretender, was easily caught and
imprisoned at Orléans; Stephen of Champagne was defeated in a pitched
battle by the king himself;[402] Theobald of Blois was left to be dealt
with by other hands. With a master-stroke of policy, Henry proclaimed
the city of Tours forfeit by Theobald’s rebellion, and granted its
investiture to the count of Anjou.[403]

        [400] Hugh of Fleury, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xi. p. 159.
        Chron. Fr. Andreæ, _ib._ p. 364.

        [401] Hugh of Fleury and Chron. Fr. Andreæ, as above. _Hist.
        Franc. Fragm._ (_ibid._), p. 160.

        [402] _Hist. Franc. Fragm._ (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xi.),
        p. 160. Hugh of Fleury (_ibid._), p. 159.

        [403] Chron. Virdun. a. 1039 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xi.
        p. 144). R. Glaber, l. v. c. 2 (_ib._ vol. x. p. 60), copied in
        _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 122, 123. Fulk Rechin
        (_ibid._), p. 378.

To understand the full importance of this grant and of the war which
followed it, we must know something of the history of Tours and of
the peculiar feelings and interests attached to it. The origin of
Tours as a city dates from the time of the Roman empire, when it
appears under the name of Cæsarodunum.[404] The Roman _castrum_ was
built in a broad, shallow sort of basin, watered on the north by the
Loire, on the south by the Cher; it probably occupied the site of some
village of those Turones or Turoni, who play a part in the Gallic wars
of Cæsar,[405] and whose name in the end superseded that which the
place received from its conqueror. The “city of the Turones” became
the central point of a network of roads connecting it with Poitiers,
Chartres, Bourges, Orléans, Le Mans and Angers;[406] and owing to the
convenience of its situation for military and administrative purposes
it was made the capital of the Third Lyonnese province.[407] But
its hold on the minds of men was due to another gift of Rome, more
precious than roads or fortifications or even political traditions.
It was the holy city of Gaul, the cradle of Gaulish Christianity. Its
first bishop, Gatian, was one of seven missionaries sent out from
Rome to evangelize the Gallic provinces in the days of the Decian
persecution.[408] S. Gatian’s episcopate of half a century fell in
one of the most distracted periods of the Empire; after his death the
Church which he had planted remained untended for nearly forty years,
and it was not till after the death of Constantine that Tours received
her second bishop in the person of Lidorius, one of her own sons, who
laid the foundations of a cathedral church.[409] But the fame of the
two first bishops of Tours was completely overshadowed by that of the
third. The work of S. Gatian and S. Lidorius was confined to their own
immediate flock; S. Martin was the apostle not only of Touraine but of
all central Gaul. Born at Sabaria[410] in the Upper Pannonia, in the
reign of the first Christian Emperor, but of heathen parents, Martin
rose to high military distinction under the Cæsar Julian, accompanied
him into Gaul, and enjoyed his utmost esteem and regard till he
forfeited them by renouncing the standard of the eagles for that of
the Cross. Neither the wrath of his commander nor the entreaties of
his fellow-soldiers, by whom he was greatly beloved, availed to shake
his resolution; he fled to Poitiers, and there found a friend and
counsellor in the holy bishop Hilary, from whom he received the minor
orders. After braving toil and peril by land and sea in a journey
to his native country for the conversion of his family, he returned
to a life of seclusion in Gaul, and acquired such a reputation for
holiness that on the death of Lidorius in 371 the people of Tours,
in spite of his strenuous resistance, actually forced him to become
their bishop.[411] From that moment Tours became a mission-centre
whence the light of the faith spread with marvellous rapidity over
all the surrounding country. Anjou and all the neighbouring lands
owed their conversion to S. Martin and the missionaries sent out by
him; everywhere paganism gave way before his eloquent preaching, his
dauntless courage, his almost apostolic endowments--above all, perhaps,
his good example. He was looked upon as the Thaumaturgus of Gaul, and
countless legends were told of his wonder-working powers; more famous
than all of them is a story of the saint in his soldier-days, when,
Christian already in feeling though not yet in profession, he stopped
his horse one cold winter’s night, drew his sword and cut his military
cloak in halves to share it with one whose necessity was greater than
his own. That night he dreamed that the Lord whom, not knowing, he yet
instinctively served, appeared to him wearing the half cloak which he
had thus given away; and it was this vision which determined him to
receive baptism.[412] Amid all his busy, active life he never lost the
love of solitary contemplation so characteristic of the early Christian
missionaries. His episcopal city lay on the south side of the Loire,
but had on the north or right bank a large suburb afterwards known
by the name of S. Symphorian; beyond this, farther to the eastward,
the bishop found for himself a “green retreat,” which has scarcely
yet lost its air of peaceful loneliness, and which, before the suburb
had spread to its present extent, must have been an ideal spot for
monastic retirement. A little wooden cell with its back against the
white limestone rock which shelters the northern side of the basin
of Tours--an expanse of green solitude in front, stretching down to
the broad calm river--such was the nest which S. Martin built him in
the wilderness; gathering round him a little band of men likeminded
with himself, he snatched every spare moment from his episcopal cares
to flee away thither and be at rest;[413] and the rock-hewn cells
of the brotherhood became the nucleus of a famous abbey, the “Great
Monastery,” as it was emphatically called--_Majus Monasterium_,
Marmoutier. Another minster, of almost greater fame, grew up over the
saint’s burial place outside the western wall of the city, on low-lying
ground which, before it was reclaimed by the energetic dyke-makers of
the ninth and tenth centuries, must have been not unfrequently under
water. It is within the episcopal city of S. Martin, in the writings
of Bishop Gregory of Tours, that West-Frankish history begins. An
English student feels a nearer interest in the abbey without the walls,
remembering that the abbot under whom it reached its highest glory and
became the very fount and source of all contemporary learning, human
and divine, was Alcuin of York.

        [404] Ptolem., l. ii. c. 8.

        [405] Cæsar, _De Bello Gallico_, l. ii. c. 35; l. vii. c. 75;
        l. viii. c. 46.

        [406] Article by M. E. Mabille on “Topographie de la Touraine,”
        in _Bibl. de l’Ecole des Chartes_, series v. vol. iv. pp. 413,
        414.

        [407] _Notitia Provinciarum Galliæ_, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._,
        vol. i. p. 122.

        [408] Greg. of Tours, _Hist. Franc._, l. i. c. 28.

        [409] Chron. Archiep. Turon., Salmon, _Chron. de Touraine_, p.
        201.

        [410] Now Stein-am-Angern.

        [411] Sulpitius Severus, _Vita B. Martini_, cc. 2–9. Greg.
        Tours., _Hist. Franc._, l. i. cc. 34, 36, 43.

        [412] Sulp. Severus, _Vita B. Martini_, c. 3.

        [413] Sulp. Severus, _Vita B. Martini_, c. 10.

When the great English scholar and the great Emperor who had brought
him into Gaul were gone, Tours underwent her full share of suffering
in the invasions of the northmen. City and abbey became to the valley
of the Loire something like what Paris and S. Denis were to that of
the Seine, the chief bulwark against the fresh tide of heathen force
which threatened to sweep away the footsteps of saints and scholars.
Once, indeed, Tours had been in danger from heathens of another
sort, and a body of Saracens had been turned back from her gates and
destroyed by Charles Martel.[414] There was no Martel to save her
from the northmen; her only defence consisted in the valour of her
citizens, and the fortifications left to her by her Roman governors and
carefully strengthened by her Karolingian sovereigns.[415] Over and
over again the pirates were driven back from the walls of Cæsarodunum;
over and over again S. Martin’s Abbey was burnt to the ground. For
years the canons, who in Alcuin’s days had taken the place of the
original monks,[416] lived in constant fear of desecration befalling
their patron’s body, and carried it from place to place, like the
body of our own S. Cuthbert, sometimes depositing it within the city
walls, sometimes removing it farther inland--once even to the far-off
Burgundian duchy--bringing it home whenever they dared, or whenever
they had a church fit to contain it. Two of these “reversions”--one on
December 13, 885, the other on May 12, 919--were annually celebrated
at Tours, in addition to two other feasts of S. Martin, his ordination
on July 4 and his “deposition” on November 11.[417] In the first
reversion Ingelger, the founder of the Angevin house, was said to
have borne a prominent part. The story of the second was afterwards
superseded by a famous legend known as that of the “subvention of
S. Martin.” Once, it was said, when the citizens of Tours were sore
pressed by the besieging hosts of the northmen, they resolved to
intrust their cause to a heavenly champion, and brought out upon the
walls the corpse of the saint, which had been deposited for safety
within the city. The living heathen fled at once before the dead
saint; they were pursued by the triumphant citizens, still carrying
their patron in their midst, and utterly routed at a spot which thence
received the name of “S. Martin of the Battle.”[418] This story seems
to belong to the siege of 903, when Marmoutier was destroyed, and
the abbey of S. Martin burnt to the ground for the third time. When
the canons again rebuilt it, they took the precaution of encircling
it with a wall, and procured from Charles the Simple a charter which
resulted in the creation of a new fortified borough, exempt from the
jurisdiction of both bishop and count, and subject only to its own
abbot--in other words, to the duke of the French, who from the middle
of the eighth century always held _in commendam_ the abbey of S. Martin
at Tours, as he did that of S. Denis at Paris.[419] Thus, side by side
with the old city of the Turones, Cæsarodunum with its Roman walls,
its count, its cathedral and its archbishop, there arose the “Castrum
Novum,” Châteauneuf, “Castellum S. Martini,” Martinopolis as it is
sometimes called, with its own walled enclosure, its collegiate church
and its abbot-duke. The counts of Anjou, who followed so steadily in
the train of the ducal house, were not blind to the means of gaining
a footing in such tempting neighbourhood to the walls of Tours; from
an early period they took care to connect themselves with the abbey
of which their patron was the head. The first count of Anjou and his
father play an important part in the legendary history of the two great
“reversions”; Fulk the Good is almost more familiar to us as canon than
as count, and the stall next to that of the dean of S. Martin’s, which
he so loved to occupy, whence he wrote his famous letter, and where
he saw his vision of the saint, seems to have become hereditary among
his descendants like the abbotship among those of Hugh the Great. Good
Canon Fulk prized it as a spiritual privilege; his successors probably
looked upon it rather in the light of a political wedge whereby they
might some day force an entrance into the greedily-coveted city itself.
Tours was the point towards which Fulk the Black had worked steadily
all his life long; and when he left his son to complete his labours,
that point was almost reached. But, with her broad river and her Roman
walls, Tours was still hard to win. To block the river was impossible;
to break down the walls would need nothing less than a regular siege,
and one which could not fail to be long, tedious and costly. Geoffrey
seems to have delayed the task until by the king’s grant of the
investiture it became a point of honour as well as a matter of the most
pressing interest to make good the claim thus placed in his hands.

        [414] Fredegar. Contin., l. ii. c. 108 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._,
        vol. ii. p. 454); Chron. Fontanell. a. 732 (_ib._ p. 660), etc.

        [415] See Ann. Bertin., _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. p. 107.

        [416] Chron. Petr. Fil. Bechin., in Salmon, _Chron. de
        Touraine_, p. 40. Chron. Tur. Magn. a. 991 (_ib._ p. 93). See
        _Gall. Christ._, vol. xiv. col. 154.

        [417] For the whole history of the wanderings and the festivals
        of S. Martin, and of the sieges of Tours by the northmen, see
        an article by M. Mabille, “Les Invasions normandes dans la
        Loire et les pérégrinations du corps de S. Martin,” in _Bibl.
        de l’Ecole des Chartes_, series vi. vol. v. pp. 149–194.

        [418] _Tract. de Revers. B. Martini_, in Salmon, _Supplément
        aux Chron. de Touraine_, pp. 14–34; copied in _Gesta Cons._
        (see note A to chapter ii. above). On the date, see Mabille,
        “Inv. Norm.” (_Bibl. de l’Ecole des Chartes_, series vi. vol.
        v. p. 190). This device of the citizens of Tours was several
        times imitated elsewhere; _e.g._ by the monks of Saumur with
        the body of S. Docelinus, when Fulk Nerra besieged the place
        in 1025 (_Hist. S. Flor. Salm._, Marchegay, _Eglises_, p.
        277); and by the monks of S. Peter at Sens, against the same
        opponent, in 1032 (Chron. S. Petr. Senon. ad ann., _Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. xi. p. 196). The former failed, the latter
        succeeded.

        [419] Charter of Charles the Simple, a. 918, in _Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. ix. p. 540. For the history of the “Castellum
        S. Martini,” and the topography of Tours and Châteauneuf, see
        “Topographie de la Touraine,” by M. E. Mabille, in _Bibl. de
        l’Ecole des Chartes_, series v. vol. v. pp. 321–366; and for
        the topography and history of the whole district from the
        earliest times see previous articles under the same title,
        series v. vol. iii. pp. 309–332, vol. iv. pp. 388–428, and vol.
        v. pp. 233–258.

He woke at once from his Aquitanian dreams, gathered his forces, and
led them out, probably not by the old Roman road from Juliomagus to
Cæsarodunum past the white steeps of his father’s Montboyau, but by
a safer though longer route, passing along the southern bank of the
Loire and across the valleys of the Vienne and the Indre, to lay siege
to Tours. With the royal sanction to his enterprise he had the great
advantage of being able to use Châteauneuf as a basis of operations.
The monastery of S. Julian, at the north-east corner of the town, close
against the city wall, was especially convenient for attacking the
latter; Geoffrey took possession of it and used it accordingly.[420]
The city, however, held out against him for a whole year, during
which its inhabitants seem to have been left by their count to defend
themselves as best they could. At last, in August 1044, Theobald
collected an army for its relief, in union with the forces of Champagne
under his brother Stephen.[421] Geoffrey, in expectation of this, had
detached from his main force a body of two hundred knights and fifteen
hundred foot, whom he posted at Amboise under Lisoy, to guard the road
against Theobald.[422] The services of Lisoy were a special legacy from
Fulk the Black to his son. Of all Fulk’s adherents, none had served
him so intelligently and so devotedly as this Cenomannian knight whom
he had chosen to be the colleague of the aged Sulpice in the defence of
Amboise and Loches. Fulk, when he felt his end approaching, had striven
hard to impress on his son the value of such a true and tried friend,
and at the same time to bind Lisoy yet more closely to him by arranging
his marriage with Hersendis, the niece and heiress of Sulpice, whereby
Lisoy came into possession of all Sulpice’s estates at Loches and
Amboise, including the famous tower of stone.[423] Lisoy proved as
true to the new count as to the old one. Theobald, not daring to come
within reach of Amboise, avoided the direct route from Blois to Tours
along the Loire,[424] and took the road by Pontlevoy to Montrichard.
The chief force of Montrichard, with its commander Roger, was no doubt
with Geoffrey before Tours, so the count of Blois pursued his way
unmolested, plundering as he went, down the valley of the Cher, till
he pitched his tents in the meadows of St.-Quentin opposite Bléré,
and there stayed a day and a night to rest.[425] All his movements
were known to the watchful lord of Amboise; and as soon as Lisoy had
fully ascertained the numbers and plans of the enemy, he hurried off
to seek his count in the army before Tours, and offer him some sound
military advice. He represented that it would be far better to raise
the siege, join the whole Angevin force with that which was already
at Amboise, and stake everything on a pitched battle. The enemy might
beat either Geoffrey or his lieutenant singly, but united they would be
irresistible; and whereas the siege must be long and tedious, and its
result uncertain, one victory in the field would lay all Touraine at
the victor’s feet. Only let the count be quick and not suffer his foe
to catch him at unawares.[426]

        [420] See _Gall. Christ._, vol. xiv. col. 243.

        [421] R. Glaber, l. v. c. 2 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
        60).

        [422] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 118.

        [423] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 168, 169.

        [424] _Ib._ p. 170.

        [425] _Gesta Cons._ (_ibid._), p. 119.

        [426] _Ib._ pp. 118, 119.

Geoffrey, as he listened to this bold counsel, must have been reminded
of his father’s warning, that a true friend like Lisoy was a surer
source of strength than either hosts or treasures.[427] He took the
advice, and while Lisoy returned to Amboise to bring up his little
force to the trysting-place agreed upon between them, his count, after
diligent prayers and vows to S. Martin, took the consecrated banner of
the abbey from its place above the shrine, affixed it to his own spear,
and rode forth with it at the head of all his troops to do battle with
Theobald.[428] On the same day when Theobald encamped opposite Bléré
Geoffrey reached Montlouis, a hill on the south bank of the Loire,
about half way between Tours and Amboise. Next morning the men of Blois
resumed their march; turning in a north-westerly direction they were
met at a place called Noit by the Angevins coming down from Montlouis.
The Hammer of Anjou, ever foremost in fight, headed the attack on the
enemy’s centre; his faithful Lisoy came up, as he had promised, at the
head of his contingent, and threw himself on their right wing.[429]
What followed scarcely deserved the name of a battle. The army of the
brother-counts seemed spell-bound, and made no resistance at all;
Stephen took to flight at once and escaped with a few knights;[430] the
rest of the troops of Blois and Champagne were utterly defeated and
taken prisoners almost in a body. The men of Amboise were hottest in
pursuit of the fugitives, and they won the great prize of the day. They
drove Theobald with some five or six hundred knights into a wood called
Braye, whence it was impossible for horsemen to extricate themselves;
and thus Lisoy had the honour of bringing the count of Blois a captive
to the feet of Geoffrey Martel.[431] No one at the time doubted that
the Angevins owed their easy victory to the saint whose standard they
were following. The few soldiers of Theobald who escaped declared that
they had seen Geoffrey’s troops all clad in shining white raiment,
and fled in horror, believing themselves to be fighting against the
hosts of Heaven.[432] The village near which the fight took place was
called “burgum S. Martini Belli”[433]--S. Martin of the Battle, a name
derived from the “subvention of S. Martin,” supposed to have occurred
at the same place two hundred years before. Most curiously, neither
the well-known legend of the saint’s triumph over the northmen nor the
fame of Geoffrey’s triumph over the count of Blois availed to fix in
popular memory the true meaning of the name. While the English “Place
of Battle” at Senlac has long forgotten its dedication to S. Martin,
its namesake in Touraine has forgotten both its battles and become
“St.-Martin-le-Beau.”

        [427] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (_ibid._), p. 168.

        [428] R. Glaber, l. v. c. 2 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
        60); copied in _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 122.

        [429] _Gesta Cons._ (as above), p. 120.

        [430] R. Glaber, l. v. c. 2 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
        61); copied in _Gesta Cons._ (as above), p. 122.

        [431] _Gesta Cons._ (as above), p. 121; _Gesta Amb. Domin._
        (_ibid._), p. 170.

        [432] R. Glaber, as above; _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_),
        p. 123.

        [433] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 120.

With very little bloodshed, the Angevins had gained over a thousand
prisoners.[434] The most valuable of them all was put in ward at
Loches;[435] but he took care not to stay there long. Theobald took
warning by the fate of William of Aquitaine;[436] he had no mind to run
the risk of dying in prison, and held his person far dearer than his
property.[437] Three days after his capture, finding that no amount
of silver or gold would avail to purchase his release, he yielded the
only ransom which Geoffrey would accept: the city of Tours and the
whole county of Touraine.[438] A nominal overlordship over the ceded
territory was reserved to Theobald, and Geoffrey had to go through
the formality of doing homage for it to him.[439] When the substance
was securely his own, the count of Anjou could well afford to leave
to his vanquished rival the shadowy consolation of an empty ceremony.
Moreover, the circumstances of the whole transaction and the account
of King Henry’s grant to Geoffrey clearly imply that Theobald’s rights
over the most important point of all, the capital itself, were
considered as entirely forfeited by his rebellion, so that with regard
to the city of Tours Geoffrey stepped into the exact place of its
former counts, holding it directly of the king alone.

        [434] Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 378; R. Glaber, l.
        v. c. 2 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 61). For the date
        of the battle--August 21, 1044--see Chronn. Rain. Andeg., S.
        Albin., S. Serg., Vindoc., S. Flor. Salm., and S. Maxent. ad
        ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 11, 24, 136, 166, 188, 395).
        The _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 121, and _Gesta
        Amb. Domin._ (_ibid._), p. 170, make it 1042, but they cannot
        possibly be right.

        [435] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ as above.

        [436] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 182.

        [437] _Gesta Cons._, as above. See the comment of Will. Malm.
        _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 231 (Hardy, p. 396).

        [438] Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 18 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
        Scriptt._, p. 276); _Gesta Cons._ (as above), pp. 121, 122; the
        details of the treaty are in pp. 123, 124.

        [439] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ as above.

The acquisition of Tours closes the second stage in the career of the
house of Anjou. Looked at from a strictly Angevin point of view, the
period just passed through, although in one sense only preliminary,
is the most important of all, for it is that on which depended all
the later growth, nay, almost the very existence of Anjou. Had the
counts of Blois proved too strong for her in these her early years,
she would have been swallowed up altogether; had they merely proved
themselves her equals, the two states so closely bound together would
have neutralized each other so that neither of them could have risen to
any commanding eminence; till one or the other should sweep its rival
out of its path, both must be impeded in their developement. At the
opening of the struggle, in Fulk Nerra’s youth, Blois was distinctly in
the ascendant, and the chances of independent existence for the little
Marchland hung solely on the courage and statesmanship of its count.
His dauntless genius, helped by Odo’s folly, saved Anjou and turned
the tide completely in its favour. The treaty sworn, four years after
Fulk’s death, in his great castle by the Indre, was the crowning of his
life’s work, and left his son absolutely without a rival till he chose
to seek one beyond the debateable ground of Maine. The long struggle
of Fulk and Odo, completed by Geoffrey and Theobald, had made a clear
field for the future struggles of Geoffrey and William, of Fulk V. and
Henry I., and at last--by a strange turn of fate--for a renewal of the
old feud with the house of Blois itself, in a new form and for a far
higher stake, in the struggle of Stephen and Henry Fitz-Empress for the
English crown.


NOTE A.

THE SIEGE OF MELUN.

The fullest account of this Melun affair is in Richer, l. iv. cc.
74–78. Briefly, it comes to this: Odo (described simply by his name,
without title of any kind) “rerum suarum augmentum querebat,” and
especially the castle of Melun, partly for the convenience of getting
troops across the Seine, and partly because it had formerly belonged
to his grandfather and was now in the hands, not of the king, but of
“another” (not named). He managed to corrupt the officer in command
and to obtain possession of the place. As soon as the kings (_reges_)
heard of it, they gathered their forces to besiege him there: “et quia
castrum circumfluente Sequanâ ambiebatur, ipsi in litore primo castra
disponunt; in ulteriore, accitas piratarum acies ordinant.” These
“pirates” furnished a fleet which blockaded the place, and finally
discovered a secret entrance whereby they got into the town, surprised
the castle, and compelled it to surrender to the king (_regi_).

2. William of Jumièges (l. v. c. 14, Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._,
p. 255) tells the story more briefly, but to exactly the same effect.
He mentions however only _one_ king: he supplies the name of the “other
man” who held Melun--viz. Burchard: he clearly implies that “Odo” is
Odo II. of Blois (of whose doings with Normandy he has just given an
account in c. 12, _ib._ p. 254); and, of course, he gives the “pirates”
their proper name of Normans, and puts them under their proper leader,
Duke Richard [the Good].

3. Hugh of Fleury tells the same tale very concisely, but with all the
names, and gives a date, a. 999 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. pp.
220, 221). (He is copied by the Chron. S. Petr. Senon., _ib._ p. 222.)

4. The _Abbreviato Gestorum Franciæ Regum_ tells the same, but gives no
date beyond “eo tempore,” coming just after Hugh Capet’s death (_Rer.
Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 227).

5. The _Vita Burchardi Comitis_ gives no dates, does not identify Odo,
and does not mention the Normans, but makes Burchard himself the chief
actor in the regaining of the place (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. pp.
354, 355. In p. 350, note _a_, the editor makes Burchard a son of Fulk
the Good; but he gives no authority, and I can find none).

6. The Angevins have a version of their own. In the _Gesta Cons._
(Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 76, 77) the captor of Melun is “Herbert count
of Troyes”; in Hugh of Clères (_ib._ p. 388) he has the same title
but no name, and neither has the king, who in the _Gesta_ is called
Robert. The victim is not named at all; but the hero who plays a part
equivalent to that of the Normans in the other versions is Geoffrey
Greygown.

The main question is the date. One authority--Hugh of Fleury--gives
it distinctly as 999. Will. Jumièges clearly identifies the Odo in
question as Odo II. Now Odo II. was not count till 1004; but his father
died in 995, so William may have given him the title by anticipation
at any time after that date. The _Abbr. Gest. Franc. Reg._ would
seem to place it thereabouts, as its note of time is “eo tempore” in
reference to Hugh Capet’s death (which occurred in October 996). On the
other hand, Richer speaks of “the _kings_” in the plural; from which
Kalckstein, Waitz and Luchaire (_Hist. des Institutions monarchiques de
la France_, vol. ii. p. 7, note 1) conclude that it is Odo I. who is
concerned, and they date the affair 991. Why they fix upon this year,
in defiance of both William of Jumièges and Hugh of Fleury, I cannot
see. M. d’Arbois de Jubainville (_Comtes de Champagne_, vol. i. p. 196)
adopts Hugh’s date, 999. Is it not possible, however, from a comparison
of the other authorities, that the right year is 996, just before
Hugh’s death, or even that he died while the siege was in progress?
for it is to be noticed that Richer mentions only _one_ king at the
surrender. Richer has made such a confusion about these Odos and their
doings that it is hardly fair to set him up as an infallible authority
on the subject against such writers as Hugh of Fleury and William of
Jumièges. Anyhow, the Angevin story cannot stand against any of them.


NOTE B.

THE PARENTS OF QUEEN CONSTANCE.

The parentage of Constance requires some notice here, as she is usually
called either a niece or a cousin of Fulk Nerra. The one point on which
all authorities are agreed is that her father’s name was William. It
was long disputed whether he was William III. (Taillefer) count of
Toulouse or William I. count of Arles and Provence. M. Mabille, in a
note to the latest edition of Vic and Vaissète’s _Hist. du Languedoc_
(Toulouse, 1872), vol. iv. pp. 157–161, has made it clear that he was
William of Arles; this conclusion is adopted by M. Luchaire (_Hist. des
Instit. Monarch._, vol. ii. p. 211, note 1).

M. Mabille however does not attempt to decide who was Constance’s
mother, through whom her kindred with the Angevins is said to have
come; and this is the question which we now have to investigate. The
evidence at present known is as follows:--

1. An unprinted MS. of R. Glaber’s history, l. iii. c. 2 (quoted by
Mabille, note to Vic and Vaissète, as above, p. 158; Marchegay,
_Comtes d’Anjou_, Introd., p. lxxiii. note 2), describes Constance as
“neptem prædicti Fulconis ... natam de Blancâ sorore ejus.” This is the
version adopted in _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 110).

2. A letter of Bishop Ivo of Chartres (Ep. ccxi., Migne, _Patrologia_,
vol. 162, cols. 215, 216), written about A.D. 1110, makes Constance’s
mother sister, not of Fulk, but of his father Geoffrey Greygown. So
does an anonymous chronicle ending in 1109, printed in Duchesne’s
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 96.

3. The Chron. S. Albin. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 21) has under date
987: “Hlotharius rex obiit.... In isto reges Francorum defecerunt. Hic
accepit uxorem Blanchiam filiam Fulconis Boni comitis Andegavensium,
patris Gaufredi Grisegonellæ, et habuit ex eâ filiam, Constantiam
nomine, quæ fuit data cum regno Roberti regis filio, scilicet Hugonis
Magni.” Wildly confused as this passage is, I believe that it really
contains a clue to the identity of Constance’s mother. Whoever she was,
she certainly must, at the time of Constance’s birth, have been wife
not of Louis the Lazy (who is evidently meant, instead of Lothar), but
of Count William I. of Arles. Now it is plain (see Vic and Vaissète as
above, pp. 62, 63) that William was twice married; first to Arsindis,
who was living 968–979; and secondly, to Adelaide, who appears in 986,
was mother of his successor William II., and apparently still living
in 1026. Of Arsindis nothing further is known; but with Adelaide the
case is otherwise. King Louis the Lazy, at some time between 978 and
981, married a lady “ab Aquitanis partibus” (R. Glaber, l. i. c. 3,
_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 5), whose name was Adelaide according
to Richer (l. iii. c. 92), but whom the Chron. S. Albin. (as we have
already seen) and the Chron. S. Maxent. (a. 986, Marchegay, _Eglises_,
p. 382) call _Blanche_. After two years of marriage with the young
king she divorced him, or was divorced by him, and married _William
of Arles_ (Richer, l. iii. cc. 94, 95). This is clearly the lady of
whom we are in search. The dates fit exactly; William’s first wife,
Arsindis, is dead; he marries the divorced queen, probably about
982–983, and they have a daughter who in 1000 will be, as Constance
evidently was at her marriage, in the prime of girlish beauty. The
probability is strengthened by the fact that Adelaide’s first husband
actually was what R. Glaber (l. iii. c. 2, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
x. p. 27) mistakenly calls Constance’s father, count of the “First
Aquitaine,” or Toulouse; for Richer (l. iii. c. 92) says she was widow
of Raymond “duke of the Goths,” _i.e._ of Septimania or Toulouse:--by
the name of “Candida,” the Latin equivalent for “Blanche,” given to
the wife of William of Arles by Peter of Maillezais (l. i. c. 6, _Rer.
Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 182; see above, p. 173, note 5{386});--and
even by the blundering Angevin chronicle which makes Constance a
daughter of “Blanche” and “Lothar,” meaning of course Blanche the wife
of Lothar’s son, and her third husband. This same Chron. S. Albin.,
however, adds that the said “Blanche” was a daughter of Fulk the Good.
Nobody else seems to have known her origin, and this very “perplexed
and perplexing” chronicler is a doubtful authority to build upon; but
as there is no intrinsic impossibility in this part of his statement,
and as there evidently was in the early twelfth century a tradition
that Constance was akin to the house of Anjou, he may be right. From
the dates, one would think she was more likely to have been Greygown’s
daughter than his sister. If she was his sister, it must surely have
been by the half-blood. She might be a daughter of Fulk the Good by his
second marriage with the widow of Alan Barbetorte.


NOTE C.

THE PILGRIMAGES OF FULK NERRA.

Of all the writers, ancient and modern, who have treated of Fulk Nerra,
scarcely any two are wholly agreed as to the number and dates of his
journeys to Holy Land. Some make out four journeys; some three; one,
his own grandson, makes only two (Fulk Rechin, Marchegay, _Comtes_,
p. 377). It is, however, abundantly evident that there were at least
three--one before the foundation of Beaulieu (_Gesta Cons._, _ib._ p.
117; _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._, Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 273); one after
the foundation of Beaulieu, and before that of S. Nicolas (_Hist. S.
Flor. Salm._ as above, p. 275); and one in returning from which he
died (see above, p. 168). It is admitted on all hands that his death
took place at Metz on June 21st, 1040; the date of the last pilgrimage
is therefore undisputed. That of the first is now fixed by a charter
quoted by M. Mabille (Marchegay, _Comtes_, Introd. p. lxxix) to 1003.
The points still remaining to be decided therefore are (1) the date of
the second journey; (2) the reality of the third.

The only real clue which our original authorities give us to the date
of the second journey is the statement of _Hist. S. Flor._ that it
was after the foundation of Beaulieu and before that of S. Nicolas
(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 275). Now S. Nicolas was founded in 1020
(_ibid._). Beaulieu was consecrated in 1012, but all we know of its
foundation is that it cannot have been before Fulk’s return from his
first journey in 1004. Modern writers have proposed three different
dates for this second pilgrimage. The _Art de vérifier les dates_ (vol.
xiii. p. 50) places it in 1028; M. d’Arbois de Jubainville (_Hist. des
Comtes de Champagne_, vol. i. p. 245) in 1019–20; M. Mabille (Introd.
_Comtes_, pp. lxxviii, lxxx) and M. de Salies (_Foulques-Nerra_, pref.
pp. xxxii, xxxiii, 143) in 1010–11. The first date, founded on a too
literal reading of Ademar of Chabanais (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
x. p. 164), is disposed of at once by the History of S. Florence.
The theory of M. de Jubainville has a good deal of plausibility, but
there is no documentary evidence for it. M. Mabille quotes in support
of his date, 1010, a charter of S. Maur-sur-Loire, setting forth how
Fulk, Hildegard and Geoffrey visited that abbey on the eve of Fulk’s
departure for Holy Land. This charter is in Marchegay’s _Archives
d’Anjou_, vol. i. p. 356; it has no date of any sort; and it does not
specify whether Fulk’s intended journey was his second or third. The
presence of Geoffrey proves it was not the first, but nothing more.
M. Mabille pronounces for the second, and dates it “vers 1010”; but
the editor of the _Archives_, M. Marchegay, says in a note “vers l’an
1030.” This charter therefore does not help at all. M. de Salies
(_Foulques-Nerra_, p. 143, and pref. _ib._ p. xxxii) appeals in support
of the same date, 1010, to the Chronicle of Tours, whose chronology
throughout the century is so wild as to have no weight at all, except
in strictly local matters; to the Chron. S. Petr. Senon., where I can
find nothing about the question at issue;--and above all, to a charter
in Baluze’s collections which says: “In natali S. Barnabæ Apostoli,
qui est in Idibus Junii, Rainaldus ... Andecavensium Episcopus rebus
terrenis exemptus est ... Ad sepulchrum Domini Hierosolymam comitante
Fulcone vicecomite tendebat, progressusque usque Ebredunum” ... died
and was there buried “anno ab Incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christi
1010.”

In the first place, this charter is suspicious as to date, for the
Chronn. S. Albin. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 22), Vindoc. (_ib._ p.
164), S. Flor. Salm. (_ib._ p. 187), all date Bishop Rainald’s death
1005, and so, according to _Gallia Christiana_, vol. xiv. col. 558,
does the Obituary of S. Maurice; and the Chron. S. Serg. (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 134) dates the consecration of his successor Hubert
1007. In the next place, what ground has M. de Salies for assuming
that “Fulco _vice_comes” is Fulk Nerra count of Anjou? The authors of
_Gallia Christiana_ quote this same charter, and their comment on it is
this: “Fulco sedenim comes” [it is _vice_comes in the charter] “quocum
Rainaldus Hierosolymitanum iter aggressus supra memoratur, Andegavensis
rei curam annum circa 1010, teste non uno, suscepit.” And as they have
been describing various dealings of the bishop with Fulk the Black long
before 1010, it is quite clear they take this Fulk to be some one else;
though one would like to see their witnesses and know who he really was.

There is however another clue which may suggest a different date for
this second pilgrimage. There are only two ways of making sense of the
account given in the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 88–91)
of “the wicked Landry’s” attack on Anjou and the war of Châteaudun.
In that account the first misdoings of Landry and his aggressions
against Sulpice and Archambald of Amboise are put in the reign of
Count Maurice; then Maurice dies and his son Fulk succeeds him, and
the raid upon Châteaudun follows as the first exploit of “juvenis haud
modici pectoris.” Now we have seen that Maurice was not Fulk’s father
but his younger brother, and never was count of Anjou at all. We must
therefore either regard the introduction of Maurice as a complete myth
and delusion, or interpret the tale as a distorted account of a regency
undertaken by Maurice during his brother’s absence. It is hard to see
why the chroniclers should have gratuitously dragged in Maurice without
any reason. Moreover the charter which establishes the date of Fulk’s
first pilgrimage informs us that he left his brother as regent of Anjou
on that occasion (Mabille, Introd. _Comtes_, p. lxxvi); it is therefore
quite possible that he may have done the same thing a second time. On
this theory, to ascertain the date of the war with Landry would be
equivalent to ascertaining the date of Fulk’s second pilgrimage.

If we take the _Gesta’s_ account of Landry just as it stands, Landry’s
attack on Anjou must have been made at the close of 1014 or in 1015;
for he was resisted (say they) by Sulpice, treasurer of S. Martin’s,
and his brother Archambald. Now Sulpice could not be treasurer of S.
Martin’s before 1014, as his predecessor Hervey died in that year
(Chron. Tur. Magn. ad ann., Salmon, _Chron. de Touraine_, p. 119;
Chronol. S. Mar. Autiss. ad ann., _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p.
275); and on the other hand, Archambald must have died in 1015 or very
early in 1016, for the Chron. Tur. Magn. (as above)--which is likely
to be right in its dating of local matters, though hopelessly confused
in its general chronology--places in 1016 the building of Sulpice’s
stone tower at Amboise, which the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_,
pp. 88, 89) tell us took place after his brother’s death; and the whole
affair was certainly over some time before July 1016, the date of the
battle of Pontlevoy. According to the _Gesta_ (as above, pp. 89, 90),
Landry makes another attack on Sulpice, after his brother’s death, just
when Maurice has also died and Fulk succeeded him [_i.e._ Fulk has come
home and resumed the reins of government]; and the raid on Châteaudun
follows immediately. Here comes in a new difficulty; Odo of Blois is
now brought in with a minute list of his possessions in Champagne,
which he only acquired in 1019 at earliest, so that if this part of
the story is also to be taken literally, Landry’s war with Sulpice
and Fulk’s raid on Châteaudun must be separated by nearly four years.
Maurice cannot possibly have been regent all that time, so we must
either give him up entirely, or conclude that some of the details are
wrong. And the one most likely to be wrong is certainly the description
of Odo, whom almost all the old writers call “Campanensis” long before
he had any right to the epithet. This is the view of M. d’Arbois de
Jubainville, who dates the whole affair of Landry and Châteaudun in
1012–1014 (_Comtes de Champagne_, vol. i. pp. 227, 228), but ignores
Maurice and puts Fulk’s second journey in 1019, without giving any
reason. It seems to me that this strange Angevin hallucination about
Count Maurice, so utterly inexplicable in any other way, becomes
intelligible if we believe that he was regent of Anjou in 1014–1015
during a second journey of his brother to Holy Land; a theory which,
if it has no positive evidence to support it, seems at least to have
none to contradict it, and is not rendered improbable by the general
condition of Angevin affairs at the time.

2. As to the third journey. The _Gesta Cons._ state that Fulk, on
one of his pilgrimages, went in company with Robert the Devil. Now
as Robert died at Nikaia in July 1035 Fulk cannot have met him on
either of his first two journeys, nor on his last; therefore, if this
incident be true, we must insert another pilgrimage in 1034–1035.
The story appears only in the _Gesta Cons._ and is therefore open to
suspicion, as the whole account of Fulk’s travels there given is a
ludicrous tissue of anachronisms (Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 100–103).
Fulk first goes to Rome and promises to deliver Pope Sergius IV. (who
reigned 1009–1012) from Crescentius (who was killed in 997); then he
goes to Constantinople, and thence in company with Robert to Jerusalem;
Robert dies on the way home (1035) and Fulk on his return founds
Beaulieu Abbey (consecrated 1012.) The monk has confounded at least
two journeys, together with other things which had nothing to do with
either.

The idea of a journey intermediate between the second and the last is
however supported by the story of R. Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 164;
Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 329) that Geoffrey Martel having been left
regent while his father was on pilgrimage kept him out on his return.
Now at the time of Fulk’s first pilgrimage Geoffrey was not born; at
the time of the second he was a mere child; and from the last Fulk
came home only in his coffin. Consequently this story implies another
journey; and we seem to get its date at last on no less authority than
that of Fulk’s own hand. The charter in _Epitome S. Nicolai_ (quoted
in Mabillon, _Ann. Bened._, vol. iv. p. 386), after relating Fulk’s
application to Abbot Walter of S. Aubin’s to find him an abbot for
S. Nicolas, and the consequent appointment of Hilduin in 1033, ends
thus: “Res autem præscriptas a domno Beringario atque domno Reginaldo
scribere jussi, et _priusquam ad Jerusalem ultimâ vice perrexissem_
manu meâ roboravi.” The Chron. S. Albin. says Walter was not abbot till
1036 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 23; the extract in note 3, _ibid._,
makes it 1038), and if so the date of Hilduin’s consecration is wrong.
But the authors of _Gallia Christiana_ think it more likely that the
abbot’s name is wrong and the date right. Now by “ultimâ vice” Fulk
must have meant “the journey whence I last returned.” Before starting
for that of 1040 he might hope, but he could not know, that it would be
his last. So here we have, apparently, his own authority for a third
pilgrimage soon after Hilduin’s consecration--_i.e._ in 1034 or 1035.

The worst stumbling-block, however, in the way of our chronology
of Fulk’s last years is William of Malmesbury. He gives a much
fuller account than any one else of Geoffrey’s rebellion and Fulk’s
last pilgrimage, and his account, taken alone, is so thoroughly
self-consistent and reasonable, and withal so graphic, that it is hard
not to be carried away by it. But it utterly contradicts the date which
the sources above examined assign to the third journey, as well as that
which all other authorities agree in assigning to the last, and also
the universally-received account of Fulk’s death. William (l. iii. c.
235; Hardy, pp. 401, 402) says nothing about Geoffrey having rebelled
during his father’s absence. He tells us that Fulk in his last years
ceded his county to his son; that Geoffrey misconducted himself, and
was brought to submission (here comes in the story of the saddle); that
Fulk in the same year went out to Palestine (here follows the story of
the penance); that he came quietly home, and died a few years after.

This account of William’s is entitled to very much more respectful
handling than those of the _Gesta Consulum_ and Ralf de Diceto.
William’s statements about the counts of Anjou are of special value,
because they are thoroughly independent; where they come from is a
mystery, but they certainly come from some source perfectly distinct
from those known to us through the Angevin writers. Moreover William
shews a wonderfully accurate appreciation of the Angevins’ characters
and a strong liking for them--above all for Fulk Nerra, whom he seems
to have taken special pains to paint in the most striking colours. His
version therefore is not to be lightly treated; nevertheless it seems
clear that he is not altogether correct. His omitting all mention of
the pilgrimage which immediately preceded Geoffrey’s rebellion is no
proof of its non-reality. His account of the last journey of all is
a graver matter. According to him, it must have taken place about
1036–1037, and Fulk died, not at Metz, but at home. There is only one
other writer who countenances this version, and that is the chronicler
of S. Maxentius (a. 1040, Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 393), who says that
Fulk died in his own abbey of S. Nicolas at Angers. But this very same
chronicle gives also an alternative statement--the usual one of the
death on pilgrimage which is given by the _Gesta_, R. Diceto and Fulk
Rechin. Against either of the two former witnesses singly William’s
solitary word might stand, but not against them with Fulk Rechin to
support them. The pilgrimages therefore stand thus: 1. in 1003; 2. in
1014–1015; 3. in 1034–1035; 4. in 1040.


NOTE D.

GEOFFREY MARTEL AND POITOU.

The whole story of Geoffrey Martel’s doings in Poitou--his wars and
his marriage--is involved in the greatest perplexity. There is no lack
of information, but it is a mass of contradictions. The only writer
who professes to account for the origin of the war is the author of
the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 126), and his story, so
far as it can apply to anything at all, certainly applies to the
battle of Chef-Boutonne between Geoffrey the Bearded and William VII.
(Guy-Geoffrey) in 1062. All other authorities are agreed that the
battle was fought at S. Jouin-de-Marne, or Montcontour, on September
20, 1033, that William was captured and kept in prison three years,
and that he died immediately after his release. As to the marriage of
Geoffrey and Agnes, there is a question whether it took place before
William’s capture or immediately after his death.

1. The Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg., a. 1032 (Marchegay, _Eglises_,
pp. 23, 135) say positively that Geoffrey and Agnes were married on
January 1 in that year. The Chron. S. Michael. in Per. Maris ad ann.
also gives the date 1032 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 176).

2. Will. Poitiers and Will. Malm. say they married after William’s
death. “Porro ipsius defuncti ... novercam ... thoro suo [Gaufridus]
sociavit.” Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p.
182. “Tunc Martellus, ne quid deesset impudentiæ, novercam defuncti
matrimonio sibi copulavit.” Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 231
(Hardy, p. 395).

These five are the only writers who directly mention the marriage,
except the Chron. S. Maxent. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 392), which
says under date 1037: “Per hæc tempora Gaufredus Martellus duxerat
uxorem supradictam,” etc. “Per hæc tempora” with the chronicler of S.
Maxentius is a phrase so frequent and so elastic that this passage
cannot be used to support either of the above dates. There are
therefore three witnesses for 1032, and two for 1036. The chroniclers
of S. Aubin and S. Sergius are both Angevin witnesses, and both nearly
contemporary; but the S. Sergian writer’s authority is damaged by his
having confused the whole story, for he dates the capture of the duke
of Aquitaine in 1028, thus evidently mistaking Agnes’s step-son for her
husband. William of Poitiers is in some sense a Poitevin witness, and
is also nearly contemporary. William of Malmesbury is further from the
source, and in this passage seems to have been chiefly following his
Poitevin namesake, but his whole treatment of the Angevin counts shews
such clear signs of special study and understanding that he is entitled
to be regarded as in some degree an independent authority.

That the marriage was not later than 1036 is certain from several
charters of that year, in which Agnes appears as Geoffrey’s wife
(Marchegay, _Archives d’Anjou_, vol. i. pp. 377, 402). But the _Gesta
Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 131, 132) tell a story of Geoffrey
having founded his abbey at Vendôme in consequence of a shower of stars
which he saw when standing at his palace window with “his wife, Agnes
by name.” As the first abbot of Holy Trinity at Vendôme was appointed
in 1033 (Mabillon, _Ann. Bened._, vol. iv. p. 379), if this story is
true, Agnes must have been married to Geoffrey in 1032. But unluckily,
the foundation-charter of the abbey is missing. The only documentary
evidence connected with the question consists of two charters. One of
these is printed in Besly, _Comtes de Poitou, preuves_, p. 304. It has
no date, and simply conveys some lands for the site of the abbey to
Count Geoffrey and Agnes his wife. Of course if this is the deed of
sale for the land on which the original buildings were begun in 1032,
it settles the question as to the previous marriage; but as the abbey
was not consecrated till 1040, it is quite possible that its building
was a slow process, and more ground was required as it proceeded. The
endowment-charter (dated 1040, Mabillon, _Ann. Bened._, vol. iv. p.
732) says: “Ego Goffredus comes et uxor mea Agnes ... monasterium ...
_a novo_ fundaremus.” Does the solution lie in those words, “a novo”?
Did Geoffrey found his abbey alone in 1032; stop work for a while on
account of the Poitevin war and his quarrel with his father; and then,
having married Agnes and acquired means by her step-son’s ransom, set
to work in earnest conjointly with her and found the abbey anew? It
is hard to throw over the distinct statements of two such writers as
William of Poitiers and William of Malmesbury for the sake of three
not very accurate chronicles and a late twelfth century romancer,
doubtfully supported by a very vague charter.

As to the crime of the marriage, it is only the Angevin chroniclers who
are so shocked at it. The S. Sergian writer’s mistake between Agnes’s
first husband and her step-son might account for his horror, but not
for the word he uses; and the _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 282) which uses the same, says distinctly that her
husband was dead. The two Williams seem to see nothing worse in it than
some “impudence” in the count of Vendôme daring to take a wife of such
high birth and position. The Chron. S. Maxent. makes no remark on
the subject; the chronicler of S. Sergius seems to have thought that
Geoffrey’s kinship was not with Agnes herself, but with her former
husband, for he says that Geoffrey married her “quæ fuerat consobrini
sui Willelmi ... uxor.” The canon law forbade marriages within the
seventh degree of kindred; and as the pedigrees of none of the three
persons concerned in this case can be traced back with certainty in all
their branches up to the seventh generation, it is quite impossible to
say what consanguinity there may or may not have been among them. The
strong language of the Angevin chroniclers, however, seems to indicate
no obscure and remote connexion, but a close and obvious one. There are
two possibilities which present themselves at once. 1. We do not know
at all who Geoffrey’s mother Hildegard was. 2. We are not perfectly
sure who his grandmother Adela was. Hildegard may have been a daughter
of Poitou, in which case her son would be akin to William; or a
daughter of Burgundy, and then he would be akin to Agnes. Or again, if
Adela of Chalon really was daughter to Robert of Troyes, and if she was
also really Geoffrey’s grandmother, then William, Agnes and Geoffrey
would be all cousins to each other--Agnes and William in the fifth
degree, Geoffrey and William in the fourth, Geoffrey and Agnes in the
third. The pedigree stands as follows:--

                         _Herbert of Vermandois._
                                     |
                  +------------------+------------------+
                  |                                     |
              Liutgard = Theobald the Trickster      Robert of Troyes
                  |                                     |
       +----------+                            +--------+
       |                            (1)        |              (2)
     Emma = William Fierabras      Lambert = _Adela_ = Geoffrey Greygown
          |                       of Autun |         |
          |                           +----+         +--------+
          |                           |                       |
  _William the Great_,            Gerberga = Adalbert of     Fulk Nerra
   3d from Herbert.                        | Lombardy         |
                                   +-------+                  |
                                   |                          |
                              Otto William.           _Geoffrey Martel_,
                                   |                  4th from Herbert,
                                _Agnes_,              2d from Adela.
                            5th from Herbert,
                            3d from Adela.

Strictly speaking, this would make both Agnes’s marriages wrong;
but the kindred in the case of the second would be much closer, and
aggravated by that between Geoffrey and William; and a dispensation
might very probably have been obtained for the first marriage, while
for the second it is plain that none was even sought.

It is just possible that there was also a spiritual affinity. Agnes’s
younger son bore the two names of Guy and Geoffrey; it is not clear
which was his baptismal name; but the idea suggests itself that it may
have been Geoffrey, and that he may have been godson to the Hammer of
Anjou. The case would then be something like that of Robert and Bertha.




CHAPTER IV.

ANJOU AND NORMANDY.

1044–1128.


The history of Anjou during the sixty years comprised in our last
chapter groups itself around the figure of Fulk the Black. The period
on which we are now to enter has no such personal centre of unity;
its interest and its significance lie in the drama itself rather
than in its actors; yet the drama has a centre which is living to
this day. The city of Le Mans still stands, as it stood in Geoffrey
Martel’s day and had stood for a thousand years before him, on the
long narrow brow of a red sandstone rock which rises abruptly from the
left bank of the Sarthe and widens out into the higher ground to the
north and east:--a situation not unlike that of Angers on its black
rock above the Mayenne. The city itself and the county of Maine, of
which it was the capital, both took their names from a tribe known
to the Romans as Aulerci Cenomanni, a branch of the great race of
the Aulerci who occupied central Gaul in its earliest recorded days.
Alike in legend and in history the Cenomanni are closely linked
to Rome. One branch of them formed, according to Roman tradition,
a portion of a band of Gallic emigrants who in the mythical days
of the Tarquins wandered down through the Alpine passes into the
valleys and plains of northern Italy, made themselves a new home on
the banks of Padus, where afterwards grew up the towns of Brixia and
Verona,[440] and became devoted allies of Rome.[441] When the last
struggle for freedom was over in Gaul, few spots took the impress of
Rome more deeply or kept it more abidingly than the home of their
Transalpine brethren, the “Aulerci Cenomanni whose city to the east
is Vindinum.”[442] The remains of the walls and gates of a Roman
_castrum_ which succeeded the primeval hill-fortress of Vindinum or
Le Mans are only now at last giving way to the destruction, not of
time, but of modern utilitarianism. Far into the middle ages, long
after Le Mans had outgrown its narrow Roman limits and spread down to
a second line of fortifications close to the water’s edge, one part
of the city on the height still kept the name of “Ancient Rome.”[443]
The wondrous cathedral which now rises in the north-eastern corner of
the city, towering high above the river and the double line of walls,
stands, if we may trust its foundation-legend, on the very site of
the _prætorium_; when the Cross followed in the train of the eagles,
Defensor, the governor of the city, gave up his palace for the site
of a church whose original dedication to the Blessed Virgin and S.
Peter has long been superseded by the name of its founder S. Julian, a
missionary bishop ordained and sent to Gaul by S. Clement of Rome.[444]
Defensor is probably only a personification of the official _defensor
civitatis_, the local tribune of the people under the later Roman
Empire; but the state of things of which the legend is an idealized
picture left its traces on the real relations of Church and state
at Le Mans. After the Frankish conquest bishop and people together
formed a power which more than matched that of the local lieutenant of
the Merovingian kings; a decree of Clovis, confirmed by his grandson
Childebert III., enacted that no count of Le Mans should be appointed
without their consent.[445] Under the early Karolingians Le Mans seems
to have held for a short time the rank afterwards taken by Angers as
the chief stronghold of the Breton border; local tradition claims
as its first hereditary count that “Roland, prefect of the Breton
march,” who is more generally known as the hero of Roncevaux.[446]
However this may be, the “duchy of Cenomannia” figures prominently in
various grants of territory on the western border made to members of
the Imperial house.[447] In the civil wars which followed the death of
Louis the Gentle it suffered much from the ravages of Lothar;[448] and
it underwent a far worse ordeal a few years later, when the traitor
count Lambert of Anjou led both Bretons and northmen into the heart of
central Gaul. The sack of Le Mans by Lambert and Nomenoë in 850[449]
was avenged some years later when the traitor fell by the sword of
Count Gauzbert of Maine;[450] but in 851 Charles the Bald was compelled
to cede the western part of the Cenomannian duchy to the Breton king
Herispoë;[451] the northern foes who had first come in the train of
the Bretons swept over Maine again and again; and it was in making
their way back to the sea after one of these raids by the old Roman
road from Le Mans to Nantes that they entrapped Robert the Brave to
his death at the bridge of Sarthe. The treaty of Clair-sur-Epte left
Maine face to face with the northman settled upon her northern border;
and in 924 a grant of the overlordship of the county was extorted by
Hrolf from King Rudolf of Burgundy. In the hands of Hrolf’s most famous
descendant the claim thus given was to become a formidable reality; at
the moment however its force was neutralized by another grant made in
the same year by Charles the Simple, which placed Maine together with
the rest of Neustria under the jurisdiction of Hugh the Great.[452]
In vain the counts of Le Mans strove to ignore or defy the house of
France and that of Anjou, to which, as we have seen, the ducal claims
over Maine were soon delegated. All their efforts were paralyzed by the
opposing influence of that other officer in their state whose authority
was of older date as well as loftier character than theirs, who held
his commission by unbroken descent alike from the Cæsars and from the
Apostles, and who had once at least been distinctly acknowledged as the
equal, if not the superior, of his temporal colleague. The bishops were
the nominees of the king, and therefore the champions of French and
Angevin interests at Le Mans. In the last years of the tenth century
and the early part of the eleventh, two of them in succession, an uncle
and nephew named Sainfred and Avesgaud, were members of the house of
Bellême who owned the borderlands of Perche, Séez and Alençon, between
France and Normandy, who were never loyal to either neighbour, and
whose name, as we have already seen, was one day to become a by-word
for turbulent wickedness both in Normandy and in England. Sainfred
was said to have owed his bishopric to Fulk Nerra’s influence with
the king;[453] Avesgaud’s life was passed between building, hunting,
and quarrelling with Count Herbert Wake-dog. Herbert’s military
capacities, proved on the field of Pontlevoy, enabled him to stand his
ground;[454] but very soon after his death Fulk’s dealings with Maine
and its bishop began to bear fruit. Fulk survived both Herbert and
Avesgaud. The count of Maine died in the prime of life in 1036,[455]
leaving as his heir a son named Hugh, who, on pretext of his extreme
youth, was set aside by a great-uncle, Herbert surnamed Bacco. Bishop
Avesgaud, too, had died a few months before, and his office passed a
second time from uncle to nephew in the person of his sister’s son,
Gervase of Château-du-Loir.[456] The selection of a third prelate from
the hated house of Bellême was in itself enough to excite the count’s
wrath; Herbert Bacco moreover had a special reason for jealousy--the
young nephew whose rights he had usurped was a godson of Gervase. For
two years Herbert contrived to keep the new bishop out of Le Mans
altogether; at the end of that time he admitted him, but no sooner were
the rival rulers established side by side than their strife became as
bitter and ceaseless as that of Herbert Wake-dog and Avesgaud. Gervase
looked for help to the king, who, whether as king or as duke of the
French, was patron and advocate of the see; but there was no help to
be got from the feeble, selfish Henry I. of France. Despair hurried
the bishop into a rasher step than any that his uncle had ever taken.
Thinking that a less exalted protector, and one nearer to the spot and
more directly interested, would be of more practical use, he besought
King Henry to grant the patronage and advocacy of the see of Le Mans to
Count Geoffrey of Anjou for his life.[457]

        [440] Tit. Liv., l. v. c. 35; Polyb., l. ii. c. 17.

        [441] Polyb., l. ii. cc. 23, 24, 32.

        [442] Ptolem., l. ii. c. 7. On the Peutinger Table, however,
        the name is Subdinnum.

        [443] “Ex parte vici de veteri Româ” is quoted by M. Voisin
        (_Les Cénomans anciens et modernes_, p. 86, note 3) from a
        document in the city archives.

        [444] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 1, in Mabillon, _Vetera
        Analecta_, pp. 239–241.

        [445] Charter of Childebert III. a. 698, in Mabillon, _Vet.
        Anal._, p. 283.

        [446] Eginhard, _Vita Car. Magni_, c. 9 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._,
        vol. v. p. 93).

        [447] Charles the Great granted “ducatum Cenomannicum” to
        his son Charles in 790; Ann. Mettens. ad ann. (_Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. v. pp. 346, 347). “Ducatus Cenomannicus,
        omnisque occiduæ Galliæ ora inter Ligerim et Sequanam
        constituta,” formed the share of Charles the Bald in 838; Ann.
        Bertin. ad ann. (_ib._ vol. vi. p. 199).

        [448] Ann. Bertin. a. 841 (_ib._ vol. vii. p. 60).

        [449] Chron. Fontanell. a. 850 (_ib._ p. 42).

        [450] The Chron. S. Maxent. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 366),
        two Aquitanian chronicles (in Labbe, _Nova Bibl._, vol. i. pp.
        291, 324) and Ademar of Chabanais (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        vii. p. 226) date this 852; Regino and the Ann. Mettens. (_Rer.
        Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. p. 190) place it in 860.

        [451] Above, p. 102. Part at least of this ceded territory must
        have been soon regained; for it extended “usque ad viam quæ a
        Lotitiâ Parisiorum Cæsarodunum Turonum ducit.” Ann. Bertin. a.
        856 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. vii. p. 71).

        [452] Frodoard. Chron. a. 924 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        viii. p. 181). See above, p. 124.

        [453] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 29 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._,
        p. 303).

        [454] See the story of his struggles with Avesgaud in _Acta
        Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 30 (as above, pp. 303, 304).

        [455] Necrol. S. Pet. de Culturâ (Le Mans), quoted in _Rer.
        Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xi. p. 632. Ademar of Chabanais (_Rer.
        Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 161) seems to imply that he had
        contracted a mortal disease in his Angevin dungeon.

        [456] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 31 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._,
        pp. 305, 306). From the dates there given, Avesgaud must have
        died in October 1035, about five months before Herbert Wake-dog.

        [457] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, as above (p. 305).

As soon as the grant was made, Gervase “took counsel with the people
of the diocese and the brave men of the land,”[458] and headed a
revolution by which Herbert Bacco was expelled and the boy Hugh set
in his place. The bishop’s next step was to seek a wife for his
godson. Twelve years before, a band of Bretons, called by Hugh’s
father to aid him against Bishop Avesgaud and Fulk of Anjou, had made
a raid upon Blois and carried off Count Odo’s daughter Bertha to
become the wife of Duke Alan of Britanny.[459] It was this Bertha,
now a widow and a fugitive from Rennes, whence she was driven by
her brother-in-law after her husband’s death,[460] whom Gervase now
wedded to Hugh. Such a choice was not likely to conciliate Geoffrey
Martel; all the less if--as some words of a local historian seem to
imply--the daughter of Odo of Blois was gifted with all the courage
and energy that were lacking in her brothers.[461] By some of the
usual Angevin arts Geoffrey entrapped Gervase into his power and cast
him into prison,[462] where for the next seven years the luckless
bishop was left to reflect upon the consequences of his short-sighted
policy and to perceive that in striving to secure a protector against
Herbert Bacco he had placed himself and his country at the mercy of
an unscrupulous tyrant. During those years Maine, nominally ruled by
the young Count Hugh, was really in the power of Geoffrey Martel, and
it became the scene of a fierce warfare between Anjou and Normandy.
In 1049 the Council of Reims threatened Geoffrey with excommunication
unless he released the captive prelate,[463] and next year the
excommunication was actually pronounced by the Pope;[464] but neither
Council nor Pope could turn the Angevin from his prey. About 1051 Hugh
died, and his death sealed the fate of Le Mans. Its count’s son was an
infant, its bishop a captive in an Angevin dungeon; its citizens had
no choice but to submit. The twice-widowed countess and her children
were driven out at one gate as the Hammer of Anjou knocked at the
other, and without striking a blow Geoffrey became acknowledged master
of Maine from thenceforth till the day of his death.[465] Gervase,
his spirit broken at last, purchased his release by the surrender of
Château-du-Loir, and by a solemn oath never again to set foot in Le
Mans so long as Geoffrey lived. He found a refuge at the court of Duke
William of Normandy, till in 1057 he was raised to the metropolitan
chair of Reims.[466] In his former episcopal city the oppressor
triumphed undisturbed; but the day of retribution had already dawned.

        [458] “Concilium iniit cum parochianis et heroibus terræ.”
        _Ibid._ See Mr. Freeman’s note, _Norm. Conq._, vol. iii. p.
        194, note 3.

        [459] Chron. Kemperleg. a. 1008 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x.
        p. 294). For the real date see above, p. 159, note 4{343}.

        [460] See below, p. 211.

        [461] The author of the _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 31
        (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._, p. 305), calls her “nobilissimam
        fœminam” and “uxorem fortissimam.”

        [462] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, as above.

        [463] Concil. Rem. in Labbe, _Concilia_ (ed. Cossart), vol.
        xix. col. 742.

        [464] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1050 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 398).

        [465] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ (as above, pp. 305, 306).

        [466] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 31 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._,
        p. 306).

The tide of fortune which had borne Geoffrey Martel on from victory
to victory spent its last wave in carrying him to the brow of the
Cenomannian hill. The acquisition of Le Mans was the last outward mark
of his success; the height of his real security had been passed three
years before. The turning-point of Geoffrey’s life was the year 1044.
The settlement of Poitou, the winning of Tours, the capture of Bishop
Gervase, all followed close upon each other; and for the next four
years the count of Anjou was beyond all question the second power in
the kingdom. No one save the duke of Normandy could claim to stand on
a level with the lord of the Angevin march, of Touraine and Saintonge,
the step-father and guardian of the boy-duke of Aquitaine, the virtual
master of Maine. It was with the duke of Normandy that Geoffrey’s last
conquest now brought him into collision. His head had been turned by
his easy and rapid successes; in 1048, on his return from an expedition
to Apulia in company with his wife’s son-in-law the Emperor,[467] he
set himself up against King Henry with a boastful insolence which
threatened to disturb the peace of the whole realm.[468] Five years
earlier, Henry had profited by the feud between Anjou and Blois to
win Geoffrey’s help in putting down the rebellion of Theobald; now he
profited by the jealousy which the state of Cenomannian affairs was
just beginning to create between Anjou and Normandy to win the help of
the Norman Duke William in putting down the rebellion of Geoffrey. The
king’s own operations against Anjou seem to have extended no further
than a successful siege of the castle of Moulinières;[469] after this
his conduct towards William seems to have been copied from that of his
parents towards Fulk the Black three and twenty years before. William,
like Fulk, was left to fight the royal battles single-handed; and to
William, as to Fulk, the task was welcome, for the battle was in truth
less the king’s than his own. Geoffrey Martel, in the pride of his
heart, had openly proclaimed his ambition to crown all his previous
triumphs by an encounter with the only warrior whom he deigned to
regard as a foeman worthy of his steel,[470] and had diligently used
all the opportunities for provoking a quarrel with the Norman which
the dependent position of Maine furnished but too readily. Either by
force or guile, or that judicious mixture of both in which the Angevin
house excelled, he had managed to get into his own hands the two keys
of Normandy’s southern frontier, the castles of Alençon and Domfront,
which guarded the valleys of the Sarthe and the Mayenne;[471] and
thence, across the debateable lands of Bellême, he was now carrying his
raids into undisputed Norman territory.[472]

        [467] See _Art de vérifier les dates_, vol. xiii. p. 54.

        [468] Henry was “contumeliosis Gaufredi Martelli verbis
        irritatus.” Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._),
        p. 180. “Vexavit idem [sc. Gaufredus] Franciam universam regi
        rebellans.” _Ib._ p. 182.

        [469] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p.
        180. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 230 (Hardy, p. 394).

        [470] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 181.

        [471] _Ib._ p. 182. Wace, _Roman de Rou_, vv. 9380–9383
        (Pluquet, vol. ii. p. 47).

        [472] Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 18. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
        Scriptt._, p. 276). Cf. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c.
        231 (Hardy, p. 396). These two writers ignore the king’s share
        in the quarrel, and make it arise solely from Geoffrey’s raids
        upon Normandy (“Brachium levabat in nos quo non leviter sese
        vulnerabat,” remarks W. Poitiers, as above). The _Gesta Cons._
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 131) reverse the whole situation and
        assert that William attacked the count of Maine, whereupon
        Geoffrey, as the latter’s “auxiliator et tutor,” took up the
        quarrel, and did William a great deal of damage! Fulk Rechin
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 378) wisely limits himself to the
        statement that his uncle “had a war with William, duke of the
        Normans.”

In the autumn of 1048 William set out to dislodge the intruder from
Domfront. It was no light undertaking. The ruined keep which still
stands, a splendid fragment, on the top of a steep wall-like pile of
grey rock, the last spur of a ridge of hills sweeping round from the
east, with the town and the dark woods at its back and the little
stream of Varenne winding close round its foot, may tell something of
what the castle was when its walls stood foursquare, fresh from the
builder’s hand, and manned by the fierce moss-troopers of Bellême,
reinforced by a band of picked soldiers from Anjou.[473] The rock
itself was an impregnable fortress of nature’s own making. To horsemen
it was totally inaccessible; foot-soldiers could only scale it by two
narrow and difficult paths. Assault was hopeless; William’s only chance
lay in a blockade, and even this was an enterprise of danger as well
as difficulty, for Domfront stood in the heart of a dense woodland
amid which the Normans were continually exposed to the ambushes and
surprises of the foe. To William however the forest was simply a
hunting-ground through which he rode day after day, with hawk on wrist,
in scornful defiance of its hidden perils, while the siege was pressed
closer and closer all through the winter’s snows, till at last the
garrison were driven to call upon Geoffrey Martel for relief.[474]
What followed reads like an anticipation of the story of Prestonpans
as told in Jacobite song. If we may trust the Norman tale, Geoffrey
not only answered the call, but sent his trumpeter with a formal
challenge to the young duke of the Normans to meet him on the morrow at
break of day beneath the walls of Domfront. But when the sun rose on
that morrow, Geoffrey and all his host were gone.[475] Duke William’s
chaplain, who tells the tale, could see but one obvious explanation of
their departure; and it is impossible to contradict him, for the whole
campaign of 1048 is a blank in the pages of the Angevin chroniclers.
The Hammer of Anjou stands charged with having challenged Duke William
at eventide and run away from him before sunrise, and no Angevin voice
seems ever to have been lifted to deny or palliate the charge. He had
scarcely turned his back when Alençon fell; and its fall was quickly
followed by that of Domfront. William carried away his engines of war
to set them up again on undisputed Cenomannian ground, at Ambrières
on the Mayenne: still Geoffrey made no movement; William laid the
foundations of a castle on the river-bank at Ambrières, and leaving it
securely guarded marched home unmolested to Rouen.[476]

        [473] Will. Poitiers (as above), p. 182.

        [474] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p.
        182. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 231 (Hardy, p. 396).

        [475] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p.
        183. Cf. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 231 (Hardy, pp.
        396, 397).

        [476] Will. Poitiers, as above. Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 18
        (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 276). Wace, _Roman de
        Rou_, vv. 9430–9635 (Pluquet, vol. ii. pp. 49–58).

So began the most momentous feud ever waged by the counts of Anjou.
After the first burst of the storm came a lull of nearly seven
years, one of which was marked, as we have seen, by Geoffrey’s final
acquisition of Le Mans; but his power had sustained a shock from which
it never wholly recovered. In the struggles with Normandy which fill
the latter years of Henry I. of France, the king and the count of Anjou
play an almost equally ignoble part. Henry, who had once courted the
friendship of William to ward off the blows of the Angevin Hammer,
no sooner perceived which was really the mightier of the two princes
than he completely reversed his policy, gave an almost open support
to the treasons in William’s duchy, and at length, in 1054, when
these indirect attacks had failed, summoned all the princes of his
realm to join him in a great expedition for the ruin of the duke of
Normandy. They flocked to the muster at Mantes from all quarters save
one; strangely enough, the count of Anjou was missing.[477] Only a few
months ago the terror which clung around Martel’s name and the number
of troops at his command had sufficed to make his stepson William of
Aquitaine disband an army with which he was preparing to encounter him,
and sue for peace at his mere approach;[478] yet it seems that not even
with all the forces of king and kingdom at his side would Geoffrey
risk an encounter with the man whom he had challenged and fled from at
Domfront.

        [477] Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 24 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
        Scriptt._, p. 281) says he was there; but see Mr. Freeman’s
        remarks, _Norm. Conq._, vol. iii., p. 144.

        [478] Charter of William of Passavant, dated Montilliers,
        1053, in _Archives d’Anjou_ (Marchegay), vol. i. p. 271. Besly
        (_Comtes de Poitou, preuves_, p. 327) printed it with the date
        1043, and it is apparently on this that the _Art de vérifier
        les dates_ founds a war between Geoffrey and Peter-William in
        that year--an almost impossible thing.

By thus deserting the king at a moment when Henry had every reason
to count upon his support, Geoffrey escaped all part in the rout of
Mortemer; but the consequence was that when peace was made next year
between the king and the duke, one of its clauses authorized William to
make any conquests he could at the expense of the count of Anjou.[479]
William at once sent warning to Geoffrey to expect him and all his
forces at Ambrières within forty days. South of Ambrières, lower down
in the valley of the Mayenne, stands the town which bears the same name
as the river; its lord, Geoffrey, was the chief man of the district.
He went in haste to his namesake and overlord and bitterly complained
to him that if these Normans were left unhindered to work their will
at Ambrières, the whole land would be at their mercy. “Cast me off
as a vile and unworthy lord,” was Martel’s reply, “if thou seest me
tamely suffer that which thou fearest!” But the boast was as vain as
the challenge before Domfront. William completed without hindrance his
fortifications at Ambrières; as soon as his back was turned Geoffrey
laid siege to the place, in company with the duke of Aquitaine and
Odo, uncle and guardian of the young duke of Britanny; but the mere
rumour of William’s approach sufficed to make all three withdraw their
troops “with wonderful speed, not to say in trembling flight.” Geoffrey
of Mayenne, made prisoner and left to bear alone the whole weight of
William’s wrath, took the count of Anjou at his word, and casting off
the “vile and unworthy lord” whose desertion had brought him to this
strait, owned himself the “man” of the Norman duke.[480]

        [479] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p.
        187. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iii. c. 233 (Hardy, p. 399).

        [480] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp.
        187, 188.

Two castles in the heart of Maine thus acknowledged William for their
lord. Three years passed away without further advance from either
side; Geoffrey’s energies were frittered away in minor disputes which
brought him neither gain nor honour. The old quarrel about Nantes woke
up once more and was once more settled in 1057 under circumstances
very discreditable to the count of Anjou. Duke Alan of Britanny died
in 1040, leaving as his heir a boy three months old. The child was at
once snatched from the care of his mother--Bertha of Blois--by his
uncle Odo, who set himself up as duke of Britanny in his stead.[481]
The duchy split up into factions, and for sixteen years all was
confusion, aggravated, there can be little doubt, by the meddlesomeness
of Geoffrey of Anjou, who seems to have taken the opportunity thus
offered him for picking a quarrel with count Hoel of Nantes.[482]
In 1056 or 1057, however, a party among the Breton nobles succeeded
in freeing the young Conan, by whom Odo was shortly afterwards made
prisoner in his turn.[483] On this Geoffrey, it seems, following the
traditional policy of the Angevin house in Britanny, made alliance
with his late enemy the count of Nantes; and Hoel, on some occasion
which is not explained, actually ventured to intrust his capital to
Geoffrey’s keeping, whereupon Geoffrey at once laid a plot for taking
possession of it altogether. His treachery however met the reward
which it deserved; he held Nantes for barely forty days, and then lost
it for ever.[484] Troubles were springing up too in another quarter.
Geoffrey’s marriage with the widowed countess of Poitou had failed to
bring him the advantages for which he doubtless hoped when he carried
it through in defiance of public opinion and his father’s will. He had
been unable to keep any hold over his stepsons. Guy-Geoffrey fought and
bargained with the rival claimant of Gascony till he had made himself
sole master of the county: Peter-William, though he bears the surname
of “the Bold,” seems to have kept his land in peace, for his reign is
a blank in which the only break is caused by his quarrels with Anjou.
The first of these, in 1053, came as we have seen to no practical
consequence, and two years later William is found by Geoffrey’s side
at Ambrières. But the tie between them was broken; Geoffrey and Agnes
were no longer husband and wife,[485] and Geoffrey was married to
Grecia of Montreuil. There are sufficient indications of Geoffrey’s
private character to warrant the assumption that the blame of this
divorce rested chiefly upon his shoulders,[486] and it may be that
Peter-William acted as the avenger of his mother’s wrongs. The quarrel,
whatever may have been its grounds, broke out afresh in the spring or
early summer of 1058, when the duke of Aquitaine blockaded Geoffrey
himself within the walls of Saumur. But before the end of August
a sudden sickness drove William of Aquitaine home to Poitiers to
die,[487] and set the Angevin count free for one last struggle with
William of Normandy.

        [481] Chron. Brioc. ad ann. (Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_,
        vol. i. col. 35).

        [482] Fulk Rechin mentions among his uncle’s wars one “cum
        Hoello comite Nannetensi.” Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 378.

        [483] Chron. S. Michael. a. 1056 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        xi. p. 29). Chron. Kemperleg. a. 1057 (_ib._ p. 371).

        [484] Chronn. Vindoc. and S. Maxent. a. 1057 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 167, 399). The Chron. Britann. in Morice (_Hist.
        Bret., preuves_, vol. i. col. 101) records this affair under
        the year 1040; but on that chronicle’s own showing Hoel was not
        count of Nantes till 1051, while the Chron. Brioc. (_ib._ col.
        36) places his succession in 1054.

        [485] The last charter signed by Agnes as countess of Anjou is
        dated 1050 (Mabille, Introd. _Comtes_, p. lxxxiii). From 1053
        onwards she reappears at the court of her elder son--generally
        by the title of “mater comitum”--witnessing his charters,
        founding churches in Poitou, and in short holding her old place
        as duchess of Aquitaine, while her place as countess of Anjou
        is taken by Grecia, widow of Berlay of Montreuil, and mother
        of Eustachia, the wife of Agnes’s stepson William the Fat. See
        _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 293, and
        Besly, _Comtes de Poitou_, p. 89.

        [486] See a charter of our Lady of Charity (Ronceray) quoted in
        note to _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ as above.

        [487] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1058 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 400).

King Henry was now gathering up his strength for another invasion
of the Norman duchy. This time Geoffrey did not fail him. Both had
discovered, too late, who was really their most dangerous rival, and
all old grudges between them were forgotten in the common instinct
of vengeance upon the common foe. Early in 1058 Henry came to visit
the count at Angers;[488] and the plan of the coming campaign was no
doubt arranged during the time which they then spent together. It
was to be simply a vast plundering-raid; neither king nor count had
now any ambition to meet the duke in open fight. In August they set
forth--Geoffrey, full of zeal, at the head of all the troops which his
four counties could muster. The French and Angevin host went burning
and plundering through the Hiesmois and the Bessin, the central
districts of Normandy, as far as Caen. Half of the confederates’ scheme
was accomplished; but as they crossed the Dive at the ford of Varaville
they were overtaken at once by the inflowing tide and by the duke
himself; the two leaders, who had been the first to cross, could only
look helplessly on at the total destruction of their host, and make
their escape from Norman ground as fast as their horses would carry
them.[489] The wars of Henry and Geoffrey were over. The king died in
the summer of 1060; in November he was followed by the count of Anjou.
A late-awakened conscience moved Geoffrey to meet his end in the abbey
of S. Nicolas which had been founded by his father and completed under
his own care. One night he was borne across the river and received the
monastic habit; next morning at the hour of prime he died.[490]

        [488] Henry was at Angers on March 1, 1058; charter in _Epitome
        S. Nicolai_, p. 9, referred to by Mabille, Introd. _Comtes_,
        pp. lxxxiii, lxxxiv. The Chronn. Vindoc. and S. Maxent. place
        this visit in 1057 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 167, 399).

        [489] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p.
        188. Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 28 (_ib._ p. 283). Wace, _Roman
        de Rou_, vv. 10271–10430 (Pluquet, vol. ii. pp. 87–94).

        [490] Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 379, gives the year
        and the day, November 14, 1060. The Chronn. Vindoc. and S.
        Maxent. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 167, 402) agree with him;
        the Chron. S. Albin. (_ib._ p. 25) gives the same day, but a
        year later; the Chron. S. Serg. (_ib._ p. 137) dates the event
        in the right year, 1060, but places it on November 13 instead
        of 14; the Chron. S. Flor. Salm. (_ib._ p. 189) says nothing
        of Geoffrey’s death, but places both his assumption of the
        monastic habit and King Henry’s death a year too early, in 1059.

With him expired the male line of Fulk the Red. But there was no
lack of heirs by the spindle-side. Geoffrey’s eldest nephew was his
half-sister Adela’s son, Fulk “the Gosling,” to whom after long
wrangling he had been compelled to restore the county of Vendôme.[491]
He was bound by closer ties to the two sons of his own sister
Hermengard, daughter of Fulk Nerra and Hildegard, and wife of Geoffrey
count of the Gâtinais, a little district around Châteaulandon near
Orléans.[492] Her younger son, Fulk, was but seventeen years old when
at Whitsuntide 1060 he was knighted by Geoffrey Martel, invested with
the government of Saintonge, and sent to put down a revolt among its
people.[493] The elder, who bore his uncle’s name, was chosen by him
for his heir.[494]

        [491] _Origo Com. Vindoc._, in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        xi., p. 31. Vendôme seems however to have counted thenceforth
        as a dependency of Anjou--and, for the most part, a loyal and
        useful one.

        [492] See note A at end of chapter.

        [493] Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 379. The revolt was
        headed by one “Petrus Didonensis.”

        [494] See note B at end of chapter.

The dominion which Geoffrey the Hammer thus bequeathed to Geoffrey the
Bearded was no compact, firmly-knit whole; it was a bundle of four
separate states, held on different tenures, and two of them burthened
with a legacy of unsettled feuds. The real character of their union
shewed itself as soon as Martel was gone. What had held them together
was simply the terror of his name, and the dissolution, already
threatening before his death, set in so rapidly that in less than
three years afterwards two out of his four counties were lost to his
successor. It was in fact only the dominions of Fulk the Black--Anjou
and Touraine--that were thoroughly loyal to his son. Geoffrey’s
last conquest, Maine, was only waiting till death should loose the
iron grasp that choked her to recall her ancient line. His earliest
conquest, Saintonge, lying further from the control of the central
power, was already drifting back to its natural Aquitanian master.
Young Count Fulk was still at his uncle’s death-bed when Saintes was
surprised and captured by the duke of Aquitaine,--Guy-Geoffrey of
Gascony, who had succeeded his twin-brother by the title of William
VII. William seems to have justified his aggression on the plea that by
the terms of the cession of 1036 Martel had no right to leave Saintonge
to collateral heirs, and that on his death without children it ought to
revert to the duke.[495] The city of Saintes itself however had been
Angevin ever since Fulk Nerra’s days, and a strong party of citizens
devoted to Anjou besought Geoffrey’s successor to come and deliver
them. While the two brothers prepared to march into Poitou, William
gathered an immense force to the siege of Chef-Boutonne, a castle on
a rocky height above the river Boutonne, on the borders of Poitou and
Saintonge. Thence, at the Angevins’ approach, he descended to meet them
in the plain, on S. Benedict’s day, March 21, 1061. The duke’s army,
including as it did the whole forces of Gascony and Aquitaine, must
have far outnumbered that of the brother-counts; but there was treason
in the southern ranks; the standard-bearers were the first to flee, and
their flight caused the rout of the whole ducal host.[496] Saintes
threw open its gates to the Angevin victor;[497] but its loss was only
delayed. Next year the duke of Aquitaine blockaded the city till sword
and famine compelled the garrison to surrender;[498] and from that
moment Saintonge was lost to the count of Anjou.

        [495] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 126. See note C
        at end of chapter.

        [496] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1061 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 402).
        _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 126–130. See note C at
        end of chapter.

        [497] _Gesta Cons._ (as above), p. 130.

        [498] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1062 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 403).

Meanwhile a change fraught with far graver consequences had undone
Geoffrey Martel’s work in the north. The conqueror of Le Mans was
scarcely in his grave when Maine flung off the yoke and called upon
the son of her late count Hugh to come home and enjoy his own again.
It was however but a shadowy coronet that she could offer now;
her independence had received a fatal shock; and, to increase the
difficulty of his position, Herbert II. was still a mere boy, without
a friend to guide and protect him except his mother, Bertha of Blois.
Bertha saw at once that his only chance of saving his father’s heritage
from the shame of subjection to Anjou was to throw himself on the
honour of the duke of Normandy; to William therefore, as overlord,
Herbert commended himself and his county, on the terms of the old grant
made to Hrolf by King Rudolf.[499] The commendation was accompanied by
an agreement that Herbert should in due time marry one of William’s
daughters; but there seems to have been a foreboding that the
boy-count’s life was not to be a long one, for it was further provided
that if he died without children Maine should revert in full property
to William;[500] and a marriage was also arranged between William’s
eldest son Robert and Herbert’s sister Margaret, whereby in the next
generation the rights of the “man” and his lord, of the house of Hrolf
and the house of Herbert Wake-Dog, might be united.[501]

        [499] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 487).
        Will. Poitiers (_ibid._), p. 189.

        [500] Will. Poitiers, as above.

        [501] Ord. Vit. as above.

In 1064 Herbert died, leaving neither child nor wife. By the
treaty which had seemed so admirably planned to meet all possible
contingencies, his county was now to revert to William; but there was
more than one difficulty to be met before he could take possession
of it. The first was a sudden revival of the Angevin claim. The
indifference with which Geoffrey the Bearded seems to have viewed the
transactions between Herbert and William may perhaps have been due
to the pressure of the war in Saintonge. Far more puzzling than his
tardiness in asserting his rights to the overlordship of Maine is the
readiness with which, when he did assert them, they seem to have been
admitted by William. Geoffrey did not indeed aspire to the actual
possession of the county which his uncle had enjoyed; all that he
claimed was its overlordship; and William, it seems, acknowledged his
claim by permitting the little Robert to do him homage at Alençon and
to receive from him a formal grant of Margaret’s hand together with the
whole honour of Maine.[502] Geoffrey’s action is easily accounted for.
His only reasonable course was to make a compromise with Normandy: the
wonder is that he was allowed to make it on such favourable terms. If
the story is correct, the truth probably is that compromise was at this
moment almost as needful to William as to Geoffrey, for any Angevin
intermeddling in Maine would have rendered his difficulties there all
but insurmountable. One clause of the treaty of 1061--the marriage of
Robert and Margaret--was still in the remote future, for the bridegroom
cannot have been more than nine years old, and the bride was far away
in what a Norman writer vaguely describes as “Teutonic parts.”[503]
There being thus no security that the county would ever revert to the
descendants of its ancient rulers, Cenomannian loyalty turned its
hopes from Hugh’s young daughter to her aunts, the three daughters of
Herbert Wake-the-dog, of whom the nearest to the spot was Biota, the
wife of Walter of Mantes, sister’s son to Eadward the Confessor.[504]
In his wife’s name Walter laid claim to the whole county of Maine,
and a considerable part of it at once passed into his hands. The
capital was held for him by Hubert of Sᵗᵉ-Suzanne and Geoffrey of
Mayenne--that same Geoffrey who, deceived in his Angevin overlord,
had yielded a compulsory homage to William, and now, casting off all
foreign masters alike, proved the most determined champion of his
country’s independence. It was between William and Geoffrey of Mayenne
that the contest really lay; and again the duke proved victorious.
The conqueror made his “joyous entry” into Le Mans, and sent for the
little Margaret to be kept under his own protection until her marriage
could take place. But before the wedding-day arrived she lay in her
grave at Fécamp; Walter and Biota had already come to a mysterious
end; and the one gallant Cenomannian who held out when Walter and all
else had yielded--Geoffrey of Mayenne--was at length compelled to
surrender.[505] Thenceforth William ruled Maine as its Conqueror, and
as long as he lived, save for one brief moment, the homage due to Anjou
was heard of no more.

        [502] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 532.
        The story is somewhat suspicious, because Orderic tells it not
        in its proper place, but in a sort of summary of Cenomannian
        history, introductory to the war of 1073; so that it looks very
        much like a confused anticipation of the treaty of Blanchelande
        (see below, p. 223). Still there is nothing intrinsically
        impossible in it, and I do not feel justified in rejecting it
        without further evidence.

        [503] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 190.

        [504] On the pedigree of the house of Maine see note D at end
        of chapter.

        [505] Will. Poitiers (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp.
        190, 191. Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 27 (_ib._ p. 283). Ord.
        Vit. (_ibid._) pp. 487, 488.

The rapid decline of the Angevin power after Geoffrey Martel’s death
was due partly to the reaction which often follows upon a sudden rise,
partly to the exceptional greatness of the rival with whom the Angevin
count had to deal in the person of William the Conqueror. But behind
and beyond these two causes lay a third more fatal than either. The
house of Anjou was divided against itself. From the hour of Martel’s
death, a bitter dispute over his testamentary dispositions had been
going on between his nephews. To young Fulk it seemed an unpardonable
wrong that he was left without provision--for even Saintonge, as we
have seen, had now slipped from his grasp--while his elder brother
was in full possession not only of the paternal county of Gâtinais
but also of their uncle’s heritage. In later days Fulk went so far
as to declare that his uncle had intended to make him sole heir, to
the complete exclusion of Geoffrey the Bearded.[506] Fulk is in one
aspect a very interesting person. Almost the sole authority which
we possess for the history of the early Angevin counts is a fragment
written in his name. If it be indeed his work--and criticism has as
yet failed to establish any other conclusion--Fulk Rechin is not
merely the earliest historian of Anjou; he is well-nigh the first
lay historian of the Middle Ages.[507] But in every other point of
view he deserves nothing but aversion and contempt. His very surname
tells its own tale; in one of the most quarrelsome families known to
history, he was pre-eminently distinguished as “the Quarreller.”[508]
With the turbulence, the greed, the wilfulness of his race he had also
their craft and subtlety, their plausible, insinuating, serpent-like
cleverness; but he lacked the boldness of conception, the breadth of
view and loftiness of aim, the unflinching perseverance, the ungrudging
as well as unscrupulous devotion to a great and distant end, which
lifted their subtlety into statesmanship and their cleverness into
genius. The same qualities in him degenerated into mere artfulness
and low cunning, and were used simply to meet his own personal needs
and desires of the moment, not to work out any far-reaching train
of policy. He is the only one of the whole line of Angevin counts,
till we reach the last and worst of all, whose ruling passion seems
to have been not ambition but self-indulgence. Every former count of
Anjou, from Fulk the Red to Geoffrey Martel, had toiled and striven,
and sinned upon occasion, quite as much for his heirs as for himself:
Fulk Rechin toiled and sinned for himself alone. All the thoroughness
which they threw into the pursuit of their house’s greatness he threw
simply into the pursuit of his own selfish desires. Had Geoffrey the
Bearded possessed the highest capacities, he could have done little
for his own or his country’s advancement while his brother’s restless
intrigues were sowing strife and discontent among the Angevin baronage
and turning the whole land into a hotbed of treason.[509] Geoffrey’s
cause was however damaged by his own imprudence. An act of violent
injustice to the abbey of Marmoutier brought him under the ban of
the Church;[510] and from that moment his ruin became certain. From
within and without, troubles crowded upon the Marchland and its unhappy
count. The comet which scared all Europe in 1066 was the herald of
evil days to Anjou as well as to the land with which she was one day
to be linked so closely. In that very year a Breton invasion was only
checked by the sudden death of Duke Conan just after he had received
the surrender of Châteaugonthier.[511] Next spring, on the first Sunday
in Lent, Saumur was betrayed by its garrison to Fulk Rechin;[512]
on the Wednesday before Easter he was treacherously admitted into
Angers, and Geoffrey fell with his capital into the clutches of his
brother.[513] The citizens next day rose in a body and slew the chief
traitors;[514] the disloyalty of Saumur was punished by the duke of
Aquitaine, who profited by the distracted state of Anjou to cross
the border and fire the town;[515] while the remonstrances of Pope
Alexander II. soon compelled Fulk to release his brother.[516] Next
year, however, Geoffrey was again taken prisoner while besieging
Fulk’s castle of Brissac.[517] This time the king of France, alarmed
no doubt by the revelation of such a temper among his vassals, took up
arms for Geoffrey’s restoration, and he was joined by Count Stephen
of Blois, the son of Theobald from whom Geoffrey Martel had won
Tours. Fulk bought off both his assailants. Stephen, who was now
governing the territories of Blois as regent for his aged father, was
pacified by receiving Fulk’s homage for Touraine; the king was bribed
more unblushingly still, by the cession of what was more undeniably
Geoffrey’s lawful property than any part of the Angevin dominions--his
paternal heritage of the Gâtinais.[518] It thus became Philip’s
interest as well as Fulk’s to keep Geoffrey in prison. For the next
twenty-eight years he lay in a dungeon at Chinon,[519] and Fulk ruled
Anjou in his stead.

        [506] See note B at end of chapter.

        [507] “It needs some self-sacrifice to give up the only lay
        historian whom we have come across since the days of our own
        Æthelweard.” Freeman, _Norm. Conq._, 3d ed. vol. ii. p. 638.

        [508] This seems to be the meaning of “Rechin.”

        [509] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 138, 139.

        [510] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 134–137. See
        also _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 664, note.

        [511] Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 33 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
        Scriptt._, p. 286). Chron. Brioc. and Chron. Britann. a. 1066
        (Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i. cols. 36, 102).
        Chronn. Rain. Andeg., S. Serg. and Vindoc. a. 1067 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 12, 137, 168)--which, however, means 1066, as
        all these chronicles place both the comet and the conquest in
        the same year.

        [512] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1067 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 403,
        404). This was February 25 (_ibid._).

        [513] Chronn. Rain. Andeg., S. Albin., S. Serg., Vindoc.
        a. 1067 (_ib._ pp. 12, 25, 137, 138, 168). _Gesta Cons._
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 138, 139), antedated by a year.

        [514] Chronn. Rain. Andeg., S. Albin. (as above); S. Serg.
        (_ib._ p. 138); Vindoc. (_ib._ pp. 168, 169).

        [515] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1067 (_ib._ p. 404).

        [516] Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 379.

        [517] _Ib._ pp. 379, 380. Chronn. Rain. Andeg., S. Albin., S.
        Serg. and Vindoc. a. 1068 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 12, 26,
        138, 169).

        [518] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 139. Chron.
        Turon. Magn. a. 1067 (Salmon, _Chron. de Touraine_, p. 125)--a
        date which must be at least a year too early.

        [519] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 723,
        818. He makes it thirty years, but the dates are undoubtedly
        1068–1096.

That time was a time of shame and misery such as the Marchland had
never yet seen. Eight years of civil war had fostered among the barons
of Anjou and Touraine a spirit of turbulence and lawlessness which
Fulk, whose own intrigues had sown the first seeds of the mischief,
was powerless to control. Throughout the whole of his reign, all
southern Touraine was kept in confusion by a feud among the landowners
at Amboise;[520] and it can hardly have been the only one of its kind
under a ruler who, instead of putting it down with a strong hand, only
aggravated it by his undignified and violent intermeddling. Nor were
his foreign relations better regulated than his home policy. For a
moment, in 1073, an opportunity seemed to present itself of regaining
the lost Angevin overlordship over Maine. Ten years of Angevin rule
had failed to crush out the love of independence among the Cenomannian
people; ten years of Norman rule had just as little effect. While their
conqueror was busied with the settlement of his later and greater
conquest beyond sea, the patriots of Maine seized a favourable moment
to throw off the Norman yoke. Hugh of Este or of Liguria, a son of
Herbert Wake-the-dog’s eldest daughter Gersendis, was received as count
under the guardianship of his mother and Geoffrey of Mayenne. But
Geoffrey, who in the hour of adversity ten years before had seemed
little short of a hero, yielded to the temptations of power; and his
tyranny drove the Cenomannians to fall back upon the traditions of
their old municipal freedom and “make a commune”--in other words, to
set up a civic commonwealth such as those which were one day to be the
glory of the more distant Cenomannian land on the other side of the
Alps. At Le Mans, however, the experiment was premature. It failed
through the treachery of Geoffrey of Mayenne; and the citizens, in the
extremity of despair, called upon Fulk of Anjou to save them at once
from Geoffrey and from William. Fulk readily helped them to dislodge
Geoffrey from the citadel of Le Mans;[521] but as soon as William
appeared in Maine with a great army from over sea Fulk, like his uncle,
vanished. Only when the conqueror had “won back the land of Maine”[522]
and returned in triumph to Normandy did Fulk venture to attack La
Flèche, a castle on the right bank of the Loir, close to the Angevin
border, and held by John, husband of Herbert Wake-dog’s youngest
daughter Paula.[523] At John’s request William sent a picked band of
Norman troops to reinforce the garrison of La Flèche; Fulk at once
collected all his forces and persuaded Hoel duke of Britanny to bring
a large Breton host to help him in besieging the place. A war begun on
such a scale as this might be nominally an attack on John, but it was
practically an attack on William. He took it as such, and again calling
together his forces, Normans and English, led them down to the relief
of La Flèche. Instead, however, of marching straight to the spot, he
crossed the Loir higher up and swept round to the southward through
the territories of Anjou, thus putting the river between himself and
his enemies. The movement naturally drew Fulk back across the river to
defend his own land against the Norman invader.[524] The two armies
drew up facing each other on a wide moor or heath stretching along the
left bank of the Loir between La Flèche and Le Lude, and overgrown
with white reindeer-moss, whence it took the name of Blanchelande. No
battle however took place; some clergy who were happily at hand stepped
in as mediators, and after a long negotiation peace was arranged. The
count of Anjou again granted the investiture of Maine to Robert of
Normandy, and, like his predecessor, received the young man’s homage
to himself as overlord.[525] Like the treaty of Alençon, the treaty
of Blanchelande was a mere formal compromise; William kept it a dead
letter by steadily refusing to make over Maine to his son, and holding
it as before by the right of his own good sword. A few years later Fulk
succeeded in accomplishing his vengeance upon John of La Flèche by
taking and burning his castle;[526] but the expedition seems to have
been a mere border-raid, and so long as William lived neither native
patriotism nor Angevin meddlesomeness ventured again to question his
supremacy over Maine.

        [520] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 175 _et
        seq._

        [521] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ c. 33 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._, p.
        308).

        [522] Eng. Chron. a. 1074.

        [523] See note D at end of chapter.

        [524] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 533. See
        note E at end of chapter.

        [525] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 533.

        [526] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1081 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 26).
        See note E at end of chapter.

But on his death in 1087 the advantage really given to Anjou by the
treaties of Alençon and Blanchelande at last became apparent. From
the moment when Robert came into actual possession of the fief with
which he had been twice invested by an Angevin count, the Angevin
overlordship could no longer be denied or evaded. The action of the
Cenomannians forced their new ruler to throw himself upon Fulk’s
support. Their unquenchable love of freedom caught at the first ray
of hope offered them by Robert’s difficulties in his Norman duchy and
quarrels with his brother the king of England, and their attitude grew
so alarming that in 1089 Robert, lying sick at Rouen, sent for the
count of Anjou and in a personal interview besought him to use his
influence in preventing their threatened revolt. Fulk consented, on
condition that, as the price of his good offices, Robert should obtain
for him the hand of a beautiful Norman lady, Bertrada of Montfort.[527]
Fulk’s domestic life was as shameless as his public career. He had
already one wife dead and two living; Hermengard of Bourbon, whom he
had married in 1070[528] and who was the mother of his heir,[529] had
been abandoned in 1075 without even the formality of a divorce for
Arengard of Châtel-Aillon;[530] and Arengard was now set aside in her
turn to make way for Bertrada.[531] These scandals had already brought
Fulk under a Papal sentence of excommunication;[532] he met with a
further punishment at the hands of his new bride. Bertrada used him
simply as a stepping-stone to higher advancement; on Whitsun-Eve 1093
she eloped with King Philip of France.[533]

        [527] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 681.

        [528] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1070.

        [529] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 140.

        [530] According to a charter in Marchegay, _Documents inédits
        sur l’Anjou_, p. 96, Fulk married Arengard on Saturday the
        feast of S. Agnes (January 21) 1075--_i.e._ what we call 1076,
        as the year was usually reckoned in Gaul from Easter to Easter;
        see editor’s note 4, as above. The _Art de vérifier les dates_,
        however (vol. xiii. p. 62), refers to a document in Dom Huyne’s
        collection where the marriage is dated 1087.

        [531] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 681,
        seems to date Bertrada’s marriage about 1089. The Chron. Turon.
        Magn. puts it in 1091 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, vol. i. p.
        128); but a charter in Marchegay, _Archives d’Anjou_, vol. i.
        p. 365, shows that it had already taken place in April 1090.

        [532] Gregor. VII. Epp., l. ix. ep. 22. Fulk’s violence to
        the archbishop of Tours had also something to do with his
        excommunication; see _ib._ ep. 23; Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1081
        (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, vol. i. p. 126), and _Narratio
        Controversiæ_ in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 459. So
        too had his imprisonment of his brother; _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._
        as above, p. 664, note.

        [533] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1093 (as above, p. 128).

By that time Maine was again in revolt. The leader of the rising was
young Elias of La Flèche, a son of John and Paula; but his place was
soon taken by the veteran Geoffrey of Mayenne, whose treasons seem
to have been forgiven and forgotten, and who now once more installed
Hugh of Este as count at Le Mans. Hugh proved however utterly unfit
for his honourable but dangerous position, and gladly sold his claims
to his cousin Elias.[534] For nearly six years the Cenomannians were
free to rejoice in a ruler of their own blood and their own spirit. We
must go to the historian of his enemies if we would hear his praises
sung;[535] his own people had no need to praise him in words; for them
he was simply the incarnation of Cenomannian freedom; his bright,
warm-hearted, impulsive nature spoke for itself. The strength as well
as the charm of his character lay in its perfect sincerity; its faults
were as undisguised as its virtues. In the gloomy tale of public wrong
and private vice which makes up the history of the time--the time
of Fulk Rechin, Philip I. and William Rufus--the only figure which
shines out bright against the darkness, except the figure of S. Anselm
himself, is that of Count Elias of Maine.

        [534] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ c. 34 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._),
        pp. 310–312. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp.
        683, 684.

        [535] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 768, 769.

During these years Anjou interfered with him as little as Normandy;
Fulk was overwhelmed with domestic and ecclesiastical troubles. His
excommunication was at length removed in 1094;[536] two years later
Pope Urban II., on his way to preach the Crusade in western Gaul,
was received by the count at Angers and consecrated the abbey church
of S. Nicolas, now at length brought to completion.[537] From Angers
Urban passed to Tours and Le Mans; and among the many hearts stirred
by his call to take the cross there can have been few more earnest
than that of Elias of Maine. Robert of Normandy was already gone,
leaving his dominions pledged to his brother the king of England. Elias
prepared to follow him; but when his request to William Rufus for the
protection due to a crusader’s lands during his absence was met by a
declaration of the Red King’s resolve to regain all the territories
which had been held by his father, the count of Maine saw that he must
fight out his crusade not in Holy Land but at home. The struggle had
scarcely begun when he was taken prisoner by Robert of Bellême, and
sent in chains to the king at Rouen.[538] The people of Maine, whose
political existence seemed bound up in their count, were utterly
crushed by his loss. But there was another enemy to be faced. Aremburg,
the only child of Elias, was betrothed to Fulk Rechin’s eldest son,
Geoffrey,[539] whose youthful valour had won him the surname of “Martel
the Second;” Geoffrey hurried to save the heritage of his bride, and
Fulk was no less eager to seize the opportunity of asserting once
more his rights to the overlordship of Maine.[540] The Cenomannians
gladly welcomed the only help that was offered them; and while Geoffrey
reinforced the garrison of Le Mans, Fulk tried to effect a diversion
on the border.[541] But meanwhile Elias had guessed his design, and
frustrated it by making terms with the Norman.[542] If Maine must
needs bow to a foreign yoke, even William Rufus was at least a better
master than Fulk Rechin. To William, therefore, Elias surrendered his
county as the price of his own release;[543] and to William he offered
his services with the trustful frankness of a heart to which malice
was unknown. The offer was refused. Then, from its very ashes, the
spirit of Cenomannian freedom rose up once more, and for the second
time Elias hurled his defiance at the Red King. An Angevin count in
William’s place would probably have flung the bold speaker straight
back into the dungeon whence he had come; the haughty chivalry of
the Norman only bade him begone and do his worst.[544] In the spring
Elias fought his way back to Le Mans, where the people welcomed him
with clamorous delight; William’s unexpected approach, however, soon
compelled him to withdraw;[545] and Maine had to wait two more years
for her deliverance. It came with the news of the Red King’s death in
August 1100. Robert of Normandy was too indolent, Henry of England too
wise, to answer the appeal for succour made to each in turn by the
Norman garrison of Le Mans; Elias received their submission and sent
them home in peace;[546] and thenceforth the foreign oppressor trod
the soil of Maine no more. When the final struggle for Normandy broke
out between Robert and Henry, Elias, with characteristic good sense,
commended himself to the one overlord whom he saw to be worthy of
his homage.[547] Henry was wise enough loyally to accept the service
and the friendship which Rufus had scorned; and he proved its value
on the field of Tinchebray, where Elias and his Cenomannians decided
the battle in his favour, and thus made him master of Normandy. On
the other hand, the dread of Angevin tyranny had changed into a
glad anticipation of peaceful and equal union. The long battle of
Cenomannian freedom, so often baffled and so often renewed, was won at
last. When next a duke of Normandy disputed the possession of Maine
with a count of Anjou, he disputed it not with a rival oppressor but
with the husband of its countess, the lawful heir of Elias; and the
triumph of Cenomannia received its fitting crown when Henry’s daughter
wedded Aremburg’s son in the minster of S. Julian at Le Mans.

        [536] Letter of the legate, Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, dated
        S. Florence of Saumur, S. John Baptist’s day, 1094; _Gallia
        Christiana_, vol. iv., instrum. cols. 10, 11.

        [537] Chronn. Rain. Andeg., S. Albin., S. Serg., a. 1095
        (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 14, 27, 140); Chron. S. Maxent.
        a. 1096 (_ib._ p. 411). This last is the right year; see the
        itinerary of Pope Urban in Gaul, in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        xii. pp. 3 note _m_, and 65 note _d_.

        [538] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp.
        769–771. _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ c. 35 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._,
        p. 313). The exact date of the capture is April 20, 1098;
        Chron. S. Albin. ad ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 28).

        [539] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ c. 35 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._, p.
        313). _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 142.

        [540] “Quia capitalis dominus erat.” Ord. Vit. (Duchesne,
        _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 772.

        [541] _Ibid._ _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, as above.

        [542] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ (as above), p. 314.

        [543] _Ibid._ Ord. Vit., as above.

        [544] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 773.

        [545] _Ib._ pp. 774, 775. _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, as above.

        [546] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 784,
        785.

        [547] _Ib._ p. 822.

The union of Anjou and Maine did not, however, come to pass exactly
as it had been first planned; Aremburg became the wife of an Angevin
count, but he was not Geoffrey Martel the Second. That marriage, long
deferred by reason of the bride’s youth, was frustrated in the end by
the death of the bridegroom. His life had been far from an easy one.
Fulk, prematurely worn out by a life of vice, had for some years past
made over the cares of government to Geoffrey.[548] Father and son
agreed as ill as their namesakes in a past generation; but this time
the fault was not on the young man’s side. Geoffrey, while spending
all his energies in doing his father’s work, saw himself supplanted in
that father’s affection by his little half-brother, Bertrada’s child.
He found a friend in his unhappy uncle, Geoffrey the Bearded, whose
reason had been almost destroyed by half a lifetime of captivity; and
a touching story relates how the imprisoned count in a lucid interval
expressed his admiration for his nephew’s character, and voluntarily
renounced in his favour the rights which he still persisted in
maintaining against Fulk.[549] On the strength of this renunciation
Geoffrey Martel, backed by Pope Urban, at length extorted his father’s
consent to the liberation of the captive. It was, however, too late
to be of much avail; reason and health were both alike gone, and all
that the victim gained by his nephew’s care was that, when he died
shortly after, he at least died a free man.[550] His bequest availed as
little to Geoffrey Martel; in 1103, Fulk openly announced his intention
of disinheriting his valiant son in favour of Bertrada’s child. A
brief struggle, in which Fulk was backed by the duke of Aquitaine and
Geoffrey by Elias, ended in Fulk’s abdication. For three years Geoffrey
ruled well and prosperously,[551] till in May 1106, as he was besieging
a rebellious vassal in the castle of Candé on the Loire, he was struck
by a poisoned arrow and died next morning.[552] The bitter regrets of
his people, as they laid him to sleep beside his great-uncle in the
church of S. Nicolas at Angers,[553] were intensified by a horrible
suspicion that his death had been contrived by Bertrada, and that Fulk
himself condoned her crime.[554] It is doubtful whether her child,
who now had to take his brother’s place, had even grown up among his
own people; she had perhaps carried her baby with her, or persuaded
the weak count to let her have him and bring him up at court; there,
at any rate, he was at the time of Geoffrey’s death. Philip granted
him the investiture of Anjou in Geoffrey’s stead, and commissioned
Duke William of Aquitaine, who happened to be at court, to escort him
safe home to his father. The Poitevin, however, conveyed him away into
his own territories, and there put him in prison. Philip’s threats,
Bertrada’s persuasions, alike proved unavailing, till the boy’s own
father purchased his release by giving up some border-towns to Poitou,
and after a year’s captivity young Fulk at last came home.[555] Two
years later, on April 14, 1109, he was left sole count of Anjou by the
death of Fulk Rechin.[556]

        [548] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1098 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_,
        p. 130).

        [549] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 141.

        [550] _Ibid._ Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1098 (Salmon, _Chron.
        Touraine_, p. 128). Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
        Scriptt._), p. 723.

        [551] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 818. Chron. S. Albin. a.
        1103–1105 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 30).

        [552] Ord. Vit. as above. Chronn. Rain. Andeg., S. Albin., S.
        Serg., Vindoc., S. Flor. Salm., S. Maxent., a. 1106 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 15, 16, 30, 142, 171, 190, 423). The three
        first-named chronicles give the day as May 19, the Chron. S.
        Maxent. makes it May 26, and according to M. Marchegay’s note
        (as above, p. 171) the obituary of S. Maurice makes it June
        1. This, however, might be owing to an accidental omission of
        the “xiv.” (or “vii.”) before _Kal. Junii_. The _Gesta Cons._
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 142, places the death a year later.

        [553] Ord. Vit. and _Gesta Cons._ as above.

        [554] _Gesta Cons._ as above. Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1108
        (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, p. 130). See also a quotation from
        Le Pelletier’s _Epitome S. Nicolai_, in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._,
        vol. xii. p. 486, note.

        [555] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 818.
        Will. Tyr., l. xiv. c. 1, has a different version, which does
        not look authentic.

        [556] Chron. Rain. Andeg., S. Albin., Vindoc., S. Flor. Salm.
        ad ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 16, 31, 172, 190). The
        Chronn. S. Serg. and S. Maxent. (_ib._ pp. 143, 424), date it
        1108.

“Ill he began; worse he lived; worst of all he ended.”[557] Such is the
verdict of a later Angevin historian upon the man whom we should have
been glad to respect as the father of Angevin history. Fulk Rechin’s
utter worthlessness had well-nigh undone the work of Geoffrey Martel
and Fulk the Black; amid the wreck of the Angevin power in his hands,
the only result of their labours which seemed still to remain was the
mere territorial advantage involved in the possession of Touraine.
Politically, Anjou had sunk far below the position which she had held
in the Black Count’s earliest days; she had not merely ceased to be
a match for the greatest princes of the realm, she had ceased to be
a power in the realm at all. The title of count of Anjou, for nearly
a hundred years a very synonym of energy and progress, had become
identified with weakness and disgrace. The black cloud of ruin seemed
to be settling down over the marchland, only waiting its appointed
time to burst and pour upon her its torrent of destruction. It proved
to be only the dark hour before the dawn of the brightest day that
Anjou had seen since her great Count Fulk was laid in his grave at
Beaulieu--perhaps even since her good Count Fulk was laid in his grave
at Tours.

        [557] _Hist. Abbr. Com. Andeg._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 360.

Nearly nine months before the death of Fulk Rechin, Louis VI. had
succeeded his father Philip as king of France.[558] His accession marks
an era in the growth of the French monarchy. It is a turning-point in
the struggle of the feudataries with the Crown, or rather with each
other for control over the Crown, which lay at the root of the rivalry
between Anjou and Blois, and which makes up almost the whole history of
the first three generations of the kingly house founded by Hugh Capet.
The royal authority was a mere name; but that name was still the centre
round which the whole complicated system of French feudalism revolved;
it was the one point of cohesion among the various and ill-assorted
members which made up the realm of France, in the wider sense which
that word was now beginning to bear. The duke or count of almost any
one of the great fiefs--Normandy, Flanders, Burgundy, Aquitaine--was
far more really powerful and independent than the king, who was
nominally the lord paramount of them all, but practically the tool of
each in turn. In this seemingly ignominious position of the Crown there
was, however, an element of hidden strength which in the end enabled
it to swallow up and outlive all its rivals. The end was as yet far
distant; but the first step towards it was taken when Louis the Fat was
crowned at Reims in August 1109. At the age of thirty-two he ascended
the throne with a fixed determination to secure such an absolute
authority within the immediate domains of the Crown as should enable
him to become the master instead of the servant of his feudataries.

        [558] _Hist. Franc. Fragm._ (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii.),
        p. 7.

This policy led almost of necessity to a conflict with King Henry
of England, who had now become master of Normandy by his victory at
Tinchebray. Louis appears never to have received Henry’s homage for the
duchy;[559] and it may have been to avoid the necessity of performing
this act of subordination that Henry, as it seems, refrained from
formally assuming the ducal title, at least so long as his captive
brother lived.[560] Whatever may have been his motive, the fact aptly
typifies his political position. Alike in French and English eyes, he
was a king of England ruling Normandy as a dependency of the English
Crown. Such a personage was far more obnoxious to Louis and his
projects than a mere duke of the Normans, or even a duke of the Normans
ruling England as a dependency of the Norman duchy. On the other hand,
Henry, in the new position given him by his conquest, had every reason
to look with jealousy and suspicion upon the growing power of France.
The uncertain relations between the two kings therefore soon took an
openly hostile turn. In 1110 a quarrel arose between them concerning
the ownership of the great border-fortress of Gisors. They met near
the spot, each at the head of an army; but they parted again after
wasting a day in fruitless recriminations and empty challenges.[561]
Their jealousy was quickened by a dispute, also connected with the
possession of a castle, between Louis and Henry’s nephew Theobald count
of Blois.[562] Uncle and nephew made common cause against their common
enemy; but the strife had scarcely begun when a further complication
destined to be of far weightier consequence, if not to France at least
to England, arose out of the position and policy of the young count of
Anjou.

        [559] See Freeman, _Norm. Conq._, vol. v. p. 193.

        [560] Freeman, _Norm. Conq._, vol. v. p. 180 and note 2.

        [561] Suger, _Vita Ludov._, c. 15 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        xii. pp. 27, 28).

        [562] _Ib._ c. 18 (pp. 35, 36).

The accession of Fulk V., no less than that of Louis VI., began a new
era for his country. The two princes were in some respects not unlike
each other: each stands out in marked contrast to his predecessor,
and in Fulk’s case the contrast is even more striking than in that
of Louis, for if little good was to be expected of the son of Philip
I., there might well be even less hope of the child of Fulk Rechin
and Bertrada. As a ruler and as a man, however, young Fulk turned
utterly aside from the evil ways of both his parents.[563] Yet he was
an Angevin of the Angevins; physically, he had the ruddy complexion
inherited from the first of his race and name;[564] while in his
restless, adventurous temper, at once impetuous and wary, daring and
discreet, he shows a strong likeness to his great-grandfather Fulk the
Black. But the old fiery spirit breaks out in Fulk V. only as if to
remind us that it is still there, to shew that the demon-blood of Anjou
still flows in his veins, hot as ever indeed, but kept under subjection
to higher influences; the sense of right that only woke now and then
to torture the conscience of the Black Count seems to be the guiding
principle of his great-grandson’s life. The evil influences which must
have surrounded his boyhood, whether it had been passed in his father’s
house, or, as seems more probable, in the court of Philip and Bertrada,
seem, instead of developing the worse tendencies of his nature, only
to have brought out the better ones into more active working by sheer
force of opposition. Politically, however, there can be no doubt that
the peculiar circumstances of his early life led to important results,
by reviving and strengthening the old ties between Anjou and the Crown
which had somewhat slackened in Fulk Rechin’s days. The most trusted
counsellor of the new king, the devoted supporter and not unfrequently
the instigator of his schemes of reform or of aggression, was Almeric
of Montfort, the brother of Bertrada. She herself, after persecuting
Louis by every means in her power so long as his father lived, changed
her policy as soon as he mounted the throne and became as useful an
ally as she had been a dangerous enemy. Almeric’s influence, won by his
own talents, seems to have been almost all-powerful with the king; over
the count of Anjou, far younger and utterly inexperienced, natural ties
had given a yet more complete ascendency to him and his sister, Fulk’s
own mother. Their policy was to pledge Anjou irrevocably to the side of
the French crown by forcing it into a quarrel with Henry I.

        [563] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 143.

        [564] “Vir rufus, sed instar David.” Will. Tyr. l. xiv. c. 1.

The means lay ready to their hands. Aremburg of Maine, once the
plighted bride of Geoffrey Martel, was still unwed; Fulk, by his
mother’s counsel, sought and won her for his wife.[565] Her marriage
crowned the work of Elias. The patriot-count’s mission was fulfilled,
his task was done; and in that very summer he passed to his
well-earned rest.[566] Fulk, as husband of the heiress, thus became
count of Maine, and the immediate consequence was a breach with Henry
on the long-vexed question of the overlordship of the county. Whether
Elias had or had not recognized any right of overlordship in Fulk
Rechin or Geoffrey Martel II. is not clear; he certainly seems to have
done homage to Henry,[567] and their mutual relations as lord and
vassal were highly honourable to both; but it was hardly to be expected
that Fulk, whose predecessors had twice received the homage of Henry’s
elder brother for that very county, should yield up without a struggle
the rights of the count of Anjou. He refused all submission to Henry,
and at once formed a league with the French Crown in active opposition
to the lord of England and Normandy.

        [565] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 785,
        818. _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 143. Will. Tyr.,
        l. xiv. c. 1.

        [566] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1110 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 31, 143). Eng. Chron. a. 1110. Ord. Vit.
        (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 785, 839.

        [567] “Eac thises geares forthferde Elias eorl, the tha Mannie
        of tham cynge Heanri geheold, and on cweow.” Eng. Chron. a.
        1110. Nobody seems to know what “on cweow” means; Mr. Thorpe
        (Eng. Chron., vol. ii. p. 211) suggests that it may stand for
        “Angeow.”

The war began in 1111, and the danger was great enough to call Henry
himself over sea in August and keep him on the continent for nearly two
years. The leading part was taken by the count of Anjou, whose marriage
enabled him to add the famous “Cenomannian swords” to the forces of
Touraine and the Angevin March.[568] Moreover, treason was, as usual,
rife among the Norman barons; and the worst of all the traitors was
Robert of Bellême. One after another the lesser offenders were brought
to justice; at last, in November 1112, Robert himself fell into the
hands of his outraged sovereign, and, to the joy of all men on both
sides of the sea, was flung into a lifelong captivity.[569] Then at
last Henry felt secure in Normandy; the capture of Robert was followed
by the surrender of his fortress of Alençon, and the tide of fortune
turned so rapidly that Fulk and Louis were soon compelled to sue for
peace. Early in Lent 1113 Fulk and Henry met at Pierre-Pécoulée near
Alençon; the count submitted to perform the required homage for Maine,
and his infant daughter was betrothed to Henry’s son, the little
Ætheling William. In March the treaty was confirmed by the two kings at
Gisors; and as the first-fruits of their new alliance there was seen
the strange spectacle of a count of Anjou and a count of Blois fighting
side by side to help the lord of Normandy in subduing the rebels who
still held out in the castle of Bellême.[570]

        [568] Eng. Chron. a. 1111, 1112.

        [569] Eng. Chron. a. 1112. Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 841, 858.
        Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 398 (Hardy, p. 626).

        [570] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 841.

Henry’s next step was to exact, first from the barons of Normandy
and then from the Great Council of England, a solemn oath of homage
and fealty to his son William as his destined successor.[571] This
ceremony, not unusual in France, but quite without precedent in
England, was doubtless a precaution against the chances of the war
which he foresaw must soon be renewed. This time indeed he was
himself the aggressor; Louis had made no hostile movement, and Fulk
was troubled by a revolt at home, whose exact nature is not clearly
ascertained. The universal tendency of feudal vassals to rebel against
their lord had probably something to do with it; but there seems also
to have been another and a far more interesting element at work.
“There arose a grave dissension between Count Fulk the Younger and
the burghers of Angers.”[572] In this provokingly brief entry in one
of the Angevin chronicles we may perhaps catch a glimpse of that new
spirit of civic freedom which was just springing into life in northern
Europe, and which made some progress both in France and in England
during the reigns of Louis VI. and Henry I. One would gladly know
what were the demands of the Angevin burghers, and how they were met
by the son-in-law of Elias of Le Mans; but the faint echo of the
dispute between count and citizens is drowned in the roar of the more
imposing strife which soon broke out anew between the rival kings. Its
ostensible cause was now Count Theobald of Blois, whose wrongs were
made by his uncle a ground for marching into France, in company with
Theobald himself and his brother Stephen, in the spring of 1116. Louis
retaliated by a raid upon Normandy; the Norman barons recommenced their
old intrigues;[573] and they were soon furnished with an excellent
pretext. After the battle of Tinchebray, Duke Robert’s infant son
William had been intrusted by his victorious uncle to the care of his
half-sister’s husband, Elias of Saint-Saëns. Elias presently began to
suspect Henry of evil designs against the child; at once, sacrificing
his own possessions to Henry’s wrath, he fled with his charge and led
him throughout all the neighbouring lands, seeking to stir up sympathy
for the fugitive heir of Normandy, till he found him a shelter at
the court of his kinsman Count Baldwin of Flanders.[574] At last the
faithful guardian’s zeal was rewarded by seeing the cause of his young
brother-in-law taken up by both Baldwin and Louis. In 1117 they leagued
themselves together with the avowed object of avenging Duke Robert and
reinstating his son in the duchy of Normandy; and their league was at
once joined by the count of Anjou.[575]

        [571] Eng. Chron. a. 1115. Flor. Worc. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p.
        69. Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), p. 237.

        [572] “Facta est gravis dissensio inter Fulconem comitem
        Juniorem et burgenses Andecavenses.” Chron. S. Serg. a. 1116
        (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 143). The Chron. S. Albin. a. 1114
        (_ib._ p. 32) has “Guerra burgensium contra comitem”; but M.
        Marchegay says in a note that two MSS. read “baronum” for
        “burgensium.”

        [573] See details in Suger, _Vita Ludov._ c. 21 (_Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 43), and Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist.
        Norm. Scriptt._), p. 843.

        [574] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 837, 838.

        [575] Eng. Chron. a. 1117. Hen. Huntingdon, l. vii. c. 29
        (Arnold, p. 239).

The quarrel had now assumed an aspect far more threatening to Henry;
but it was not till the middle of the following summer that the war
began in earnest. Its first honours were won by the count of Anjou,
in the capture of La Motte-Gautier, a fortress on the Cenomannian
border.[576] In September the count of Flanders was mortally wounded in
a skirmish near Eu;[577] Louis and Fulk had however more useful allies
in the Norman baronage, whose chiefs were nearly all either openly
or secretly in league with them. Almeric of Montfort, who claimed
the county of Evreux, was the life and soul of all their schemes. In
October the city of Evreux was betrayed into his hands;[578] and this
disaster was followed by another at Alençon. Henry had granted the
lands of Robert of Bellême to Theobald of Blois; Theobald, with his
uncle’s permission, made them over to his brother Stephen; and Stephen
at once began to shew in his small dominions the same incapacity for
keeping order which he shewed afterwards on a larger scale in England.
His negligence brought matters at Alençon to such a pass that the
outraged citizens called in the help of the count of Anjou, admitted
him and his troops by night into the town, and joined with him in
blockading the castle.[579] Stephen meanwhile had joined his uncle and
brother at Séez. On receipt of the evil tidings, the two young counts
hurried back to Alençon, made an unsuccessful attempt to revictual the
garrison, and then tried to surround the Angevin camp, which had been
pitched in a place called “the Park.” A long day’s fighting, in which
the tide seems to have been turned at last chiefly by the valour of
Fulk himself, ended in an Angevin victory and won him the surrender of
Alençon.[580]

        [576] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 844. His chronology is all wrong.

        [577] _Ib._ p. 843. Suger, _Vita Ludov._, c. 21 (_Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 45). Eng. Chron. a. 1118. Will. Malm.
        _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 403 (Hardy, pp. 630, 631) substitutes
        Arques for Eu.

        [578] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 843,
        846.

        [579] _Ib._ p. 847.

        [580] The details of this story--in a very apocryphal-looking
        shape--are in _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 145–150.
        The Angevin victory, however, comes out clearly in Ord. Vit.
        (as above).

The following year was for Henry an almost unbroken series of reverses
and misfortunes, and in 1119 he was compelled to seek peace with
Fulk. Their treaty was ratified in June by the marriage of William
the Ætheling and Matilda of Anjou; Fulk made an attempt to end the
Cenomannian difficulty by settling Maine upon his daughter as a
marriage-portion,[581] and gave up Alençon on condition that Henry
should restore it to the dispossessed heir, William Talvas.[582] Henry
had now to face only the French king and the traitor barons. With the
latter he began at once by firing the town of Evreux.[583] Louis, on
receiving these tidings from Almeric of Montfort, assembled his troops
at Etampes and marched upon Normandy. In the plain of Brenneville,
between Noyon and Andely, he was met by Henry with the flower of his
English and Norman forces. Louis, in the insane bravado of chivalry,
disdained to get his men into order before beginning the attack, and he
thereby lost the day. The first charge, made by eighty French knights
under a Norman traitor, William Crispin, broke against the serried
ranks of the English fighting on foot around their king; all the eighty
were surrounded and made prisoners; and the rest of the French army was
put to such headlong flight that, if the Norman tale can be true, out
of nine hundred knights only three were found dead on the field. Louis
himself, unhorsed in the confusion, escaped alone into a wood where he
lost his way, and was finally led back to Andely by a peasant ignorant
of his rank.[584] In bitter shame he went home to Paris to seek comfort
and counsel of Almeric, who, luckily for both, had had no share in
this disastrous expedition. By Almeric’s advice a summons was issued
to all bishops, counts, and other persons in authority throughout the
realm, bidding them stir up their people, on pain of anathema, to come
and help the king. The plan seems to have had much the same result as
a calling-out of the “fyrd” in England, and the host which it brought
together inflicted terrible ravages upon Normandy. In October Louis
sought help in another quarter. Pope Calixtus had come to hold a
council at Reims; the ecclesiastical business ended, he had to listen
to a string of appeals in all sorts of causes, and the first appellant
was the king of France, who came before the Pope in person and set
forth a detailed list of complaints against Henry. The archbishop
of Rouen rose to defend his sovereign, but the council refused to
hear him. Calixtus, however, was on too dangerous terms with Henry
of Germany to venture upon anathematizing his father-in-law, Henry
of England; and in a personal interview at Gisors, in November, the
English king vindicated himself to the Pope’s complete satisfaction.
The tide had turned once more. Almeric had been won over by a grant
of the coveted honour of Evreux; and his defection from Louis was
followed by that of all the other rebel Normans in rapid succession.
William the Clito--as Duke Robert’s son is called, to distinguish him
from his cousin William the Ætheling--was again driven into exile, with
his faithful brother-in-law still at his side; a treaty was arranged
between Henry and Louis; all castles were to be restored, all captives
freed, and all wrongs forgiven and forgotten.[585]

        [581] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 851. Eng. Chron. a. 1119. Suger,
        _Vita Ludov._ c. 21 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 45).
        Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 419 (Hardy, p. 652).

        [582] Ord. Vit. as above.

        [583] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 852.

        [584] _Ib._ pp. 853–855. See also Eng. Chron. a. 1119, Hen.
        Hunt., l. vii. c. 31 (Arnold, p. 241), and Suger, _Vita
        Ludov._, c. 21 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 45).

        [585] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 858,
        859, 863–866. Cf. Eng. Chron. a. 1120.

We seem to be reading the story of Fulk Nerra over again as we are
told how his great-grandson, as soon as peace seemed assured and he
was reconciled to all his neighbours, desired also by penance for
his sins to become reconciled to God, and leaving his dominions in
charge of his wife and their two little sons, set out on pilgrimage to
Jerusalem.[586] The “lord of three cities,”[587] however, could not
leave his territories to take care of themselves as the Black Count
seems to have done; the regency of his boys was merely nominal, for
the eldest of them was but seven years old; and though their mother,
the daughter of Elias, may well have been a wise and courageous woman,
it was no light matter thus to leave her alone with the rival kings
on each side of her. To guard against all dangers, therefore, Fulk
again formally commended the county of Maine to King Henry as overlord
during his own life, and bequeathed it to his son-in-law the Ætheling
in case he should not return.[588] Two months before his departure, the
cathedral of Le Mans, which had just been rebuilt, was consecrated in
his presence and that of his wife. At the close of the ceremony he took
up his little son Geoffrey in his arms and placed him on the altar,
saying with tears: “O holy Julian, to thee I commend my child and my
land, that thou mayest be the defender and protector of both!”[589] The
yearning which drew him literally to tread in his great-grandfather’s
steps was too strong to be repressed; but he went,[590] it is clear,
with anxious and gloomy forebodings; and before he reached his home
again those forebodings were fulfilled. The treaty that had promised so
well was scattered to the winds on November 25, 1120, by the death of
William the Ætheling in the wreck of the White Ship.[591]

        [586] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 871.

        [587] “Trium urbium dominus.” I think it is Orderic who
        somewhere thus expressively designates the lord of Angers and
        Le Mans and Tours.

        [588] This seems to be the meaning of Will. Malm. _Gesta
        Reg._, l. v. c. 419 (Hardy, p. 652); “Quin et Ierosolymam
        Fulco ire contendens, comitatum commendavit regi suum, si
        viveret; futurum profecto generi, si non rediret.” The “county”
        in question can only be Maine, of the gift of which to the
        Ætheling at his marriage William has just been speaking.

        [589] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ c. 35 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._, p.
        318).

        [590] In company with Rainald, bishop of Angers, in 1120.
        Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Flor. Salm. ad ann. (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 32, 190).

        [591] Eng. Chron. a. 1120; Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c.
        419 (Hardy, pp. 653, 654); Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 32 (Arnold,
        p. 242); Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), pp. 288, 289; Ord. Vit.
        (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 868, 869, etc.

In that wreck perished not merely Fulk’s hopes for the settlement of
Maine, but Henry’s hopes for the settlement of England and Normandy.
Setting aside the father’s personal grief for the loss of his favourite
child, the Ætheling’s death was the most terrible political blow that
could have fallen upon Henry. All his hopes for the continuance of his
work were bound up in the life of his son. The toils and struggles of
twenty years would be little more than lost labour unless he could
guard against two dangers which had been the bane of both England and
Normandy ever since the Conqueror’s death:--a disputed succession
to the English throne, and a separation between the insular and the
continental dominions of the ducal house. In the person of William
the Ætheling both dangers seemed provided against; if Henry lived but
a few years more, there was every reason to expect that William, and
William alone among the Conqueror’s surviving descendants, would be
able to mount the English throne without opposition. On any accepted
principle, his only possible competitor would have been his cousin and
namesake the Clito. Neither people nor barons would have been likely to
think for a moment of setting aside the son of their crowned king and
queen--a king born in the land and a queen who represented the ancient
blood-royal of England--for a landless, homeless stranger whose sole
claim rested on the fact that by strict rule of primogeniture he was
the heir male of the Conqueror; and, once master of England, William
might fairly be expected to keep his hold upon Normandy as his father
had done. The shipwreck of November 1120, however, left Henry suddenly
face to face with the almost certain prospect of being succeeded in
all his dominions by his brother’s son, his enemy, the rival of his
lost boy, the one person of all others whose succession would be most
repugnant alike to his feelings and to his policy. As soon as Henry
himself was gone, the Clito would have positively no competitor; for of
all Henry’s surviving children, the only one who had any legal rights
was a daughter. The future of Henry’s policy had hung upon the thread
of a single life, and now the silver cord was loosed.

The Ætheling’s child-widow was in England: on that sad night she
had crossed with her father-in-law instead of her husband, and thus
escaped sharing the latter’s fate. Fulk at once sent to demand his
daughter back;[592] but Henry was unwilling to part from her, and kept
her constantly with him as if she were his own child, till the little
girl herself begged to see her own parents again, and was allowed to
return to Angers.[593] Henry seems really to have clung to her as a
sort of legacy from his dead son; but, to Fulk’s great indignation, he
kept her dowry as well as herself.[594] An embassy sent to England at
Christmas 1122--apparently after her return to Anjou--came back without
success after a delay of several months and a stormy parting from the
king.[595] The most important part of the dowry however was still in
Fulk’s own hands. His settlement of Maine upon William and Matilda and
their possible posterity was annulled by William’s death; Fulk was once
more free to dispose of the county as he would. Regarding all ties with
Henry as broken, and urged at once by Almeric of Montfort and Louis of
France, he offered it, with the hand of his second daughter Sibyl, to
William the Clito.[596]

        [592] Eng. Chron. a. 1121.

        [593] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 875.

        [594] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 419 (Hardy, p. 655).

        [595] Eng. Chron. a. 1123.

        [596] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 838, 876. Eng. Chron. a. 1124.
        Will. Malm. as above (p. 654).

To the threatening attitude of France and Anjou was added, as a
natural consequence, a conspiracy among the Norman barons, headed by
the arch-plotter Almeric and the young Count Waleran of Meulan, a son
of Henry’s own familiar friend. Their scheme, planned at a meeting held
in September at the Croix-Saint-Leuffroy, was discovered by the king;
he marched at once upon Waleran’s castle of Pontaudemer, and took it
after a six weeks’ siege, during which he worked in the trenches as
hard as any young soldier. This success was counterbalanced by the loss
of Gisors, which was taken and sacked by Almeric; Henry retaliated by
seizing Evreux. Advent and a stormy winter checked the strife; one
battle in the spring put an end to it. On March 25, 1124, the rebels
were met at Bourgthéroulde by Ralf of Bayeux, who commanded at Evreux
for King Henry; despite their superior numbers, they were completely
defeated, and Waleran was taken prisoner.[597] His capture was followed
by the surrender of his castles; Almeric, who had as usual escaped,
again made his peace with Henry; and the Clito’s cause, forsaken by
his Norman partizans, was left almost wholly dependent on the support
of Anjou.[598] Meanwhile Henry had found an ally in his son-in-law
and namesake the Emperor, and in August France was threatened with
a German invasion. Louis seized the consecrated banner--the famous
Oriflamme--which hung above the high altar in the abbey of S. Denis,
and hurried off with it, as Geoffrey Martel had once ridden forth with
the standard of S. Martin of Tours, to meet the foe. But the invasion
came to an unexpected end. For some reason which is not explained, the
Emperor turned suddenly homeward without striking a blow.[599]

        [597] Eng. Chron. a. 1124. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
        Scriptt._), pp. 876–880. Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii. c.
        21 (_ib._ p. 302). The date comes from the Chronicle; the
        continuator of Will. Jumièges makes it a day later.

        [598] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 880–882.

        [599] Suger, _Vita Ludov._, c. 21 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        xii. pp. 49, 50).

The English king found a more useful friend in the Pope than in the
Emperor. By dint of threats, promises and bribes, he persuaded the
court of Rome to annul the marriage of Sibyl and the Clito on the
ground of consanguinity.[600] Of their kinship there is no doubt;[601]
but it was in exactly the same degree as the kinship between Henry’s
own son and Sibyl’s sister, to whose marriage no objection had ever
been raised. The Clito refused to give up his bride, and was thereupon
excommunicated by the Pope;[602] Fulk publicly burnt the letter in
which the legate insisted upon the dissolution of the marriage, singed
the beards of the envoys who carried it, and put them in prison for a
fortnight. The consequence was an interdict[603] which compelled him to
submit; the new-married couple parted, and William the Clito became a
wanderer once more.[604]

        [600] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 838.

        [601] They were descended, one in the fifth, the other in the
        sixth degree, from Richard the Fearless; Ord. Vit. as above,
        giving details of the pedigree.

        [602] Brief of Calixtus II., August 26 [1124], in D’Achéry,
        _Spicilegium_, vol. iii. p. 479.

        [603] Brief of Honorius II., April 12 [1125], _ibid._

        [604] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 882.

Next Christmas Henry struck his final blow at his nephew’s hopes of the
succession. An old tradition which declared that whatsoever disturber
of the realm of France was brought face to face with the might of
S. Denis would die within a twelvemonth was fulfilled in the person
of the Emperor Henry V.[605] His widow, the only surviving child of
Henry of England and the “Good Queen Maude,” was summoned back to her
father’s court.[606] She came not without regret, for she had dwelt
from childhood among her husband’s people, and was held by them in
great esteem. The dying Emperor had no child to take his place. He had
committed his sceptre to his consort;[607] and some of the princes of
Lombardy and Lorraine took this symbolical bequest in such earnest that
they actually followed Matilda over sea to demand her back as their
sovereign.[608] But King Henry had other plans for his daughter. At the
midwinter assembly of 1126–1127 he made the barons and prelates of
England swear that in case of his death without lawful son they would
acknowledge her as Lady of England and Normandy.[609]

        [605] Suger, _Vita Ludov._, c. 21 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        xii. p. 52). Henry V. died in Whit-week, 1125; Ord. Vit. (as
        above).

        [606] Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii. c. 25 (Duchesne, _Hist.
        Norm. Scriptt._, p. 304). Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c.
        1 (Hardy, p. 689). She went to England with her father in
        September 1126. Eng. Chron. ad ann.

        [607] Ord. Vit. as above.

        [608] Will. Jumièges Contin. and Will. Malm. as above.

        [609] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii.
        c. 25 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 304). Will. Malm.
        _Hist. Nov._, l. i. cc. 2, 3 (Hardy, pp. 690–692).

The first result of this unprecedented step was that the king of France
set himself to thwart it by again taking up the cause of William the
Clito, offering him, as compensation for the loss of Sibyl and Maine,
a grant of the French Vexin and a bride whom not even Rome could make
out to be his cousin--Jane of Montferrat, half-sister to Louis’s own
queen.[610] Two months later the count of Flanders was murdered at
Bruges. He was childless; the king of France adjudged his fief to
William the Clito as great-grandson of Count Baldwin V., and speedily
put him in possession of the greater part of the county.[611] Henry’s
daring scheme now seemed all but hopeless. His only chance was to make
peace with some one at least of his adversaries; and the one whom he
chose was not the king of France, but the count of Anjou. He saw--and
Fulk saw it too--that until the question about Maine was settled
there could be no lasting security, and that it could only be settled
effectually by the union of all conflicting claims in a single hand.
For such an union the way was now clear. The heir of Anjou was growing
up to manhood; the chosen successor of Henry was a childless widow.
Regardless of his promise not to give his daughter in marriage to any
one out of the realm[612]--regardless of the scorn of both Normans
and English,[613] of the Empress’s own reluctance,[614] and also of
the kindred between the houses of Normandy and Anjou--Henry sent
Matilda over sea shortly after Pentecost 1127 under the care of her
half-brother Earl Robert of Gloucester and Count Brian of Britanny,
who were charged with instructions to the archbishop of Rouen to make
arrangements for her marriage with Geoffrey Plantagenet, eldest son
of the count of Anjou. In the last week of August the king himself
followed them;[615] at the following Whitsuntide he knighted Geoffrey
at Rouen with his own hand;[616] and eight days later Geoffrey and
Matilda were wedded by the bishop of Avranches in the cathedral church
of S. Julian at Le Mans.[617]

        [610] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
        Scriptt._), p. 884. _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 151.

        [611] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 884, 885.
        See the Flemish Chronicles in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xiii.

        [612] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3 (Hardy, p. 693).

        [613] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. “Hit ofthute nathema ealle Frencisc
        and Englisc.”

        [614] Will. Jumièges Contin. as above.

        [615] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3
        (Hardy, p. 692). Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 37 (Arnold, p. 247).

        [616] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 234–236.

        [617] _Ib._ p. 236. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
        Scriptt._), p. 889. _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 36 (Mabillon,
        _Vet. Anal._, p. 321). On the date see note F at end of chapter.

It was a triumphant day for Fulk; but more triumphant still was the day
when he and Geoffrey brought the new countess home to Angers. A large
part of the barons and prelates who filled S. Julian’s minster on the
wedding-day were Normans who in their inmost souls viewed with mingled
rage and shame what they held to be the degradation of the Norman
ducal house; a large part of the crowd who with their lips cheered the
bridal procession as it passed through the streets of Le Mans were all
the while cursing in their hearts the Angevin foe of Normandy.[618]
But in Fulk’s own capital the rejoicings were universal and unalloyed.
Many a brilliant match had been made by the house of Anjou, from that
wedding with the heiress of Amboise which had been the beginning of
its founder’s fortunes, down to Fulk’s own marriage, only seventeen
years ago, with Aremburg of Maine; but never before had Black Angers
welcomed such a bride as King Henry’s daughter. A writer of the next
generation has left us a picture of Angers as it was in his days--days
when the son of Geoffrey and Matilda was king of England and count of
Anjou. In its main features that picture is almost as true a likeness
now as it can have been seven hundred years ago, and by its help we
can easily recall the scene of the bride’s homecoming. We can see the
eager citizens swarming along the narrow, crooked streets that furrow
the steep hill-side;--the clergy in their richest vestments assembling
from every church in what is still, as it was then, emphatically a
city of churches, and mustering probably on the very summit of the
hill, in the open space before the cathedral--not the cathedral whose
white twin spires now soar above all things around, the centre and the
crown of Angers, but its Romanesque predecessor, crowned doubtless by
a companion rather than a rival to the neighbouring dark tower of S.
Aubin’s abbey, which now contrasts so vividly with the light pinnacles
of S. Maurice. Thence, at a given signal, the procession streamed
down with lighted tapers and waving banners to the northern gate of
the city, and with psalms and hymns of rejoicing, half drowned in the
shouting of the people and the clang of the bells overhead, led the new
countess to her dwelling in the hall of Fulk the Black. It was Fulk
who had made the first rude plans for the edifice of statesmanship
which had now all but reached its last and loftiest stage. The
unconscious praise of the Black Count was in every shout which beneath
his palace-windows hailed in the person of his worthiest namesake and
descendant the triumph of the house of Anjou.

        [618] I think this may be safely inferred from the English
        Chronicler’s words a. 1127 (above, p. 243, note 5{613}), and
        from a singularly suggestive passage in the account of the
        wedding festivities in _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p.
        237: “Clamatum est voce præconis ne quis indigena vel advena,
        dives, mediocris vel pauper, nobilis vel plebeius, miles vel
        colonus ex hâc regali lætitiâ se subtraheret; qui autem gaudiis
        nuptialibus minime interesset, regiæ procul dubio majestatis
        reus esset.”

There was no mother to welcome Geoffrey and his bride; Aremburg had
not lived to see the marriage of her son;[619] and now the shadow of
another coming separation fell over the mutual congratulations of Fulk
and of his people. Another royal father besides Henry was seeking an
Angevin bridegroom for his daughter and an Angevin successor to his
throne. It was now just thirty years since the acclamations of the
crusading host had chosen Godfrey of Bouillon king of Jerusalem. The
crown, which he in his humility declined to wear, passed after his
death to his brother Baldwin of Edessa, and then to another Baldwin,
of the noble family of Réthel in Champagne. After a busy reign of ten
years, Baldwin II., having no son, grew anxious to find a suitable
husband for his eldest daughter and destined heiress, Melisenda. In the
spring of 1128, with the unanimous approval of his subjects, he offered
her hand, together with his crown, to Count Fulk of Anjou.[620] He
could not have chosen a fitter man. Fulk was in the prime of life,[621]
young enough to bring to his task all the vigour and energy needful
to withstand the ever-encroaching Infidels, yet old enough to have
learned political caution and experience; and if the one qualification
was needed for defence against external foes, the other was no less so
for steering a safe course amid the endless jealousies of the Frank
princes in Palestine. Moreover, Fulk was known in the East by something
more than reputation. Free of all connexion with the internal disputes
of the realm, he was yet no utter stranger who would come thither as
a mere foreign interloper. He had dwelt there for a whole year as a
guest and a friend, and the memory of his visit had been kept alive
in the minds of the people of the land, as well as in his own, by
a yearly contribution which, amid all his cares and necessities at
home, he had never failed to send to the Knights of the Temple for the
defence of the Holy City.[622] Baldwin had thus every inducement to
make the offer; and Fulk had equally good reasons for accepting it. His
was clearly no case of mere vulgar longing after a crown. There may
have been a natural feeling that it would be well to put Geoffrey’s
father on a titular level with Matilda’s; if the prophecy said to have
been made to Fulk the Good was already in circulation, there may have
been also a feeling that it was rapidly approaching its fulfilment.
But every recorded act of Fulk V. shews that he was too practical in
temper to be dazzled by the mere glitter of a crown, without heeding
the solid advantages to be gained with it or to be given up for its
sake. He must have known that the sacred border-land of Christendom and
Islam was a much harder post to defend than the marchland of France and
Aquitaine had ever been; he must have known that the consort of the
queen of Jerusalem would find little rest upon her throne. But this
second Count Fulk the Palmer cared for rest as little as the first. It
was work that he longed for: and work at home was at an end for him.
The mission of the counts of Anjou, simply as such, was accomplished;
when the heir of the Marchland wedded the Lady-elect of Normandy and
England, he entered upon an entirely new phase of political existence.
Fulk had in fact, by marrying his son to the Empress, cut short his own
career, and left himself no choice but to submit to complete effacement
or seek a new sphere of action elsewhere. Had Baldwin’s proposal come a
year earlier, it might have caused a struggle between inclination and
duty; coming as it did just after Henry’s, it extricated all parties
from their last difficulty.

        [619] She died in 1126; Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Flor. Salm.
        ad ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 33, 190). A story of her
        last illness, in _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ c. 36 (Mabillon, _Vet.
        Anal._, p. 320), is very characteristic of Fulk, and indicates,
        too, that whether or not his marriage with her began in policy
        alone, it ended in real affection.

        [620] Will. Tyr., l. xiv. c. 1. _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 36
        (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._) p. 321.

        [621] He cannot have been more than thirty-eight; he may have
        been only thirty-six.

        [622] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 871).
        Will. Tyr. as above.

Fulk could not, however, accept the proposal without the consent of
his overlord King Louis and that of his own subjects.[623] Both were
granted; his people had prospered under him, but they, too, doubtless
saw that alike for him and for them it was time to part. On that same
Whit-Sunday when young Geoffrey was knighted at Rouen by King Henry,
his father, prostrate before the high altar in the cathedral church
of Tours, took the cross at the hands of Archbishop Hildebert.[624]
From the wedding festivities at Le Mans he came home to make his
preparations for departure. It may be that once more in the old hall
overlooking the Mayenne the barons of Anjou and Touraine gathered round
the last Count Fulk, to be solemnly released from their allegiance to
him, and to perform their homage to his successor. A more secluded
spot was chosen for the last family meeting. A few miles south-east
of Saumur, in the midst of dark woods and fruitful apple-orchards, a
pious and noble crusader, Robert of Arbrissel, had founded in the
early years of Fulk’s reign the abbey of Fontevraud, whose church has
counted ever since among the architectural marvels of western Europe.
An English visitor now-a-days feels as if some prophetic instinct
must have guided its architect and given to his work that peculiar
awe-striking character which so exactly fits it for the burial-place
of the two Angevin kings of England whose sculptured effigies still
remain in its south transept. The first of their race who wore a crown,
however, came thither not for his last sleep, but only for a few hours
of rest ere he started on his eastward journey. The monastery was a
double one--half for men and half for women; in the latter Fulk’s
eldest daughter, the widow of William the Ætheling, had lately taken
the veil. The cloisters of Fontevraud offered a quiet refuge where
father and children could all meet undisturbed to exchange their last
farewells.[625] Before Whitsuntide came round again Fulk and Anjou had
parted for ever.[626]

        [623] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 205.

        [624] _Gesta Cons._ (_ibid._), p. 152.

        [625] “Ego Fulco junior Andegavensium comes, Fulconis comitis
        filius, ire volens Hierusalem, conventum sanctimonialium
        Fontis-Evraudi expetii. Adfuerunt etiam ibi filii mei Gaufridus
        et Helias, et filiæ meæ Mathildis et Sibylla, quarum una, id
        est Mathildis, paulo ante pro Dei amore se velari fecerat, etc.
        Acta charta apud Fontem-Ebraudi anno ab Incarnat. Dom. 1129”
        (_Rer. Gall. Script._, vol. xii. p. 736 note, from “Clypeum
        nascentis Fontis-Ebraldi”).

        [626] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 153. _Gesta Amb.
        Domin._ (_ibid._), p. 205. Will. Tyr., l. xiii. c. 24, l.
        xiv. c. 1. Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1129 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 33, 144).

It is not for us to follow him on his lifelong crusade.[627] The
Angevin spirit of restless activity and sleepless vigilance, of
hard-working thoroughness and indomitable perseverance, never, perhaps,
shewed to better advantage than in this second half of the eventful
life of Fulk of Jerusalem; but we have to trace its workings only as
they influenced the history of our own land. Our place is not with the
devoted personal followers who went with Fulk across land and sea, but
with those who stayed to share the fortunes of his successor in Anjou.
Our concern is with the father of the Angevin kings, not of Jerusalem,
but of England.

        [627] Its history is in Will. Tyr., l. xiv. cc. 1–27.


NOTE A.

THE HOUSES OF ANJOU AND GÂTINAIS.

All historians are agreed that Geoffrey the Bearded and Fulk Rechin
were sons of Geoffrey Martel’s sister and of a count (or viscount)
of Gâtinais, or Châteaulandon, which is the same thing--the Gâtinais
being a district on the north-eastern border of the Orléanais whereof
Châteaulandon was the capital. But the names of both husband and wife
differ in different accounts. Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 375)
calls his mother Hermengard; R. Diceto (_ib._ p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i.
p. 185) calls her Adela; in the _Gesta Cons._ no names are given. If we
could be sure that Fulk really wrote the fragment which bears his name,
his testimony would of course be decisive; as it is, we are left in
doubt. The point is one of trifling importance, for whatever the lady’s
name may have been, there is no doubt that she was the daughter of Fulk
the Black and Hildegard. But who was her husband?

First, as to his name. The _Gesta Cons._ do not mention it. The Chron.
S. Maxent. a. 1060 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 402), Hugh of Fleury
(_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 797), and R. Diceto (Marchegay,
_Comtes_, p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i. p. 185) call him Alberic. Fulk Rechin
(as above) calls him Geoffrey. None of them tell us anything about him.
It seems in fact to be the aim of the Angevin writers to keep us in the
dark as to the descent of the later counts of Anjou from the house of
Gâtinais through the husband of Hermengard-Adela; but they try to make
out a connexion between the two families six generations further back.
One of the earliest legends in the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_,
pp. 39–45) tells how Châteaulandon and the Gâtinais were given to
Ingelger as a reward for his defence of his slandered godmother, the
daughter and heiress of a Count Geoffrey of Gâtinais, and the alleged
gift is coupled with a grant from the king of the viscounty of Orléans.
What Ingelger may or may not have held it is impossible to say, as we
really know nothing about him. But there is proof that the viscounty of
Orléans at least did not pass to his descendants. The very first known
charter of Fulk the Good, one dated May 942, is witnessed by Geoffrey
viscount of Orléans; and Geoffrey Greygown’s charter for the reform
of S. Aubin’s in 966 is witnessed by Alberic viscount of Gâtinais,
whose signature has already appeared in 957, attached to a charter of
Theobald the Trickster. This Alberic may very likely have been the son
of his predecessor Geoffrey, but he cannot well have been the father of
Fulk Nerra’s son-in-law; there is a generation dropped out, and of the
man who should fill it the only trace is in Ménage (_Hist. de Sablé_),
who says that Fulk Rechin’s father, Geoffrey count of Gâtinais, was
the son of _another Geoffrey_ and Beatrice, daughter of Alberic II. of
Mâcon (Mabille, introd. _Comtes_, pp. lxxxv–lxxxvi). It seems probable
that Orléans and Châteaulandon went together in fact as well as in
Angevin legend. Assuming therefore that Ménage was copying a document
now lost, the pedigree would stand thus:

                  Geoffrey,
           viscount of Orléans 942
                     |
                  Alberic,
           viscount in 957 and 966
                     |
                  Geoffrey,
  viscount of Orléans and count of Gâtinais
                     |
                Alberic or Geoffrey = Hermengard or Adela,
                                    |  daughter of Fulk Nerra
                     +--------------+--------------+
                     |                             |
           Geoffrey the Bearded.              Fulk Rechin.

If we might assume also, with M. Mabille, that the “Alberic” whose
signature appears beside that of Fulk the Red in 886 (Mabille, introd.
_Comtes_, p. lix, note 1) was the father of the first Geoffrey of
Orléans, then the two names would stand alternate till we come to
Hermengard’s husband. Is it just possible that (on a principle somewhat
like that which made all the dukes of Aquitaine assume the name of
William) this alternation of names grew into a family tradition, so
that the son of Geoffrey II. and Beatrice having by some accident been
christened by his father’s instead of his grandfather’s name, assumed
the latter officially on succeeding to the title, and thus became known
to outsiders as “Alberic,” while his own son (Fulk Rechin) spoke of him
by his original and real name?

However this may be, he was most probably descended from the family
who became viscounts of Orléans at about the same time that the house
of Anjou was being founded. They make no figure in history, and the
Angevin writers do their best to efface them altogether. Ralf de Diceto
just names the father of the two young counts, and that is all; in the
_Gesta Cons._ his very name is dropped, and the reader is left in utter
darkness as to who and what Martel’s nephews were. They were Martel’s
nephews, and that was all that anybody was intended to know about them.
Fulk Rechin himself, or his representative, merges the Châteaulandon
connexion almost completely in the Angevin, and regards himself simply
as the grandson of Fulk Nerra. After all, they are right; it was Fulk
Nerra’s blood that made his grandsons what they were; their father
might have been anybody, or, as he almost appears, nobody, for all the
influence he had on their characters or their destinies.


NOTE B.

THE HEIR OF GEOFFREY MARTEL.

Of the disposal of his territories made by Geoffrey Martel there are
three versions.

1. The _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 131), R. Diceto (_ib._
p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i. p. 185) and Chron. Tur. Magn. (Salmon, _Chron.
Touraine_, pp. 122, 123) say that Anjou and Saintonge were left to
Fulk, Touraine and Gâtinais to Geoffrey.

2. A MS. representing the earliest form of the _Gesta Cons._ (ending in
1106) says just the opposite: Anjou and Saintonge to Geoffrey, Touraine
and Gâtinais to Fulk (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 131, note 1. See Mabille,
introd. _Comtes_, _ib._ pp. iv–viii).

3. Orderic (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 532) and Will.
Poitiers (_ib._ pp. 188, 189) ignore Fulk and make Geoffrey sole heir.

The first version is easily disposed of. In three charters of S.
Florence of Saumur, one of 1061 (Marchegay, _Archives d’Anjou_, vol.
i. p. 259) and two whose dates must be between 1062 and 1066 (_ib._ p.
278), and in one of S. Maur, 1066 (_ib._ pp. 358–360), Geoffrey the
Bearded is formally described as count of Anjou. The strongest proof of
all is a charter of Fulk Rechin himself, March 11, 1068, setting forth
how Geoffrey, nephew and _heir_ of Geoffrey Martel, had made certain
promises to S. Florence, which he, Fulk, having now got possession of
Anjou, fulfilled (_ib._ p. 260).

The second version, though apparently not contradicted by any
documentary proof, has nothing to support it, and contains an internal
difficulty. For how could Martel leave the Gâtinais to Fulk? Surely it
was not his to leave at all, but would pass as a matter of course to
Geoffrey as Alberic’s (Geoffrey’s?) eldest son. The old confusion of
the relations of the Gâtinais to Anjou peeps out again here.

The third account is that of foreign writers; but those writers are
Orderic and William of Poitiers. And they are not unsupported. Geoffrey
Martel’s last act, a charter granted to Marmoutier on his deathbed, is
signed by his _nephew and successor-designate Geoffrey_, and by Fulk,
who is described simply as the latter’s brother (Mabille, introd.
_Comtes_, p. lxxxiv).

The conclusion to which all this leads is that Martel bequeathed the
whole of his dominions to his elder nephew Geoffrey, and that all the
conflicting stories of a division of territory were inventions to save
the character of Fulk Rechin. It is possible that Martel did, as Fulk
says, invest him with Saintonge, but even here it is evident that the
elder brother’s rights were reserved, for it is Geoffrey, not Fulk, who
fights for Saintonge with the duke of Aquitaine.

One portion of Martel’s dominions is named in none of these accounts,
except Fulk’s; and that is Maine. Fulk coolly puts it into the list of
his own possessions, and M. Mabille regards this as a blunder proving
that the author of the _Fragment_ was not what he professes to be.
May it not rather tell the other way? A forger would have remembered
that Maine was lost and not risked such a glaring falsehood; the count
ignores its _de facto_ loss because he holds himself its overlord
_de jure_. We shall find Geoffrey the Bearded making his appearance
as titular overlord of Maine in 1063. Did Martel feel about Maine as
William the Conqueror seems to have felt about England?


NOTE C.

THE WAR OF SAINTONGE.

The account of this war between Geoffrey the Bearded and Guy-Geoffrey,
_alias_ William VII., of Aquitaine, has to be made out from one direct
source and one indirect one. The first is the Chron. S. Maxent.
a. 1061 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 402, 403): “Goffredus et Fulco
habentes certamen cum Gaufredo duce propter Sanctonas, venientes
cum magno exercitu, pugnaverunt cum eo in bello etiam in Aquitaniâ,
ubi e contrario Pictavorum exercitus adunatus est; et ab utrisque
partibus magnis animositatibus pugnatum est, sed traditores belli et
ceteri signiferi, vexillis projectis, exercitum Pictavensium in fugam
verterunt. Quapropter vulnerati multi sunt et plurimi occisi atque
nonnulli capti; unde quidam versibus eam confusionem ita describit,
dicens: Cum de Pictavis bellum sit et Andegavinis, Inque die Martis
fuit et Sancti Benedicti, Circa forte Caput Wultonnæ contigit esse,
Annus millenus tunc sexagesimus unus.”

That entry comprises all the direct information on the subject. The
Angevin monastic chronicles and Fulk Rechin do not mention it at
all. Neither do the _Gesta Cons._ in the right place; but they mix
it up with the war between Geoffrey Martel and William the Fat in
1033. By the light of the Chron. S. Maxent., it seems possible to
disentangle the two stories. It even seems possible to make sense of
a passage in the _Gesta_ which never can be sense as it stands, by
understanding it as referring to Geoffrey the Bearded instead of his
uncle: “Willelmus Pictavensium comes consulatum Sanctonicum suum esse
volebat et vi preoccupatum tenebat, quia patrui sui fuerat. Martellus
eumdem consulatum reclamabat quia avi sui fuerat, cujus heredes absque
liberis mortui erant; et ideo ad heredes sororis avi sui debere reverti
affirmabat” (_Gesta Cons._, Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 126). This is the
story by which the _Gesta_-writer professes to explain the cause of
the war of Geoffrey Martel and William the Fat, of which he then gives
an elaborate account, ending with William’s capture and the consequent
surrender of Saintes to Geoffrey. But the story is utterly senseless;
the claims of William and Martel as therein stated are alike devoid of
all show of reason. In the account of the war itself, too, there are
strong traces of confusion; Saintes is assumed to have passed back into
the duke’s hands, of which there is no sign elsewhere; and to crown
all, the scene of the battle in which William is taken is laid, not as
by the Chron. S. Maxent. (a. 1032, Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 392) and
Fulk Rechin (_Comtes_, p. 378), at S. Jouin-de-Marne or Montcontour,
but at Chef-Boutonne. The question then arises: Can this wild tale in
the _Gesta_, which is quite impossible as an explanation of Martel’s
war with William V., be interpreted so as to explain his successor’s
war with William VII.?

“Willelmus [VII., _alias_ Guy-Geoffrey] Pictavensium comes consulatum
Sanctonicum suum esse volebat et vi præoccupatum tenebat [having
presumably seized it on Martel’s death], quia patrui sui [for _patrui_
read _fratris_--William the Fat--or _patris_, William the Great]
fuerat. Martellus [Barbatus] eumdem consulatum reclamabat, quia avi
sui [Fulconis Nerræ] fuerat, cujus hæredes [_i.e._ G. Martellus]
absque liberis mortui essent; et ideo ad hæredes sororis avi sui [read
_avunculi sui_--Martel’s sister, the Bearded one’s mother] debere
reverti affirmabat.”

Read in this way, the story is quite reasonable and intelligible,
and the rest of the _Gesta’s_ account might stand almost intact,
except the capture of the duke, which of course is dragged in from
the earlier war. The confusion between the Williams of Aquitaine is
easily accounted for, and so is that between the Geoffreys of Anjou,
especially as all the Geoffreys after Martel occasionally took to
themselves his cognomen.


NOTE D.

THE DESCENDANTS OF HERBERT WAKE-DOG.

Not the least puzzling matter connected with the Cenomannian wars is
the genealogy of the sovereign house of Maine. The succession of the
counts themselves--Hugh I. (or David), Herbert I. (Wake-dog), Hugh II.,
Herbert II.--is plain enough, as also that each was the son of his
predecessor. But the filiation of the women of the family--Margaret,
Gersendis, Paula and Biota--is far from being equally clear.

1. As to Margaret, there is no real doubt. Orderic does once (Duchesne,
_Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 683) call her a daughter of Herbert [II.];
but his own statements in two other places (_ib._ pp. 487 and 532), as
well as Will. Poitiers (_ib._ p. 190), shew that this is a mere slip.
Margaret was clearly a daughter of Hugh II. and sister of Herbert II.

2. As to Biota. Orderic (as above, p. 487) calls her “Hugonis
Cenomannensium comitis filiam”; in Will. Poitiers (_ib._ p. 189) she is
“_soror_ Hugonis”; and Mr. Freeman (_Norm. Conq._, 3d ed., vol. iii. p.
200, and note T, p. 676) adopts the latter version. Biota, then, was a
daughter of Herbert Wake-dog and sister of Hugh II. But were Gersendis
and Paula her sisters or her nieces?

3. The fullest and most distinct statement of the Cenomannian pedigree
is that of Orderic in Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 532: “Hugo
filius Herberti ... Bertam ... in conjugium accepit; quæ filium nomine
Herbertum et tres filias ei peperit. Una earum data est Azsoni Marchiso
Liguriæ. Alia nomine Margarita Rodberto filio Guillelmi Ducis Neustriæ
desponsata est ... Tertia vero Joanni domino castri quod Flecchia
dicitur nupsit.”

With regard to this last marriage, it is to be observed that in the
speech which Orderic puts into the mouth of Elias of La Flèche,
addressing Hugh of Este (_ib._ p. 684), he says nothing about his
mother at all, but makes him trace his descent from Herbert Wake-dog
through his grandmother, whom he calls Herbert’s daughter: “Filia
Herberti comitis Lancelino de Balgenceio nupsit, eique ... Joannem
meum genitorem peperit.” The name of John’s wife, Paula, comes from
another passage of Orderic (_ib._ p. 768); but he there says nothing
about her parentage, merely calling her son Elias “Hugonis Cenomannorum
consulis consobrinus.” The houses of Le Mans and La Flèche cannot have
intermarried twice in two succeeding generations; one of Orderic’s
statements must be wrong; but which, I cannot decide.

The last point is the parentage of Gersendis, the wife of Azzo of Este;
and as the whole tone of Elias’s speech (as above) implies that he and
her son were related to the counts of Le Mans in the same degree, the
solution of this question might almost be held to decide the previous
one also. This seems to be Mr. Freeman’s opinion, and he regards
Orderic’s statement quoted above as conclusive that Gersendis and Paula
were both daughters of Hugh II., and sisters therefore of Margaret
and Herbert II., in spite of the biographer of the bishops of Le Mans
(Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._, p. 308), who expressly says that Gersendis
was a daughter of Herbert Wake-dog, and the continuator of Will.
Jumièges, who says:--“Cenomannenses ... consilium ineunt cum Heliâ
filio Joannis de Flecâ ... ut _filiam cujusdam comitis Langobardiæ,
neptem videlicet Hereberti quondam Cenomannensis comitis ex primogenitâ
filiâ_, in matrimonium ducat.” Will. Jumièges, l. viii. c. 5 (Duchesne,
_Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 294). This re-appears in R. Diceto (Stubbs,
vol. i. pp. 183, 184; Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 334) in the following
form:--“Helias, filius Johannis de Flecâ, Sibillam, filiam cujusdam
comitis Longobardiæ, neptem scilicet Hereberti quondam Cenomannorum
comitis, duxit uxorem, et cum eâ comitatum Cenomanniæ suscepit.” But
this is certainly wrong; for the first wife of Elias was Matilda of
Château-du-Loir, and the second was Agnes of Perche.

What Elias could have had to gain by the marriage thus proposed for him
it is impossible to guess, as he himself certainly was quite as nearly
related to the counts of Maine as this oddly-described bride could have
been. Mr. Freeman (_Norm. Conq._, 3d ed., vol. iii., note T, p. 676),
takes the description as favouring Orderic’s theory, and remarks: “The
words could only have been written by one who looked on Gersendis as
a sister of Herbert.” “Neptem Hereberti,” then, he interprets, “niece
of Herbert [II].” But is it not a much simpler interpretation of the
whole phrase--“_neptem Hereberti ex primogenitâ filiâ_”--to read it
“granddaughter of Herbert [I.] through his eldest daughter”? In that
case, we should have another witness on the side of the bishops’
biographer.

There is another curious bit of evidence which at first glance seems
also to tell in his favour. I do not think that it really proves
anything about the matter; but it is worth examining for other reasons.
M. d’Arbois de Jubainville (_Comtes de Champagne_, vol. i. p. 392, note
5), declares it proved on documentary evidence that Stephen-Henry of
Blois, the father of our King Stephen, was the son of Theobald III.
by his first marriage with Gersendis of Maine. About the marriage
itself there is no doubt, nor about the divorce which followed it;
and the latter had taken place in 1049 at latest, for Theobald was
excommunicated for that very cause by the Council of Reims. Most
historians seem however to have supposed that Gersendis was then a mere
child, and that the mother of Stephen, as well as of Theobald’s other
children, was his second wife, Adela of Valois. M. de Jubainville, in
support of his opinion, refers especially to two charters. One is in
_Gallia Christiana_, vol. viii., instr. col. 548. It has no date, and
says nothing about Stephen’s mother or his stepmother; I therefore
cannot see its bearing on the question. The other is in Bernier,
_Histoire de Blois, preuves_, pp. xiii–xiv. In it Stephen-Henry, in the
year 1089, grants certain lands to Pontlevoy “pro animæ meæ et uxoris
et Theobaldi patris mei et _matris meæ Gandree_ ... remedio”; and has
the grant confirmed “nomine ... Alæ uxoris meæ, _Alæ uxoris Thebaudi
comitis_,” etc. This certainly seems to shew that Adela was not his
mother, though it does not necessarily follow that “Gandree” represents
Gersendis. If it does, Stephen-Henry must have been born in 1049 at
latest, and therefore Gersendis cannot possibly have been a daughter of
Hugh II., who was not married till 1040 at the very earliest.

The greatest puzzle in the whole matter, however, is this: If
Stephen-Henry was really the eldest son of Gersendis of Maine, how
does it happen that neither in 1073, nor in 1089, nor in any of the
Cenomannian revolutions and wars, do we hear a single word about his
claims upon the county? M. d’Arbois de Jubainville’s suggestion in fact
opens a question much more important and much more obscure than that of
the age and parentage of Gersendis. He certainly seems to have proved
that Adela of Valois was not Stephen’s mother; but has he proved that
Gersendis was? The only bit of evidence, direct or indirect, which
it seems possible to bring to bear upon this matter is a passage in
the _Historia Pontificalis_ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx. p.
531) where it is said that the cause of our King Stephen was upheld
by some of the Roman cardinals who claimed kindred with him “eo quod
avia ejus Lumbarda fuerit.” Now, as the second husband of Gersendis
was a Lombard, this may come from some confused idea about her. But it
also suggests another possible solution of the whole question about
Stephen-Henry’s mother. Theobald and Gersendis were divorced in 1049 at
latest; the first record in which Adela appears as Theobald’s wife is
dated 1061 (Jubainville, _Comtes de Champagne_, vol. i. p. 393, note
3). May not the mysterious “Gandrea” of the charter of 1089 have been
an Italian lady who was married to Theobald, became the mother of his
heir, and died, between those two dates?


NOTE E.

THE SIEGE OF LA FLÈCHE AND TREATY OF BLANCHELANDE.

There are two questionable points connected with these matters: 1. the
date; 2. the geography.

1. The only original writer who gives a detailed account of both siege
and treaty is Orderic, who carries his story straight on from the
quelling of the revolt of Maine in 1073 to the siege of La Flèche, as
if it had all happened in the same year, before William returned to
England with his troops. On the other hand, none of the Angevin writers
mention La Flèche under date 1073; but the Chronn. S. Albin. and S.
Flor. Salm. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 26, 189) have “Exercitus de
Fissâ,” the former in 1077, the latter in 1078; and in the _Art de
vérifier les Dates_ these entries are interpreted as referring to the
siege which was followed by the treaty of Blanchelande. M. Voisin (_Les
Cénomans_, p. 414) dates the whole affair 1085; he gives no reason
and seems to be quite unsupported. The choice lies therefore between
Orderic’s date and that of the Angevin chronicles. Mr. Freeman (_Norm.
Conq._, vol. iv. pp. 560–563) follows Orderic, and I have done the same.

2. As to the geography. Orderic (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p.
533) says that to meet William the Angevin and Breton host, leaving
La Flèche, “Ligerim fluvium audacter pertransierunt.” Now this must
be wrong, as the Loire is a long way south of La Flèche. It is clear
that for _Ligerim_, “Loire,” we must read _Liderim_, “Loir,” as Mr.
Freeman says (_Norm. Conq._, vol. iv. p. 562, note 2). Even crossing
the Loir seems rather a strange proceeding; for La Flèche being on
the right or north bank of that river, they must have crossed it to
the southward--_i.e._ away from Normandy. How came it that William,
marching against them out of Normandy, had gone so far down to the
south of them?

There is however a further question as to the actual place of the
treaty, which Mr. Freeman (as above, p. 562) places at Bruère in the
Passais. If such was the case, Orderic’s story of the crossing of the
river becomes quite hopeless, as Bruère is a long way north-west of La
Flèche. But there is another version. J. Pesche in his _Dictionnaire
historique de la Sarthe_, vol. i. p. 168, under “_Blanchelande_ ou
_Blanche-bruyère_,” says: “Vaste espace de terrain infertile, où croît
abondamment le lichen des rennes, dont la blancheur lui aura fait
donner son nom; situé _entre La Flèche et Le Lude_, côtoyé par la route
qui conduit de l’une à l’autre de ces deux villes.” It is this which
Pesche and, following him, M. Voisin (_Les Cénomans_, p. 414, note
1) mark as the scene of the treaty. So does M. Prévost in a note to
Orderic, vol. ii. p. 258, and he adds that a farm there still in 1840
bore the name of Blanchelande. If this theory is correct, Orderic’s
geography is quite right and clear; the besiegers of La Flèche, on the
north side of the Loir, crossing over to its southern bank, would march
straight upon the “white moor.” William must then have crossed higher
up and made a circuit to the south-east of them. The only question
remaining would be, what was his reason for this movement? To which
there was doubtless a good military answer.

With regard to the second siege of La Flèche by Fulk Rechin, in 1081,
there is a very strange story in the Chron. Rain. Andeg. (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 13). We are there told that Fulk not only took and burned
the castle (as the Chron. S. Albin., _ib._ p. 26, also states under
the same year) in revenge, for John’s rebellion against him, but also
punished King William for his previous relief of the castle, by so
worsting him in battle that he retreated after giving hostages for
peace, among whom were his brother the count of Mortain and his own
son! Mr. Freeman says nothing of this very apocryphal-looking story. Is
it anything more than an Angevin travesty of Robert’s homage to Fulk at
Blanchelande?


NOTE F.

THE MARRIAGE OF GEOFFREY AND MATILDA.

The date of this marriage is commonly given as 1127. A comparison of
evidence seems however to lead to the conclusion that its true date is
1128.

1. The Angevin chronicles never mention the marriage at all. The _Gesta
Cons._, Will. Jumièges and several other writers mention it without
any kind of date. The English Chronicle, Sim. Durh., Will. Malm. and
Hen. Hunt. give no distinct date, but imply that the proposal was
immediately followed by the wedding. They speak as if Robert and Brian
had taken Matilda over sea and married her to Geoffrey without more ado.

2. Orderic mentions the marriage in two places. In the first (Duchesne,
_Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 763) he gives no clue to the date; in the
second (_ib._ p. 889) he dates it 1129.

3. The Chron. Fiscannense (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 778)
dates it 1127.

4. A charter of agreement between the bishop of Séez and the convent
of Marmoutier (printed in Gilles Bry’s _Hist. de Perche_, p. 106)
has “signum Henrici Regis quando dedit filiam suam Gaufredo comiti
Andegavensi juniori.” It is dated “anno ab Inc. Dom. 1127, Indictione
VI.”

5. The last witness is John of Marmoutier, the author of the _Historia
Gaufredi Ducis_. From him we might have expected a distinct and
authentic statement; but he does not mention the year at all. He says
that Geoffrey was knighted on Whit-Sunday and married on its octave,
and that he was then fifteen years of age (_Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_,
Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 236, 233). Afterwards, in speaking of the
birth of Henry Fitz-Empress, he says that it took place in the fourth
year of his parents’ marriage (_ib._ pp. 277, 278). Henry was born
on Mid-Lent Sunday, March 5, 1133; if therefore the writer reckoned
backwards from the Whitsuntide of that year, his words ought to
mean that the marriage was in 1129. But as he goes on to state that
Matilda’s third son was born in the sixth year of her marriage, and
that Henry I. died “anno eodem, ab Incarnatione videlicet Domini 1137,”
it is impossible to say what he did mean. Whether he is collecting
the traditions of the ancient counts or writing the life of his own
contemporary sovereign, John’s chronology is pursued by the same fate;
whenever he mentions a date by the year, he is almost certain to make
it wrong. But that he should have done the like in his reckoning of
days, or even of his hero’s age, by no means follows. To consider the
latter point first: Geoffrey the Handsome was born on August 24, 1113
(Chron. S. Albin. _ad ann._, Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 32). Therefore,
if John meant that he was past fifteen at his marriage, it must have
been in 1129. But if he only meant “in his fifteenth year,” it would be
1128. In that year the octave of Pentecost fell on June 17; Geoffrey
then lacked but two months to the completion of his fifteenth year; and
considering Matilda’s age, it is no wonder that the panegyrist tried
to make her husband out as old as possible. It is in fact plain that
such was his intention, for though he places Geoffrey’s death in the
right year, 1151, he gives his age as forty-one instead of thirty-eight
(_Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_, Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 292).

The most important matter, however, is John’s statement that the
wedding took place on the octave of Pentecost. The date in this case
is not one casually slipped in by the writer in passing; it comes in
a detailed account of the festivities at Rouen on the occasion of
Geoffrey’s knighting, which is expressly said to have occurred at
Pentecost, and to have been followed by his marriage on the octave. Now
this leaves us on the horns of a dilemma fatal alike to the date in the
Chron. Fiscann., 1127, and to that of Orderic, 1129. For, on the one
hand, Will. Malm. (_Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3, Hardy, p. 692) says that
Matilda did not go to Normandy till _after_ Whitsuntide [1127]; and
Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 37 (Arnold, p. 247), adds that the king followed
her in August (Sim. Durh., ed. Arnold, vol. ii. pp. 281, 282, really
witnesses to the same effect; for his chronology of the whole story is
a year in advance). Consequently, as Mrs. Everett Green remarks, “the
union could not have taken place before the spring of the following
year, 1128” (_Princesses of England_, vol. i. pp. 107, 108). On the
other hand, it is plain that Fulk was present at his son’s wedding; but
before Whitsuntide 1129 Fulk was himself married to the princess of
Jerusalem (Will. Tyr., l. xiii. c. 24).

From all this it results: 1. If Geoffrey and Matilda were married in
1127, it cannot have been earlier than September, _i.e._ at least three
months after Whitsuntide. 2. If they were married in 1129, it must
have been quite at the beginning of the year, and Orderic must, on
this occasion at least, have made his year begin in English fashion,
at Christmas. 3. If they were married at Whitsuntide, it can only have
been in 1128.

We have in short to choose one out of three authorities: the Chronicle
of Fécamp, Orderic and John of Marmoutier--for the Séez charter, as
Mrs. Everett Green remarks (_Princesses_, vol. i. p. 108), proves
nothing more than that the betrothal had taken place in 1127. Of these
three, the first is certainly of least account. Orderic, on the other
hand, is on most other subjects a far better authority than John. But
his chronology is very little better than John’s, at any rate towards
the close of his work; his whole account of Henry’s later years is
sketchy and confused; while John is Geoffrey Plantagenet’s own special
biographer, writing within sixty years of the event, from materials
furnished by personal followers of his hero. I cannot but regard him
as our primary authority on this subject, and believe on his testimony
that the real wedding-day of Geoffrey and Matilda was the octave of
Pentecost, June 17, 1128.




CHAPTER V.

GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET AND STEPHEN OF BLOIS.

1128–1139.


All the mental and bodily gifts wherewith nature had endowed the most
favoured members of the Angevin house seemed to have been showered
upon the eldest son of Fulk V. and Aremburg of Maine. The surname by
which he is most generally known, and which an inveterate usage has
attached to his descendants as well as to himself, is in its origin and
meaning curiously unlike most historical surnames; it seems to have
been derived simply from his boyish habit of adorning his cap with a
sprig of “planta-genista,” the broom which in early summer makes the
open country of Anjou and Maine a blaze of living gold. With a fair
and ruddy countenance, lit up by the lightning-glance of a pair of
brilliant eyes; a tall, slender, sinewy frame, made for grace no less
than for strength and activity:--[628] in the unanimous opinion of his
contemporaries, he was emphatically “Geoffrey the Handsome.” To this
prepossessing appearance were added the charms of a gracious manner
and a ready, pleasant speech;[629] and beneath this winning exterior
there lay a considerable share of the quick wits of his race, sharpened
and developed by such a careful education as was given to very few
princes of the time. The intellectual soil was worthy of the pains
bestowed upon it, and brought forth a harvest of, perhaps, somewhat too
precocious scholarship and sagacity. Geoffrey’s fondness for the study
of the past seems to have been an inheritance from Fulk Rechin; the
historian-count might have been proud of a grandson who carried in his
memory all the battles fought, all the great deeds done, not only by
his own people but also in foreign lands.[630] Even Fulk the Good might
have approved a descendant who when still a mere boy could shine in
serious conversation with such a “lettered king” as Henry I.;[631] and
Fulk the Black might not have been ashamed of one who in early youth
felt the “demon-blood” within him too hot to rest content in luxury
and idleness, avoided the corrupting influences of mere revelry, gave
himself up to the active exercises of military life,[632] and, while so
devoted to letters that he would not even go to war without a learned
teacher by his side,[633] turned his book-learning to account in ways
at which ruder warriors and more unworldly scholars were evidently
somewhat astonished.[634] Like his ancestor the Black Count, Geoffrey
was one of those men about whom their intimate associates have a fund
of anecdotes to tell. The “History” of his life put together from
their information, a few years after his death, is chiefly made up of
these stories; and through the mass of trite moralizing and pedantic
verbiage in which the compiler has imbedded them there still peeps out
unmistakeably the peculiar temper of his hero. Geoffrey’s readiness to
forgive those who threw themselves upon his mercy is a favourite theme
of his biographer’s praise; but the instances given of this clemency
indicate more of the vanity and display of chivalry in its narrower
sense than of real tenderness of heart or generosity of soul. Such is
the story of a discontented knight whose ill-will against his sovereign
took the grotesque form of a wish that he had the neck of “that
red-head Geoffrey” fast between the two hot iron plates used for making
a wafer-cake called _oublie_. It chanced that the man whose making of
_oublies_--then, as now, a separate trade--had suggested the wish of
this knight at St.-Aignan shortly afterwards made some for the eating
and in the presence of Count Geoffrey himself, to whom he related
what he had heard. The knight and his comrades were presently caught
harrying the count’s lands; and the biographer is lost in admiration
at Geoffrey’s generosity in forgiving not only their depredations, but
the more heinous crime of having, in a fit of ill-temper after dinner,
expressed a desire to make a wafer of him.[635] On another occasion
we find the count’s wrath averted by the charms of music and verse,
enhanced no doubt by the further charm of a little flattery. Four
Poitevin knights who had been taken captive in one of the skirmishes
so common on the Aquitanian border won their release by the truly
southern expedient of singing in Geoffrey’s hearing a rime which
they had composed in his praise.[636] A touch of truer poetry comes
out in another story. Geoffrey, with a great train of attendants and
noble guests, was once keeping Christmas at Le Mans. From his private
chapel, where he had been attending the nocturnal services of the
vigil, he set out at daybreak at the head of a procession to celebrate
in the cathedral church the holy mysteries of the festival. At the
cathedral door he met a poorly-dressed young clerk, whom he flippantly
saluted: “Any news, sir clerkling?”--“Ay, my lord, the best of good
news!”--“What?” cried Geoffrey, all his curiosity aroused--“tell me
quick!”--“‘Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given!’” Abashed,
Geoffrey asked the youth his name, bade him join the other clergy in
the choir, and as soon as mass was over went straight to the bishop:
“For the love of Him Who was born this day, give me a prebend in your
church.” It was no sooner granted than taking his new acquaintance by
the hand, he begged leave to make him his substitute, and added the
further gift of a stall in his own chapel, as a token of gratitude to
the poor clerk whose answer to his thoughtless question had brought
home to him, perhaps more deeply than he had ever felt them before, the
glad tidings of Christmas morning.[637] From another of these anecdotes
Geoffrey seems, as far as we can make out, to have been the original
hero of an adventure which has since, in slightly varying forms, been
attributed to several other princes, from Charles the Great down to
James the Fifth of Scotland, and which indeed may easily have happened
more than once. Led away by his ardour in pursuit of the chase--next to
literature, his favourite recreation--the count one day outstripped all
his followers, and lost his way alone in the forest of Loches. At last
he fell in with a charcoal-burner, who undertook to conduct him back
to the castle. Geoffrey mounted his guide behind him; and as they rode
along, the peasant, ignorant of his companion’s rank, and taking him
for a simple knight, let himself be drawn into conversation on sundry
matters, including a free criticism on the government of the reigning
count, and the oppressions suffered by the people at the hands of his
household officers. When they reached the gates of Loches, the burst of
joy which greeted the wanderer’s return revealed to the poor man that
he had been talking to the count himself. Overwhelmed with dismay, he
tried to slip off the horse’s back; but Geoffrey held him fast, gave
him the place of honour at the evening banquet, sent him home next day
with a grant of freedom and a liberal gift of money, and profited by
the information acquired from him to institute a thorough reform in the
administration of his own household.[638]

        [628] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 233.

        [629] _Ib._ pp. 232, 233.

        [630] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 232.

        [631] _Ib._ p. 235.

        [632] _Ib._ p. 233.

        [633] _Ib._ p. 276.

        [634] See the story of the siege of Montreuil-Bellay, _Hist.
        Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 286.

        [635] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 257–260.

        [636] _Ib._ pp. 253–256.

        [637] _Ib._ pp. 274–276.

        [638] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 240–250.

Such stories as these, while they help us to form some picture of the
manner of man that Geoffrey was, set him before us in the romantic
light in which he appears to the best advantage. When one turns from
them to a survey of his life as a whole, one is struck with a sense of
something wanting in him. The deficiency was in truth a very serious
one; it was a lack of steady principle and of genuine feeling. The
imaginative and impulsive vein which ran through all the more refined
characters of his race lay in him very near the surface, but it did
not go very deep. His imagination was sensitive, but his heart was
cold; his impulses sprang from the play of a quick fancy, not from
the passion of an ardent soul. One more story may furnish a slight,
but significant, illustration of his temper. For some wrong done to
the see of Tours Geoffrey was once threatened by the archbishop with
excommunication. Either the earlier or the later Fulk of Jerusalem
would have almost certainly begun by a reckless defiance of the threat,
and the later one, at least, would almost as surely have ended by
hearty penance. Geoffrey began and ended with a jest: “Your threats
are vain, most reverend father; you know that the archbishop of Tours
has no jurisdiction over the patrimony of S. Martin, and that I am
one of his canons!”[639] In all the sterling qualities of a ruler and
a man, the hasty, restless, downright Fulk V. was as superior to his
clever charming son as Fulk the Black was superior to Geoffrey Martel.
But it is only fair to bear in mind that Geoffrey Plantagenet’s life
was to a great extent spoilt by his marriage. The yoke which bound
together a lad of fifteen and a woman of twenty-five--especially such a
woman as the Empress Matilda--could not fail to press heavily on both
parties; but the one most seriously injured by it was probably the
young husband. Even in a political point of view, to him personally
his marriage was more of a hindrance than an advantage; it cut him
off from all chance of striking out an independent career. The man
himself was in fact sacrificed to his posterity. Chained down while
his character was yet undeveloped to the irksome position of a mere
appendage to King Henry’s heiress;--plunged suddenly, and for life,
into a sphere of interests and duties alien from his own natural temper
and inclinations:--weak, selfish, unprincipled as Geoffrey too plainly
shewed himself to be, still it was well not only for him but for
others that he had enough of the dogged Angevin thoroughness to carry
him safely and successfully, if not always gloriously, through his
somewhat dreary task till he could make it over to the freer, as well
as stronger, hands of his son.

        [639] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 252.

The hope which inspired both the king of England and the count of
Anjou when they planned their children’s marriage can only have been
the hope of a grandson in whom the blood of both would be united, who
would gather into his own person all conflicting claims, and in whom
all feuds would have an end. On this depended all King Henry’s schemes
for the future; on this were concentrated all his desires, on this were
founded all his plans and arrangements during the last seven years
of his reign. In the internal history of England those years are an
almost complete blank; they are in fact simply seven more years of the
administration of Bishop Roger of Salisbury, for Henry himself spent
almost the whole of them upon the continent. His work was finished, and
all that remained to do was to maintain the order of things which he
had established so as to hand it on in full working to his successor.
He must, however, have begun to doubt the success of his schemes when
Geoffrey and Matilda separated little more than twelve months after
their marriage. At first, everything had seemed to be turning in favour
of Henry’s arrangements. Six weeks after the wedding, the death of
William the Clito, wounded in a skirmish with a rival claimant of the
county of Flanders,[640] removed the only competitor whom the king
could deem likely to stand in the way of his plans for the descent of
the crown. In the spring Fulk’s departure for Holy Land left the young
couple sole masters at Angers. All things looked tranquil and secure
when Henry returned to England in July 1129. He had, however, been
there only a few days when he learned, to his great indignation, that
his daughter had been sent away with scorn by her husband, and had
betaken herself with a few attendants to Rouen.[641] There she remained
for nearly two years, while Geoffrey was busy with a general revolt
among his barons. East and west and south and north had all risen at
once; the list of rebels includes the chief landowners in all parts of
the Angevin dominions, from the old eastern outpost Amboise to Laval on
the Breton border, and from Sablé on the confines of Anjou and Maine
to Montreuil-Bellay, Thouars and Mirebeau in the Aquitanian territory
of Loudun, and the yet more remote fief of Parthenay in Poitou.[642]
It seems as if the disaffected barons, worsted in their struggle
with Fulk, had only been waiting till he was out of the country, and
now, when Geoffrey by his quarrel with his wife had deprived himself
of all chance of help from his father-in-law, they closed in upon the
boy-count with one consent, thinking to get him into their power and
wring from him any concessions they pleased. They unintentionally did
him an immense service, for by thus suddenly throwing him upon his
own resources they made a man of him at once. No one knew better than
Geoffrey Plantagenet that he was not the first count of Anjou who had
been left to shift for himself in difficult circumstances at the age
of fifteen; and he faced the danger with a promptitude and energy not
unworthy of Fulk Nerra’s representative. One after another he besieged
the rebel leaders in their strongholds; one after another was forced,
tricked or frightened into submission. Once, while besieging Theobald
of Blazon in the great fortress of Mirebeau, Geoffrey was blockaded
in his turn by the count of Poitou, whom the traitors had called to
their aid; even from this peril, however, his quick wit and youthful
energy extricated him in triumph; and the revolt was finally crushed
by a severe punishment inflicted on its most powerful leader, Lisiard
of Sablé. Geoffrey ravaged the whole of Lisiard’s estates, razed his
castle of Briolet, seized that of Suze and kept it in his own hands for
the rest of its owner’s life; while to guard against further dangers
from the same quarter, by the advice of his faithful barons he reared,
for the express purpose of defence against incursions from Sablé, a
fortress to which he gave the name of Châteauneuf, on the left bank of
the Sarthe, just below the bridge made famous by the death of Count
Robert the Brave.[643]

        [640] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 886,
        887.

        [641] Sim. Durh. _Gesta Reg._ a. 1129.

        [642] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 263.

        [643] For the barons’ revolt, see _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 263–268. The strange and not very
        clear story of the double siege of Mirebeau is in pp. 265, 266.
        “Exercitus de Mirebello” is recorded in Chronn. S. Albin. and
        S. Flor. Salm. a. 1130 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 33, 191).
        The Chron. S. Albin. also records the building of Châteauneuf,
        a. 1131; the _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_, p. 270, connects it with
        the revolt of a lord of Sablé, but apparently with the later
        revolt of Lisiard’s son Robert--which, however, the date in the
        chronicle shows to be a mistake.

King Henry had joined his daughter in Normandy in the summer of 1130;
in July of the next year they returned to England together. They were
soon followed by a message from Geoffrey, who was now becoming awake to
his rights and duties as husband of King Henry’s heiress, and having
made himself thoroughly master in his own dominions felt it time to
demand the return of his wife. A great council held at Northampton on
September 8 decided that his request should be granted;[644] and the
assembled prelates and barons repeated their homage to Matilda as her
father’s destined successor.[645] She then went back to her husband, by
whom she was, if not warmly welcomed, at least received with all due
courtesy and honour.[646] Fortunately for the ill-matched couple, they
were both of that cold-blooded temperament to which intense personal
affection is not a necessary of life. Henceforth they were content
to work together as partners in political enterprise, and to find in
community of worldly interests a sufficient bond of union. On Mid-Lent
Sunday--March 5, 1133--the bond was made indissoluble by the birth of
their son and heir. Most fittingly, the child to whom so many diverse
nationalities looked as to their future sovereign[647] was born not in
the actual home of either of his parents, but in that city of Le Mans
which lay midway between Normandy and Anjou, which had so long been the
ground of their strife, and had at last been made the scene of their
union.[648] He was baptized in the cathedral church by the bishop of
the diocese on Easter Eve, receiving the name of his grandfather Henry,
and was then, by his mother’s special desire, solemnly placed under the
protection of the local patron saint on the same altar where his father
had been dedicated in like manner thirteen years before.[649]

        [644] Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 41 (Arnold, p. 252).

        [645] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 6 (Hardy, p. 698).

        [646] Hen. Hunt. as above.

        [647] “Quem multi populi dominum expectant.” Ord. Vit.
        (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 763.

        [648] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 36 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._,
        p. 322). Cf. Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1133 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 33, 144, 145), Chron. S. Flor. Salm. a. 1133
        (_ib._ p. 191, giving a wrong day), _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 277, 278, also wrongly dated.

        [649] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ as above.

To King Henry the birth of his grandson was the crowning of all his
hopes. The greatest difficulty which had hitherto stood in the way
of his scheme for the descent of the crown--the objection which was
sure to be made against Matilda on account of her sex--would lose
more than half its force now that she could be regarded as regent
for her infant son; and Henry at once summoned another great council
at which he again made the archbishops, bishops, earls and barons
of his realm swear fealty to the Empress “and also to her little
son whom he appointed to be king after him.”[650] All things seemed
as safe as human foresight could make them when in the beginning of
August he crossed over to Normandy.[651] Signs and wonders in earth
and sky, related afterwards as tokens of coming evil, accompanied his
voyage;[652] but nearly two years passed away before the portents
were fulfilled. In the spring Matilda joined her father at Rouen, and
there, shortly before Whitsuntide, her second son was born.[653] The
old king’s pleasure in his two little grandchildren was great enough to
keep him lingering on in Normandy with them and their mother, leaving
England to the care of Bishop Roger, till the middle of the following
year,[654] when there came tidings of disturbance on the Welsh border
which made him feel it was time he should return.[655] His daughter
however set herself against his departure. Her policy is not very
clear; but it seems impossible to acquit her of playing a double game
and secretly instigating her husband to attack her father while the
latter was living with her in unsuspecting intimacy and confidence.
Geoffrey now suddenly put forth a claim to certain castles in Normandy
which he asserted had been promised to him at his marriage.[656]
Henry denied the claim; the Angevin temper burst forth at once;
Geoffrey attacked and burned the castle of Beaumont, whose lord was
like himself a son-in-law of Henry, and altogether behaved with such
insulting violence that the king in his wrath was on the point of
taking Matilda, who was with him at Rouen all the while, back with him
to England. But he now found it impossible to leave Normandy. The land
was full of treason; many barons who only disguised their real feelings
from awe of the stern old king had been gained over in secret to the
Angevin cause; among those whose fidelity was most suspected were
Roger of Toëny and William Talvas the lord of Alençon, who had been
restored to the forfeited estates of his family at the intercession of
Geoffrey’s father in 1119. Roger’s castle of Conches was garrisoned
by the king; William Talvas was summoned to Rouen more than once, but
the conscious traitor dared not shew his face; at last Henry again
seized his estates, and then, in September, Talvas fled across the
border to be received with open arms by the count of Anjou.[657] The
countess pleaded warmly with her father for the traitor’s pardon, but
in vain. When she found him inexorable, she suddenly threw off the mask
and shewed on which side her real sympathies lay by parting from the
king in anger and going home to her husband at Angers.[658] Father and
daughter never met again. In the last week of November Henry fell sick
while hunting in the Forest of Lions; feeling his end near, he sent
for his old friend Archbishop Hugh of Rouen to receive his confession
and give him the last sacraments. His son Earl Robert of Gloucester
hurried to the spot at the first tidings of his illness; his daughter
made no sign of a wish for reconciliation; yet when the earl and the
primate asked for his final instructions concerning the succession to
the crown, he remained true to his cherished purpose and once more
bequeathed all his dominions on both sides of the sea to Matilda and
her heirs for ever.[659] He died on the night of December 1, 1135.[660]

        [650] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 187.

        [651] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 8 (Hardy, p. 700).

        [652] Eng. Chron. a. 1135.

        [653] Chron. S. Albin. and Rob. Torigni, a. 1134.

        [654] Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 43 (Arnold, p. 253).

        [655] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 900.

        [656] This is the version of Orderic (as above); according
        to Rob. Torigni (a. 1135) the claim included a good deal
        more: “Erat et alia causa ipsius discordiæ major, quia rex
        nolebat facere fidelitatem filiæ suæ et marito ejus de omnibus
        firmitatibus Normanniæ et Angliæ.”

        [657] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 900.

        [658] Rob. Torigni, a. 1133. Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii.
        c. 34 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 310).

        [659] So says Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 8 (Hardy, p.
        701). We shall see however that there were other versions of
        Henry’s final testamentary dispositions.

        [660] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 8 (Hardy, p. 700).
        Flor. Worc. Contin. a. 1135 (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 95). Hen.
        Hunt., l. vii. c. 43 (Arnold, p. 254). Will. Jumièges Contin.,
        l. viii. c. 33 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 309). Ord.
        Vit. (_ibid._), p. 901.

With him expired the direct male line of the Conqueror; for Duke
Robert’s long captivity had ended a year before.[661] Of the nine
children of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, the youngest
and the last survivor was now gone, leaving as his sole representatives
his daughter the countess of Anjou and her infant boys. By a
thrice-repeated oath the barons of Normandy and England stood pledged
to acknowledge her as their sovereign. Suddenly there sprang forth an
unexpected competitor. A rivalry which had seemed dead for nearly a
hundred years revived in a new form; and the house of Anjou, on the
very eve of its triumph, found itself once more face to face with the
deadliest of its early foes--the house of Blois.

        [661] Flor. Worc. Contin. a. 1134 (Thorpe, vol. ii. pp. 94, 95).

Since Geoffrey Martel’s victory over Theobald III. in 1044 the counts
of Blois have ceased to play a prominent part in our story. Theobald
himself accepted his defeat as final; he seems indeed to have been
almost crushed by it, for he scarcely makes any further appearance
in history, save at his brother Stephen’s death in 1047, when he
requited the help which Stephen had given him against Anjou by turning
his son out of Champagne and appropriating all his possessions. The
injured heir took refuge in Normandy, married the Conqueror’s sister,
and afterwards found in England such ample compensation for what he
had lost that neither he nor his posterity ever made any attempt to
regain their continental heritage. The reunion of Champagne thus
helped to repair the fortunes of the elder line of Blois, so severely
shattered by the blows of the Angevin Hammer; and the ill-gotten gain
prospered so far that some thirty-five years later Theobald’s son and
successor--the young Count Stephen-Henry who in 1069 received Fulk
Rechin’s homage for Touraine--could venture on aspiring to the hand of
King William’s daughter Adela.[662] In winning her he won a prize of
which he was scarcely worthy. Stephen-Henry was indeed, in every way,
a better man than either his father or his grandfather; but he had the
nerveless, unstable temper which was the curse of his race. He went on
the Crusade, and deserted before Antioch was won. He came home to bury
his shame; his wife sent him out again to expiate it. Her burning words
changed the coward into a martyr, and the stain was washed out in his
life-blood beneath the walls of Ramah.[663] In the ordinary course of
things, his successor in the counties of Blois, Chartres and Champagne
would have been his eldest son William. But Stephen had left the entire
control of his affairs, including the disposal of his territories, to
his wife; and Adela knew that her firstborn was a youth of slow wit,
quite unfit for public life. She therefore disinherited him, to his own
complete satisfaction; for he had sense enough to be conscious of his
incapacity for government, and gladly withdrew to the more congenial
life of a simple country gentleman on the estates of his wife, the
lady of Sully in Champagne, while the duties and responsibilities of
the head of the family were laid on the abler shoulders of his next
brother, Theobald. Of the two remaining brothers, the youngest had
been from his infancy dedicated to the Church; the third, who bore his
father’s name of Stephen, had been intrusted for education to his uncle
the king of England.[664] Adela seems to have been Henry’s favourite
sister; she was certainly, in all qualities both of heart and head,
well worthy of his confidence and esteem; and she once at least did
him a service which deserved his utmost gratitude, for it was she who
contrived the opportunity for his reconciliation with S. Anselm. She
was moreover the only one of his sisters who had children; and the
relation between a man and his sister’s son was in the Middle Ages held
as a specially dear and sacred tie. Its force was fully acknowledged
by Henry in the case of the little Stephen. He had the child carefully
brought up at his court with his own son; he knighted him with his own
hand, and bestowed on him, in addition to ample estates in England, the
Norman county of Mortain, which had been for several generations held
by a near connexion of the ducal house, and entitled its possessor to
rank as the first baron of the duchy. Finally, some few years before
the second marriage of the Empress, he arranged a match between Stephen
and another Matilda of scarcely less illustrious descent--the only
daughter and heiress of Count Eustace of Boulogne and Mary of Scotland,
sister to Henry’s own queen.[665] Stephen seems in fact to have been,
next to William the Ætheling, the person for whom Henry cared most;
and after the disaster of the White Ship--in which a lucky attack of
illness saved him from sharing--he became virtually the king’s adoptive
son, and the first layman in the kingdom. His position is illustrated
by a dispute which occurred when the barons took the oath of homage
and fealty to Matilda in the Christmas council of 1126. They swore in
order of precedence. The first place among the lay peers belonged as
an unquestioned right to the king of Scots; the second was claimed at
once by Stephen and by the king’s son Earl Robert of Gloucester; the
dignity of the nephew was held to outweigh the privilege of the son;
and the second layman who swore on bended knee to acknowledge the
Empress Matilda as her father’s successor was her cousin Count Stephen
of Mortain and Boulogne.[666]

        [662] The story of this wooing is curious, and linked in
        a curious fashion to the old days when Fulk Nerra and Odo
        were fighting for Touraine. Gelduin, the “devil of Saumur,”
        when Odo’s mistaken tactics and his own loyal service had
        cost him the loss of his heritage, refused all the offers of
        compensation made to him by his penitent count, and merely
        asked him for a certain “bare hill” on the south bank of the
        Loire, half way between Amboise and Blois, where he built the
        castle afterwards known as Chaumont, and there remained as a
        perpetual thorn in the side of the Angevin lords of Amboise,
        till in 1035 he gave up his possessions to his son Geoffrey and
        went to end his days in peace in an abbey which he had founded
        on an estate of his own, hard by the battle-field of Pontlevoy.
        Geoffrey’s delicate beauty won him the surname of “the Maiden,”
        but beneath his girl-like face lay a spirit as manly and as
        noble as that of his father. In 1066 the hot northern blood
        in his veins drove him to give up his estates to his niece
        Dionysia (who married a son of Lisoy of Amboise) and join the
        host of adventurers who followed Duke William over sea. But
        after fifteen years of prosperity in England, his heart was
        still true to the race whom his father had served so loyally;
        and it was Geoffrey’s well-earned influence with the Conqueror
        which brought about, in 1082, the marriage between the son of
        his former lord and the daughter of his present one (_Gesta
        Amb. Domin._, Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 173, 174, 184). On the
        marriage see also Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._),
        p. 573. After the Conqueror’s death Geoffrey found the state of
        things in England no longer to his mind, made over his estates
        there to his nephew Savaric, and came home once more, to be
        received with open arms by the couple whom he had helped to
        marry. He dwelt at their court as an honoured guest for the
        rest of his days, lived to complete his hundredth year without
        the loss of a single faculty save the light of his still
        beautiful eyes, and was buried at last by his father’s side
        in the abbey of our Lady of Pontlevoy (_Gesta Amb. Domin._,
        Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 185, 197, 198).

        [663] On the flight from Antioch see Will. Tyr., l. v. c. 10,
        and all the historians of the first crusade. On Stephen’s
        second expedition and death see Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 789
        _et seq._; Will. Tyr., l. x. c. 20; and Will. Malm. _Gesta
        Reg._, l. iv. c. 384 (Hardy, pp. 593, 594).

        [664] “Nutriendum promovendumque.” Will. Newb., l. i. c. 4
        (Howlett, vol. i. p. 31).

        [665] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 811.
        Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii. c. 34 (_ib._ p. 310). Will.
        Newb., l. i. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 31). Will. Malm. _Hist.
        Nov._, l. iii. c. 49 (Hardy, p. 750).

        [666] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3 (Hardy, p. 692).

But for that council and its oath, the succession both to the English
crown and to the Norman ducal coronet would have been at Henry’s death
an open question. Had Matilda’s child been old enough to step at once
into the place destined for him by his grandfather, there would most
likely have been no question at all; Henry II. would have succeeded
Henry I. without opposition, and England would have been spared
nineteen years of anarchy. But Henry Fitz-Empress was not yet three
years old. The practical choice at the moment lay between the surviving
adult descendants of the Conqueror; and of these there were, besides
the Empress, at least two others who might be considered quite as well
qualified to represent him as she was. Independently of any special
engagement, the barons would be fully entitled to choose between the
daughter of William’s son and the sons of his daughter--between Matilda
of Anjou, Theobald of Blois, and Stephen of Boulogne. Of the three,
Matilda was on the whole the one who had least to recommend her. Her
great personal advantage was that she, and she alone, was the child
of a crowned king and queen, of the “good Queen Maude” in whose veins
flowed the ancient royal blood of Wessex, and the king whom his
English subjects revered after he was gone as “a good man,” who “made
peace for men and deer.”[667] Matilda’s birth would be a valuable
qualification in English eyes; but it would carry very little weight
in Normandy. Old-English blood-royal went for nothing there; and King
Henry’s good peace had been much less successfully enforced, and when
enforced much less appreciated, in the duchy than in the kingdom.
Personally, Matilda was almost a stranger in both countries. She had
left her own people and her father’s house at the age of eight years,
to be educated not as the daughter of the English king but as the
child-wife of the Emperor. All her associations, all her interests,
were in Germany; there she was known and respected, there she was at
home. She had only returned to England very unwillingly for a couple
of years, and then left it again to become the wife of a man known
there only as the son of that “earl of Anjou” who had been King Henry’s
most troublesome foe; while in Normandy the Angevin was known but too
well, and hated with a mingled hate and scorn which had grown with the
growth and strengthened with the strength of both county and duchy
ever since the days of Geoffrey Martel. If the principle of female
succession was to be admitted at all--if the Conqueror’s throne was to
be filled by a stranger--one of his daughter’s sons might fill it at
least as worthily as his son’s daughter and her Angevin husband. And
if a sovereign was to be chosen for his personal qualifications, it
would have been hard to find a better choice than Theobald the Great,
count of Blois, Chartres and Champagne. He did not owe his historical
epithet solely to his vast possessions; he was almost the only member
of the house of Blois who shewed any trace of intellectual or moral
greatness. His public life was one long series of vexations and
disappointments; the misfortunes which his race were so apt to bring
upon themselves by their own unsteadiness and self-will seemed to fall
upon him without provocation on his part; it was as if his heritage
had come to him charged with the penalties of all his forefathers’
errors. But it had not come to him charged with the heavier burthen of
their fatal intellectual perversity and moral weakness. In its place
he had the tact, the dignity, the stedfastness of his Norman mother;
and the whole of his after-career fully justified the esteem of the
Norman barons, grounded upon their acquaintance with his person and
character during those wars against the king of France in which his
cause had been inseparably bound up with that of his uncle Henry. In
England, however, he could only be known by report, as the nephew and
ally of the king, and the elder brother of Stephen. It was Stephen, not
Theobald, who had been the king’s favourite and constant companion,
lacking nothing of the rank of an adoptive son save the avowed prospect
of the crown. Stephen had lived in England from his childhood; his
territorial possessions, his personal interests, lay wholly in England
and Normandy; his name and his face were almost as familiar there as
those of Henry himself; he was the first baron of the duchy, the first
layman of the kingdom; moreover, he was the husband of a lady who
stood as near to the Old-English royal line and represented it, to say
the least, as worthily as her imperial cousin and namesake. Lastly,
his marriage gave him yet one more advantage, slight in itself, but
of no small practical use at the moment. As count of Boulogne, he had
immediate command of the shortest passage from the Continent to England.

        [667] Eng. Chron. a. 1135.

The tidings of Henry’s death soon reached Angers; and before the
first week of December was out, Matilda presented herself in Normandy
to take possession of her inheritance. The officer in charge of the
border-territories, comprising the forfeited lands of William Talvas
and the county of Hiesmes, at once surrendered them to her and received
her as his liege lady;[668] but before she had time to secure the
duchy, the kingdom was snatched from her grasp. Stephen set out at once
from Wissant and crossed the Channel amid a storm so terrific that
men on shore deemed it could bode nothing less than the end of the
world.[669] It only boded the arrival at Dover of a candidate for the
English crown.

        [668] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 903. The
        places specified, besides Hiesmes, are Argentan and Domfront.
        See also Chron. S. Albin. a. 1135 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p.
        34), and _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 294,
        where Geoffrey gets the credit of winning them. Rob. Torigni,
        a. 1135, adds Ambrières, “Gorra” and Coulommiers.

        [669] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 11 (Hardy, p. 703).

Stephen’s promptitude served him as well as the promptitude of William
Rufus and Henry had served them in a like case. But this time the
part which had been played in 1087 by the primate and in 1100 by “the
Witan who were there nigh at hand” was to be played by the citizens of
London. Repulsed from Dover and Canterbury[670]--for the men of Kent
had an hereditary grudge against any one coming from Boulogne--Stephen
pushed on to London, where the well-known face of King Henry’s
favourite nephew was hailed with delight by the citizens, vehemently
declaring that they would have no stranger to rule over them.[671]
They claimed to have inherited the right to a voice in the election
of the sovereign which had once, in theory at least, belonged to the
whole nation, and accordingly the “aldermen and wise folk”[672] came
together to consider what provision should be made for the safety of
the realm, and, for that end, to choose a king. A kingless land, said
they, was exposed to countless perils; the first thing needful was to
make a king as speedily as possible.[673] Of Matilda and her claims not
a word seems to have been said; if any of the leading burgesses, as
tenants-in-chief of the crown, had sworn fealty to her, they were in no
humour to regard it now; and the citizens in general would doubtless
not hold themselves bound by an oath which they had not personally
taken. They claimed the right of election as their special prerogative,
and exercising it without more ado in favour of the only person then at
hand whose birth and character fitted him to undertake the defence of
the kingdom, and who seemed to have been sent to them as by a special
providence in their hour of need, they by common consent acknowledged
Stephen as king. He hurried to Winchester to get possession of the
treasury; the bishop--his own brother--came forth with the chief
citizens to meet him; and the treasurer, who had refused to give up
his keys to the bishop, surrendered them at once to the king-elect.[674]

        [670] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 94.

        [671] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 3, 4.

        [672] “Majores ... natu, consultuque quique provectiores.”
        _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 3.

        [673] _Ib._ pp. 3, 4.

        [674] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 4–6.

Thus far the two men who ought to have taken the lead in the national
counsels--the primate and the justiciar--had stood looking passively
on. Both now joined Stephen.[675] He lacked nothing to make him full
king but the rite of coronation. This however depended on the primate,
and when called upon to perform it William of Canterbury again drew
back. He had scruples, first, about the oath which he himself, as
well as Stephen and all the barons, had sworn to the Empress Matilda;
and secondly, about the validity of an election so hastily made by a
small part only of the nation. The second objection passed unheeded;
to the first Stephen’s adherents answered that the oath had been
extorted and was therefore not binding, and that several persons who
were with Henry at his death had heard him openly express repentance
for having forced it upon the barons.[676] Roger of Salisbury affirmed
that it was annulled in another way; it had been sworn, by him at
least, on condition of a promise from Henry that he would not give his
daughter in marriage out of the realm without the consent of the Great
Council--a promise which had been immediately broken.[677] Hugh Bigod,
too, the late king’s seneschal, declared upon oath that Henry had in
his presence solemnly absolved the barons from their engagement,[678]
and had even formally disinherited Matilda and designated Stephen as
his successor.[679] The argument which really prevailed, however, was
the objection to a woman’s rule, and the urgent need of having a man
to take the government, and to take it at once.[680] Henry had not yet
been three weeks dead, and already England was in confusion. The first
outcome of the reaction against his stern control had been a general
raid upon the forests; and when men in their frantic vehemence had left
themselves no more game to hunt, they turned their arms against each
other and trampled all law and order under foot.[681] Such a state of
things, resulting solely from the fact that England had been three
weeks without a king, spoke more in Stephen’s favour than any amount
of legal reasonings. The archbishop gave way; all that he demanded
from Stephen was a promise to restore and maintain the liberties of
the Church. Bishop Henry of Winchester offered himself as surety in
his brother’s behalf, and thereby won him the crown.[682] He received
it at Westminster,[683] probably either on the last Sunday in Advent
or on Christmas day,[684] and he issued at the same time, by way of
coronation-charter, a promise at once comprehensive and vague, to
maintain the laws established by his predecessor.[685]

        [675] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 11 (Hardy, pp. 703,
        704). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 6.

        [676] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 6, 7.

        [677] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3 (Hardy, pp. 692,
        693).

        [678] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 94.

        [679] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. ii. p. 217. Cf. the speeches
        before the battle of Lincoln in Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 15
        (Arnold, p. 270), and that of Stephen’s advocates at Rome in
        1151, in _Hist. Pontif._ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx.
        p. 543). Gerv. Cant. (as above) does not name Hugh, but merely
        says “quidam ex potentissimis Angliæ.”

        [680] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 8. R. Wend. as above.

        [681] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 1, 2.

        [682] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 11 (Hardy, p. 704).

        [683] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 94. Flor. Worc. Contin.
        (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 95).

        [684] The date is variously given, as follows: December 15,
        Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 902.--December
        20, Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above).--December 21, Ann. Waverl.
        a. 1136 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 225).--December 22,
        Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 12 (Hardy, p. 704); Gerv.
        Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 94; and Ann. Winton. Contin. a. 1135
        (Liebermann, _Ungedruckte Anglo-Norman. Geschichtsquellen_,
        p. 79).--December 23, Ann. Cantuar. a. 1135 (Liebermann, as
        above, p. 5).--December 24, Ann. Margam, a. 1135 (Luard, as
        above, vol. i. p. 13).--December 25, Eng. Chron. a. 1135; Ric.
        Hexh. (Raine, _Priory of Hexham_, vol. i.) p. 70; _Gesta Cons._
        (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 156; and Chron. Mort.-Mar. a. 1135
        (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 782).--December 26, Rog.
        Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 189; Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. ii. p.
        217.--January 1, Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 113.--Will. Malm., the
        Contin. Flor. Worc., and the Ann. Margam all add that the day
        was a Sunday. This in 1135 would be right for William’s date,
        December 22; nothing can make it agree with that of Florence’s
        continuator, “xiii. kal. Jan.”; but the Margam annalist may
        very possibly have substituted ix. for xi., really meaning the
        same as William. The two extreme dates--Orderic’s and John of
        Hexham’s--seem equally impossible; unless we may take Orderic’s
        “xviii. kal. Jan.” to have simply an x too much, and then there
        would be another witness for Christmas-day.

        [685] Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 119.

Thus the two great feuds which had hitherto influenced the political
career of the Angevin house--the feud with Blois and the feud with
Normandy--merged at last into one. The successors of Odo of Blois and
those of William the Conqueror were now both represented, as against
the successors of Fulk Nerra and Geoffrey Martel, by one and the same
man, who yet was not, in strict law, the nearest representative of
either. We shall see hereafter that some of the Normans entertained a
project of making Theobald their duke; had they succeeded, the older
quarrel would have revived almost in its original form, as a direct
conflict between the heads of the two rival houses, only with Normandy
instead of Touraine for its object and its battle-ground. Its original
spirit was, however, more likely to be revived, on one side at least,
by the substitution of Stephen for Theobald. Stephen had renounced all
share in his father’s territories; but there was one paternal heir-loom
which he could not renounce, and which descended to him, and him alone,
among the sons of Stephen-Henry and Adela. This was the peculiar mental
and moral constitution which the house of Blois inherited from Odo II.
as surely as the Angevins inherited theirs from Fulk the Black. In
the reigning Count Theobald, indeed, the type was fortunately almost
lost, and in his youngest brother, Bishop Henry of Winchester, it was
very greatly modified by the infusion of Norman blood derived from
their mother. In Stephen, however, the Norman blood had but little
influence on a nature which in its essence was that of the old counts
of Blois. All the characteristic qualities and defects of the race
were there, just as deeply rooted as in Odo of Champagne himself;
the whole difference lay in this, that in Stephen the qualities lay
uppermost and shewed themselves in their most attractive aspect, while
the defects took a form so mild that till their fatal consequences were
seen they appeared hardly more than amiable weaknesses. Gallant knight
and courteous gentleman; warm-hearted, high-spirited, throwing himself
eagerly into every enterprise; all reckless valour in the battle-field,
all gentleness and mercy as soon as the fight was over; open-handed,
generous, gracious to all, and apparently unstained by any personal
vices:--it is easy to understand Henry’s affection for him, and the
high hopes with which at the opening of his career he was regarded
by all classes in the realm.[686] His good qualities were plainly
visible; time and experience alone could reveal the radical defect
which vitiated them all. That defect was simply the old curse of his
race--lack of stedfastness; and it ruined Stephen as surely as it had
ruined Odo. It was ingrained in every fibre of his nature; it acted
like an incurable moral disease, mingling its subtle poison with his
every thought and act, and turning his very virtues into weaknesses;
it reduced his whole kingly career to a mere string of political
inconsistencies and blunders; and it wrecked him at last, as it had
wrecked his great-grandfather, on the rock of the Angevin thoroughness.

        [686] See sketches of his character in Will. Malm. _Hist.
        Nov._, l. i. c. 12 (Hardy, p. 704), and _Gesta Steph._
        (Sewell), p. 3.

For the moment, however, Stephen had outstripped his rival. The Angevin
sagacity had been for once at fault. Steeped as were both Geoffrey and
his wife in continental ideas and feelings, their first thought was of
Normandy, and they had failed to see that in order to secure it their
true policy was to secure England first; or rather, perhaps, they had
failed to see that the mere will of the late king was not sufficient
to give them undisputed possession of both. Stephen’s bold stroke,
whether it resulted from a closer acquaintance with the relation
between the two countries, or simply from a characteristic impulse to
dash straight at the highest object in view, gained him kingdom and
duchy at one blow. Geoffrey had followed his wife into Normandy at
the head of an armed force, and accompanied by William Talvas, whose
influence secured him a welcome at Séez and in all the territories of
the house of Alençon. But the rival races were no sooner in actual
contact than their old hatred burst uncontrollably forth. The Angevins,
though they ostensibly came only to put their countess in peaceful
possession of her heritage, could not yet bring themselves to look upon
the Normans in any light but that of natural enemies; they treated the
districts which had submitted to them as a conquered land, and went
about harrying and plundering till the people rose and attacked them
with such fury that they were compelled to evacuate the country.[687]
The Norman barons now held at Neubourg a meeting at which they decided
to invite Count Theobald of Blois to come and take possession of the
duchy. Theobald came to Rouen, and thence to Lisieux, where on December
21 he had an interview with Matilda’s half-brother Earl Robert of
Gloucester. They were interrupted by a messenger from England with the
tidings of Stephen’s election as king.[688] The Norman barons then
felt that the decision was taken out of their hands; since Stephen
and England had been too quick for them, their best course now was to
accept the accomplished fact, and acknowledged the king-elect as duke
of Normandy.[689] To this Robert of Gloucester assented.[690] Theobald,
despite his natural vexation, at once withdrew his claim, and made in
his brother’s name a truce with Geoffrey to last from Christmas till
the octave of Pentecost; and having thus done his best to secure the
peace of the duchy till its own duke could come to it, he quietly
returned to his own dominions.[691]

        [687] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 903.

        [688] Rob. Torigni, a. 1135. Cf. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist.
        Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 902, 903.

        [689] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 903.

        [690] Rob. Torigni, a. 1135.

        [691] Ord. Vit. as above. Cf. _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay,
        _Comtes_), p. 294.

In England, meanwhile, Stephen was carrying all before him. The first
public act in which he had to take part as king was the burial of
his predecessor at Reading on the feast of the Epiphany;[692] the
next was the defence of his realm against a danger which it had not
known for more than forty years--a Scottish invasion. King David
of Scotland, true to the oath which every one else seemed to have
forgotten, arose as the champion of Matilda’s rights, led his troops
into Northumberland, and partly conquered it in her behalf. Stephen met
him near Durham, pacified him by a grant of the earldoms of Carlisle,
Huntingdon and Doncaster to his son Henry,[693] and came back in
peace, almost in triumph, to the Easter festival and the crowning of
his queen.[694] Adherents now came flocking in; the splendour of the
Easter court made up for the meagreness of the Christmas meeting.[695]
Baron and knight, clerk and layman, rallied round the winning young
sovereign who was ready to promise anything, to undertake anything, to
please anybody. The only class who still held aloof were the “new men”
of the last reign, men like Payne Fitz-John and Miles the sheriff of
Gloucester, who owed everything to Henry, and who were bound alike by
gratitude and by policy to uphold his daughter’s cause. But the chief
of them all, Bishop Roger of Salisbury, had already joined Stephen,
and the rest were soon persuaded to follow his example.[696] Shortly
after Easter there came in a yet more important personage. Earl Robert
of Gloucester, the eldest son of the late king, influential alike on
both sides of the sea by his rank, his wealth and his character, was
looked upon both in Normandy and in England as the natural leader of
the baronage. The suddenness of Stephen’s accession had snatched the
leadership out of his hands, and he lingered on in Normandy, watching
the course of events without sharing in them, and meditating how to
reconcile his own interest with his duty to his sister. Stephen,
anxious to win him over, sent him repeated invitations to England; till
at last he decided to let himself be won, at least in appearance, if
only for the sake of gaining a footing in England which might enable
him afterwards to work there in Matilda’s favour. The king’s son,
however, made terms for himself more like a king than a mere earl. He
came to Stephen’s court and did homage for his English estates; but
he did it only on the express condition of being bound by it only so
long as Stephen’s own promises to him were kept, and he himself was
maintained in all his honours and dignities.[697] The first result of
his submission--if submission it can be called--was seen in a great
council at Oxford, where all the bishops swore fealty to the king,
and the vague promise to maintain the “Laws of King Henry,” which
Stephen had issued on his coronation-day, was amplified into a more
detailed and definite charter.[698] Suddenly, a few weeks later, there
went forth a rumour that the king was dead, and the barons at once
broke into revolt. Baldwin of Redvers threw himself into Exeter; Hugh
Bigod, who but a few months ago had been foremost among the supporters
of Stephen, seized Norwich castle, and was only dislodged by the king
in person.[699] He was apparently forgiven; another rebel, Robert
of Bathenton,[700] was caught and hanged, and his castle forced to
surrender. The great castle of Exeter, where Baldwin had shut himself
up with his family and a picked band of young knights, all sworn never
to yield, cost a long and troublesome siege; but the agonies of thirst
at length drove the garrison to break their vow and ask for terms.
Stephen let them all go out free; Baldwin requited his leniency by
hastening to a castle which he possessed in the Isle of Wight, and
there setting himself up as a sort of pirate-chief at the head of
a band of men as reckless as himself. But when Stephen hurried to
Southampton and began to collect a fleet, Baldwin suddenly took fright
and surrendered. His lands were confiscated, and he went into exile
in Anjou, where he was eagerly welcomed by the count, and added one
more to the elements of strife already working in Normandy.[701] In
England his defeat put an end to the revolt, and the Christmas court
at Dunstable brought the first year of King Stephen to a tranquil
close.[702]

        [692] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 901, 902. Hen. Hunt., l. viii.
        c. 2 (Arnold, pp. 257, 258). Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol.
        ii. p. 95. Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 13 (Hardy, p.
        705).

        [693] For the details of this Scottish expedition and treaty
        see Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 4 (Arnold, pp. 258, 289), Ric.
        Hexh. (Raine), p. 72, and Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p. 114.

        [694] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 96.

        [695] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 2 (Arnold, p. 259).

        [696] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 14–16.

        [697] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 14 (Hardy, pp.
        705–707). Cf. _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 9.

        [698] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 15 (Hardy, pp.
        707–709). Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 119–121.

        [699] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 4 (Arnold, p. 259).

        [700] Or Bakington. In the _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 18, the
        name of the place is _Batthentona_, which Lappenberg and Mr.
        Freeman render by Bathenton in Devon. (Mr. Sewell, the editor
        of the _Gesta Steph._, rendered it _Bath_.) But while two MSS.
        of Hen. Hunt. have “Bathentun,” three others have “Bachentun”
        or “Bakentun” (Arnold, p. 259, note 6. In the index Mr. Arnold
        suggests “Bagington? Bathampton?”).

        [701] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 18–29. Hen. Hunt. as above.
        Eng. Chron. a. 1135. Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. pp.
        96, 97.

        [702] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 5 (Arnold, p. 260).

Yet already there were signs that those who had thought to find in
Henry’s nephew such another king as Henry himself[703] were doomed to
disappointment. It was no good omen for the fulfilment of the pledges
embodied in his charters when Stephen broke the one which appealed
most strongly to popular feeling--the promise to mitigate the severe
forest laws--by holding a forest assize at Brampton after his triumph
over Baldwin of Redvers in 1136.[704] Neither was it satisfactory that
the accession of a king specially bound by the circumstances of his
election to rule as a national sovereign proved to be the signal for a
great influx of foreigners--not as in Henry’s time, honest industrious
settlers who fled from their own unquiet homes to share “the good
peace that he made in this land” and to become an useful element in
the growing prosperity of the nation; but as in the Red King’s time,
a rapacious and violent race of mercenary adventurers, chiefly from
Britanny and Flanders; men to whom nothing was sacred, and who flocked
to Stephen as they had flocked to Rufus, attracted by the report of
his prodigality and the hope, only too well founded, of growing rich
upon the spoils of England.[705] However much Henry may have provoked
his subjects by his preference for ministers of continental birth, he
had at least never insulted them by taking for his chief counsellor
and confidant a mere foreign soldier of fortune like that William of
Ypres who acted as the leader of Stephen’s Flemish mercenaries and
whose influence over him excited the wrath of both the English and
the Norman barons.[706] The peace of the country was probably all the
better kept during the year 1137 because its preservation was left
wholly to Bishop Roger and his nephews, while Stephen, accompanied by
his Flemish friend, was well out of the way in Normandy, where he spent
the year in concerting an alliance with his brother,[707] obtaining
the French king’s sanction to his tenure of the duchy, for which his
eldest son did homage in his stead,[708] and vainly endeavouring to
secure it from the combined dangers of internal treason and Angevin
intermeddling. No disturbance occurred in England during his absence;
a Scottish invasion, threatened soon after Easter, was averted by
Archbishop Thurstan of York, who persuaded the Scot king to accept a
truce till Advent,[709] when Stephen was expected to return. He was
no sooner back than David sent to demand for his son the earldom of
Northumberland,[710] which had been, it was said, half promised to
him a year before;[711] on the refusal of his demand,[712] early in
January he led an army into England. An unsuccessful siege of the
border fortress of Carham or Wark was followed by such a harrying of
the whole land from Tweed to Tyne as had not been heard of since the
wild heathenish days of Malcolm Canmore’s youth.[713] David, indeed,
was not personally concerned in this horrible work; he had left it
to the conduct of his nephew William Fitz-Duncan, while he himself
with a strong body of troops took up his quarters at Corbridge.[714]
Stephen marched against him early in February, whereupon he returned
to the siege of Carham; dislodged thence by the English king, he
buried himself and his troops in an almost inaccessible swamp near
Roxburgh, bidding the townsfolk decoy the Southrons by a false show of
friendliness and thus enable him to surround and despatch them.[715]
Stephen however discovered the trap--apparently through the double
treachery of some of his own barons who were concerned in it;[716] he
crossed the Tweed, but instead of marching upon Roxburgh he turned
south-westward and ravaged David’s territories till the lack of
provisions forced him to return to the south.[717]

        [703] “Hi uuendon thæt he sculde ben alsuic alse the eom wæs.”
        Eng. Chron. a. 1137.

        [704] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 4 (Arnold, p. 260).

        [705] “Sub Henrico rege multi alienigenæ, qui genialis humi
        inquietationibus exagitabantur, Angliam adnavigabant, et
        sub ejus alis quietum otium agebant; sub Stephano plures ex
        Flandriâ et Britanniâ, rapto vivere assueti, spe magnarum
        prædarum Angliam involabant.” Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii.
        c. 34. Cf. l. i. c. 14 (Hardy, pp. 731, 706).

        [706] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 105. William of Ypres
        was son of Philip of Flanders, second son of Count Robert
        the Frisian. Although he had no legal place in the house of
        Flanders, he was one of the claimants of the county after the
        death of Charles of Denmark, against William the Clito and
        Theodoric of Alsace. After being the torment of his own country
        for nearly ten years, he was compelled to fly, and took service
        in England under Stephen. See Walter of Térouanne, _Vita B.
        Caroli Com._, in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xiii. pp. 336,
        342–347; Galbert of Bruges, _Vita B. Car._ (_ibid._), pp. 354,
        355, 359 _et seq._; _Geneal. Com. Flandr._ (_ibid._), pp.
        412, 413; Joh. Ypr. _Chron. Sith._ (_ibid._), 466, 468. The
        people’s hatred of William was justifiable enough; but it ill
        became the barons to cast stones at him. His evil-doings were
        not a whit greater than theirs, and the changeless devotion
        with which he--a mere hireling, bound to Stephen by no tie but
        that of a bargain which Stephen certainly cannot long have had
        means to fulfil--stuck to the king in adversity as firmly as in
        prosperity, might have put them all to shame.

        [707] Theobald renounced all claims upon kingdom and duchy
        for two thousand marks of silver to be paid him annually by
        Stephen. Rob. Torigni, a. 1137.

        [708] This was because William the Ætheling had done homage to
        Louis, and it was agreed that Stephen should hold Normandy on
        the same terms as his predecessor Henry. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne,
        _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 909. Cf. Rob. Torigni, a. 1137, and
        Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 5 (Arnold, p. 260). This was in May.
        Ord. Vit. as above.

        [709] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 76, 77. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p.
        115.

        [710] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), p. 77. Joh. Hexh. as above.

        [711] Ric. Hexh. (Raine, p. 72) says that some who were
        present at the treaty made between Stephen and David in 1136
        affirmed that Stephen had then promised that if ever he should
        contemplate bestowing the earldom of Northumberland upon any
        man, he would first cause to be fairly tried in his court the
        claims upon it which Henry of Scotland had inherited from his
        mother, the eldest daughter of the last old English earl,
        Waltheof.

        [712] According to Orderic, Stephen had some ground for his
        refusal; for it seems that the form in which the lately expired
        truce reached him--at any rate, that in which it reached
        Orderic--was that of a plot made by “quidam pestiferi” to kill
        all the Normans in England on a certain day, and betray the
        realm to the Scots. Some of the plotters were said to have
        confessed to Bishop Nigel of Ely, who revealed the plot, and so
        it all came out. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._),
        p. 912. This plot appears also in R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i.
        p. 253, but is there attributed solely to one Ralf, a clerk of
        Bishop Nigel’s, and nothing is said about the Scots.

        [713] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 77–80. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), pp.
        115, 116. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 6 (Arnold, pp. 260, 261). The
        Scottish host was “coadunatus de Normannis, Germanis, Anglis,
        de Northanhymbranis et Cumbris, de Teswetadalâ, de Lodoneâ, de
        Pictis, qui vulgo Galleweienses dicuntur, et Scottis, nec erat
        qui eorum numerum sciret.” Ric. Hexh., p. 79.

        [714] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), p. 79. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p. 116.

        [715] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), p. 81. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p. 117.

        [716] Joh. Hexh. as above.

        [717] Ric. Hexh. and Joh. Hexh., as above. Hen. Hunt., l. viii.
        c. 6 (Arnold, p. 261), and Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol.
        ii. p. 102.

He had not long turned his back when David re-entered Northumberland
and marched ravaging along the eastern coast till a mutiny among his
soldiers compelled him to retreat to the border. Thence he sent William
Fitz-Duncan to ravage the district of Craven, while he himself remained
busy with the siege of Carham till he was dislodged by Count Waleran
of Meulan.[718] The Empress meanwhile plied him with entreaties for
support, both by her own letters and through her friends in the north,
chief among whom was her father’s old minister Eustace Fitz-John,[719]
lord of the mighty castles of Bamborough, Knaresborough, Malton and
Alnwick. Eustace had already forfeited his best stronghold, Bamborough,
through his plottings against Stephen;[720] in May 1138 he openly
placed himself, his remaining castles and his men at the disposal of
the Scot king. David hesitated no longer. Gathering up all the forces
of his kingdom,[721] he joined Eustace in an unsuccessful attempt to
regain Bamborough; thence the united host marched burning and harrying
through the already thrice-wasted Patrimony of S. Cuthbert, crossed the
Tees, and in the middle of August made its appearance in Yorkshire.[722]

        [718] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 81–84. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p.
        117. The record of Waleran’s exploit is in Flor. Worc. Contin.
        (as above), p. 112.

        [719] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 35.

        [720] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 117. “De magnis proceribus Angliæ,
        regi quondam Henrico familiarissimus, vir summæ prudentiæ et in
        secularibus negotiis magni consilii, qui a rege Anglorum ideo
        recesserat quod ab eo in curiâ contra patrium morem captus,
        castra quæ ei Rex Henricus commiserat reddere compulsus est.”
        Æthelred Riev. _De Bello Standardi_ (Twysden, _X. Scriptt._),
        col. 343. On Eustace Fitz-John see also Walbran, _Memor. of
        Fountains_, p. 50, note 11.

        [721] The Hexham chroniclers reckon them at something over
        twenty thousand.

        [722] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 84, 85, 89. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._),
        p. 118.

There was no help to be looked for from the king. All through that
summer the whole south and west of England had been in a blaze of
revolt which was still unsubdued, and Stephen had neither time,
thought, nor troops to spare for the defence of the north. But in face
of such a danger as this the men of the north needed no help from him.
When their own hearths and altars were threatened by the hereditary
Scottish foe, resistance was a matter not of loyalty but of patriotism.
The barons and great men of the shire at once organized their plans
under the guidance of Archbishop Thurstan, whose lightest word carried
more weight in Yorkshire than anything that Stephen could have said or
done. Inspired by him, the forces of the diocese met at York in the
temper of crusaders. Three days of fasting, almsgiving and penance,
concluding with a solemn absolution and benediction from their primate,
prepared them for their task. Worn out as he was with years and
labours--so feeble that he could neither walk nor ride--Thurstan would
yet have gone forth in his litter at the head of his men to encourage
the host with his presence and his eloquence; but the barons shrank
from such a risk. To them he was the Moses on whose uplifted hands
depended their success in the coming battle; so they sent him back to
wrestle in prayer for them within his own cathedral church, while they
went forth to their earthly warfare against the Scot.[723]

        [723] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 86, 87. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), pp.
        118, 119.

Early in the morning of Tuesday, August 22, the English forces drew
up in battle array upon Cowton Moor, two miles from Northallerton. In
their midst was the “Standard” from which the fight afterwards took
its name:--a cart into which was fixed a pole surmounted by a silver
pyx containing the Host, and hung round with the consecrated banners
of the local churches, S. Peter of York, S. John of Beverley, S.
Wilfrid of Ripon.[724] Thurstan’s place as chief spiritual adviser of
the army was filled by Ralf, bishop of the Orkneys;[725] their chief
military adviser was Walter Lespec, the pious and noble founder of
Kirkham and Rievaux--the very type and model of a Christian knight of
the time. Standing upon the cart, with the sacred banners waving round
his head, in a voice like a trumpet he addressed his comrades.[726]
He appealed to the barons to prove themselves worthy of their race;
he appealed to the English shire-levies to prove themselves worthy of
their country; he pictured in glowing colours the wrongs which they
all had to avenge, and the worse they would have to suffer if they
survived a defeat; then, grasping the hand of William of Aumale, the
new-made earl of York,[727] he swore aloud to conquer or die.[728] The
unanimous “Amen!” of the English host was answered by shrill cries
of “Albin! Albin!” as the Scots came charging on.[729] The glory of
the first onset was snatched, much against David’s will, by the men of
Galloway, who claimed it as their hereditary right.[730] The second
division of the Scottish host comprised the Cumbrians and the men of
Teviotdale, and the followers of Eustace Fitz-John. A third body was
formed by the men of Lothian and of the western islands, and a fourth
by the king’s household troops, a picked band of English and Norman
knights commanded by David in person.[731] The English array was simple
enough; the whole host stood in one compact mass clustered around the
Standard,--the barons and their followers occupying the centre, the
archers intermingled with them in front, and the general mass of less
well-armed troops of the shire in the rear, with a small detachment
of horse posted at a little distance; the main body of both armies
fought on foot in the old English fashion. The wild Celts of Galloway
dashed headlong upon the English front, only to find their spears and
javelins glance off from the helmets and shields of the knights as from
an iron wall, while their own half-naked bodies were riddled with a
shower of arrows; their leader fell, and they fled in confusion.[732]
The second line under the king’s son, Henry, charged with better
success; but an Englishman lifted up a gory head upon a pole crying
out that it was David’s; and like the English long ago in a like case
at Assandun, the Scottish centre at once fled almost without waiting
to be attacked.[733] David himself fought on well-nigh alone, till
the few who stood around him dragged him off the field, lifted him on
horseback, and fairly compelled him to retreat.[734] His scattered
troops caught sight of the dragon on his standard,[735] and discovering
that he was still alive, rallied enough to enable him to retreat in
good order. Henry gathered up the remnants of the royal body-guard--the
only mounted division of the army--and with them made a gallant
effort to retrieve the day; but the horsemen charged in vain against
the English shield-wall, and falling back with shattered spears and
wounded horses they were compelled to fling away their accoutrements
and escape as best they could.[736] Three days elapsed before Henry
himself could rejoin his father at Carlisle.[737] Eleven hundred Scots
were said to have been slain in the battle or caught in their flight
through the woods and marshes and there despatched.[738] Out of two
hundred armed knights only nineteen carried their mail-coats home
again;[739] such of the rest as escaped at all escaped only with their
lives; and the field was so strewn with baggage, provisions and arms,
left behind by the fugitives, that the victors gave it the nickname
of Baggamore.[740] The enthusiasm which had carried the Yorkshiremen
through the hour of danger carried them also through the temptation
of the hour of triumph. They sullied their victory by no attempt at
pursuit or retaliation, but simply returned as they had come, in solemn
procession, and having restored the holy banners to their several
places with joy and thanksgiving, went quietly back every man to his
own home.[741] Some three months later the garrison of Carham, having
salted their last horse save one, were driven to surrender; but their
stubborn defence had won them the right to march out free with the
honours of war, and all that David gained was the satisfaction of
razing the empty fortress.[742]

        [724] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 90, 91. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p.
        119. Cf. the description of the Milanese _carroccio_--“quod
        apud nos _standard_ dicitur” as the German writer remarks--in
        1162 (_Ep. Burchard. Notar. Imp. de Excidio Mediolan._, in
        Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Scriptt._, vol. vi. p. 917).

        [725] On Ralf see Dixon and Raine, _Fasti Eborac._, vol. i. p.
        168.

        [726] So says Æthelred of Rievaux (_De Bello Standardi_,
        Twysden, _X. Scriptt._, cols. 338, 339), giving a charming
        portrait of Walter and a vivid picture of the scene. Hen.
        Hunt., l. viii. c. 7 (Arnold, p. 262), attributes the speech to
        Bishop Ralf.

        [727] “The the king adde beteht Euorwic.” Eng. Chron. a. 1138.

        [728] Æthelred Riev., _De Bello Standardi_ (as above), cols.
        339–342.

        [729] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 9 (Arnold, p. 263).

        [730] Æthelred Riev. _De Bello Stand._ (Twysden, _X.
        Scriptt._), col. 342. His account of the quarrel for precedence
        and its consequences makes one think of the Macdonalds at
        Culloden. Ric. Hexh. (Raine, p. 92), says the “Picti” were in
        the van; Joh. Hexh. (_ib._ p. 119), calls them “Scotti”--both
        meaning simply what at a later time would have been called
        “wild Highlanders,” _i.e._ in this case men of Galloway. Hen.
        Hunt. puts the Lothian men in front, but he is clearly wrong.

        [731] Æthelred Riev. (as above), cols. 342, 343.

        [732] _Ib._ col. 345. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 9 (Arnold, pp.
        263, 264), who, however, turns the Galwegians into men of
        Lothian; see above, note 2{730}.

        [733] Æthelred Riev. as above.

        [734] Æthelred Riev. _De Bello Stand._ (Twysden, _X.
        Scriptt._), col. 346. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 9 (Arnold, p.
        264).

        [735] “Regale vexillum, quod ad similitudinem draconis
        figuratum facile agnoscebatur.” Æthelred Riev. as above. Had S.
        Margaret’s son adopted the old royal standard of her West-Saxon
        forefathers?

        [736] Æthelred Riev. and Hen. Hunt., as above. The two accounts
        do not seem to tally at first sight, but they are easily
        reconciled.

        [737] Æthelred Riev. as above. Cf. Flor. Worc. Contin.
        (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 112.

        [738] Hen. Hunt. as above. Ric. Hexh. (Raine), p. 93.

        [739] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above.

        [740] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 120. Serlo (Twysden, _X.
        Scriptt._), cols. 331, 332. According to this last, the
        scattered eatables consisted chiefly of bread, cheese and
        horseflesh, which, as well as other flesh, the Scots ate
        indifferently raw or cooked.--There is yet one other curious
        version of the Scottish rout and its cause: “Archiepiscopus
        cum militibus regis latenter occurrens super Cotowne more
        juxta Northallerton, fieri jussit in viis subterraneis
        quædam instrumenta sonos horribiles reddentia, quæ Anglicè
        dicuntur _petronces_; quibus resonantibus, feræ et cætera
        armenta quæ procedebant exercitum prædicti David regis in
        adjutorium, timore strepitûs perterriti, in exercitum David
        ferociter resiliebant.” (MS. _Life of Abp. Thurstan_, quoted
        by Mr. Raine, _Priory of Hexh._, vol. i. p. 92, note _t_).
        The primate’s share in the victory was so strongly felt at
        the time that in the Ann. Cicestr. a. 1138 (Liebermann,
        _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 95), the battle appears as “Bellum
        inter archiepiscopum Eboracensem et David.”

        [741] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), p. 93. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p. 120.

        [742] Ric. Hexh. (Raine), p. 100. Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p. 118.

The defeat of the Scots was shared by the English baron who had brought
them into the land. But Eustace Fitz-John was far from standing alone
in his breach of fealty to the English king. All the elements of
danger and disruption which had been threatening Stephen ever since
his accession suddenly burst forth in the spring of 1138.[743] Between
the king and the barons there had been from the first a total lack of
confidence. It could not be otherwise; for their mutual obligations
were founded on the breach of an earlier obligation contracted by both
towards Matilda and her son. There could not fail to be on both sides a
feeling that as they had all alike broken their faith to the Empress,
so they might at any moment break their faith to each other just as
lightly. But on one side the insecurity lay still deeper. Not only was
the king not sure of his subjects; he was not sure of himself. How far
Stephen was morally justified in accepting the crown after he had sworn
fealty to another candidate for it is a question whose solution depends
upon that of a variety of other questions which we are not bound to
discuss here. Politically, however, he could justify himself only in
one way: by proving his fitness for the office which he had undertaken.
What he proved was his unfitness for it. Stephen, in short, had done
the most momentous deed of his life as he did all the lesser ones,
without first counting the cost; and it was no sooner done than he
found the cost beyond his power to meet. A thoroughly unselfish hero,
a thoroughly unscrupulous tyrant, might have met it successfully, each
in his own way. But Stephen was neither hero nor tyrant; he was “a
mild man, soft and good--and did no justice.”[744] His weakness shewed
itself in a policy of makeshift which only betrayed his uneasiness
and increased his difficulties. His first expedient to strengthen his
position had been the unlucky introduction of the Flemish mercenaries;
his next was the creation of new earldoms in behalf of those whom he
regarded as his especial friends, whereby he hoped to raise up an
aristocracy wholly devoted to himself, but only succeeded in provoking
the resentment and contempt of the older nobility; while to indemnify
his new earls for their lack of territorial endowment and give them
some means of supporting their titular dignity, he was obliged to
provide them with revenues charged upon that of the Crown.[745] But
his prodigality had already made the Crown revenues insufficient for
his own needs;[746] and the next steps were the debasement of the
coinage[747] and the arbitrary spoliation of those whom he mistrusted
for the benefit of his insatiable favourites.[748] They grew greedier
in asking, and he more lavish in giving; castles, lands, anything and
everything, were demanded of him without scruple; and if their demands
were not granted the petitioners at once prepared for defiance.[749]
He flew hither and thither, but nothing came of his restless
activity;[750] he did more harm to himself than to his enemies,
giving away lands and honours almost at random, patching up a hollow
peace,[751] and then, when he found every man’s hand against him and
his hand against every man, bitterly complaining, “Why have they made
me king, only to leave me thus destitute? By our Lord’s Nativity, I
will not be a king thus disgraced!”[752]

        [743] “Hi igitur duo anni [_i.e._ 1136 and 1137] Stephani regis
        prosperrimi fuerunt, tertius vero ... mediocris et intercisus
        fuit; duo vero ultimi exitiales fuerunt et prærupti.” Hen.
        Hunt., l. viii. c. 5 (Arnold, p. 260). By this reckoning it
        seems that after Stephen’s capture at the battle of Lincoln
        Henry does not count him king at all.

        [744] Eng. Chron. a. 1137.

        [745] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 18 (Hardy, p. 712).

        [746] “He hadde get his [Henry’s] tresor, ac he todeld it and
        scatered sotlice.” Eng. Chron. a. 1137.

        [747] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 34 (Hardy, p. 732).

        [748] See the first and fullest example in the story of the
        siege of Bedford, December 1138–January 1139; _Gesta Steph._
        (Sewell), pp. 30–32. Cf. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 6 (Arnold, p.
        260). The sequel of the story is in _Gesta Steph._, p. 74.

        [749] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 18 (Hardy, p. 711).

        [750] “Modo hic, modo illic subitus aderat,” _ibid._
        “Raptabatur enim nunc huc nunc illuc, et adeo vix aliquid
        perficiebat.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 105. Cf. R.
        Glaber’s description of Stephen’s ancestor Odo II. (above, p.
        150).

        [751] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 18 (Hardy, pp. 711,
        712).

        [752] _Ib._ c. 17 (p. 711).

Matters were made worse by his relations with Earl Robert of
Gloucester. As son of the late king and half-brother of the Empress;
as one of the greatest and wealthiest landowners in England--earl of
Gloucester by his father’s grant, lord of Bristol and of Glamorgan
by his marriage with the heiress of Robert Fitz-Hamon--all-powerful
throughout the western shires and on the Welsh march--Robert was the
one man who above all others could most influence the policy of the
barons, and whom it was most important for Stephen to conciliate at any
cost. Robert had followed the king back to Normandy in 1137; throughout
their stay there William of Ypres strove, only too successfully, to
set them at variance; a formal reconciliation took place, but it was
a mere form;[753] and a few months after Stephen’s return to England
he was rash enough to order the confiscation of the earl’s English
and Welsh estates, and actually to raze some of his castles.[754] The
consequence was that soon after Whitsuntide Robert sent to the king a
formal renunciation of his allegiance, and to his vassals in England
instructions to prepare for war.[755] This message proved the signal
for a general rising. Geoffrey Talbot had already seized Hereford
castle;[756] in the north Eustace Fitz-John, as we have seen, joined
hands with the Scot king; while throughout the south and west the
barons shewed at once that they had been merely waiting for Robert’s
decision. Bristol under Robert’s own son;[757] Harptree under William
Fitz-John;[758] Castle Cary under Ralf Lovel; Dunster under William
of Mohun; Shrewsbury under William Fitz-Alan;[759] Dudley under
Ralf Paganel;[760] Burne, Ellesmere, Whittington and Overton under
William Peverel;[761] on the south coast, Wareham, another castle of
Earl Robert’s, held by Ralf of Lincoln, and Dover, held by Walkelyn
Maminot[762]:--all these fortresses, and many more, were openly made
ready for defence or defiance; and Stephen’s own constable Miles, who
as sheriff of Gloucester had only a few weeks before welcomed him into
that city with regal honours,[763] now followed the earl’s example and
formally renounced his allegiance.[764]

        [753] _Ib._ (p. 710).

        [754] _Ib._ c. 18 (p. 713).

        [755] _Ib._ p. 712; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 104. The
        grounds of the defiance were--1, the unlawfulness of Stephen’s
        accession; 2, his breach of his engagements towards Robert;
        3, the unlawfulness of Robert’s own oath to him as being
        invalidated, like Stephen’s claim to the crown, by the previous
        oath to Matilda. (Will. Malm. as above.)

        [756] At Ascension-tide. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 7 (Arnold,
        p. 261). There is also an account of the seizure of Hereford
        by Geoffrey Talbot in _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 69, where
        it seems to be placed in 1140. The writer has apparently
        confused the seizure by Geoffrey in 1138 with that by Miles of
        Gloucester in December 1139, and misdated both.

        [757] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 7 (Arnold, p. 261). Ord. Vit.
        (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 917. _Gesta Steph._
        (Sewell), p. 36.

        [758] Ord. Vit. as above. _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 43.

        [759] Hen. Hunt. and Ord. Vit. as above.

        [760] “Paganellus [tenuit] castellum de _Ludelaue_,” says Hen.
        Hunt. (as above). But we shortly afterwards find Stephen,
        according to Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 110),
        marching against “castellum de _Duddelæge_, quod Radulf Paignel
        contra illum munierat.” As Henry makes no mention of Dudley
        at all, and the continuator of Florence makes no mention of
        Ludlow till 1139, when he says nothing of its commander, it
        seems plain that there has been some mistake between the two
        names, which indeed might easily get confounded. Mr. Eyton
        (_Antiquities of Shropshire_, vol. v. pp. 244, 245) rules that
        the Continuator is right, as there is no trace of any connexion
        between Ralf Paganel and Ludlow, which indeed he shews to have
        been in other hands at this time. See below, p. 301.

        [761] Ord. Vit. as above.

        [762] Hen. Hunt. and Ord. Vit. as above.

        [763] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 105.

        [764] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 104.

The full force of the blow came upon Stephen while he was endeavouring
to dislodge Geoffrey Talbot from Hereford. After a siege of nearly five
weeks’ duration the town caught fire below the bridge; the alarmed
rebels offered terms, and Stephen with his usual clemency allowed them
to depart free.[765] After taking the neighbouring castle of Weobly,
and leaving a garrison there and another at Hereford,[766] he seems
to have returned to London[767] and there collected his forces for an
attack upon the insurgents in their headquarters at Bristol. Geoffrey
Talbot meanwhile made an attempt upon Bath, but was caught and put in
ward by the bishop. The latter however was presently captured in his
turn by the garrison of Bristol, who threatened to hang him unless
their friend was released. The bishop saved his neck by giving up his
prize; Stephen in great indignation marched upon Bath, and was, it is
said, with difficulty restrained from depriving the bishop of his ring
and staff--a statement which tells something of the way in which the
king kept his compact towards the Church. He contented himself however
with putting a garrison into Bath, and hurried on to the siege of
Bristol.[768]

        [765] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 106. The writer adds
        that on the very day of Stephen’s departure (June 15) Geoffrey
        set fire to everything beyond the Wye; seven or eight Welshmen
        perished, but no English (_ib._ p. 107)--an indication that the
        part of Hereford beyond the Wye was then a Welsh quarter.

        [766] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 106.

        [767] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 36.

        [768] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), pp. 108, 109. In _Gesta
        Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 37–39, 41, 42, the story is told at
        greater length, and the writer seems to defend the bishop and
        to consider his own hero rather ungrateful.

A survey of its environs soon convinced him that he had undertaken
a very difficult task. Bristol with its two encircling rivers was a
natural stronghold of no common order; and on the one side where nature
had left it unprotected, art had supplied the deficiency. The narrow
neck of land at the eastern end of the peninsula on which the town
stood--the only point whence it could be reached without crossing the
water--was in the Conqueror’s last days occupied by a castle which in
the Red King’s reign passed into the hands of Robert Fitz-Hamon, famed
alike in history and legend as the conqueror of Glamorgan; in those
of his son-in-law and successor, Earl Robert of Gloucester,[769] it
grew into a mighty fortress, provided with trench and wall, outworks
and towers, and all other military contrivances then in use,[770] and
surrounded on its exposed eastern side by a moat whose waters joined
those of the Avon on the south.[771] Bristol was in fact Robert’s
military capital, and under the command of his eldest son it had now
become the chief muster-place of all his dispossessed partizans and
followers, as well as of a swarm of mercenaries attracted thither from
all parts of the country by the advantages of the place and the wealth
and renown of its lord.[772] From this stronghold they sallied forth
in all directions to do the king all the mischief in their power. They
overran his lands and those of his adherents like a pack of hounds;
wholesale cattle-lifting was among the least of their misdeeds; every
wealthy man whom they could reach was hunted down or decoyed into their
den, and there tortured with every refinement of ingenious cruelty till
he had given up his uttermost farthing.[773] One Philip Gay, a kinsman
of Earl Robert, specially distinguished himself in the contrivance of
new methods of torture.[774] In his hands, and those of men like him,
Bristol acquired the title of “the stepmother of all England.”[775] If
Bristol could be reduced to submission, Stephen’s work would be more
than half done. He held a council of war with his barons to deliberate
on the best method of beginning the siege. Those who were in earnest
about the matter urged the construction of a mole to dam up the narrow
strait which formed the haven, whereby not only would the inhabitants
be deprived of their chief hope of succour, but the waters, checked
in their course and thrown back upon themselves, would swell into a
mighty flood and speedily overwhelm the city. Meanwhile, added the
supporters of this scheme, Stephen might build a tower on each side of
the city to check all ingress and egress by means of the two bridges,
while he himself should encamp with his host before the castle and
storm or starve it into surrender. Another party, however, whose secret
sympathies were with the besieged, argued that whatever material,
wood or stone, was used for the construction of the dam would be
either swallowed up in the depths of the river or swept away by its
current; and they drew such a dismal picture of the hopelessness of the
undertaking that Stephen gave it up, and with it all attempt at a siege
of Bristol. Turning southward, he struck across the Mendip hills into
the heart of Somerset, and besieged William Lovel in Castle Cary,[776]
a fortress whose remains, in the shape of three grass-covered mounds,
still overlook a little valley where the river Cary takes its rise
at the foot of the Polden hills. According to one account, the place
yielded to Stephen;[777] according to another,[778] he built over
against it a tower in which he left a detachment of soldiers to annoy
its garrison, and marched northward to another castle, Harptree, whose
site is now buried in the middle of a lonely wood. Harptree was gained
by a stratagem somewhat later on;[779] for the present Stephen left it
to be harassed by the garrison of Bath, and pursued his northward march
to Dudley. Here he made no attempt upon the castle, held against him
by Ralf Paganel, but contented himself with burning and harrying the
neighbourhood, and then led his host up the Severn to Shrewsbury.[780]
The old “town in the scrub,” or bush, as its first English conquerors
had called it, had grown under the care of its first Norman earl,
Roger of Montgomery, into one of the chief strongholds of the Welsh
border. The lands attached to the earldom, forfeited by the treason
of Robert of Bellême, had been granted by Henry I. to his second
queen, Adeliza; she and her second husband, William of Aubigny, had
now thrown themselves into the party of her stepdaughter the Empress;
and the castle built by Earl Roger on the neck of a peninsula in the
Severn upon which the town of Shrewsbury stands was held in Matilda’s
interest by William Fitz-Alan, who had married a niece of Robert
of Gloucester.[781] William himself, with his wife and children,
slipped out at the king’s approach, leaving the garrison sworn never
to surrender. Stephen, however, caused the fosse to be filled with
wood, set it on fire, and literally smoked them out.[782] The noblest
were hanged; the rest escaped as best they could,[783] while Stephen
followed up his success by taking a neighbouring castle which belonged
to Fitz-Alan’s uncle Arnulf of Hesdin, and hanging Arnulf himself with
ninety-three of his comrades.[784] This unwonted severity acted as a
salutary warning which took effect at the opposite end of the kingdom.
Queen Matilda, with a squadron of ships manned by sailors from her own
county of Boulogne, was blockading Walkelyn Maminot in Dover, when the
tidings of her husband’s victories in Shropshire induced Walkelyn to
surrender.[785] This was in August.[786] When a truce had been patched
up with Ralf Paganel,[787] the west of England might be considered
fairly pacified, and Stephen was free to march into Dorsetshire against
Earl Robert’s southernmost fortress, Wareham.[788] Nothing, however,
seems to have come of this expedition; and Robert himself was still
out of reach beyond sea. In the midland shires William Peverel, the
lord of the Peak country, was still unsubdued, but he was now almost
isolated, for in the north Eustace Fitz-John, as we have seen, had
drawn his punishment upon himself from other hands than those of the
king. Stephen’s successes in the west, his wife’s success at Dover,
were quickly followed by tidings of the victory at Cowton Moor; and
meanwhile a peacemaker had come upon the scene.

        [769] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3 (Hardy, p. 692).

        [770] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 37.

        [771] See plans and description in Seyer, _Mem. of Bristol_,
        vol. i. pp. 373 _et seq._

        [772] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 37.

        [773] _Ib._ p. 40, 41. Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii.
        p. 109. Both writers, however, seem to lay to the sole account
        of the Bristol garrison all the horrors which in the Eng.
        Chron. a. 1137, are attributed to the barons and soldiers in
        general throughout the civil war.

        [774] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above.

        [775] “Ad totius Angliæ novercam, Bristoam.” _Gesta Steph._
        (Sewell), p. 41.

        [776] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 43. Flor. Worc. Contin.
        (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 110.

        [777] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 43, 44.

        [778] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above.

        [779] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 44.

        [780] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above. On Dudley see above, p.
        295, note 4{760}.

        [781] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 917.

        [782] “Omnes infumigat et exfumigat.” Flor. Worc. Contin.
        (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 110.

        [783] _Ibid._

        [784] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 917.

        [785] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 7 (Arnold, p. 261).

        [786] Ord. Vit. as above.

        [787] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above.

        [788] _Ibid._

In the spring of 1138 a schism which had rent the Western Church
asunder for seven years was ended by the death of the anti-pope
Anacletus, and Pope Innocent II. profited by the occasion to send
Alberic bishop of Ostia as legate into England--Archbishop William
of Canterbury, who had held a legatine commission together with the
primacy, having died in November 1136.[789] Alberic landed just as
the revolt broke out, and Stephen had therefore no choice but to
accept his credentials and let him pursue his mission, whatever it
might be.[790] It proved to be wholly a mission of peace. Alberic made
a visitation-tour throughout England,[791] ending with a council at
Carlisle, whither the king of Scots, who had adhered to Anacletus, now
came to welcome Innocent’s representative. There, on the neutral ground
of young Henry’s English fief, the legate made an attempt to mediate
between David and Stephen; but all that the former would grant was a
truce until Martinmas, and a promise to bring to Carlisle and there set
free all the captive Englishwomen who could be collected before that
time, as well as to enforce more Christian-like behaviour among his
soldiers for the future.[792] On the third Sunday in Advent the legate
held a council at Westminster, when Theobald, abbot of Bec, was elected
archbishop of Canterbury by the prior of Christ Church and certain
delegates of the convent, in presence of the king and the legate.[793]
Theobald’s consecration, two days after Epiphany, brought Alberic’s
mission to a satisfactory close.[794]

        [789] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. pp. 97, 98. On
        Alberic see Ric. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 96, 97.

        [790] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 106.

        [791] _Ibid._ The details of his movements in the north are in
        Ric. Hexh. (Raine), p. 98, and Joh. Hexh. (_ibid._), p. 121.

        [792] Ric. Hex. (Raine), pp. 99, 100. Joh. Hexh. as above.

        [793] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 9 (Arnold, p. 265). Ric. Hexh.
        (Raine), pp. 101–103. Eng. Chron. a. 1140. Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 107–109, and vol. ii. p. 384. Chron.
        Becc., in Giles, _Lanfranc_, vol. i. p. 207. _Vita Theobaldi_
        (_ibid._), pp. 337, 338.

        [794] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 109.

In the work of mediation he had soon found that there was one who had
the matter more nearly at heart, and who had a much better chance
of success than himself. Queen Matilda was warmly attached to her
Scottish relatives, and lost no opportunity of urging her husband to
reconciliation with them. At last, on April 9, she and her cousin Henry
met at Durham; David and Henry gave hostages for their pacific conduct
in the future, and the English earldom of Northumberland was granted
to Henry.[795] The treaty was ratified by Stephen at Nottingham;[796]
the Scottish prince stayed to keep Easter with his cousins, and
afterwards accompanied the king in an expedition against Ludlow. The
castle of Ludlow, founded probably by Roger de Lacy in the reign of
William Rufus, was destined in after-days to become a treasure-house
alike for historian, antiquary and artist. Memories of every period in
English history from the twelfth century to the seventeenth throng the
mighty pile, in which almost every phase of English architecture may
be studied amid surroundings of the most exquisite natural beauty. The
site of the fortress, on a rocky promontory rising more than a hundred
feet above the junction of the Corve and the Teme, was admirably
adapted for defence. The northern and western walls of its outer ward
rose abruptly from the steep slope of the rock itself; on the east and
south it was protected by a ditch, crossed by a bridge which led to the
inner ward and the keep, securely placed near the south-western angle
of the enclosure.[797] The fief of Ludlow had escheated to the Crown
soon after Stephen’s accession,[798] and he had apparently bestowed it
upon one Joce or Joceas of Dinan,[799] who now, it seems, was holding
it against him. The siege came to nothing, though it was made memorable
by an incident which nearly cost the life of Henry of Scotland and
furnished occasion for a characteristic display of Stephen’s personal
bravery. A grappling-iron thrown from over the wall caught the Scottish
prince, dragged him off his horse, and had all but lifted him into
the castle, when the king rushed forward and set him free.[800] This
adventure, however, seems to have cooled Stephen’s ardour for the
assault, and after setting up two towers to hold the garrison in check,
he again withdrew to London.[801] Early in the year he had taken Earl
Robert’s castle of Leeds;[802] and altogether his prospects were
beginning to brighten, when they were suddenly overclouded again by his
own rashness and folly.

        [795] With the exception of Newcastle and Bamborough, and on
        condition that the local customs established by Henry I. should
        be maintained inviolate. Ric. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 105, 106. Hen.
        Hunt., l. viii. c. 10 (Arnold, p. 265), has a very strange
        version of the way in which this treaty was brought about; see
        below, p. 302, note 3{802}.

        [796] Ric. Hexh. (as above), p. 106.

        [797] See plan and description in Clark, _Mediev. Milit.
        Archit._, vol. ii. pp. 273–290.

        [798] By the death of Payne Fitz-John. See Eyton, _Antiqu.
        Shropshire_, vol. v. p. 244.

        [799] This is Joceas’s surname according to the romantic
        _History of Fulk Fitzwarine_, and it is adopted by Mr. Eyton,
        who takes it as derived from Dinan in Britanny; see his account
        of Joceas, _Antiqu. Shropsh._, vol. v. pp. 244–247. According
        to this, the name of _Dinham_, now borne by the part of Ludlow
        which lies south and west of the castle, would be a corruption
        of _Dinan_, which the above-mentioned romance (a work of the
        reign of Henry III.) says was the name given to the whole place
        in Joceas’s time. Mr. Wright, however (_Hist. Ludlow_, pp. 13,
        34), thinks that _Dinham_ was the original name, afterwards
        superseded by Ludlow; in which case Joceas becomes simply
        “Joceas of Dinham,” with a surname derived not from a foreign
        birthplace, but from an English fief.

        [800] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 10 (Arnold, p. 265).

        [801] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 115.

        [802] Hen. Hunt. as above. This is Leeds in Kent. It is
        probably through mistaking it for its Yorkshire namesake that
        Henry was misled into his odd notion that Stephen himself
        was fighting in the north, and compelled the Scots to a
        pacification. See above, p. 300, note 7{800}.

The administrative machinery of the state was still in the hands of
Bishop Roger of Salisbury and the disciples whom he had trained. Roger
himself retained his office of justiciar; the treasurership was held
by his nephew, Nigel bishop of Ely, and the chancellorship by one
whom he also called his nephew, but who was known to be really his
son. This latter was commonly distinguished as “Roger the Poor”--a
nickname pointed sarcastically at the enormous wealth of the elder
Roger, compared with which that of the younger might pass for poverty.
Outwardly, the justiciar stood as high in Stephen’s favour as he
had stood in Henry’s; whatever he asked--and he was not slack in
asking--was granted at once: “I shall give him the half of my kingdom
some day, if he demands it!” was Stephen’s own confession.[803] But
the greediness of the one and the lavishness of the other sprang
alike from a secret mistrust which the mischief-makers of the court
did their utmost to foster. Stephen’s personal friends assured him
that the bishop of Salisbury and his nephews were in treasonable
correspondence with the Empress, that they were fortifying and
revictualling their castles in her behalf, and that the worldly pomp
and show, the vast retinue of armed followers, with which they were
wont to appear at court, was really intended for the support of her
cause.[804] How far the suspicion was correct it is difficult to
decide. Roger owed his whole career to King Henry; he had broken his
plighted faith to Henry’s child; it is no wonder if his heart smote
him for the ungrateful deed. If, on the other hand, that deed had
been done from a real sense of duty to the state, a sincere belief in
the advantage of Stephen’s rule for England, then it is no wonder if
he felt that he had made a grievous mistake, and sought to repair it
by a return to his earlier allegiance. But whatever may be thought
of the bishop’s conduct, nothing can justify that of the king. At
Midsummer 1139 Stephen summoned Bishop Roger to come and speak with
him at Oxford. Some foreboding of evil--possibly some consciousness
of double-dealing--made the old man very unwilling to go;[805] but he
did go, and with him went his son the chancellor, and his two nephews,
the treasurer and Alexander bishop of Lincoln,[806] each accompanied
by a train of armed knights. Stephen, equally suspicious, bade his men
arm themselves likewise, to be ready in case of need. While he was
conversing with the bishops in Oxford castle,[807] a dispute about
quarters arose between their followers and those of the count of Meulan
and Alan of Richmond;[808] a fray ensued, in which Alan’s nephew was
nearly killed,[809] whereupon the two Rogers and the bishop of Lincoln
were at once seized by the king. Nigel of Ely, who was lodging apart
from the others outside the town,[810] escaped, threw himself into his
uncle’s castle of Devizes, and prepared to stand a siege.[811]

        [803] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 32 (Hardy, p. 729).

        [804] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 46, 47.

        [805] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 107. (This
        writer puts the event a year too early, but afterwards corrects
        himself, _ib._ p. 116). Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 20
        (Hardy, p. 717), says that he himself heard Roger’s expression
        of reluctance: “Per dominam meam S. Mariam (nescio quo
        pacto) reluctatur mens mea huic itineri! Hoc scio, quod ejus
        utilitatis ero in curiâ, cujus est equinus pullus in pugnâ.”
        This really seems to imply nothing more than that he was
        conscious of having lost all power to control or guide the king.

        [806] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 10 (Arnold, p. 265). Flor. Worc.
        Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 107.

        [807] “In castro Oxenfordiæ.” Ann. Oseney, a. 1139 (Luard,
        _Ann. Monast._, vol. iv. p. 23).

        [808] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 20 (Hardy, p. 717),
        lays the blame on the men of Alan of Richmond (or Britanny);
        the _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell, p. 49) on Waleran of Meulan. Flor.
        Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 108, gives no name.

        [809] Will. Malm. as above. Cf. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 124.

        [810] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 919.

        [811] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 108. _Gesta
        Steph._ (Sewell), p. 50.

The town of Devizes stands on a steep escarpment of greensand
penetrated by two deep ravines which give it the form of a semicircle
with a tongue projecting in the middle. On this tongue of rocky ground,
five hundred feet above the level of the sea, the bishop of Salisbury
had reared a castle unsurpassed in strength and splendour by any
fortress in Europe.[812] At its gates Stephen soon appeared, bringing
the two Rogers with him as captives. The elder he lodged in a cowshed,
the younger he threatened to hang if the place was not surrendered at
once. Its unhappy owner, in terror for his son’s life, vowed neither
to eat nor drink till the castle was in the hands of Stephen;[813] but
neither his uncle’s fasting nor his cousin’s danger moved Nigel to
yield. The keep, however, was held by the chancellor’s mother, Matilda
of Ramsbury, and the sight of a rope actually round her son’s neck
overcame her resistance. She offered her own life in exchange for his,
and the offer being refused, she surrendered. Nigel could only follow
her example.[814] Roger’s other castles, Sherborne and Malmesbury,
soon fell likewise into the king’s hands, and with them the enormous
treasure collected by their owner.[815] Alexander of Lincoln was
dragged to the gates of Newark and there kept starving till he induced
his people to give up the place; and his other castle, Sleaford, was
gained by the same means.[816]

        [812] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 10 (Arnold, p. 265).

        [813] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above. In Ord. Vit. (Duchesne,
        _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 920, it is the king who vows to
        starve the bishop till the castle is won. Cf. Hen. Hunt. (as
        above) and Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 20 (Hardy, p.
        718).

        [814] Ord. Vit. as above.

        [815] Hen. Hunt. and Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._ as above. The
        Eng. Chron. tells the whole tale briefly under a wrong year (a.
        1137).

        [816] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 11 (Arnold, p. 266).

Such an outrage as Stephen had committed could not pass unchallenged.
His victims indeed were unpopular enough; but two of them were
bishops, and the whole English Church was up in arms at once. And
the English Church was no longer without a fully qualified spokesman
and leader. That leader, however, was not the new-made primate. The
legatine commission held by William of Corbeil was not renewed to his
successor in the archbishopric: it was sent instead to the man who had
long been the most influential member of the English episcopate--Henry,
bishop of Winchester. For nearly four months Henry kept this
all-powerful weapon lying idly in the scabbard;[817] now, at the call
of duty, neither fear nor love hindered him from drawing it against his
own brother. Having vainly dinned into Stephen’s ears, both privately
and publicly, his entreaties for the restoration of the two bishops, he
fell back upon his legatine powers and cited the king to answer for his
conduct before a council at Winchester on August 29.[818]

        [817] Innocent’s commission bore date March 1, 1139. Will.
        Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 22 (Hardy, p. 719).

        [818] _Ib._ c. 21 (p. 719).

The council sat for three days, and the case was argued out between
Stephen’s advocate Aubrey de Vere, the bishop of Salisbury and the
legate. Henry formally charged his brother with sacrilege, in having
laid violent hands upon bishops, and appropriated their lands and
goods to his own use. Stephen met the charge with the plea which had
been used by the Conqueror against Odo of Bayeux--he had arrested the
culprits not as bishops, but as unfaithful ministers and disloyal
subjects; and the property which he had taken from them they had
acquired as private men, in defiance of the canons of the Church.
Roger retorted that all these accusations were false; both parties
threatened an appeal to Rome, and swords were drawn almost in the
council-chamber.[819] The legate and the primate intervened as
peacemakers, and a compromise was arranged. It was decreed by the
council that all prelates who held fortresses other than those which
belonged to their sees should place them under the king’s control,
and confine themselves henceforth to their canonical duties and
rights.[820] On the other hand, Stephen’s act was solemnly condemned,
and he had to lay aside his royal robes and come as an humble penitent
to receive the censure of the Church.[821] This humiliation saved
him from the ecclesiastical penalties of his misdeed; from its
political consequences nothing could save him now. He had filled up
the measure of his follies. When the obedience of the barons had been
forfeited--when the trust of the people had been shaken--two forces
still remained by whose help he might have recovered all that he had
lost: the administration and the clergy. At a single blow he had
destroyed the one and thrown the other into opposition.

        [819] _Ib._ cc. 22–28 (pp. 719–724).

        [820] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 116. _Gesta
        Steph._ (Sewell), p. 51.

        [821] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 51, 52.

His rivals saw that the hour for which they were vainly waiting in
Normandy had struck at last in England. All Geoffrey’s attempts on
Normandy had failed. At the expiration of his truce with Theobald of
Blois in 1136 the barons of Anjou were again in revolt,[822] and it
was not till the end of September that Geoffrey was free to invade
the duchy. Its internal confusion was such that the twin earls of
Meulan and Leicester (sons of King Henry’s friend Robert), who were
trying to govern it for Stephen, had been obliged again to call Count
Theobald to their aid; but at sight of the hated “Guirribecs,” as the
Angevins were derisively called, the Normans forgot their differences
and rose as one man against the common foe. On October 1 Geoffrey
was wounded in the right foot while besieging the castle of Le Sap
near Lisieux; that night his wife joined him with reinforcements; but
the morning had scarcely dawned when, like another Geoffrey of Anjou
ninety years earlier, he fled with all his host[823]--not, however,
before the military fame of the Norman duke, but before the vengeance
of the Norman people. Next spring he again ventured to attack the
Hiesmois.[824] Stephen, who was now in Normandy and had just won its
investiture from King Louis, prepared to meet the invader; but the
jealousies between his Norman and his Flemish troops compelled him
to abandon the attempt and make another truce for two years.[825]
In April next the Angevins broke the truce;[826] in June Robert of
Gloucester openly declared for them, and under his influence Bayeux
and Caen surrendered to Geoffrey. The count of Anjou retired, however,
before a threatened attack from Stephen’s cousin Ralf of Vermandois,
in conjunction with Waleran of Meulan and William of Ypres.[827] Early
in October he made an unsuccessful attempt upon Falaise.[828] In
November he marched upon Toucques, then one of the most flourishing
seaport towns of Normandy. The burghers were taken captive “seated in
their own arm-chairs,” and in their comfortable houses the Angevins,
after feasting to their heart’s content, settled themselves carelessly
for the night. But their presence was known to William Trussebut, the
governor of the neighbouring castle of Bonneville; and at dead of night
a band of desperate characters, purposely chosen for a desperate deed,
came by his orders from Bonneville to Toucques, dispersed silently
throughout the town, and fired it in forty-five places. The Angevins,
wakened by the cries of the watchmen and the roaring of the flames,
fled headlong, leaving their arms, horses and baggage behind them.
William Trussebut had come forth at the head of his men to intercept
their flight, but the smoke and the darkness were such that neither
party could distinguish friends from foes. Geoffrey, bewildered as
he was, managed to bring some of his men to a stand in a cemetery;
there the rest of the Angevin force gradually collected, and waited,
in shame and trembling, for the day. At the first gleam of morning
they fled, and never stopped till they had buried themselves and their
disgrace safe within the walls of Argentan.[829] This time the Normans
had taught Geoffrey a lesson which he did not soon forget; he did not
venture to meddle with them again for more than two years. Neither
he nor his wife made any movement at all till late in the following
summer, when a prospect was opened for them beyond the sea by Stephen’s
arrest of the two bishops. The council of Winchester broke up on the
first of September;[830] on the thirtieth the Empress was in England.

        [822] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 268, 269.
        Cf. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 903.

        [823] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 903–908. Rob. Torigni, a. 1136.

        [824] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 909, says he was “stipendiarius
        conjugi suæ factus.”

        [825] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 910.
        Rob. Torigni, a. 1137, makes it three years. Stephen also
        promised an annual payment of two thousand marks of silver.

        [826] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 916.

        [827] Ord. Vit. as above.

        [828] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 918. Chronn. S. Albin. and S.
        Serg. a. 1138 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 34, 145).

        [829] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 918, 919.

        [830] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 29 (Hardy, p. 724).




CHAPTER VI.

ENGLAND AND THE BARONS.

1139–1147.


On the last day of September 1139 Matilda sailed in company with her
brother Robert and a hundred and forty knights;[831] they landed at
Arundel, and were received into the castle by its owner, the ex-queen
Adeliza.[832] Stephen hurried to besiege them there, but before he
could reach the spot one of the travellers had left it. Earl Robert
only stayed to place his sister in safety beneath her step-mother’s
roof,[833] and then set off to arouse her friends in England with the
tidings of her arrival. Stephen flew after him, but in vain. With an
escort of only twelve knights he rode right across southern England,
met Brian of Wallingford and told him the news, carried it on to Miles
at Gloucester, and got safe to his journey’s end at Bristol.[834] The
baffled king threw all his energies into the siege of Arundel, till his
brother joined him and suggested another scheme. Bishop Henry argued
that it was useless to besiege the Empress at one end of England while
her brother was stirring up the other, and that it would be far wiser
to get all the enemies collected in one spot by letting her follow
him to Bristol.[835] That Stephen, having once made up his mind to
this course, should not only give his rival a safe-conduct but should
commission the count of Meulan and the bishop of Winchester himself
to escort her till she reached her brother’s care,[836] was only what
might have been expected from his chivalrous character. Of the wisdom
of the proceeding it is difficult to judge. We can hardly imagine
either of Stephen’s predecessors giving a safe-conduct to a competitor
for his crown; but neither Rufus nor Henry had had to deal at once
with a lady-rival and with her brother; and both had been, materially,
politically and morally, in a much stronger position than Stephen.
As matters then stood with him, what in itself looks like a piece of
Quixotism may have been the best means of cutting an awkward knot; and
both he and Matilda played their game so badly from beginning to end
that it is hardly worth while to criticize single moves on either side.

        [831] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 29 (Hardy, p.
        724). The _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 56, and Rob. Torigni,
        a. 1139, also name Arundel as the landing-place, but give
        no date. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 11 (Arnold, p. 266), says
        merely “statim,”--_i.e._ immediately after the council at
        Winchester. Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. pp. 116,
        117, says first “in October,” and afterwards “before S.
        Peter-in-chains,”--_i.e._ August 1; but he is clearly wrong in
        this as well as in saying they landed at Portsmouth.

        [832] Will. Malm. as above (p. 725).

        [833] Rob. Torigni, a. 1139, says he left her there “cum uxore
        suâ et aliis impedimentis.”

        [834] Will. Malm. as above. _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 56.
        Rob. Torigni, a. 1139.

        [835] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 56, 57.

        [836] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 29 (Hardy, p. 725).
        Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 117. Hen. Hunt., l.
        viii. c. 11 (Arnold, p. 266).

The next seven years were a time such as England never saw before or
since. For want of a better name, we call them the years of civil
war and count them as part of the reign of Stephen; but the struggle
was not worthy of the name of war, and the authority of the Crown,
whether vested in Stephen or in Matilda, was a mockery and a shadow.
The whole system of government established by King Henry had fallen
with his ministers; the death of Bishop Roger in December 1139[837] was
typical of the extinction of all law and order throughout the kingdom,
nearly half of which had already slipped from Stephen’s grasp. While
he kept his Christmas feast in Roger’s episcopal city,[838] Matilda
was doing the like in regal state at Gloucester, receiving homage
from the western shires, and distributing lands and honours at her
will.[839] Of the Easter assembly there is no notice at all,[840]
and by Whitsuntide matters had reached such a pass that Stephen held
his court not at Westminster as usual but in the Tower, and only one
bishop, and that one a foreigner, could be got to attend it.[841] “In
those days,” wrote one who lived through them, “there was no king in
the land, and every man did not only, as once in Israel of old, that
which was right in his own eyes, but that which he knew and felt to
be wrong.”[842] For the first and last time in English history, the
feudal principle had full play, uncontrolled by any check either from
above or from below, from regal supremacy or popular influence. England
was at the mercy of the body of feudal nobles whose aim throughout
the last seventy years had been to break through the checks placed
upon their action by the Conqueror and his sons, and to master the
power of the Crown and the control of the state for their own private
interests, as the French feudataries had striven in an earlier time to
master the Crown of France. This was the condition into which Normandy
fell whenever its ducal coronet passed to a weak man or a child, and
from which it had had to be forcibly rescued by almost every duke in
succession, from Richard the Fearless to Henry the First. By their
sternly repressive policy, by their careful adoption and dexterous
use of all those safeguards and checks upon the power of the baronage
which could be drawn from old English constitutional practice, by their
political alliance with the nation against the disruptive tendencies
of feudalism, and by their strict administrative routine, the
Conqueror and his sons had hitherto managed to save England from such
a catastrophe. The break-down of their system under Stephen revealed
its radical defect: it rested, in the last resort, on a purely personal
foundation--on the strong hand of the king himself. The “nineteen
winters” that England “suffered for her sins” under the nominal reign
of Stephen were a time of discipline which taught the people, the
sovereign, and at last even the barons themselves, to seek a wider
and more lasting basis for the organization and administration of the
state. The discipline was a very bitter one. The English chronicler’s
picture of it has been copied times out of number, yet whoever would
paint that terrible scene can but copy it once again. “Every rich man
made his castles and held them against the king, and filled the land
with castles. They greatly oppressed the wretched men of the land with
castle-work; and when the castles were made, they filled them with
devils and evil men. They took the men who they weened had any goods,
both by night and by day, men and women, and put them in prison for
gold and silver, and tortured them with unspeakable torture; never
were martyrs so tortured as they were.... When the wretched men had
no more to give, they reaved and burned all the townships; and well
thou mightest fare all a day’s journey and shouldst never find a man
sitting in a township, or land tilled. Corn and cheese and butter were
dear, for there was none in the land. Wretched men starved of hunger;
some went about asking alms who once were rich men; some fled out of
the land. Never was more wretchedness in a land, and never did heathen
men worse than these did, for they forbore neither for church nor
churchyard, but took all the goods that were therein and then burned
church and all.... If two or three men came riding to a township, all
fled from them, thinking they were reavers. The bishops and clerks
were ever cursing them; but that was nought to them; for they were all
accursed, and forsworn, and lost. Even if it was tilled, the earth bare
no corn, for it was all undone with their deeds; and they said openly
that Christ slept, and His holy ones. Such things, and more than we can
say, did we thole nineteen winters for our sins.”[843]

        [837] Will. Malm. (as above), c. 32 (Hardy, p. 727). Flor.
        Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 113, under a wrong year.

        [838] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 122.

        [839] _Ib._ p. 118. Will. Malm. (as above), cc. 29, 31 (pp.
        725, 726).

        [840] The only allusion to it is in Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 12
        (Arnold, p. 267); “Ubi autem ad Natale vel ad Pascha fuerit
        [sc. rex], dicere non attinet.” As to Christmas, however, see
        above, p. 310.

        [841] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 37 (Hardy, p. 734).
        The bishop was John of Séez.

        [842] Will. Newb., l. i. c. 22 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 69).

        [843] Eng. Chron. a. 1137.

The military history of the struggle is scarcely worth following out
in detail; for the most part it is but a dreary tale of raid and
counter-raid, of useless marches and unfinished sieges, of towns
and castles taken and retaken, plundered and burned, without any
settled plan of campaign on either side.[844] By the close of the
year 1140 the geographical position of the two parties may be roughly
marked off by a line drawn from the Peak of Derbyshire to Wareham on
the Dorset coast. Owing to the influence of Robert of Gloucester,
Matilda was generally acknowledged throughout the western shires; but
she was almost imprisoned in them, for the great highway of central
England, the valley of the Thames, from Oxford to the sea, was still
in Stephen’s hands; London was loyal to him, and so was Kent, although
the archbishop as yet stood aloof from both parties, as did also the
legate-bishop of Winchester and the bishops and clergy in general.
North of Thames, the midland shires served as a wide battle-field where
each of the combatants in turn gained and lost ground, without any
decisive advantage on either side. In East-Anglia, Hugh Bigod was for
the moment again professing obedience to Stephen, but he was simply
watching the political tide to take it at the flood and use it for
his own interest; and so were the chief men of central and northern
England, the earls of Northampton, Derby and York, the lords of the
Peak, of Holderness and of Richmond. In the north-west, between the
Welsh march and the southern border of Cumberland, lay a district ruled
by an almost independent chieftain whose action brought about the first
crisis in the war.

        [844] The details of the first year’s fighting are in _Gesta
        Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 58–69; Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol.
        ii. pp. 118–128; and Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. cc. 30,
        31, 34–37 (Hardy, pp. 726, 730–735).

Of all the great nobles, the one whom both parties were most anxious
to win to their own interest was the earl of Chester. His earldom
was no empty title, no mushroom creation of the last few years, but
a great palatine jurisdiction inherited in regular succession from
Hugh of Avranches, on whom it had been conferred by the Conqueror, and
comprising the sole government and ownership of the whole of Cheshire.
Within its limits the earl ruled supreme; every acre of land, save
what belonged to the Church, was held under him; every man owed him
suit and service; the king himself had no direct authority within the
little realm of Chester, and could claim from its sovereign nothing
but the homage due from vassal to overlord. The earl, in fact, as has
been often said, “held Chester by the sword as freely as the king
held England by the crown;” and as things now stood the earl’s tenure
was by far the more secure of the two. The present ruler of this
miniature kingdom, Ralf by name, had been married almost in his boyhood
to a daughter of Robert of Gloucester.[845] All his father-in-law’s
persuasions, however, had as yet failed to draw him to Matilda’s
side. Stephen on the other hand was equally alive to the importance
of securing Ralf’s adherence, and lavished upon him all the honours
he could desire,[846] with one exception. That one was the earldom
of Carlisle, which his father had held for a few years and then
surrendered in exchange for that of his cousin Richard of Chester,
who perished in the White Ship.[847] Ralf accordingly quarrelled for
the possession of Carlisle with Henry of Scotland, of whose Cumbrian
earldom it now formed a part. Henry appealed to Stephen, who could not
but take his side,[848] yet for his own sake was anxious to satisfy
Ralf. The mother of Ralf and of his elder half-brother William of
Roumare was a great Lincolnshire heiress, daughter of Ivo Taillebois
by his marriage with a lady of Old-English race whose family held
considerable estates in that county, of which one of them had been
sheriff under the Conqueror.[849] In consequence, no doubt, of this old
connexion, Stephen at the close of the year 1140 contrived a meeting
with the two brothers somewhere in Lincolnshire, and there bestowed
great honour upon them both,[850] including, as it seems, a grant of
the earldom of Lincoln to William of Roumare.[851] A mere empty title,
however, satisfied neither of the brother-earls. Rather, as the English
chronicler says of them and of all the rest, “the more he gave them the
worse they were to him.”[852] His back was no sooner turned than they
planned a trick, which their wives helped them to execute, for gaining
possession of Lincoln castle.[853] There Ralf set himself up as lord
and master of the city and the neighbourhood;[854] and we can want no
more speaking witness to the character of such feudal tyranny as was
represented in his person than the fact that not only the citizens, but
Stephen’s late victim Bishop Alexander himself, sent the king an urgent
appeal to come and deliver them from the intruder.[855]

        [845] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 38 (Hardy, p. 739).

        [846] “Noht forthi thæt he ne iaf him al thæt he cuthe axan
        him, alse he dide alle othre.” Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

        [847] On the earldoms of Carlisle and Chester, see Mr. Hodgson
        Hinde’s _Introd. to Pipe Rolls of Cumberland_, and his paper on
        the “Early History of Cumberland,” in _Archæological Journal_,
        vol. xvi. pp. 229, 230.

        [848] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 131, 132.

        [849] On the person, pedigree and connexions of Ralf’s mother,
        Countess Lucy, see Appendix P.P. to Mr. Freeman’s _Norm.
        Conq._, vol. iii. pp. 778, 779; and Mr. J. G. Nichols’s paper
        on the “Earldom of Lincoln,” in _Proceedings of Archæological
        Institute_, Lincoln, 1849, pp. 254–257.

        [850] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 38 (Hardy, p. 739).

        [851] See Nichols, “Earldom of Lincoln” (_Proc. Archæol.
        Inst._, Lincoln, 1849), p. 260.

        [852] Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

        [853] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 921.

        [854] “Cumque civibus et affinibus dira injungeret.” _Gesta
        Steph._ (Sewell), p. 70.

        [855] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 38 (Hardy, p. 739).
        _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 70. Ord. Vit. as above. The last
        alone mentions the bishop.

The news reached Stephen as he was keeping Christmas in London, and the
peaceful gathering of the court changed into the muster of an armed
host which set off at once for Lincoln, and, actively supported by
the citizens and the bishop, sat down to besiege the castle.[856] The
present polygonal keep of Lincoln castle appears to have been built by
Ralf of Chester in the last years of Stephen’s reign. That which he now
occupied stood on the same spot, on the south side of the enclosure,
and was the original round shell built by the Conqueror upon a mound
of still earlier date. Its base was surrounded by ditches, the outer
fortifications on that side being on a lower level, and probably still
consisting of nothing more than the old English rampart-mound and
palisade; the other three sides of the enclosure, where there was no
such steep natural incline, were protected by a curtain-wall raised
upon the old mounds, and encircled by ditches wide and deep, but
dry, for there was no means of contriving a moat on the top of that
limestone crag. The brother-earls were not prepared for Stephen’s
prompt and vigorous attack: their force was small, and they had their
wives and children to protect. Ralf slipped out alone,[857] made his
way to Chester to raise his followers there, and sent a message to his
father-in-law offering his allegiance to the Empress if Robert would
help the besieged at Lincoln out of their strait.[858] Even had his
own daughter not been among them, Earl Robert was not the man to miss
such a chance. At the head of the entire force of his party he answered
Ralf’s appeal; but so keenly did he feel the importance of the crisis
that he kept the real object of his expedition a secret from all but
his own nearest friends; and the bulk of his host followed him all the
way from Gloucester without any idea whither he was leading them, till
they found themselves actually in sight of the foe.[859]

        [856] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 13 (Arnold, p. 268). Ord. Vit. as
        above. According to Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 38,
        39 (Hardy, pp. 739, 740), the castle was closely invested all
        round, and a chief base of operations seems to have been the
        minster.

        [857] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 38 (Hardy, p. 740).
        Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 921.

        [858] Ord. Vit. as above.

        [859] Will. Malm. (as above), c. 39 (p. 741).

The two earls probably met at Claybrook in Leicestershire. At that
point Ralf, coming down from Chester by the Watling Street, and Robert,
marching up by a branch road from Gloucester, would both strike into
the Foss-Way, and thence would follow its north-eastward course along
the eastern side of the Trent valley. Between the road, the river
and the promontory of Lincoln stretched a tract of low-lying marshy
ground across which the Foss-Dyke ran from the Trent at Torksey into
the Witham just above the bridge of Lincoln, thus connecting the two
rivers and forming an outlet for the superfluous waters of the Trent,
which in rainy seasons was only too apt, as it is even now, to overflow
its banks and flood all the surrounding country. Against the storms
of the winter of 1140 all precautions had failed; the surging stream
had risen far above the level of the dyke, and the greater part of the
ground between it and the south-western slope of the Lincoln hill was
drowned in one vast sheet of water. The Foss-Way entered the city by
a bridge over the Witham; the two earls, however, could not venture to
take this route, and made instead for an ancient ford which crossed
the river a little farther westward, nearer to its junction with the
Foss-Dyke. Stephen was evidently expecting them and had anticipated
their course, for he had posted a detachment of troops to guard the
site of this ford.[860] All trace of the ford itself, however, was lost
in the flood. “Even so would I have it,” cried the earl of Gloucester
to his son-in-law, as in the dawn of Candlemas-day they reached the
southern margin of the water; “once across, retreat will be impossible;
we must conquer or die.” The two leaders plunged in, swam boldly across
the fordless stream, and their whole host followed their example.[861]
Stephen’s outpost fled or was overcome, and the earls apparently wound
their way round the foot of the hill till they reached a tract of
comparatively high and dry ground on its south-western side. On the
eastern border of this tract, close under shelter of the ridge, a dark
moving shadow might tell them that swift and secret as their march had
been, Stephen was aware of it and had drawn out all his forces to meet
them;[862] while on the height above there loomed out dimly, through
the chill grey mist of the February morning, the outlines of the
fortress which they had come to deliver.

        [860] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 71. See note at end of
        chapter.

        [861] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 40 (Hardy, p. 741).
        Cf. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 15 (Arnold, p. 268).

        [862] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 71. See note at end of
        chapter.

As they drew up in battle array on the marshy meadows there arose a
momentary dispute for precedence. The fiery young earl of Chester
pleaded that as the quarrel was his, so the foremost place of danger
and of honour should be his likewise. But the quarrel was no longer
Ralf’s alone. The flower of the army which had come to aid him
consisted of the “Disinherited,” the men whom Stephen had deprived
of their lands and honours to bestow them on his own favourites--the
men whom Henry had raised up and whom Stephen had cast down[863]--and
for them Earl Robert claimed the right of striking the first blow to
avenge at once their own wrongs and those of King Henry’s heiress.
While his eloquence was winding up their feelings to the highest pitch
of excitement,[864] all was astir in the royal camp. There, too, crown
and kingdom were felt to be at stake, and many of Stephen’s friends
besought him not to risk everything in a pitched battle till he should
have gathered a larger force--above all, not on that holy day, for it
was Sexagesima Sunday as well as the feast of the Purification.[865]
Sinister omens at the early mass--the breaking of the lighted taper
in the king’s hand, the falling of the pyx upon the altar[866]--lent
additional force to their entreaties; but Stephen was impatient for
the crisis and would hear of no delay.[867] He drew up his host in
three divisions; two on horseback, commanded respectively by Alan of
Richmond and William of Ypres;[868] the third on foot around the royal
standard, with the king himself in their midst.[869] In the opposing
army the van was taken by the “Disinherited”; the men of Chester,
who had first occupied it, now stood in the second line, under the
command of their own earl, and on foot.[870] The third line was headed
by Robert of Gloucester, and on the wings of the host was a crowd of
half-savage Welshmen, drawn from the Welsh dependencies of the earldoms
of Gloucester and Chester, and “better furnished with daring than with
arms.”[871]

        [863] “Quos magnus rex Henricus erexit, iste dejecit--ille
        instruxit, iste destruxit.” Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 15 (Arnold,
        p. 270).

        [864] See Robert’s speech in Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 15
        (Arnold, pp. 268–271); and cf. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist.
        Norm. Scriptt._), p. 922. What does Orderic mean by “Bassiani”?

        [865] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 921.

        [866] _Ib._ p. 922. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 16 (Arnold, p.
        271). There is another version of the story about the taper in
        _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 70, 71.

        [867] Ord. Vit. as above.

        [868] “Tres nimirum cohortes sibi Rex constituit.... In primâ
        fronte regalis exercitûs Flandritæ et Britones erant.” _Ibid._
        Compared with the account of the actual battle in Hen. Hunt.,
        l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, pp. 273, 274), the meaning seems to be
        as given above.

        [869] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 16 (Arnold, p. 271).

        [870] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 922. Cf. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c.
        13 (Arnold, p. 268), and c. 18 (p. 273).

        [871] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 13 (Arnold, p. 268). Cf. Ord.
        Vit. as above.

In the midst of a spirited harangue addressed to the royal troops by
Baldwin of Clare--for among all Stephen’s popular gifts, that of
eloquence was lacking[872]--Earl Robert sounded his trumpets for the
attack. The Disinherited charged the first line of the royal cavalry
under the earls of Richmond, Meulan, Norfolk, Northampton and Surrey,
with such vigour that it was scattered almost in a moment. The second
line of Stephen’s cavalry--the Flemings under William of Ypres and the
count of Aumale--were attacked in flank by the Welsh, whom they put
to flight, but a charge of the men of Chester dispersed them in their
turn, and the whole body of horsemen on the king’s side turned tail at
once.[873] Even William of Ypres for once forsook his royal friend; and
the hasty flight of the other leaders, with Alan of Richmond at their
head, shewed how half-hearted was their attachment to the king.[874]
Stephen and his foot-soldiers were left alone in the midst of the foe,
who closed round them on all sides and set to work to assault them
as if besieging a fortress. Again and again the horsemen dashed upon
that living wall, each time leaving a ghastly breach, but each time
driven back from the central point[875] where the king stood like a
lion at bay,[876] cutting down every one who came within reach of his
sword. The sword broke; but a citizen of Lincoln who stood at his side
replaced it by a yet more terrible weapon--one of those two-handed
Danish battle-axes which it seems had not yet gone quite out of use in
the Danelaw.[877] Almost all his followers were taken or slain, yet
still he fought on, with the rage of a wild beast[878] and the courage
of a hero, alone against an army. At last Chester charged with all
his forces straight at the king. Down upon his helmet came the axe,
and Ralf, on his knees in the mire, learned that he was even yet no
match for his deserted and outraged sovereign.[879] Most likely it was
that blow, dealt at the traitor with all Stephen’s remaining strength,
which broke the axe in his hands.[880] Then a stone, hurled no one knew
whence, struck him on the head and he fell.[881] A knight, William of
Kahaines, seized him by the helmet, shouting “Hither, hither! I have
the king!”[882] Yet even then Stephen shook him off, and it was only
to Robert of Gloucester in person that he deigned to surrender at
last.[883] Baldwin of Clare and three other faithful ones were captured
with him; all the rest of the gallant little band were already taken
or slain.[884] The triumphant host marched into Lincoln and sacked
the town under the royal captive’s eyes.[885] He was then conveyed to
Gloucester and there presented, as a great prize, by Earl Robert to his
sister, who straightway sent him to prison in Bristol castle.[886]

        [872] “Tunc quia rex Stephanus festivâ carebat voce.” Hen.
        Hunt., l. viii. c. 16 (Arnold, p. 271).

        [873] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, pp. 273, 274).

        [874] “His men him suyken and flugæn.” Eng. Chron. a. 1140.
        Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 134, says Alan deserted before the
        battle began, but Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, p. 273),
        and Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 922, both
        name him as receiving the first charge. Orderic (as above) is
        loud in his denunciations of the traitors. He says that some
        of them had adopted a practice not unknown in the civil war of
        the seventeenth century, and still more largely followed in
        the Jacobite risings of the eighteenth--that of joining the
        king with a part of their men, and sending the remainder to his
        enemies.

        [875] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, p. 274).

        [876] “Stetit autem rex in acie quasi leo.” Joh. Hexh. (Raine),
        p. 135.

        [877] _Ibid._ Hen. Hunt. (as above) says the axe was the first
        weapon, and the sword replaced it when broken, but John’s is
        far the more likely version. See also Ord. Vit. (as above) and
        Rob. Torigni, a. 1141.

        [878] “Rugiens ut leo ... stridens dentibus, spumans ore, apri
        more.” Rob. Torigni, a. 1141.

        [879] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 135.

        [880] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, p. 274), says that
        both sword and axe broke.

        [881] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 40 (Hardy, p. 742).

        [882] Hen. Hunt. as above.

        [883] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._) p. 922. Joh.
        Hexh. as above. For other accounts see Will. Malm. as above;
        _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 71; and Will. Newb., l. i. c. 8
        (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 39, 40). All agree in praise of Stephen’s
        valour.

        [884] Ord. Vit. as above. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold,
        pp. 274, 275).

        [885] Will. Malm., Hen. Hunt. and Will. Newb. as above.

        [886] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 41 (Hardy, p. 742).
        Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 19 (Arnold, p. 275). Will. Newb., l. i.
        c. 8 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 40). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 72.
        Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 129, giving the date,
        February 9 [1141].

Matilda’s day had come now. Within three weeks after the battle of
Lincoln one of her adherents, Miles Beauchamp, regained Bedford castle
from its titular earl Hugh the Poor;[887] William Peverel was forced
to surrender Nottingham;[888] Hervey of Lions, Stephen’s son-in-law,
was driven out of Devizes;[889] and Alan of Richmond, repenting of
his treason and vainly striving to atone for it, was caught in a trap
which he himself had laid for Ralf of Chester, flung into a dungeon,
and compelled to make submission to the earl and the Empress both at
once;[890] while voluntary offers of service and homage came flowing
in to Gloucester from all quarters.[891] Still the clergy held aloof.
The outrage of Midsummer 1139 had made it impossible for them to
support the king; but he was still the Lord’s anointed, to whom their
faith was pledged; and their leader, Henry of Winchester, was his own
brother. Matilda, anxious above all things to gain Henry’s adhesion,
bluntly sent him word that if he would join her, she would honour him
as the chief among her counsellors; if not, she would lead “all the
armies of England” against him at once. The legate, thus driven into
a corner--for, at the moment, her words were by no means an empty
threat--felt that even for his brother’s interest, let alone the
interest of the Church, which was really dearer to him than all beside,
his best course was to make terms with the victorious party.[892] The
terms were arranged between him and his imperial cousin in person, on
a rainy March morning in the plain before Winchester. Next day the old
West-Saxon capital opened its gates to the Empress, and the legate
himself, with a long train of bishops and abbots, clergy and people,
led her in triumphal procession to the “Old Minster” where so many of
her forefathers had been crowned and buried.[893]

        [887] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 74. Cf. _ib._ p. 32.

        [888] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 136.

        [889] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 74. Cf. _ib._ p. 69. Hervey,
        it must be noticed, was actually expelled not by Matilda’s
        partizans, but by the poor country folk whom his oppressions
        had exasperated. But it was Matilda who got the benefit of his
        expulsion.

        [890] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 136.

        [891] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 74.

        [892] _Ib._ p. 75.

        [893] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 42 (Hardy, pp. 743,
        744). In Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 130, this
        entry into Winchester on March 3 is confused with Matilda’s
        formal election there in April. So it is also in _Gesta Steph._
        (Sewell), p. 75.

In a few days the archbishop of Canterbury followed the legate’s
example and swore fealty to the Empress at Wilton.[894] She next
advanced to her father’s burial-place, Reading, and thence summoned
Robert of Oilly, who had been her father’s constable, to surrender
Oxford castle; the summons was obeyed,[895] and she held her Easter
court at Oxford.[896] The key of the upper valley of the Thames being
thus in her hands, she set herself to win its lower valley by advancing
to S. Alban’s and thence opening negotiations with London.[897] A
deputation of its citizens were at the same time invited by the
legate-bishop to a great council at Winchester on the second Monday
after Easter. The first day of the council was spent in a succession
of private conferences; on the second Henry spoke out publicly. He set
forth how, as vicar of the Apostolic see, he had summoned this assembly
to consider of the best means of restoring order in the land; he
contrasted its present wretched state with the good peace which it had
enjoyed under King Henry; he recited how the crown had been promised
to Matilda;--how, in consequence of her absence at her father’s
death, it had seemed wiser to secure a king at once in the person of
Stephen;--how he, the speaker, had stood surety for the maintenance
of the new king’s promises to the Church and the nation:--and how
shamefully those promises had been broken. He had tried to bring his
brother to reason, but in vain; and now the matter had been decided
by a higher Power. The judgment of the God of battles had delivered
Stephen into the hand of his rival, and cast him down from his throne;
the speaker’s duty was to see that throne filled at once. He had
spent the previous day in consultation with the bishops and clergy to
whom the right of election chiefly belonged; their choice had fallen
upon the candidate to whom their faith had been plighted long ago;
he called upon them now publicly to confirm their choice, and swear
fealty to King Henry’s heiress as Lady of England and Normandy.

        [894] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 42 (Hardy, p. 744).
        Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 130.

        [895] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above.

        [896] Will. Malm. as above. The Contin. Flor. Worc. says she
        spent Easter at Wilton, and places the visits to Reading and
        Oxford between Easter and Rogation-tide; but his chronology is
        very confused, while that of Will. Malm. is especially careful
        just here. William’s account of all these matters is by far the
        best. The _Gesta Steph._ cuts them very short.

        [897] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 131.

Not a dissentient voice was raised save that of a clerk of the queen’s
household, who ventured to read out a letter from his mistress to
the legate, passionately entreating for her husband’s restoration.
The deputation from London, who seem to have been the only laymen in
the assembly, did not exactly oppose the decision of the majority;
they merely pleaded for Stephen’s release, and carried back a report
of the proceedings to their fellow-citizens, with a view to gaining
their assent. It was not till just before midsummer that the Londoners
were finally persuaded to forsake their own chosen king;[898] then,
indeed, they opened their gates with the utmost humility;[899] and thus
the Lady entered her capital and took up her abode at Westminster in
triumph.[900]

        [898] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 43–48 (Hardy, pp.
        744–749).

        [899] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 76, 77.

        [900] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 131.

The triumph did not last long. Matilda fell, just as her rival had
fallen, by her own fault; only the faults of the two cousins were
of a directly opposite nature. The Lady’s habitual temper was that
of her grandfather the Conqueror--“very stern to all who withstood
her will”; and her will was not, like his, kept under the control of
sound policy and reason. Where Stephen had erred through his fatal
readiness to listen to the most worthless counsellors, Matilda erred
through her obstinate refusal to listen to any counsellors at all. She
was no sooner in London than she began confiscating lands and honours
and disposing of Church property more ruthlessly than ever Stephen
had done; and neither the brother to whom she owed her victory, nor
the legate to whom she owed her throne, nor the old king of Scots who
came to share his niece’s triumph and give her the benefit of his
mature wisdom, could succeed in bringing her to reason. Not a word of
conciliation would she hear from any one. The queen appealed to her
in behalf of her captive husband; some of the great nobles did the
like; but she was deaf to their prayers. The bishop of Winchester
besought her at least to secure to Stephen’s children the possessions
which he had held before he became king; but she would not hear him
either. The citizens of London besought her to give them back “the
Laws of King Eadward”;[901] and that, too, she refused. She did worse;
she summoned the richest burghers to her presence, demanded from them
instant payment of a large sum of money, and when they respectfully
remonstrated, drove them away with a torrent of abuse, utterly refusing
all abatement or delay.[902] She was soon punished. All through
the spring Matilda of Boulogne had been busy in Kent with the help
of William of Ypres, rallying her husband’s scattered partizans,
and gathering an army which she now led up, wasting, plundering,
slaughtering all before them, almost to the gates of London. Her
vigorous action determined that of the citizens. One day, as the
Empress was quietly sitting down to dinner, the bells began to ring,
the people came swarming out of their houses “like bees out of a hive”;
the whole city flew to arms; and she and her friends were driven to
flee, some one way, some another, as fast as their horses could carry
them.[903] Earl Robert accompanied his sister as far as Oxford;[904]
thence she hurried on to Gloucester to consult with her favourite
Miles, the only person who seems to have had any real influence over
her, and brought him back with her to Oxford to help in rallying her
scattered forces.[905] Her cousin the queen meanwhile was in London at
the head of an enthusiastic city, eager for the restoration of Stephen;
from one end of England to the other the heroic wife was leaving no
stone unturned in her husband’s interest, and her zeal was speedily
rewarded by the re-conversion of the legate. Utterly disgusted at
the result of his second attempt at king-making for the good of the
Church, after one last warning to the Empress he met his sister-in-law
at Guildford, reversed all the excommunications issued against
Stephen’s party by the council of Winchester, and pledged himself to
do henceforth all that in him lay for the restoration of the captive
king.[906] Robert of Gloucester vainly sought to win him back;[907]
then the Lady resolved to try her own powers of persuasion, and without
a word of notice even to her brother, at the head of a strong body of
troops she set off for Winchester.[908]

        [901] “Ut leges eis Regis Edwardi observari liceret, quia
        optimæ erant, non patris sui Henrici, quia graves erant.” Flor.
        Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 132.

        [902] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 77.

        [903] _Ib._ pp. 78, 79. Cf. Flor. Worc. Contin. as above, and
        Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 48 (Hardy, p. 749).

        [904] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 79.

        [905] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above.

        [906] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 49 (Hardy, p. 750).

        [907] _Ib._ c. 50 (p. 751).

        [908] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._ as above. _Gesta Steph._
        (Sewell), p. 80. Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 133)
        says this was just before August 1.

Of the two royal dwelling-places founded at Winchester by the
Conqueror, only one now remained. He and his sons apparently found the
castle at the western end of the city a more agreeable residence than
the palace whose inconvenient proximity drove the monks of the New
Minster to remove to Hyde. This palace was almost as great a nuisance
to the Old Minster as to the New, and three years after King Henry’s
death his nephew and namesake the bishop determined to get rid of
it. Amid the gathering storms of the year 1138 Bishop Henry, in his
turn, grew dissatisfied with his episcopal abode hard by the cathedral
church, and resolved that he too would have a castle of his own.
With an audacity characteristic alike of the man and of the time, he
carried the stones of his grandfather’s deserted palace down to a clear
space within the “soke” or “liberty” of the church, just within the
eastern boundary of the city, and there set them up again in the shape
of a mighty fortress[909] afterwards known as Wolvesey-house, some
fragments of whose walls still stand, broken and overhung with ivy, in
a green enclosure between the river-bank and the long, dark pile of
the cathedral. As the Lady rode into Winchester by one gate the bishop
rode out by another, to shut himself up in Wolvesey.[910] Matilda
established herself without opposition in the castle,[911] and thence
sent him a civil message requesting him to come and speak with her. He
answered, “I will make me ready”;[912] and he did so, by despatching
an urgent summons to all the partizans of the king.[913] The Empress,
too, called up her friends; they hurried to her support, quartered
themselves in the city with the goodwill of the inhabitants, and beset
both the bishop’s palace and his fortress with all the troops they
could muster.[914] But his summons was no less effectual than hers. It
brought up all the barons who still held with Stephen; it brought up a
troop of mercenaries;[915] best of all, it brought up, not only William
of Ypres with his terrible Flemings,[916] but a thousand valiant
citizens of London with Stephen’s own Matilda at their head.[917] The
besiegers of Wolvesey found themselves beset in their turn by “the
king’s queen with all her strength”;[918] the bishop himself ordered
the town to be fired, and the wind, which saved the cathedral, carried
the flames northward as far as Hyde abbey.[919] While he thus made
a desert for the besiegers within the city, the queen was doing the
like without. Under her directions the London contingent were guarding
every approach from the west, whence alone the Lady’s troops could
look for supplies: the convoys were intercepted, their escorts slain;
and while eastward the roads were lined all the way to London with
parties bringing provision for the bishop and his little garrison, his
besiegers already saw famine staring them in the face.[920] At last
they sent out a body of knights, three hundred strong, to Wherwell,
intending there to build a castle as a cover for their convoys.[921]
They had no sooner reached the spot than William of Ypres pounced upon
them and captured the whole party.[922]

        [909] “Hoc anno fecit Henricus episcopus ædificare domum quasi
        palatium cum turri fortissimâ in Wintoniâ.” Ann. Winton. a.
        1138 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 51). The story of the
        pulling down of the royal palace is in Girald. Cambr., _Vita S.
        Remigii_, c. 27 (_Opera_, ed. Dimock, vol. vii. p. 46).

        [910] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 80. Flor. Worc. Contin.
        (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 133.

        [911] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 133. Will.
        Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 50 (Hardy, p. 751).

        [912] “Ego parabo me.” Will. Malm. as above.

        [913] _Ibid._

        [914] “Castellumque episcopi, quod venustissimo constructum
        schemate in civitatis medio locârat, sed et domum illius quam
        ad instar castelli fortiter et inexpugnabiliter firmârat,
        validissimâ obsidione claudere præcepit” [sc. comitissa].
        _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 80. The first-named “castellum” is
        clearly the old palace of the bishops; the “domus” is Wolvesey,
        where Henry now was. The list of Matilda’s followers is given
        in _Gesta Steph._, p. 81, and in Will. Malm. as above.

        [915] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 82.

        [916] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 19 (Arnold, p. 275).

        [917] _Gesta Steph._ as above.

        [918] “Tha com the kings cuen mid all hire strengthe and besæt
        heom.” Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

        [919] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 50 (Hardy, p. 752).
        Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 133. The latter gives the
        date--August 2.

        [920] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 50 (Hardy, pp. 751,
        752). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 83.

        [921] _Gesta Steph._ as above. Joh. Hexh. (Raine, p. 138) says
        two hundred knights, commanded by John the Marshal and Robert,
        son of King Henry and Eda (_i.e._ Edith who married Robert of
        Oilly).

        [922] _Gesta Steph._ and Joh. Hexh. as above.

Then Robert of Gloucester felt that the case was hopeless, and that,
cost what it might, he must get his sister out. Suddenly, as he was
marshalling his host to cut their way through at all risks,[923] on
the evening of September 13, the city gates were opened, and peace was
proclaimed in the bishop’s name.[924] Robert hereupon decided to march
quietly out next morning. He took, however, the precaution of sending
his sister out first of all, while he brought up the rear with a small
band of men as dauntless as himself.[925] He did wisely. Matilda had
but just ridden through the west gate when the bishop, doubtless from
his tower at Wolvesey, gave the signal for attack. The whole host of
the queen’s partizans rushed upon those of the Lady and routed them
completely. Earl Robert succeeded in covering his sister’s retreat,
and cut his own way out in another direction, but was overtaken at
Stockbridge by William of Ypres and his Flemings, who surrounded and
took him prisoner.[926] Miles of Gloucester (whom the Empress had made
earl of Hereford), surrounded in like manner, threw down his arms and
fled for his life, reaching Gloucester in disgrace, weary, alone, and
almost naked.[927] King David, it is said, was thrice made prisoner,
but each time bribed his captors to let him go,[928] and was hidden
in safety at last by a certain David Holcfard, who happened to be his
godson.[929] The archbishop of Canterbury and several other bishops who
had accompanied the Empress were despoiled of their horses and even
of their clothes. The Lady herself had escaped in company with the
Breton lord of Wallingford, Brian Fitz-Count, who had long been her
devoted friend and who never forsook her.[930] Their first halt was
at Luggershall; urged by her friends, still in terror of pursuit, she
mounted another horse and spurred on to Devizes; there, half dead with
fatigue, she laid herself on a bier, and bound to it with ropes as if
she had been a corpse, she was carried at last safe into Gloucester.

        [923] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 51 (Hardy, p. 753).
        Cf. _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 84.

        [924] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 134.

        [925] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 51 (Hardy, p. 753).

        [926] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 135. Cf. _Gesta
        Steph._, Will. Malm., and Joh. Hexh. (as above). The _Geneal.
        Com. Flandr._ (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xiii. p. 413)
        declares that this was the service for which Stephen rewarded
        William with the earldom of Kent.

        [927] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 135.

        [928] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 85.

        [929] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 138.

        [930] _Gesta Steph._ as above. Brian was a son of Alan Fergant,
        duke of Britanny (Eng. Chron. a. 1127). Together with Robert
        of Gloucester, he escorted Matilda over sea when she went to
        be married to Geoffrey, and he is said to have been one of
        the three persons with whom alone Henry consulted about the
        marriage. Eng. Chron. a. 1127; Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i.
        c. 3 (Hardy, p. 693). He was, all his life, a most loyal and
        useful member of the Angevin party. His father’s first wife
        was the Conqueror’s daughter Constance; the second was Fulk
        Rechin’s daughter Hermengard; Brian, however, had no kindred
        with the house which he served so well.

Earl Robert was brought back to Winchester to the feet of the queen,
who sent him, under his captor’s charge, into honourable confinement in
Rochester castle.[931] The next six weeks were spent in negotiations
for his release and that of Stephen; for the party of the Empress
found themselves helpless without Robert, and the chief aim of Matilda
of Boulogne was to get her husband free. She proposed to Countess
Mabel of Gloucester--for the Empress held sullenly aloof--that the
two illustrious captives should simply be exchanged, and to this
Mabel eagerly assented. Robert, however, protested that an earl was
no equivalent for a king, and insisted that all those who had been
captured with him should be thrown in to balance the crown. To this
their various captors naturally demurred, and the project failed.[932]
It was next proposed to settle the whole dispute by restoring Stephen
to his throne and making Robert governor of England in his name;[933]
but the earl would agree to nothing without his sister’s consent, and
the Empress refused to modify her claims in any way.[934] The queen
threatened that if Robert did not yield, she would send him over to
Boulogne and keep him there in chains for the rest of his life; but he
knew that if a hair of his head was touched his countess, whom he had
left in command at Bristol, would at once ship off her royal captive to
Ireland, and the threat produced no effect. Meanwhile the party of the
Empress was falling to pieces so rapidly that her few genuine adherents
grew alarmed for her personal safety, and besought Robert to accept
freedom on any terms, as the sole chance of averting her ruin. The
original proposition of a simple exchange was therefore revived, and
accepted in the first days of November.[935]

        [931] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 134.

        [932] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 58 (Hardy, pp. 759,
        760).

        [933] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 136. Will.
        Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 59 (Hardy, p. 760).

        [934] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above. At this point we lose him.

        [935] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 51, 60–64 (Hardy,
        pp. 754, 760–762). Cf. Eng. Chron. a. 1140; Hen. Hunt., l.
        viii. c. 19 (Arnold, p. 275); and _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp.
        85, 86.

The earl rejoined his sister at Oxford;[936] the king re-entered his
capital amid general rejoicings.[937] His misfortunes, the heroism of
his queen, the overbearing conduct of the Empress, all helped to turn
the tide of popular feeling in his favour once more. Early in December
the legate, with such daring indifference to the awkwardness of his
own position as can surely have been due to nothing but conscious
integrity of purpose, called a council at Westminster and formally
undid the work which he had done at Winchester in the spring. After a
solemn complaint had been lodged by Stephen against the vassals who
had betrayed and captured him--the counterpart of the charge once
made in a similar assembly against Stephen himself, of having been
false to his duty as king--Henry rose and made his apology. He had
acquiesced in the rule of the Empress, believing it a necessary evil;
the evil had proved intolerable, and he was thankful to be delivered
from its necessity. In the name of Heaven and its Roman representative
he therefore once more proclaimed his brother as the lawfully-elected
and apostolically-anointed sovereign to whom obedience was due, and
denounced as excommunicate all who upheld the claims of the Angevin
countess. The clergy sat in puzzled silence; but their very silence
gave consent.[938]

        [936] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 51 (Hardy, p. 754).

        [937] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 85. Hen. Hunt. as above.

        [938] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 52–53 (Hardy, pp.
        755, 756). The council met on December 7.

Throughout the winter both parties remained quiet, Stephen in London,
Matilda in Oxford; both, in the present exhausted state of their
forces, had enough to do in simply standing their ground, without
risking any attack upon each other. In the spring Matilda removed to
Devizes; there, at Mid-Lent, she held with her partizans a secret
council which resulted in an embassy to Anjou, calling upon Geoffrey to
come and help in regaining the English heritage of his wife and son.
At Pentecost the answer came. Geoffrey, before he would accede to the
summons, required to be certified of its reasonableness, and he would
accept no assurance save that of the earl of Gloucester in person.
Robert, knowing how closely his sister’s interest and even her personal
safety was bound up with his presence at her side, was very unwilling
to undertake the mission. A scheme was however contrived to satisfy
him. Matilda returned to her old quarters at Oxford; the chief men of
her party bound themselves by oath to keep within a certain distance
of the city, and to guard her against all danger until her brother’s
return. On this understanding he sailed from Wareham shortly before
Midsummer. He was but just gone when Stephen, who since Easter had
been lying sick at Northampton, swooped down upon Wareham so suddenly
that the garrison, taken by surprise, yielded to him at once.[939]
The king marched up to Cirencester, surprised and destroyed a castle
lately built there by the Empress,[940] and thence turned westward to
try conclusions with Matilda herself by attacking her headquarters at
Oxford.

        [939] _Ib._ cc. 66–71 (pp. 763–766).

        [940] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 87, 88.

Oxford was, from its geographical situation, one of the most important
strategical posts in England. It stood at the very centre and
crowning-point of the valley of the Thames, the great high-way which
led from the eastern sea and the capital into the western shires,
through the very heart of the land. So long as it remained loyal to
Stephen, he was master of the whole Thames valley, and the Angevins,
however complete might be their triumph in the west, were cut off
from all direct communication with eastern England and even with the
capital itself. The surrender of Oxford castle to Matilda in the summer
of 1141 had reversed this position of affairs. It probably helped
to determine--it was at any rate soon followed by--the surrender
of London; and even when London was again lost to the Empress, her
possession of Oxford still gave her command over the upper part of
the river-valley and thus secured her main line of communication with
her brother’s territories in the west, while Stephen in his turn was
almost prisoned in the eastern half of his realm. For nearly eleven
months he had seen her defying him from her father’s palace of Beaumont
or from the impregnable stronghold of the castle, where the first
Robert of Oilly, not content with raising a shell-keep on the old
English mound, had built another tall square tower which still stands,
on the western side of the enclosure, directly above the river.[941]
Not until her brother had left her did the king venture to take up
the challenge which her very presence there implied; then indeed he
felt that the hour had come. Matilda, as if in expectation of his
attack, had been employing her followers on the construction of a
chain of forts intended to protect and keep open her communications
with the west.[942] One by one Stephen broke the links of the
chain--Cirencester, Bampton, Ratcot[943]--and from this last place, a
little village in the midst of a marsh, half-way between Bampton and
Farringdon, he led his host across the Isis and round by the meadows
on its southern shore to the ford below S. Frideswide’s from which
the city took its name. Matilda’s partizans no sooner discovered his
approach--three days before Michaelmas[944]--than they streamed down
to the bank of the river, across which they greeted him first with a
torrent of abuse and then with a flight of arrows. The vanguard of
the royal host, with Stephen himself at their head, sprang into the
water, swam rather than waded across the well-known and time-honoured
ford,[945] and by the fury of their onset drove their insulting
enemies back to the city gates. The rest of the army quickly followed;
Matilda’s adherents fled through the open gate, their pursuers rushed
in after them, entered the town without difficulty, set it on fire,
captured and slew all on whom they could lay their hands, and drove the
rest to take shelter in the castle with their Lady.[946]

        [941] See above, p. 42, note 2{113}.

        [942] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 87, 88.

        [943] _Ib._ p. 88. “Apud viculum Ratrotam fluctibus inaccesse
        et paludibus obseptum.” _Ib._ p. 87. _Ratcot_ is Anthony Wood’s
        rendering.

        [944] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 71 (Hardy, p. 766).

        [945] “Præmonstrato antiquo sed eximiæ profunditatis vado.”
        _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 89.

        [946] _Ibid._

Stephen had doubtless not braved S. Frideswide’s wrath by entering
Oxford, so to say, under her very eyes. His troops had won the city;
his task was to win the castle, and that task he vowed never to abandon
till both fortress and Empress should be in his hands. For nearly
three months he blockaded the place, till its inhabitants were on the
verge of starvation. The barons who had sworn to protect Matilda,
bitterly ashamed of their failure, gathered at Wallingford ready to
meet Stephen if he should chance to offer them battle; but he had no
such intention, and they dared not attack him where he was.[947]
At last a gleam of hope came with Earl Robert’s return, quickened,
it seems, by tidings of his sister’s danger. Landing at Wareham with
a force of some three or four hundred Normans, he regained the port
and the village without difficulty, and as his force was too small to
effect Matilda’s relief directly, he laid siege to the castle, hoping
by this means to make a diversion in her favour.[948] The garrison
of Wareham did in fact send a message to Stephen beseeching him to
come and relieve them before a certain day, as if he did not, they
must give up the place.[949] But the king was not to be drawn from
his prey; he left Wareham to its fate, and after a three weeks’ siege
it surrendered. Robert went on to Portland and Lulworth, took them
both, and then summoned all the friends of the Empress to meet him at
Cirencester, thence to set out with their united forces for the rescue
of Matilda herself.[950] In Oxford castle the provisions were all but
exhausted; the Lady despaired of succour.[951] Her faithful friend
the lord of the castle, Robert of Oilly, had died a fortnight before
the siege began.[952] Christmas was close at hand; the snow lay thick
on the ground; the river was frozen fast. From the top of D’Oilly’s
tall tower nothing was to be seen but one vast sheet of cold, dead
white, broken only by the dark masses of Stephen’s host encamped round
about upon the frozen meadows:--a dreary outlook, but the prospect
within was drearier still. Matilda had gone through too many adventures
to shrink from the risk of one more. One night four white-robed
figures[953] dropped down by a rope[954] over the castle-wall upon
the frozen river at its foot; they crossed dry-shod over the stream
whose waters, a little lower down, had been almost over the heads of
their enemies three months before; their footsteps fell noiseless upon
the fresh snow, their white garments reflected its gleams and deceived
the eyes of Stephen’s sentinels; in the stillness of the night, broken
only by the bugle-call and the watchman’s cry, they stole through
the besieging lines and across the very sleeping-quarters of the
king--never caught, never discovered save by one man in all the host;
and he, whether taking them for ghosts, or in chivalrous sympathy for
their desperate venture, let them pass unchallenged and kept his story
till the morrow.[955] Five miles they fled on foot “over snow and
ice, over ditch and dale”; at Abingdon they took horse, and before
the morning broke the Empress Matilda and her faithful comrades were
safe under the protection of Brian Fitz-Count in his great fortress of
Wallingford.[956]

        [947] Will. Malm. as above.

        [948] _Ib._ cc. 72, 73 (Hardy, pp. 767, 768). _Gesta Steph._
        (Sewell), p. 91. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 124.

        [949] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 73 (Hardy, p. 768).

        [950] _Ib._ c. 74 (p. 768). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp.
        124, 125.

        [951] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 90.

        [952] Ann. Osen. a. 1142 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. iv. p.
        24).

        [953] _Gesta Steph._ as above. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
        124, makes them six.

        [954] Eng. Chron. a. 1140. Gerv. Cant. (as above) says “per
        posticium.”

        [955] _Gesta Steph._ as above.

        [956] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 90. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
        vol. i. pp. 124, 125. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 20 (Arnold, p.
        276). Will. Newb., l. i. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 43).

At Wallingford her brother came to meet her, accompanied not by her
husband but by her son, a child nine years old whom Geoffrey, now
absorbed in the conquest of Normandy, had sent to England in his
stead.[957] The escape from Oxford was Matilda’s last exploit. The
castle surrendered to Stephen as soon as she had left it;[958] she
returned to her old quarters at Bristol or Gloucester; and thenceforth
she ceased to figure prominently in the war which dragged languidly
on for five more years. A battle between Stephen and Earl Robert near
Wilton, on July 1st, 1143, in which the king was utterly routed and
only escaped being made prisoner a second time by taking to headlong
flight,[959] was the last real success of the Angevin party. The year
closed with a severe blow to the Empress, in the death of her trusted
friend Miles of Hereford, who was slain on Christmas Eve, not in fight,
but by a chance shot in hunting.[960] Early in the next year Ralf of
Chester again seized Lincoln castle;[961] but Ralf fought for his own
hand rather than for the Empress; and so, too, did Hugh Bigod, Turgis
of Avranches and Geoffrey of Mandeville, who kept all eastern England
in ceaseless commotion.[962] Stephen’s energies were absorbed in a vain
endeavour to reduce them to order, while Robert struggled almost as
vainly against the anarchy of the western shires; in the north Ralf of
Chester now ruled supreme from the Witham to the Dee; and the upper
valley of the Thames was at the mercy of William of Dover, who had
built a castle at Cricklade, from which he ravaged the whole country
between Oxford and Malmesbury.[963]

        [957] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 70 (Hardy, p. 765).
        Rob. Torigni, a. 1142. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 125.

        [958] Will. Malm. as above, c. 74 (p. 769. At this point he
        ends). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 91. Hen. Hunt. as above.

        [959] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 92. Gerv. Cant. (as above),
        pp. 125, 126. Will. Newb. as above (p. 42).

        [960] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 101. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p.
        146.

        [961] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 22 (Arnold, p. 277).

        [962] On Hugh Bigod and Turgis see _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell),
        pp. 109–111; on Geoffrey of Mandeville, _ib._ pp. 101–104;
        Will. Newb., l. i. c. 11 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 44–46); and Hen.
        Hunt., l. viii. c. 21 (Arnold, pp. 276, 277).

        [963] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 106, 107, 111.

Suddenly, after capturing the commandant of Malmesbury and sending him
as a great prize to the Empress, the lord of Cricklade threw aside his
evil work and went off to die for a nobler cause in Palestine.[964]
Geoffrey de Mandeville, the worst of all the troublers of the land, who
had accepted titles and honours from both the rival sovereigns and had
never for one moment been true to either, met his death in the same
summer of 1144 in a skirmish with the king’s troops; his fellow-sinner
Robert of Marmion was soon afterwards slain by the earl of Chester’s
men at the gates of the abbey of Bath which he had desecrated.[965]
For a moment it seemed as if the cry which had long been going up from
all the desolated sanctuaries of England--“Up, Lord, why sleepest
Thou?”--had been heard and answered at last.[966] Philip of Gloucester,
Earl Robert’s son, who had taken William of Dover’s place at Cricklade,
was so hard pressed by the garrison of Oxford[967] that he called his
father to his aid; Robert built a great castle at Farringdon, but the
king besieged it with such vigour that its defenders were compelled
to surrender.[968] From that moment the Angevin party fell rapidly to
pieces. Young Philip of Gloucester himself went over to Stephen and
turned his arms against his own father.[969] The earl of Chester came
to meet the king at Stamford,[970] humbly apologized for his rebellion,
and sought to prove the sincerity of his repentance by regaining
Bedford for Stephen, by constantly accompanying him with a band of
three hundred picked knights, and by helping him to build a fortress
at Crowmarsh to keep the garrison of Wallingford in check.[971] As,
however, he still refused to give up the castles which he had seized
and to pay his dues to the royal treasury, he was naturally regarded
with suspicion by the other barons and by the king himself.[972] In the
summer of 1146 their mutual distrust came to a crisis at Northampton.
Ralf besought Stephen’s help against the Welsh; the barons persuaded
Stephen to let them answer in his name that he would not give it unless
Ralf surrendered his castles and gave hostages for his fidelity; he
refused indignantly; they accused him of plotting treason, laid hands
upon him with one accord, and gave him in charge to the royal guards,
by whom he was flung into prison.[973] As in the case of the seizure of
the bishops, it is difficult to say how far Stephen was responsible,
and how much justification he had, for this arrest. We can hardly get
nearer to the truth than the English chronicler: “The king took him
in Hamton through wicked rede, and did him in prison; and soon after
he let him out again through worse rede, with the precaution that
he swore on the halidom and found hostages that he should give up
all his castles; some he gave up and some gave he not, and did then
worse than before.”[974] But among the castles which Ralf did give up
for the sake of regaining his freedom was that which Stephen valued
most--Lincoln.[975] Then at last the king felt that his enemies were
at his feet; and he resolved that the city which had beheld his worst
overthrow should also behold his highest triumph. In defiance of an old
superstition which forbade any English king to appear in regal state
within the walls of Lincoln, he kept his midwinter feast there with a
splendour which had been unknown for years, and wore his crown at high
mass in the minster on Christmas-day.[976]

        [964] _Ib._ p. 111.

        [965] Will. Newb., l. i. cc. 11, 12 (Howlett, vol. i. pp.
        46–48). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 104. Hen. Hunt., l. viii.
        c. 22 (Arnold, p. 277).

        [966] “Dicebaturque a laborantibus piis ‘Exsurge, quare
        obdormis, Domine?’ At postquam ... ‘excitatus est,’ ut ait
        propheta, ‘tanquam dormiens Dominus, et percussit inimicos Suos
        in posteriora.’” Will. Newb., l. i. c. 11 (Howlett, vol. i.
        p. 45). “Quia igitur improbi dixerunt Deum dormire, excitatus
        est Deus.” Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 22 (Arnold, p. 227)--two
        different interpretations of the Chronicler’s phrase, “men said
        openly that Christ slept, and His hallows.”

        [967] Under William of Chamai, “civitatis Oxenefordiæ præses,
        regalisque militiæ dux et assignator.” _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell),
        p. 112. This seems to mean that he was the king’s constable--an
        office which had apparently gone with the command of Oxford
        castle ever since the Norman conquest.

        [968] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 112–114. Hen. Hunt.,
        l. viii. c. 23 (Arnold, p. 278). Will. Newb., l. i. c. 13
        (Howlett, vol. i. p. 48).

        [969] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 116.

        [970] Eng. Chron. a. 1140. The real date must be 1146, as given
        by Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 24 (Arnold, p. 279).

        [971] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 115. Hen. Hunt. as above.
        Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 129, 130.

        [972] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 115, 116.

        [973] _Ib._ pp. 121–123. Cf. Hen. Hunt. as above.

        [974] Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

        [975] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 123, 124. Hen. Hunt. as
        above. Will. Newb., l. i. c. 13 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 49).

        [976] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 25 (Arnold, p. 279). Will. Newb.,
        l. i. c. 18 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 57). Compare the different
        tone of the two writers.

The hour of Stephen’s exultation over Matilda in England was the hour
of her husband’s complete triumph on the other side of the Channel.
In the seven years which had gone by since they parted, the count of
Anjou had really achieved far more than his wife. As soon as he heard
of Stephen’s capture, early in 1141, Geoffrey again summoned the Norman
barons to give up their castles and submit to his authority in peace.
They held a meeting at Mortagne in the middle of Lent to consider their
answer; despairing of Stephen, yet still unwilling to accept Geoffrey,
they fell back upon their original scheme and once more besought
Theobald of Blois to come and take possession of both duchy and
kingdom. Theobald refused the impossible task; but, thinking like every
one else that all was over with Stephen, he undertook to arrange terms
with Geoffrey for the pacification of both countries. Stephen’s claims,
as king and duke, were to be given up to the Angevins on condition
that they should set him at liberty and secure to him and his heirs
the honours which he had held during his uncle’s lifetime; while to
Theobald, as the price of his services in negotiating this settlement,
Geoffrey was to restore the county of Tours.[977] The treaty however
remained a dead letter; for one of the contracting parties had reckoned
without his brother and the other without his wife, both of whom
refused their consent. But it served Geoffrey’s purpose nevertheless.
The twin earls of Meulan and Leicester, hitherto Stephen’s most active
partizans, and the former of whom was after Robert of Gloucester the
most influential man in Normandy, at once accepted the proposed terms
as final and made their peace with Anjou.[978] Nearly a third part
of the duchy followed their example. Mortagne had submitted already;
Verneuil and Nonancourt soon did the like; in the last week of Lent
Lisieux was surrendered by its bishop;[979] Falaise yielded shortly
after;[980] and in a few weeks more the whole Roumois--that is, the
district between the Seine and the Rille--except the capital itself,
acknowledged Geoffrey as its master.[981]

        [977] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 923.

        [978] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 923. Cf.
        Rob. Torigni, a. 1141.

        [979] Ord. Vit. as above. At this point we lose him.

        [980] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1141 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 34, 145).

        [981] Rob. Torigni, a. 1141.

All this happened while the Empress was in full career of success in
England. There, however, as we have seen, summer and autumn undid the
work of spring; the news of Matilda’s triumph were quickly followed by
those of her fall, of her brother’s capture, of his release in exchange
for Stephen, and finally, at Whitsuntide 1142, by the visit of Earl
Robert himself to entreat that Geoffrey would come and help his wife
to reconquer her father’s kingdom. Geoffrey’s views of statecraft were
perhaps neither very wide nor very lofty; but his political instinct
was quicker and more practical than that of either his wife or her
brother. He saw that they had lost their hold upon England; he knew
that he had at last secured a hold upon Normandy; and he resolved that
no temptation from over sea should induce him to let it go. Instead of
helping Robert to conquer the kingdom, he determined to make Robert
help him to conquer the duchy. He represented that it was impossible
for him to leave matters there in their present unsatisfactory
condition; if the earl really wanted him in England, he must first
help him in bringing Normandy to order. Thereupon Robert, finding that
he could get no other answer, agreed to join his brother-in-law in
a campaign which occupied them both until the end of the year.[982]
The central part of Normandy, from Nonancourt and Lisieux on the east
to a line marked by the course of the Orne on the west, and from
the Cenomannian border up to Caen, was already in Geoffrey’s power;
he had in fact inserted a big wedge into the middle of the duchy. To
gain its western side was the object of the present expedition. The
brothers-in-law seem to have started from Robert’s native Caen, and
their first success was probably the taking of Bastebourg--Bastebourg
above the ford of Varaville, whose name recalls an earlier time and
another Geoffrey of Anjou. Then the expedition moved south-westward
from Caen through the diocese of Bayeux and up the left bank of the
Orne to Villers, Aunay, Plessis and Vire, till it reached and won the
already historic site of Tinchebray, on the north-eastern frontier
of Stephen’s old county of Mortain.[983] The town and castle of
Mortain, and the whole county, with the fortresses of Le Teilleul and
St.-Hilaire, were speedily won.[984] Geoffrey marched on to Pontorson,
the south-western outpost of the Norman duchy, close upon the Breton
frontier, at the bottom of a sandy bay guarded by the Mont-St.-Michel;
warned by the general experience, the whole population, men and women,
townsfolk and garrison, streamed out to welcome the conqueror as
soon as he made his appearance. Thence he turned northward again, to
Cérences in the Avranchin; and this place, too, surrendered without
striking a blow.[985]

        [982] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 70 (Hardy, p. 765).

        [983] The story of this campaign, as told by the historians of
        the time, is little more than a list of the places taken, put
        together evidently at random, just as the names happened to
        come into the writer’s mind. Its real order must however have
        been somewhat as suggested above. The fullest list is in Will.
        Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 70 (Hardy, p. 765): Tinchebray,
        St. Hilaire, “Brichesart,” Aunay, Bastebourg, “Trivères,”
        Vire, “Plaiseiz,” Villers, Mortain. Bastebourg lies quite
        apart from all the rest, and must have been the object of a
        distinct expedition from Caen. The other places would follow in
        geographical order. “Plaiseiz” may be either Plessis-Grimoult
        or Placy; “Brichesart” and “Trivères” are still to be accounted
        for. There is a Trévières about half-way between Bayeux and
        Isigny, but this is even farther away from all the other
        places than Bastebourg, and in an opposite direction. From
        Rob. Torigni (a. 1142) we get another list: Aunay, Mortain,
        Tinchebray, Cérences, Le Teilleul, all in the county of
        Mortain. The _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p.
        295) names only Mortain and St. Hilaire. The Chronn. S. Albin.
        and S. Serg., a. 1142 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 35, 145), say
        Geoffrey won “castella plurima,” but specify only Mortain.

        [984] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 295, 296.
        Rob. Torigni, a. 1142.

        [985] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), pp. 296–298. The
        last-named place appears in Rob. Torigni, a. 1142, as
        “Cerences.” In the _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_, as printed by M.
        Marchegay (p. 298), it is “Cerentias”; in the old editions it
        was “Carentias,” which the editors of _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._
        rendered “Carentan.” “Cérences” is the rendering of M.
        Delisle (_Rob. Torigni_, vol. i. p. 226, note 2). It lies
        about half-way between Avranches and Coutances. There is a
        “Chérencé-le-Roussel” a few miles north-west of Mortain.

At this point the campaign of the count and the earl seems to have
been interrupted by tidings of Stephen’s success and Matilda’s danger
at Oxford. That Robert must go at once was clear; but that it would be
wise for Geoffrey to accompany him was even more doubtful now than it
had been six months ago. A substitute was found in the person of little
Henry Fitz-Empress, who, if he could do nothing practically to help
his mother’s cause and his own, at least ran no risk of damaging it
by raising such a storm of ill-feeling as would probably have greeted
the count of Anjou himself. While Robert and Henry sailed for England
together, Geoffrey remained to finish his work in Normandy. Avranches,
the next place which he threatened, made a ready submission; he took up
his abode in the castle, and summoned the lords of all the fortresses
in the Avranchin to come and do him homage, one after another. When
they had all obeyed, he set himself to win the Cotentin. St.-Lô, which
had been strongly fortified by the bishop of the diocese, surrendered
after a three days’ siege. The victor advanced straight upon Coutances;
the bishop was absent; no one else dared to offer resistance; Geoffrey
simply marched into the city and took it. Thither, as at Avranches, he
summoned the barons of the county to perform their homage, and they
all obeyed except two brothers, Ralf and Richard of La Haye. Ralf was
soon brought to submission; Richard flung himself with some two hundred
knights into Cherbourg, a mighty fortress on a foundation of solid
rock, guarded on one side by a belt of woodland full of wild beasts,
and on the other by a bay whose advantages as a naval station have only
been put to their full use in much later times. A siege of Cherbourg
was likely to be a lengthy, troublesome and costly undertaking. But
such a siege was of all military operations that in which Geoffrey
most excelled and most delighted. He had little sympathy with the
downright hand-to-hand fighting by which Fulk Nerra had won his spurs
at Conquereux, or Fulk V. had repulsed Theobald and Stephen before
Alençon, or Stephen had put his very captors to shame beneath the
walls of Lincoln. Engineering was Geoffrey’s favourite science; in its
developement he spared neither labour nor expense; and he now brought
up against Cherbourg such a formidable array of machines that Richard
thought it prudent to slip away by sea, intending to go to England
and ask help of King Stephen. He was however overtaken by pirates
and carried away “among strange peoples”; and a rumour of his fate
reaching the garrison whom he had left behind, they lost heart and
made submission to the Angevin.[986] The whole duchy south and west of
the Seine was now his,[987] except the one town of Vaudreuil; before
the close of the year this, too, was won, and the Angevin power even
advanced beyond the river, for “Walter Giffard and all the people of
the _Pays de Caux_ made agreement with Count Geoffrey.”[988] The Norman
capital now stood out alone against the Angevin conqueror of Normandy,
as Tours had once stood out alone against the conqueror of Touraine.
In January 1144 Geoffrey crossed the Seine at Vernon and pitched his
camp at La Trinité-du-Mont, close to the walls of Rouen.[989] Next day
the citizens opened their gates, and conducted him in solemn procession
to the cathedral church.[990] The castle was still held against him
by some followers of the earl of Warren;[991] the barons, headed by
Waleran of Meulan, came to help him in besieging it, but neither their
valour nor his machines were of any avail, and it was not till a three
months’ blockade had reduced the garrison to the last straits of
hunger that the citadel of Rouen was given up on S. George’s day.[992]

        [986] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 298–301.
        The year, 1143, is given by Rob. Torigni.

        [987] Chronn. S. Serg. and S. Albin. a. 1143 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 35, 146). The Chron. S. Flor. Salm. (_ib._ p.
        191) ventures to say in 1142: “Goffredus Comes totam Normanniam
        adquirit hoc anno, iii. octabarum Paschæ, x. kalendas maii.”
        This is the true date for the Wednesday in Easter week, 1142,
        but the fact is placed two years too early.

        [988] Rob. Torigni, a. 1143.

        [989] _Ib._ a. 1144.

        [990] Chron. Rotom. a. 1144 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii.
        p. 785); Rob. Torigni, a. 1144. The former makes the day
        January 19; the latter, January 20.

        [991] Rob. Torigni, as above.

        [992] Chron. Rotom. a. 1144 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii.
        p. 785); Rob. Torigni, a. 1144.

Allies offered themselves readily now to help in the little that
remained to be done; foremost among them was the overlord of Normandy,
the young King Louis VII. of France. All was changed since the days
when his father, Louis VI., had granted the investiture of Normandy
to Stephen’s little son. The inveterate enmity between the house of
Blois and the French Crown had broken out afresh, in a new and most
disastrous form, between Count Theobald and the young king; Louis fell
back upon the traditional policy of his forefathers and gladly embraced
the Angevin alliance against all the branches of the house of Blois on
both sides of the sea. Thus when Geoffrey, after composing matters as
well as he could at Rouen, mustered his forces to subdue the few still
outstanding castles, he was joined at once by his own brother-in-law
Theodoric of Flanders and by the king of France. Driencourt was the
first place won by their united hosts; then Lions-la-Forêt--the old
hunting-seat where King Henry had died--was given up by Hugh of
Gournay;[993] the rest of the castles beyond Seine were quickly won,
and then Geoffrey was master of the whole Norman duchy,[994] save one
fortress, Arques, which a Fleming called William the Monk held so
pertinaciously for Stephen that the Angevin was obliged to leave a
body of troops before the place and go home without waiting to finish
the siege in person.[995] Next summer the “monk” was shot dead by a
chance arrow, and the surrender of Arques completed Geoffrey’s conquest
of Normandy.[996] He made no pretence of holding it in the name of
either his wife or his son; it was his own by right of conquest, and
that right was formally acknowledged by the king of France. Before
they parted in 1144 Louis granted to Geoffrey the investiture of the
whole Norman duchy, save one spot which he claimed as the price of his
favour:--the old bone of contention, Gisors.[997]

        [993] Rob. Torigni, a. 1144. Driencourt is now known as
        Neufchâtel-en-Bray.

        [994] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1144 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 35, 146); Chronn. S. Michael. and S. Steph.
        Cadom. a. 1144 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. pp. 773, 780).

        [995] Rob. Torigni, a. 1144. “Willermus Monachus
        Flandrensis”--can he have been really a monk?

        [996] Rob. Torigni, a. 1145.

        [997] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 282.

The Angevin conqueror had been called home by a revolt among his own
barons.[998] The leader was, as before, Robert of Sablé;[999] but there
was worse to come. Geoffrey’s brother Elias was persuaded by the rebels
to put forth a claim to the county of Maine and uphold his pretension
by force of arms. Geoffrey defeated him, took him prisoner, and put
him in ward at Tours,[1000] where he remained five years, and whence
he was released only to die of the effects of his imprisonment.[1001]
The revolt failed as all previous revolts against Geoffrey had
failed; the count swooped down upon Robert and his accomplices with
such irresistible energy that they were utterly confounded and made
submission at once.[1002] Undisputed master from the Poitevin border to
the English Channel, Geoffrey once more cast his eyes across the sea,
not with any thought of joining his wife in her desperate venture, but
with an uneasy longing to get his heir safe out of the entanglement
of a losing cause and bring him home to share in his own triumph. He
therefore sent envoys to Earl Robert, begging that Henry might be
allowed to come and see him, if only for a short time. The request was
at once granted, and by Ascension-tide 1147 the boy was again at his
father’s side.[1003] His uncle the earl of Gloucester had escorted him
as far as Wareham;[1004] there they parted, as it turned out, for the
last time. Robert caught a fever and died at Bristol early in the
following November.[1005] Then at last the Empress herself felt that all
was lost. Her last faint chance had expired with the wise and valiant
brother whose patient devotion she had never fully appreciated until it
was too late. In the early spring of 1148 she gave up the struggle and
followed her son back to Normandy, to live thenceforth in peace by her
husband’s side;[1006] while the knot which the sword had failed to cut
was left to be slowly disentangled by more skilful hands which had long
been preparing for their task.

        [998] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1145 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, pp. 35, 146).

        [999] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p. 269.

        [1000] _Ibid._ _Gesta Cons._ (_ibid._), p. 155.

        [1001] _Gesta Cons._ as above. The Chron. Vindoc. (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, p. 173), gives the date, 1150. Cf. Chron. Tur. Magn.
        a. 1110 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, p. 131).

        [1002] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp.
        270–272. It is here that the writer places the building of
        Châteauneuf-sur-Sarthe (see above, p. 267). In connexion with
        this affair he gives an amusing reason for the warlike habits
        of the Angevins: “Antiquitus nempe Andegavenses præliandi
        consuetudinem habebant, forsan, ut puto, a Deo sibi permissum,
        ne per otium pejoribus inimicis expugnarentur, moribus scilicet
        vitiosis.” _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), pp. 270, 271.

        [1003] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 131. Rob. Torigni, a.
        1147.

        [1004] Gerv. Cant. as above.

        [1005] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 131. Gervase is not
        clear about the year, which we learn from Ann. Tewkesb. a. 1147
        (Luard, _Ann. Monast._ vol. i. p. 47), and from Ann. Cantuar.
        a. 1147 (Liebermann, _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 6). The place is
        given in _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 132.

        [1006] Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 133--dated a year too early.


NOTE.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE BATTLE OF LINCOLN.

The topography of the battle of Lincoln is a very puzzling matter. We
have two sources of information, and it seems impossible to make them
agree. The questions to be solved are two: 1. Which way did Robert and
Ralf approach the city? 2. Where was the battle actually fought?

1. The first question lies between William of Malmesbury and Henry of
Huntingdon. William (_Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 39, 40; Hardy, p. 741)
says distinctly that the main army started from Gloucester; that Ralf
and his troops joined them somewhere on the road; that Stephen, hearing
of their approach, left off besieging the castle and went forth to meet
them; and that on Candlemas day they arrived “ad flumen quod inter duos
exercitus præterfluebat, Trenta nomine, quod et ortu suo et pluviarum
profluvio tam magnum fuerat ut nullatenus vado transitum præberet.” He
then gives the story of the crossing. Henry of Huntingdon (l. viii. c.
13; Arnold, p. 268) describes the crossing much in the same way, except
that the “consul audacissimus” to whom he attributes the first plunge
seems to be Ralf, whereas in William’s version Robert is the hero. But
Henry makes no mention of the Trent; in his story the plunge is into
“paludem pœne intransibilem.”

For both these versions there is something to be said. The authority
of the two witnesses is very evenly balanced. Chronologically, both
are equally near to their subject. Geographically, the archdeacon of
Huntingdon is nearer than the librarian of Malmesbury; but he is not
a whit more likely to have been personally present; and if Henry may
have got his information from Bishop Alexander, William may just as
probably have got his from Earl Robert himself. The question therefore
becomes one of the intrinsic probability of the two stories. Here
again there is something to be said for William; for although the most
direct and obvious road from Gloucester to Lincoln would undoubtedly
be the Foss-Way, along the eastern side of the Trent valley, yet it is
possible that the earls might have chosen a more unusual route along
its western side, just because it would seem less likely to their
enemies. Yet we can hardly accept William’s version; for the fording
of the Trent, especially in winter, and when its waters were--as he
himself tells us--swollen with heavy rains, would be little short of
a physical impossibility. At the origin of his mistake (or of Earl
Robert’s, for it must surely have been Robert who told him the story)
we may perhaps be able to guess. The writer of the _Gesta Stephani_
(Sewell, p. 71) says nothing of either river or marsh; the only
thing which he mentions is a ford, of whose whereabouts he gives no
indication whatever. “Cumque fortissimam ... [Stephanus] præmississet
cohortem in exitu cujusdam vadi eis ad obsistendum, illi ... cum
violentiâ in ipsos irruentes vadum occupaverunt.” Now, if the earls had
followed the Foss-Way quite up to Lincoln, it would have brought them
not to any ford, but to the bridge over the Witham, leading directly
into the city by the south gate. But the city was bitterly hostile to
them; had they attempted to pass through it to reach the castle, they
must have cut their way through a crowd of enemies. There was however
another and a much more practicable route open to them. Some little
distance to westward of the bridge, the Witham at its junction with
the Foss-Dyke expands into a broad sheet of water known by the name of
Brayford. The kindness of the Rev. Precentor Venables has enabled me to
ascertain that half way between the bridge and Brayford Head (_i.e._
the eastern end of this sheet of water) there still exists in the bed
of the river a well-paved ford road, probably of Roman origin. By this
ford the army could cross the river and advance towards the castle
without entering the town at all; and I feel little doubt that this was
the ford at which Stephen posted the guard mentioned by his biographer,
and across which the two earls swam with their followers. In that case
William of Malmesbury’s mistake as to the name of the river is not
surprising. The Foss-Dyke unites the Witham and the Trent; a medieval
geographer could hardly be expected to know accurately where the one
ended and the other began. Out of the three names so closely connected,
he not unnaturally chose the one most generally known, and concluded
the whole water-way under the comprehensive name of Trent; while on the
other hand, the overflowing of dyke and river may quite sufficiently
account for Henry of Huntingdon having described them and the flooded
ground on each side of them all together as an “almost impassable
marsh.”

2. Local tradition persists in asserting that the battle was fought
to the north of the city, somewhere beyond the New Port. If this was
so, Stephen must have led his troops out of the city by the old Roman
way--the Ermine Street--through the New Port, and drawn them up on
the plateau formed by the top of the range of hills whose southern
extremity is occupied by the city itself; and his enemies, after
crossing the water, must have marched all round the south-western foot
of the hill, below the castle, and then climbed the western slope to
meet Stephen on the top. Such a manœuvre is doubtless possible; but
it hardly seems to agree with the indications--provokingly few and
slight though they are--given us by the historians. None of them indeed
tells us which way Stephen went forth; the nearest approach to a clear
statement is that of his own biographer, who says “extra civitatem
obvius eis audacter occurrit” (_Gesta Steph._ as above). Now marching
up northward can hardly be called “going forth boldly to meet” an
enemy who was coming from the south-west. The tradition in fact is in
itself very improbable, and has no evidence to support it. In 1881 I
made two attempts at a personal examination of the topography, with
the help of indications kindly furnished me by Precentor Venables.
The result was as follows: The western wall of the castle-enclosure
does not stretch to the extreme edge of the hill; beyond it lies a
part of the plateau, now occupied by the County Asylum, and marked by
Stukeley as the site of Stephen’s encampment. Stukeley was probably
misled by the circumstance that an adjoining bit of ground was called
“Battle-piece”--a name which is now known to have been derived not from
any battle fought there, but from the place having been set apart for
trials by battle. But farther to the west there lies at the foot of
the ridge a tract of comparatively level ground, rising slightly on
the one side to join the slope of the hill, and on the other gradually
sinking into the lower land which spreads to the bank of the Trent.
This tract--part of it is now a race-course--seems to be really the
only place in which it is possible for the two armies to have met. The
ground immediately south of the castle, between its outer wall and the
northern bank of the Foss-Dyke, is too steep to allow of anything like
a pitched battle between two formally-arrayed armies. The earls after
crossing the ford could hardly do anything but lead their troops round
the foot of the hill, to draw them up at last on the western side of
the level tract above described. Stephen, on the other hand, could
hardly have chosen a better post for defence than its eastern side,
with the ridge of the hill at his back.




CHAPTER VII.

THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

1136–1149.


The departure of the Empress was followed by a time of comparative
quiet; but it was the quiet of exhaustion, not of rest. In the twelve
years which had passed away since King Henry’s death all his work
seemed to have been utterly undone. Every vestige of law and authority,
order and peace, had been swept away by the torrent of destruction
which in those twelve years had overwhelmed the whole country. When
at last the waves began to subside, one ark of refuge was found to
have escaped the general desolation; one vessel alone had been able to
outride the storm. The state was a wreck; the Church remained.

The pilot of the sacred bark, during the first seven years of Stephen’s
reign, had been the king’s brother Henry, bishop of Winchester. The
youngest child of Stephen-Henry and Adela of Blois, devoted by his
mother to the religious life, had been brought up in the famous abbey
of Cluny; thence, in 1126, he was summoned by his uncle the king of
England to become abbot of one of the most ancient and illustrious
monasteries in Britain, that of Glastonbury; and three years later the
young abbot--he cannot have been more than twenty-eight--was raised to
the bishopric of Winchester.[1007] His rapid advancement was no doubt
owing to the personal favour of his uncle; but none the less did it
place in the important see of Winchester a prelate as different in
temper as in origin from the crowd of low-born secular clerks who then
filled the ranks of the English episcopate. Steeped in ecclesiastical
and monastic traditions from his very cradle, Henry was before all
things a churchman and a monk. It was to him and to men like him that
the religious revival which sprang up in his uncle’s later years
naturally looked for the guidance which it could not find either in the
secular bishops or in the shy, irresolute primate; and the consequences
appeared as soon as the king was dead, when the helm of the state and
that of the Church--the one dropped by Roger of Salisbury, the other
never firmly grasped by William of Canterbury--were both at once taken
by the young bishop of Winchester. His personal influence sufficed to
ensure his brother’s election to the throne; the legatine commission
sent to him in 1139, overriding the claims of the new primate, made him
the acknowledged leader of the English Church, and, coinciding as it
did with the complete break-down of all secular government at Bishop
Roger’s fall, practically vested in him and in the clerical synods
which he convened the sole remnant of deliberative and legislative
authority throughout the kingdom. Clergy and people followed him like
a flock of sheep; yet he was never really trusted by either of the two
political parties, because he never really belonged to either. His own
political ideal was independent of all party considerations. It was the
ideal of the ecclesiastical statesman in the strictest sense: to insure
the well-being of the state by securing the rights and privileges and
enforcing the discipline of the Church. In his eyes the whole machinery
of secular government, including the sovereign, existed solely for that
one end, and he carried out his theory to its logical result in the
synods which deposed Stephen and Matilda each in turn, as each in turn
broke the compact with the Church which had raised them to the throne.
Of the use to be made in later days of the precedent thus created he
and his brother-clergy never dreamed; they are, however, entitled to
the credit of having been the only branch of the body-politic which
made an organized effort to rescue England from the chaos into which
she had fallen. The failure of their efforts hitherto was due partly
to the overwhelming force of circumstances, partly to the character
of Henry himself. His temper was like that of the uncle whose name he
bore--the calm, imperturbable Norman temper which neither interest
nor passion could throw off its balance or off its guard; and with
the Norman coolness he had also the Norman tenacity, fearlessness and
strength of will. But although the main elements of his nature were
thus derived from his mother’s ancestors, he had not altogether escaped
the doom of his father’s house. He was free from the worst defect of
his race, their fatal unsteadiness of purpose; but he had his full
share of their rashness, their self-will, and their peculiar mental
short-sightedness. His policy really had a definite and a noble end,
but his endeavours to compass that end were little more than a series
of bold experiments. Moreover, his conception of the end itself was
out of harmony with the requirements of the time. Churchman as he was
to the core, his churchmanship was almost as unlike that of the rising
generation, trained up under the influence of the new religious orders,
as the downright worldliness of the Salisbury school with which some
of them were, though most unjustly, half inclined to confound him. He
belonged to a type of ecclesiastical statesmen, or rather political
churchmen, who did not shrink from arraying the Church militant in the
spoils of earthly triumph, and would fain elevate her above the world
in outward pomp and majesty no less than in inward purity and holiness.
This was the school of which Cluny had been, ever since the days of
Gregory VII., the citadel and stronghold; and Henry was thus attached
to it by all the associations of his youth as well as by his own
natural disposition. But in the second quarter of the twelfth century
this Cluniac school was losing its hold upon the finer and loftier
spirits of the time, and the influence of Cluny was beginning to pale
before the purer radiance diffused from S. Bernard’s “bright valley,”
Clairvaux.

        [1007] Joh. Glaston. (Hearne), pp. 165, 166.

Henry’s legatine commission, too, which was a chief source of his
strength, was really a source of moral and spiritual weakness to the
English Church; for it set him over the head of the man who ought to
have been her representative and leader, and placed in the hands of a
mere diocesan bishop all, and more than all, the power and authority
which belonged of right to the primate of all Britain.[1008] Until
very recent times the English Church had been, by an unwritten but
perfectly well-established privilege of immemorial antiquity, exempt
from all legatine control; papal envoys were admitted only for special
purposes, and exercised no authority within the province of the
“transmarine Pope”--the primate of all Britain. In technical language,
the archbishop of Canterbury, as successor of S. Augustine, was by
virtue of his office _legatus natus_ of the Holy See, and therefore
not subject to the jurisdiction of a _legatus a latere_. During the
reign of Henry I. three attempts had been made to break through this
venerable tradition; on the third occasion, in 1125, the outrageous
behaviour of the legate John of Crema roused Archbishop William to go
and protest at Rome, whence he returned clothed in his own person with
the functions of _legatus a latere_.[1009] This commission, granted by
Honorius II., was renewed by Innocent,[1010] and William thus retained
it until his death. When that event occurred Henry of Winchester must
have felt himself, and must have been generally felt throughout the
country, to be almost naturally marked out for William’s successor.
It seems, indeed, that he was actually elected to the vacant primacy.
There was however a difficulty which proved to be insuperable. The
translation of a bishop from one see to another could only be effected
by a special license from the Pope; and in this case the license was
apparently refused.[1011] Driven thus to seek elsewhere for a primate,
Stephen, or it may be Stephen’s wiser queen, sought him in the home
of Lanfranc and Anselm, and brought over a third abbot of Bec to walk
in the steps and sit on the throne of his sainted predecessors at
Canterbury.[1012] Theobald came of a good Norman family, and was well
reported of for learning, virtue and piety;[1013] further than that,
the world as yet knew nothing of him; it was therefore not unnatural,
though it was distinctly unfortunate, that when Pope Innocent II.
determined to appoint a resident legate in England he appointed Henry
instead of Theobald.

        [1008] See on this Ann. Winton. a. 1143 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._,
        vol. ii. p. 53); Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 384; and
        Will. Newb. l. i. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 43).

        [1009] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 84; Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 381, 382.

        [1010] In 1132, it seems. See Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c.
        7 (Hardy, p. 699).

        [1011] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 908.

        [1012] Queen Matilda’s share in the appointment seems distinctly
        implied in _Vita Theobaldi_ (Giles, _Lanfranc_, vol. i.), p.
        337; Chron. Becc. a. 1137 (_ib._ p. 207).

        [1013] See _Vita Theobaldi_ (as above), pp. 337–339; Chron.
        Becc. (_ibid._), p. 207.

For several years the archbishop bore his supersession quietly. His
political sympathies appear to have always inclined to the side of the
Empress, but his conduct shewed no trace of party spirit; no personal
jealousy on his part ever thwarted Henry’s attempts at pacification.
He doubtless felt that he could afford to wait; for his metropolitical
rights, though kept in abeyance for a time, were inalienable and
independent of all outward accidents, while the legatine authority
was drawn solely from the commission of an individual Pope, and a
change either of persons or of policy at Rome might at any moment
reduce Henry of Winchester to the rank of a mere suffragan bishop.
Henry himself was so conscious of this danger that he began to urge
upon his patron Innocent a project for raising the see of Winchester
to metropolitical rank and furnishing it with two (or, according
to another account, seven) suffragan sees, to be carved out of the
southern part of the province of Canterbury. This wild scheme was so
far endorsed by Innocent that he actually sent Henry a pall, the emblem
of archiepiscopal dignity, in 1142; so, at least, the story ran.[1014]
As yet, however, the matter rested wholly between legate and Pope; if
the archbishop knew anything of their plots against him, he was wise
enough to let them plot undisturbed. Instead of trying to fish in the
troubled waters of the present, he was looking to the open sea of the
future and meditating how best to prepare himself, his Church and his
adopted country for the voyage which lay before them. While the legate
was making and unmaking sovereigns and plotting a revolution in the
Anglican hierarchy, the primate was quietly gathering into his own
household the choicest spirits of the time, drawing around him a group
of earnest, deep-thinking students, of highly-cultured, large-minded,
dispassionate politicians; in a word, making his palace the seminary
and the training-college, the refuge and the home, of a new generation
of English scholars and English statesmen.

        [1014] Ann. Winton. a. 1143 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p.
        53); R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 255.

Foremost among them stood Thomas the son of Gilbert Becket,
ex-port-reeve of London. Troubles had fallen heavy upon Gilbert and his
wife since the days when from their comfortable home in Cheapside their
boy rode forth to his school at Merton or to his hawking excursions
with Richer de l’Aigle. A series of disastrous fires had brought them
down from affluence almost to poverty[1015] and compelled them to
take their son away from school at an earlier age than the mother,
at least, would have desired. She watched over his studies with the
deepest interest and care,[1016] and it was probably her influence
and good management which, after an interval of idleness at home,
sent him off again to study for a short time in Paris.[1017] The boy
learned quickly and easily, as he did everything to which he chose to
put his hand and give his mind; but his heart was set upon riding and
hawking and the sports and occupations of active life, far more than
upon the book-learning to which he devoted himself chiefly for the
sake of pleasing his mother; and when she died, in his twenty-second
year,[1018] his studies came to an end. Her death broke up the home;
Gilbert, worn out with age and grief, was powerless to guide or help
his son; and Thomas soon found it impossible to make their scanty
means sufficient to maintain them both.[1019] Irksome as the work must
have been to such a temper as his, he took a situation as clerk in
the counting-house of a kinsman, Osbern Huitdeniers, or “Eightpenny”
as we might perhaps call him now.[1020] Osbern was a wealthy man,
enjoying great consideration both in the city and at court;[1021]
at this time--just after the outbreak of the civil war--he seems to
have been one of the sheriffs of London, for we are told that Thomas
himself held a subordinate civic post as clerk and accountant to those
functionaries.[1022] For two or three years, the years of the personal
struggle between Stephen and Matilda, Thomas endured the drudgery of
the office as best he might,[1023] till at length a more congenial
position was offered him, first in the household of his old friend
Richer de l’Aigle[1024] and then in that of Archbishop Theobald. When
the war-storm had partly subsided and the primate was beginning to
organize his plans, some of his clerks who had been guests at the
little house in Cheapside in its prosperous days remembered the bright
boy whom they had often noticed there, and determined to enlist him
in their own ranks. One of them, known to us only by his nickname of
“Baille-hache” or the “Hatchet,” undertook to persuade the young man
himself;[1025] two others, Baldwin the archdeacon and Eustace his
brother, commended him and his father to the primate. It chanced that
Gilbert, though he had been domiciled at Rouen before his emigration
to England, was a native of Thierceville, close to the Bec-Herlouin. A
chat with Thomas’s father over old times and old names around Bec made
its former abbot all the more disposed to welcome Thomas himself, when
he rode out to Harrow and let his friend Baille-hache present him to
the archbishop.[1026] Before many months had passed he was admitted
to the innermost circle of Theobald’s confidential counsellors. That
circle consisted of three young men--John of Canterbury, Roger of
Pont-l’Evêque and Thomas of London. Without consulting one or other of
these three the archbishop rarely did anything;[1027] and in matters of
special difficulty or delicacy he relied mainly upon Thomas.[1028]

        [1015] Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 8, 9; E. Grim (Robertson,
        _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 359; Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), p. 3.

        [1016] Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 8.

        [1017] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 14. The _Thomas
        Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 21–25, has a curious and pretty
        legend of his stay in Paris.

        [1018] Will. Cant. and Anon. I. as above. This brings Rohesia’s
        death to a date between December 21, 1138, and December 21,
        1139; for although Mr. Magnusson (Preface to _Thomas Saga_,
        vol. ii. pp. c, ci) declares that Thomas was born “not as
        stated [T.,” _i.e._ _Thomas Saga_, “i. 12] in 1117, but in
        1118,” his own chronological argument infallibly leads to just
        the opposite conclusion.

        [1019] E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 359.

        [1020] “Tandem civi vice tabellionis adhæsit,” Will. Cant.
        (_ib._ vol. i.), p. 3. “Ad quendam Lundrensem, cognatum
        suum,” Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 8. “Osbernus Octo-nummi
        cognomine,” E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 361. “Osbern
        Witdeniers,” Garnier (Hippeau), p. 9. In the Pipe Roll 31
        Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 146, among the London accounts, one of
        the sureties for the debts of Hugh Cordele is “Osbertus viii
        denarii”--clearly the same man.

        [1021] E. Grim, Anon. I. and Garnier, as above.

        [1022] “Reversus” [sc. Thomas a Parisiis], “receptus est in
        partem sollicitudinis reipublicæ Londoniensis, et vicecomitum
        clericus et rationalis effectus.” Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson,
        _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 14.

        [1023] E. Grim, Anon. I. and Garnier, as above.

        [1024] _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 31. It is not very
        clear whether Thomas’s stay with Richer should come after or
        before his stay with Osbern, which the Saga omits altogether.

        [1025] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 10; E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_,
        vol. ii.), p. 361; Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 9. None of
        them name the man; but he is clearly the one who ultimately
        introduced Thomas to the primate; and we know his nickname from
        the sneer of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque; Garnier (as above); E.
        Grim (as above), p. 362; Anon. I. (as above), p. 10.

        [1026] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.),
        p. 15. “Thierrici-villa” is interpreted by M. Hippeau
        (Garnier, _Vie de S. Thomas_, introd. p. xxiv) “Probablement
        Thierceville, canton de Montfort, département de l’Eure.”

        [1027] Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. i.), p. 4.

        [1028] There is a curious and amusing account of their mutual
        relations in _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 37.

He had secured his services at the right moment; for the long impending
crisis between himself and the legate was now fast drawing near. In
purely secular politics Theobald had hitherto been content to follow
Henry’s lead; on a question of ecclesiastical politics they had now
come to a distinct severance. Archbishop Thurstan of York had died
in February 1140;[1029] in January 1141 William, treasurer of the
see, was appointed in his stead, and received the investiture of the
temporalities from Stephen in the camp before Lincoln.[1030] The
appointment had somewhat the look of a court job; for William was a
nephew of the king and the legate;[1031] he had been brought up in
wealth, luxury and idleness, and although of amiable and blameless
character, was obviously not the man for such a post as the northern
primacy. A minority of the York chapter therefore, supported by many
of the most respected clergy of the province, chief among whom was
Abbot Richard of Fountains, protested against the election as having
been procured by undue influence, in the form of bribery on William’s
own part and intimidation on that of William of Aumale, earl of York,
acting on behalf of the king and the legate; and this view was shared
by the southern primate. The legate, apparently shrinking from the
responsibility of consecrating his nephew by his own sole authority
(for Theobald absolutely refused to assist him), let the matter rest
during the remainder of that troubled year and then sent the elect of
York to plead his own cause at Rome. In Lent 1143 the Pope gave his
decision: “If Dean William of York can swear that the chapter did not
receive through the earl of Aumale a command from the king to elect his
nephew: and if the archbishop-elect himself can swear that he did not
seek his election by bribery:--then let him be consecrated.” A council
met at Winchester in September to receive the two oaths and witness
the consecration. The dean of York, however, was unable to attend;
he had been elected to the bishopric of Durham, and was absorbed in
struggling for the possession of his see with an intruder named William
Cumin, who had been placed there by the king of Scots. The partizans
of the archbishop-elect, foreseeing some obstacle of this kind, had
procured the addition to the Pope’s decree of a saving clause whereby
they were permitted to substitute “some other approved person” for the
dean: such, at least, was their account of the matter. Ralf, bishop of
Orkney, and two abbots therefore took the required oath in the place of
William of Durham, and William of York was consecrated by his uncle the
legate, three days before Michaelmas 1143.[1032] Theobald still refused
his assent to the whole proceeding.[1033]

        [1029] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 130.

        [1030] _Ib._ pp. 133, 134.

        [1031] Apparently a son of their sister Emma by her marriage
        with a certain Count Herbert. See Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 149
        and note _v_.

        [1032] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 139, 142–146. See also Thos.
        Stubbs (Twysden, _X. Scriptt._), col. 1721, and Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 123.

        [1033] Gerv. Cant. as above.

Henry was triumphant; but it was his last triumph. On that very day a
new Pope, Celestine II., was chosen in place of Innocent, who had died
two days before. The legatine commission expired with the Pope who
had granted it; the bishop of Winchester became again a mere suffragan
of Canterbury, and Theobald suddenly found himself primate in fact as
well as in name. Everything now depended on the dispositions of the new
Pope. Accordingly, early in November both Theobald and Henry set out
for Rome.[1034] The latter soon learned that his journey was useless;
Celestine was “a favourer of the Angevins”;[1035] and when Theobald
and his confidant Thomas arrived at Rome they found no difficulty
in persuading the Pope to transfer the legatine commission from the
bishop of Winchester to the primate.[1036] Henry consoled himself by
turning aside to Cluny and spending a quiet winter in the home of his
boyhood. Next spring came another change; Celestine died on March 9,
1144, and was succeeded by Lucius II. To Lucius Henry went, and in his
eyes he found at least so much favour that he was acquitted of sundry
charges brought against him by emissaries from Anjou. But the legation
was apparently left altogether in abeyance; if it was not renewed to
Theobald--a point which is not quite clear--it was at any rate not
restored to Henry.[1037]

        [1034] Will. Newb., l. i. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 43). Cf.
        Ann. Waverl. a. 1143 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 229).

        [1035] “Alumpnus Andegavensium.” Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 146.

        [1036] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 384.

        [1037] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 146, 147.

The tide which had borne both Henry and Stephen to their triumph was in
truth now rising far above their heads. The religious movement of which
Henry had once seemed destined to become a leader had gone sweeping on
till it left him far behind. It was the one element of national life
whose growth, instead of being checked, seems to have been actually
fostered by the anarchy. The only bright pages in the story of those
“nineteen winters” are the pages in the _Monasticon Anglicanum_ which
tell of the progress and the work of the new religious orders, and shew
us how, while knights and barons, king and Empress, were turning the
fairest regions of England into a wilderness, Templars and Hospitaliers
were setting up their priories, Austin canons were directing schools
and serving hospitals, and the sons of S. Bernard were making the very
desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. The vigour of the movement
shewed itself in the diversity of forms which it assumed. Most of them
were offshoots of the Order of S. Augustine. The Augustinian schools
were the best in England; the “Black Canons” excelled as teachers;
they excelled yet more as nurses and guardians of the poor. One of the
most attractive features of the time is the great number of hospices,
hospitals, or almshouses as we should call them now, established for
the reception and maintenance of the aged, the needy and the infirm.
Such were the two famous houses of S. Giles, Cripplegate, and S.
Bartholomew, Smithfield; such was the Hospital of S. Katharine near
the Tower, founded in 1148 by Stephen’s queen Matilda, and served by
the canons of Holy Trinity at Aldgate, to whom the younger “good Queen
Maude” was almost as devoted a friend as her aunt and namesake had
been. Such, too, was another foundation whose white church, nestling
amid a clump of trees in the meadows through which the little blue
Itchen goes winding down to the sea, is the only unmutilated remnant
that Winchester still retains of the handiwork of her legate-bishop
Henry. There, before he built his own fortified house, Henry founded
for thirteen poor old men the Hospital of the Holy Cross; and there,
while the dwelling which he made so strong for himself has perished,
the “Almshouse of noble Poverty” still stands--the hospital indeed
rebuilt by a later bishop to whom it owes its poetical name, but the
church unaltered since its founder’s days--a lasting memorial of that
better, spiritual side of his character which the world least saw and
least believed in. Another class of hospitals was destined for the
reception of poor travellers, especially pilgrims. Such had been, in
far-off Palestine, the original purpose of two societies of pious
laymen which had now made their way back into Europe and even into
England in the shape of two great military orders, the Hospitaliers
or Knights of S. John and the Templars. They, too, lived by the rule
of S. Austin. Another offshoot of the Augustinian order consisted of
the White Canons or Premonstratensians (so called from their first
establishment at Prémontré in the diocese of Laon), for whom, in
the midst of the civil war, Peter de Gousla endowed a priory at
Newhouse in Lincolnshire, while his wife founded a house at Brodholm
in Nottinghamshire for sisters of the same order.[1038] “What shall
we think,” exclaims an inmate of one of the great Augustinian houses
of Yorkshire, William of Newburgh,--“what shall we think of all these
religious places which in King Stephen’s time began more abundantly
to arise and to flourish, but that they are God’s castles, wherein
the servants of the true Anointed King do keep watch, and His young
soldiers are exercised in warfare against spiritual evil? For indeed
at that time, when the royal authority had lost all vigour, the mighty
men of the realm, and whosoever was able, were all building castles
either for their own protection or for their neighbours’ hurt; and thus
while through King Stephen’s weakness, or rather through the malice of
the Devil, who is ever a nourisher of strife, evils were swarming and
abundant, there did yet more abound and more gloriously shine forth the
wise and salutary providence of the Almighty King, Who at that very
time did the more mightily confound the king of pride by raising up for
Himself such fortresses as beseemed the King of Peace. For in the short
while that Stephen reigned, or rather bore the title of king, there
arose in England many more dwellings of the servants and handmaids
of God than had arisen there in the course of the whole previous
century.”[1039]

        [1038] The Augustinian houses are in Dugdale’s _Monast. Angl._,
        vol. vi. pt. 1; the hospitals, the military orders and the
        Premonstratensians in vol. vi. pt. 2.

        [1039] Will. Newb., l. i. c. 15 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 53).

It is significant that this enthusiastic outburst of the
historian-canon of Newburgh is called forth by the contemplation not of
his own order, but of three great Cistercian houses, Byland, Rievaux
and Fountains. Buried in their lonely wildernesses, the Cistercians
seem at first glance to have been intent only on saving their own
souls, taking no part in the regeneration of society at large. But the
truth is far otherwise. While the other orders were--if we may venture
to take up the suggestive figure employed by William of Newburgh--the
working, fighting rank and file of the spiritual army, the White Monks
were at once its sentinels, its guides and its commanding officers;
they kept watch and ward over its organization and its safety, they
pointed the way wherein it should go, they directed its energies and
inspired its action. For the never-ending crusade of the Church against
the world had at this time found its leader in a simple Cistercian
monk, who never was Pope, nor legate, nor archbishop, nor even official
head of his own order--who was simply abbot of Clairvaux--yet who, by
the irresistible, unconscious influence of a pure mind and a single
aim, had brought all Christendom to his feet. It was to the “Bright
Valley,” to Clairvaux, that men looked from the most distant lands for
light amid the darkness; it was to S. Bernard that all instinctively
turned for counsel and for guidance. The story of S. Gilbert of
Sempringham may serve for an example. The father of Gilbert was a
Norman holding property in Lincolnshire in the time of Henry I.; his
mother was a woman of Old-English descent. The boy ran away from school
and made his escape to France; there he repented of his idleness, threw
himself zealously into the pursuit of letters, and after some years
came home to set up in his native place a school for boys and girls.
He taught them a great deal more than mere book-learning; his purity,
sweetness and fervour won the very hearts and souls of all who came
under his influence; and there was something in his lofty yet tender
nature which made him seem peculiarly fitted for a spiritual director
of women. Seven maidens first devoted themselves to the religious life
under his guidance; others soon followed their example; several men did
the like. A double monastery thus grew up at Sempringham, under the
protection of Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, in the earliest years of
Stephen’s reign. For some time it continued subject to no other rule
than its founder’s own will. He saw, however, the necessity for a more
lasting basis of organization; instead of trying to devise one himself,
he applied to the general chapter of Cîteaux and besought them to take
charge of his little flock. They, however, refused; since Gilbert had
been inspired to found a new religious society, they would not presume
to interfere with his mission; he must draw up a rule for his own
spiritual children. He ended by working out his scheme into a composite
institution which aimed at combining the excellencies of all earlier
rules, but in which the Cistercian element strongly predominated. The
Gilbertine priories, when fully constituted, consisted of four orders
of persons: canons, who followed the rule of S. Austin; lay-brethren,
nuns and lay-sisters, all bound by the rule of Cîteaux; while the whole
community was held together by certain additional regulations specially
devised by the founder. The new order spread rapidly through eastern
England; and before S. Gilbert’s own life reached its close, he had the
satisfaction of seeing his spiritual children take a highly honourable
part in the great ecclesiastical struggle of which the foremost
champion and victim was S. Thomas of Canterbury.[1040]

        [1040] On the Gilbertines and their founder see Dugdale,
        _Monast. Angl._, vol. vi. pt. 2, pp. iii*–lix*; and Will.
        Newb., l. i. c. 16 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 54, 55).

One sees in this story how instinctively the religious reformers of the
day went to Cîteaux for a model and a guide; and one sees, too, how
little the Cistercians were as yet inclined to abuse their influence by
reaping where they had not sown. The extraordinary position of Bernard
himself was not of his own seeking; the “care of all the churches” came
upon him whether he would or not; as one of his biographers expresses
it, all Christendom looked upon him as a divinely-appointed Moses of
whom the ordained hierarchy and even the supreme pontiff himself were
but subordinate mouthpieces and representatives.[1041] Like their
prototype in the Old Testament, the Aarons of the time did not always
understand the policy or appreciate the aims of their inspired brother,
and the spiritual party in the Church sometimes found its worst
stumbling-block within the walls of the Lateran. Year by year, however,
its influence grew and spread, till on the death of Pope Lucius II. in
February 1145 a Cistercian, Bernard abbot of S. Anastasius at Rome,
was raised to the chair of S. Peter by the name of Eugene III. With
him the anti-Bernardine party had no chance of a moment’s hearing;
threats, flatteries or bribes were all alike thrown away upon a pontiff
whose glory and whose strength lay in having no will of his own, in
being simply the voice which proclaimed and the hand which executed
the thoughts of his greater namesake at Clairvaux. “They say I am
Pope, not you!” wrote S. Bernard to him,[1042] half playfully, half
in gentle reproach, and Eugene gloried in the saying. A new departure
in the policy of the Roman see was marked by the fulfilment of one of
Bernard’s most cherished schemes, the preaching of a new crusade for
the deliverance of the Holy Land, whence an imploring cry for help
came from the widowed Queen Melisenda--for King Fulk of Anjou had been
cut off suddenly in the midst of his labours, and his realm, left to
the rule of a woman and a child, was rapidly falling a prey to the
Infidels.[1043] At Vézelay, on Easter-day 1146, the young King Louis of
France took the cross from S. Bernard’s own hands amid a scene of the
wildest enthusiasm. The Emperor Conrad soon followed his example, and
at Pentecost 1147 the expedition set out.

        [1041] Ern. Bonneval, _Vita S. Bernardi_, l. ii. c. 4 (_S.
        Bern. Opp._, ed. Mabillon, vol. ii. col. 1102).

        [1042] S. Bernard. Ep. ccxxxix (_Opp._, Mabillon, vol. 1. col.
        235).

        [1043] On Fulk’s reign in Palestine see Will. Tyr., ll. xiv.
        and xv. The exact date of his death is doubtful; Will. Tyr.,
        l. xv. c. 27, and l. xvi. c. 2, gives it as November 13,
        1142, and says that Baldwin II. was crowned on the following
        Christmas-day. But in l. xvi. c. 4 he says that Edessa was lost
        in the interval between Fulk’s death and his son’s coronation,
        and it is known from other sources that Edessa was taken by the
        Infidels on Christmas-night 1144. Moreover there is in Paoli’s
        _Codice Dipl. del S. Mil. Ord. Gerosol._, vol. i. p. 29, a
        charter of Melisenda dated “1149, Indictione xii.,” which she
        calls the fifth year of her son’s reign. The Chronn. S. Albin.
        and S. Serg. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 35, 146), Chron. Turon.
        Magn. (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, p. 134), Chron. Namnet.
        (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 558) and Ric. Poitiers
        (_ib._ p. 415) all date Fulk’s death 1143; the Chron. S. Flor.
        Salm. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 191) places it in 1141, but
        couples it with the death of Pope Innocent, which certainly
        occurred in 1143. Fulk’s end was characteristic, being caused
        by his own impetuosity. He was thrown from his horse in dashing
        too hastily after a hare started by some children, as he was
        riding with Melisenda outside the walls of Acre (Will. Tyr.,
        l. xv. c. 27). See the peculiar philosophizing of the Tours
        chronicler thereon (Salmon, as above).

As far as its direct object was concerned, this second crusade failed
completely; yet it had not been projected in vain. As said a friend
and biographer of S. Bernard: “If it was God’s will thereby to deliver,
not the bodies of many eastern folk from the bondage of the heathen,
but the souls of many western folk from the bondage of sin, who shall
dare to ask why He has thus done?”[1044] If the movement did nothing
for Palestine, it did something for England. Torn and exhausted with
her internal divisions, she could take no part in it as a state; but
nowhere was it more readily joined by individual volunteers. The
preaching of the Crusade was a spark which kindled into flame, in the
heart of more than one of the troublers of the land, the smouldering
embers of a capacity for better things; it was a trumpet-call
which roused more than one brave knight to forsake the miserable
party-strife with which perhaps in his secret soul he had long been
growing disgusted, and fling into a better cause the energies which
he had been wasting upon his country’s ruin.[1045] But the movement
did more for England than this. It brought to light among the English
people a spirit whose existence at such a time could otherwise hardly
have been suspected. The one success of the Crusade was achieved by
a little independent squadron of one hundred and sixty-four ships
which sailed from Dartmouth on May 23, six days before the feast of
the Ascension, 1147. The expedition consisted of Germans, Flemings
and Englishmen, the latter being the most numerous. Nearly all were
men of low degree; they had no commander-in-chief; each nationality
chose its own leader. The “men of the Empire”--a body of Low-Germans
who, for some unknown reason, chose to be independent of the great
Imperial host--followed Count Arnold of Aerschot, who seems to have
been the only person of rank in the whole assemblage; the Flemings and
the men of Queen Matilda’s county of Boulogne were led by Christian of
Gistelles. The English grouped themselves according to the districts of
their birth under the guidance of four marshals; Hervey of Glanville
led the men of Norfolk and Suffolk; Simon of Dover[1046] commanded
the ships of Kent; a man named Andrew was chief of the Londoners; and
a miscellaneous contingent from other parts of the country was headed
by Saher de Arcelles. The whole company bound themselves by vows
almost as stringent as those of a religious order; they were pledged
to eschew all fine clothes and personal indulgences, and to help and
avenge one another in all things as sworn brethren; each ship had its
own chaplain and its regular services, as if it were a parish; every
man confessed and communicated once a week; and for the enforcement
of all these rules two men were elected out of every thousand to form
a body of sworn judges[1047] who should administer the common funds
and assist the marshals in maintaining order. These warrior-pilgrims,
sailing down the western coast of the Spanish peninsula on their way
to the Mediterranean Sea, touched at Oporto; at the entreaty of the
Portuguese King Alfonso and his people they exchanged their intended
crusade in Holy Land for one which was perhaps more useful--a campaign
for the deliverance of Christian Portugal from its Moorish oppressors.
The Moors who occupied Lisbon were starved into surrender by a four
months’ blockade; the crusaders entered the city in triumph; in the
hour of temptation English discipline proved strong enough to control
German greed,[1048] and renouncing all share in the fruit of their
victory these single-hearted soldiers of the Cross made over the future
capital of Portugal to its Christian sovereign and went home rejoicing
that they, a few poor men of lowly birth and no reputation, had been
counted worthy to strike a successful blow for the Faith, while its
royal and imperial champions at the head of their countless hosts met
with nothing but disaster and disgrace.[1049]

        [1044] Geoff. Clairvaux, _Vita S. Bern._, l. iii. c. 4 (_S.
        Bern. Opp._, Mabillon, vol. ii. col. 1120).

        [1045] See, in particular, the cases of William of Cricklade
        and Philip of Gloucester, _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 111,
        119, 120.

        [1046] “Dorobernensis,” Osbern. _De Expugn. Lyxbon._ (prefixed
        to _Itinerarium Regis Ricardi_, Stubbs), p. cxliv. This ought
        to mean Canterbury; but is not Dover more likely in this case?

        [1047] “Qui judices et conjurati dicerentur.” Osbern (Stubbs,
        _Itin. Reg. Ric._), p. cxliv.

        [1048] The characteristic way in which the Germans and the
        English acted when they got into the city should be noticed in
        Osbern (Stubbs, _Itin. Reg. Ric._), pp. clxviii.–clxxx.

        [1049] Osbern (Stubbs, _Itin. Reg. Ric._), pp. clxxxi,
        clxxxii. See also a letter in Martène and Durand, _Ampliss.
        Coll._, vol. i. cols. 800–802; another in Pertz, _Mon. Germ.
        Hist._, vol. xvii. p. 27; and Hen. Hunt. l. viii. c. 27
        (Arnold, p. 281).

There was no need to despair of a country whose middle and lower
classes could still produce men capable of an exploit such as this.
When a spontaneous gathering of poor yeomen, common sailors and obscure
citizens could reveal such a spirit, it was plain that all England
wanted to rescue her from her misery was a competent leader. S.
Bernard, watching over the fortunes of the English Church through the
eyes of his brethren at Fountains and Rievaux, had seen this already;
and he saw, too, that it was vain to look for such a leader in either
the king or the king-maker, Henry of Winchester. Before the Church of
England could rescue the state, she must be freed from the political
entanglements into which she had been dragged by Henry’s impetuosity,
and enabled to resume a position of spiritual independence under her
rightful leader, the archbishop of Canterbury. With this view the whole
Cistercian order in England, supported and directed by S. Bernard,
had set their faces against William Fitz-Herbert’s appointment to
the see of York, as an attempt of king and legate to override the
constitutional rights of the southern primate and of the Church as a
whole. “The bishop of Winchester and the archbishop of York do not walk
in the same spirit with the archbishop of Canterbury, but go their own
way in opposition to him; and this comes from the old quarrel about
the legation”--thus Bernard summed up the case.[1050] Moreover the
saving clause whereby William of Durham was allowed to swear by proxy
in behalf of his namesake appears to have been interpolated by the
latter’s friends into the Papal decree; for “One William has not sworn,
yet the other is archbishop”[1051] was the burthen of S. Bernard’s
cry to the Pope; and when in 1144 a cardinal-legate, Hicmar, came to
England with a pall for William of York, he promised Bernard not to
give it till he should have received the oath from the bishop of Durham
in person.[1052]

        [1050] In a letter to Eugene III., S. Bern. Ep. ccxxxviii.
        (_Opp._ Mabillon, vol. i. col. 234).

        [1051] S. Bern. Epp. ccxxxv.–ccxxxvi., both to Celestine II.
        (as above, cols. 229–231).

        [1052] S. Bern. Ep. ccclx. (as above, cols. 324, 325)--to
        Abbot William of Rievaux. See also Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 149,
        and, for date, note _u_, _ibid._

Neither prelate took any notice of Hicmar’s presence; but when he was
recalled by the death of Pope Lucius and the accession of Eugene,
the archbishop of York suddenly perceived what a blunder he had
made, and hurried to Rome in quest of the pall about which he had
hitherto been so indifferent. Instead of giving it, Eugene suspended
him from all episcopal functions till such time as William of Durham
should have taken the oath required by the sentence of Pope Innocent.
The archbishop hereupon retired to Sicily and took up his abode
there with his fellow-countryman the chancellor, Robert of Selby or
Salisbury,[1053] under the protection of King Roger. As Roger was
then at bitter feud with the Church, this step was not likely to
mend William’s ecclesiastical reputation. His cause, bad from the
first and made worse by his own carelessness, was presently ruined
by his friends. The leaders of the opposition to him in England were
the abbots of Rievaux and Fountains; the latter, Henry Murdac, was a
native of Yorkshire who in Archbishop Thurstan’s time had given up
houses and lands, home and kindred, to go out to Clairvaux at the
call of S. Bernard. In 1135 he was sent thence to found the abbey of
Vauclair;[1054] in 1143 he was appointed to succeed Abbot Richard II.
of Fountains, who had died at Clairvaux while on his way to attend
the general chapter of his order at Cîteaux.[1055] Henry Murdac went
back to his native land charged with an implied commission to make
Fountains an English Clairvaux and himself an English representative
of S. Bernard, and he fulfilled his charge with true Cistercian zeal
and fidelity.[1056] As soon as William’s suspension became known, his
friends attributed it to the influence of Murdac, whom they sought to
punish by making an armed raid upon his abbey. Plunder, of course,
they got little or none in a freshly-reformed Cistercian house;[1057]
so, after a hurried and unsuccessful search for Murdac himself, they
set the place on fire. Every stone of it perished except the church,
which escaped as by miracle; and the abbot escaped with it, for he
had been lying all the while, unnoticed by the passion-blinded eyes
of his foes, prostrate in prayer before the high altar. The energy of
the monks and the sympathy of their neighbours soon enabled Fountains
to rise from its ashes more glorious than before;[1058] but William’s
day of grace was at once brought to a close by this outrage. At a
council held in Paris in the spring of 1147, the abbot of Fountains
and a deputation from the chapter of York once more formally presented
to the Pope their charges against their primate, and Eugene deposed
William from his episcopal office.[1059] On the eve of S. James the
chapter of York, with the two suffragan bishops of the province--Durham
and Carlisle--met in obedience to a papal mandate for the election of
a new archbishop. The choice of the majority fell upon Henry Murdac.
From Clairvaux, whither he had gone after the council, the abbot of
Fountains was summoned to the papal court at Trier, and there, on the
octave of S. Andrew, he received his consecration and his pall both at
once from Pope Eugene’s own hand.[1060]

        [1053] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 150–152. Robert was “oriundus in
        Angliâ, scilicet in Salesbiâ.” Mr. Raine renders this Selby;
        Twysden made it Salisbury; Bishop Stubbs (_Lect. on Mediev. and
        Mod. Hist._, p. 133), leaves the question undecided.

        [1054] On the earlier life of Henry Murdac see Dixon and Raine,
        _Fasti Ebor._, pp. 210–213; and Walbran, _Memor. of Fountains_,
        vol. i. p. 84, note 3.

        [1055] Walbran, _Memor. of Fountains_, vol. i. pp. 78, 81–83.
        S. Bern. Epp. cccxx, cccxxi (_Opp._ Mabillon, vol. i. cols.
        297, 298).

        [1056] Walbran, _Memor. of Fountains_, vol. i. pp. 84, 85.

        [1057] “Ferentes secum spolia, parum quidem pecuniæ, sed
        plurimum dampnationis.” Walbran, _Memor. of Fountains_, vol. i.
        p. 102.

        [1058] _Ib._ pp. 101, 102.

        [1059] On the council of Paris see Labbe, _Concilia_ (Cossart),
        vol. xxi., cols. 709, 710. As to the date, it appears from
        Jaffé (_Regesta Pontif. Rom._, pp. 626, 627) that Eugene
        reached Paris before Easter (April 20) and was there till June
        11; so the council must fall in the interval. On William’s
        deposition see Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 134. “Hoc
        concilio” ought, by all logical and grammatical rules, to mean
        the council of Reims, held in March 1148, and of which Gervase
        has just been speaking. Accordingly most of his commentators
        (including the editors of the Fountains and Hexham books, and
        the compilers of the _Fasti Eboracenses_) say that William was
        deposed at the council of Reims; and then, as his successor was
        undoubtedly consecrated in December 1147, they are obliged to
        antedate the council of Reims by a year. But Gervase himself
        says, almost in the same breath, that the deposition took place
        in _Paris_. He has confused the two councils; see Pagi’s note
        to Baronius, _Annales_, vol. xix. pp. 7, 8; and cf. Joh. Hexh.
        (Raine), p. 154.

        [1060] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 154, 155. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
        vol. i. p. 135. Walbran, _Memor. of Fountains_, vol. i. p. 103.
        Will. Newb., l. i. c. 17 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 56). The _Hist.
        Pontif._ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx. p. 518) says
        Henry was consecrated at Auxerre, but this is incompatible with
        dates.

The subsequent conduct of Stephen and Henry of Winchester proved
that their aim in securing the occupation of the northern primacy
had been rightly understood by Eugene and Bernard. They had staked
everything upon the success of their scheme, and when it failed not
only the king but even the once cool and sagacious bishop completely
lost his head. Upon William himself the papal sentence had the very
opposite effect; it woke him from his dreams of easy dignity and
worldly pride; from that moment the idle, showy, self-indulgent young
ecclesiastic changed into an humble saint, and when he came home next
year it was not to renew the strife but to turn away from the world
and possess his soul in patience.[1061] But his uncles would not hear
of submission; Henry took him to live in his own house, and there
persisted in ostentatiously treating him with all the honours due to
the archbishop of York;[1062] and when in the summer of 1148 the new
archbishop also came back to England, Stephen demanded sworn security
for his fidelity before he would let him set foot in the country.[1063]
The citizens of York, instigated by the treasurer of the see, Hugh of
Puiset, who like William was a nephew of the king, shut their gates
in their primate’s face; he withdrew to Ripon, laid his diocese under
interdict and excommunicated Hugh; but Hugh, strong in the support of
his uncles, defied the interdict and was even impudent enough to return
the excommunication.[1064]

        [1061] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 154.

        [1062] _Ibid._ Will. Newb. as above.

        [1063] _Ibid._ Oddly enough, this York affair is almost the
        only one in which William rather inclines to take the part of
        the king.

        [1064] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 158.

In the southern province matters had come to a still more dangerous
crisis. Early in 1148 all the English bishops were summoned by the Pope
to a council which was to meet at Reims on Mid-Lent Sunday. Three of
them--Hereford, Chichester and Norwich--were sent by Stephen himself;
but when the archbishop of Canterbury made the usual application for
leave to quit the country, the king refused, set a watch at every
port to stop his egress, and at his brother Henry’s instigation swore
that if Theobald did go he should be banished on his return. Theobald
however had made up his mind to go at any cost; he slipped away in an
old broken boat with only two companions--Roger of Pont-l’Evêque and
Thomas of London, the latter of whom had now been for several years
the most trusted medium of intercommunication between the primate and
the court of Rome. The daring voyagers reached their journey’s end in
safety, and Theobald was triumphantly presented to the council by the
Pope as one who had swum rather than sailed across the Channel for
the sake of his duty to the Church.[1065] The bishops who had failed
to attend were all suspended, Henry of Winchester being specially
mentioned by name. His brother, however,--the good count of Blois
who seems to have been at once the scapegoat and the peacemaker for
all the sins of his family, and who was held in the deepest esteem
by both Eugene and Bernard--made intercession on his behalf, and
obtained a relaxation of the sentence against him on condition of
his coming to Rome within six months.[1066] As for the king, Eugene
would have excommunicated him at once; but for him the other Theobald
stepped forward as mediator, like Anselm in a somewhat similar case,
and procured him a respite of three months.[1067] The intercessor’s
reward was the threatened sentence of banishment, issued as soon
as he returned to Canterbury. He withdrew into France and appealed
to the Pope, while Stephen seized the temporalities of the see and
began playing the part of the Red King on a small scale. Eugene
wrote to all the English bishops, severally and in a body, bidding
them summon the king to restore the primate at once, lay all his
dominions under interdict if he refused, and tell him that he should
certainly be excommunicated by the Pope on Michaelmas day. The bishops
however were all on the court-side; the interdict, duly published by
Theobald, was unheeded save in his own diocese; and the king remained
obstinate.[1068] But his wiser queen, aided by William of Ypres, who,
however he may have sinned against others, was unquestionably Stephen’s
truest friend, made an effort to restore peace; and at their request
Theobald removed to St. Omer, as being a more accessible place for
negotiation than his French retreat.[1069]

        [1065] _Hist. Pontif._ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx.),
        p. 519; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 134. Both accounts
        seem to be derived from a letter of S. Thomas (Ep. ccl.,
        Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi. pp. 57, 58). Thomas’s presence at
        the council is distinctly stated in _Hist. Pontif._ (as above),
        p. 522, and so is that of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque.

        [1066] _Hist. Pontif._ (as above), p. 520. Cf. Gilb. Foliot,
        Ep. lxxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 92).

        [1067] _Hist. Pontif._ (as above), p. 519.

        [1068] _Hist. Pontif._ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx.),
        pp. 530, 532.

        [1069] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 135.

Matilda of Boulogne doubtless saw what Theobald must have known full
well, that the quarrel involved a great deal more than strictly
ecclesiastical questions. The issue which the ordeal of battle had
failed to decide was on its trial now in a different form and before
another tribunal. The most curious symptom of this feeling, perhaps,
was the action of Brian Fitz-Count, who, after having been for years
Matilda’s most devoted and most successful champion in the field,
suddenly exchanged the sword for the pen and brought out a defence
of his Lady’s rights in the shape of a little treatise which gained
the approval of one of the cleverest men and greatest scholars of the
time, Gilbert Foliot, abbot of Gloucester.[1070] Geoffrey Plantagenet,
with his Angevin quickness, was the first openly to proclaim the true
position of affairs by sending to Stephen, through Bishop Miles of
Térouanne, a formal challenge to give up his ill-gotten realm and
submit to an investigation of his claims before the papal court.
Stephen retorted by a counter-challenge, calling upon Geoffrey to give
up his equally ill-gotten duchy before he would agree to any further
proceeding in the matter.[1071] Geoffrey took him at his word, but
in a way which he was far from desiring. He did give up the duchy of
Normandy, by making it over to his own son, Henry Fitz-Empress.[1072]

        [1070] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxix. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 94–102).

        [1071] _Hist. Pontif._ (as above), p. 531.

        [1072] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1149 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 36).
        But the story of Gilbert Foliot’s consecration shews that the
        cession must really have taken place in 1148.

The crisis was now close at hand; Stephen was at last face to face with
his true rival. He appears to have consented, as if in desperation, to
the proposed trial at Rome. It seems at first glance as if the envoys
whom he sent to represent him there must indeed have been driven to
their wits’ end for an argument in his behalf when they raked up again
a scandal which S. Anselm had laid to rest half a century ago, as to
the validity of the marriage between Matilda’s father and mother.[1073]
Yet such was the argument publicly put forth by many voices against
the legality of her claims to the crown; and though one account of the
proceedings states that her adversaries were triumphantly confuted by
Bishop Ulger of Angers,[1074] another, written by an eye-witness whose
own opinions were wholly in her favour, declares that her advocates
answered never a word.[1075] The trial seems to have ended without any
decision;[1076] it was however quickly followed by a very significant
event. The witness just referred to was Gilbert Foliot, a Cluniac monk
who since 1139 had been abbot of Gloucester, and whose reputation for
learning, wisdom and holiness had secured to him the confidence of the
primate and the consideration of all parties alike in Church and state.
He had reluctantly and after some delay obeyed Theobald’s summons to
join him at the papal court; once there, he seems to have flung all
his energies into the organization of the new policy of which Theobald
was to be the leader.[1077] During the session of the council at Reims
the bishop of Hereford died.[1078] The Pope at once appointed Gilbert
Foliot vicar of the diocese;[1079] in September he was consecrated by
Theobald at St. Omer, with the consent and approval of the young duke
of the Normans, given on the express condition that he should do homage
for the temporalities of his see to the duke and not to the king.

        [1073] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxix. (Giles, vol. i. p. 101). _Hist.
        Pontif._ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx.), p. 543.

        [1074] _Hist. Pontif._ (as above), p. 544.

        [1075] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxix. (as above).

        [1076] From the way in which this trial is brought into the
        _Hist. Pontif._, it would at first glance seem to have taken
        place in 1151. But the presence of Bishops Ulger of Angers and
        Roger of Chester, both of whom died in 1149, and the account of
        the proceedings written by Gilbert Foliot to Brian Fitz-Count
        clearly prove the true date to be 1148.

        [1077] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. vi., vii., lxxvi. (Giles, vol. i. pp.
        13, 14, 92).

        [1078] _Hist. Monast. S. Petr. Glocestr._ (Hart), vol. i. p. 18.

        [1079] “G. gratiâ Dei abbas, et Herefordiensis ecclesiæ mandato
        Domini Papæ vicarius,” runs the salutation of his Ep. lxxviii.
        (Giles, vol. i. p. 93).

The very first thing Gilbert did was to break this promise;[1080] but
that Theobald should have consecrated such a man on such terms was
a sign of the times which Stephen could hardly fail to understand.
Theobald himself soon afterwards ventured back to England; crossing
from Gravelines, he landed at Gosford in the territories of Hugh Bigod,
by whom he was hospitably received; the bishops of London, Chichester
and Norwich, with several barons, came to meet him at Hugh’s castle
of Framlingham; the king was reconciled, the primate restored, the
interdict raised, and the suspended prelates, all save one, allowed to
resume their functions.[1081] The exception was Henry of Winchester,
who by neglecting to go to Rome within the prescribed six months
had necessarily fallen under the sentence pronounced against him by
Eugene at the council of Reims. Even to him, however, Theobald was
willing at Stephen’s request to hold out the hand of fellowship and
forgiveness.[1082] But Henry of Winchester’s days of king-making were
over. It was time for another Henry to appear upon the political scene,
to take his cause into his own hands and stand forth as the champion
of his own claims against the man who had supplanted him on his
grandfather’s throne.

        [1080] _Hist. Pontif._ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx.),
        pp. 532, 533.

        [1081] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 136, 137.

        [1082] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 152.




CHAPTER VIII.

HENRY DUKE OF THE NORMANS.

1149–1154.


No loving hands have done for the early life of Henry Fitz-Empress what
they did for that of his contemporary, his friend, his opponent Thomas
of London; we have no stories of his boyhood, no picture of his home.
Home indeed, in the full sense of the word, he never had and never
could have. That instinctive attachment to one particular spot, or at
the least to one particular country, which is innate in most men, was
to a child of Geoffrey and Matilda simply impossible. Geoffrey was the
son of an Angevin count and a Cenomannian countess; Matilda was the
daughter of a king born in England of a Norman father and a Flemish
mother, and of a queen whose parents were the one a Scottish Celt, the
other a West-Saxon with a touch of High-German blood. In the temper
of the Empress the Norman element was undoubtedly the strongest; no
trace can be seen in her of the gentle spirit of her mother; and it
is clear that no lingering regrets for the land of her birth[1083]
haunted the girl-bride of the Emperor in her palace at Aachen as they
haunted the monk Orderic, from boyhood to old age, in his cell at
Saint-Evroul. Yet when she came to Normandy in her twenty-third year,
she came there unwillingly and as a complete stranger. If Henry was
to inherit any national or patriotic feeling at all, it could not be
from his mother; what she transmitted to him instead was a sort of
cosmopolitanism which saved the future duke of Normandy and king of
England from the too exclusive influence of the demon-blood of Anjou,
not by making him a Norman, still less an Englishman, but by rendering
his nationality a yet more insoluble problem than her own. Even in
his father, too, there are signs of a divided national sentiment.
The son of Aremburg of Maine, the grandson and heir of Elias, could
not cling to the black rock of Angers with the exclusive attachment
of its earlier counts; a share of his patriotic affection and pride
must have been given to that other, red rock above the Sarthe which
had held out so long and so bravely against both Normandy and Anjou,
to that Cenomannian land of heroes which Norman and Angevin alike had
counted it their highest glory to overcome and win. It may have been by
chance, or it may have been of set purpose, that Geoffrey and Matilda
were at Le Mans when their first child was born; no other spot could
have been half so appropriate. The land which Normans and Angevins and
even Englishmen[1084] had done their utmost to wipe out of the list of
states, the land whose claim to a separate existence, ignored or denied
by them all, had yet proved the insurmountable stumbling-block which
forced them into union:--that land was the most fitting birth-place
for the child who was to be neither Norman, nor Angevin, nor English,
and yet was to be all three at once. The vengeance of Maine upon her
conquerors formed a characteristic close to her national career. They
had swallowed her up at last; but they had no sooner done it than she
gave a master to them all.

        [1083] She was born in London: Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson,
        _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 13.

        [1084] Eng. Chron. a. 1073.

If, then, Normandy, England and Anjou had each a part in Henry, Le Mans
had two parts, as being at once the home of his father’s mother and
the scene of his own birth. His earliest recollections, however, must
rather have been associated with Normandy. His first journey thither
was made when he was about twelve months old, when he accompanied
his mother on a visit to King Henry in the spring 1134. His brother
Geoffrey was born at Argentan on June 1, and the two children narrowly
escaped being left motherless under their grandfather’s care.[1085]
Possibly this made them all the dearer to him; he certainly found in
them his last earthly pleasure, of which he was finally deprived by a
quarrel with their mother, who seems to have sent them back to Angers
shortly before her own return thither in the autumn of 1135.[1086] For
the next seven years little Henry can have seen nothing of his future
duchy; and we have no means of knowing whether its stately capital,
its people, its dialect, had left any impression upon him, or whether
any dim personal remembrance was associated in his mind with that name
of “my grandfather King Henry” to which he appealed so constantly in
later life. His training, after his return to Angers as before, must
have devolved chiefly upon Matilda; for Geoffrey during the next three
years was too busy with unsuccessful fighting abroad in the interest
of his wife and son to have much leisure for devoting himself to their
society at home. It was not till the close of 1138 that his influence
can have been seriously brought to bear upon his children, of whom
there were now three, another son, named William, having been born in
August 1136.[1087] After the disaster of Toucques the count appears
to have spent his time until the beginning of 1141 for the most part
quietly at home, where his wife’s departure over sea left him in his
turn sole guardian of his boys. In one respect at least he did not
neglect his paternal duty. “Unlettered king, crowned ass,” was a
reproach which would have fallen with double disgrace upon the son of
Geoffrey Plantagenet and the grandson of Henry I.; and Geoffrey took
care that his firstborn should never be exposed to it. It may even
be that in those two years when war and politics left him at leisure
for the quieter enjoyments of his books, his hunting and his home,
the young father himself took up the task, of which he was certainly
quite capable, of instilling into his child the first rudiments of
that book-learning which he loved so well. At any rate, it was he who
chose the first teacher to whom Henry’s education was intrusted. As if
on purpose to add one more to the varied influences already working
in that young mind, the teacher was neither Angevin, nor Cenomannian,
nor Norman. He was one Master Peter of Saintes, “learned above all his
contemporaries in the science of verse.”[1088]

        [1085] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1134 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 33);
        Rob. Torigni, a. 1134. Cf. Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii. cc.
        27, 28 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, pp. 305, 306).

        [1086] Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii. c. 34 (as above, p.
        310).

        [1087] Rob. Torigni, _ad ann._

        [1088] “Hic [sc. Gaufridus] filium suum Enricum natu majorem ad
        erudiendum tradidit cuidam magistro Petro scilicet Xantonensi,
        qui in metris instructus est super omnes coætaneos suos.” Anon.
        Chron., _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 120.

Under Peter’s care the boy remained till the close of 1142, when, as
we have seen, he was sent to England in company with his uncle Robert
of Gloucester. Henry now entered upon a third phase of education.
For the next four years his uncle took charge of him and kept him in
his own household at Bristol under the care of one Master Matthew,
by whom he was to be “imbued with letters and instructed in good
manners, as beseemed a youth of his rank.”[1089] This arrangement
may have been due to the Empress, or it may have originated with
Geoffrey when he sent the boy over sea in the earl’s company; for
much as they differed in other matters, on the subject of a boy’s
training the two brothers-in-law could hardly fail to be of the same
mind. A well-balanced compound of soldier, statesman and scholar
was Earl Robert’s ideal no less than Count Geoffrey’s; an ideal so
realized in his own person that he might safely be trusted to watch
over its developement in the person of his little nephew. As far as
the military element was concerned, the earl of Gloucester, with his
matured experience and oft-proved valour, was no less capable than
the count of Anjou of furnishing a model of all knightly prowess,
skill and courtesy; and if Henry’s chivalry was to be tempered with
discretion--if it was to be regulated by a wise and wary policy--if he
was to acquire any insight into the principles of sound and prudent
state-craft--Robert was certainly, among the group of adventurers
who surrounded the Empress, the only man from whom he could learn
anything of the kind. The boy was indeed scarce ten years old, and
even for the heir of Anjou and England it was perhaps somewhat too
early to begin such studies as these. For the literary side of his
education, later years proved that Robert’s choice of a teacher was as
good as Geoffrey’s had been; the seed sowed by Peter of Saintes was
well watered by Matthew, and it seems to have brought forth in his
young pupil’s mind a harvest of gratitude as well as of learning, for
among the chancellors of King Henry II. there appears a certain “Master
Matthew” who can hardly be any other than his old teacher.[1090]

        [1089] “Puer autem Henricus sub tutelâ Comitis Roberti apud
        Bristoviam degens, per quatuor annos traditus est magisterio
        cujusdam Mathæi, litteris imbuendus et moribus honestis ut
        talem decebat puerum instituendus.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs.), vol.
        i. p. 125.

        [1090] “The person meant was no doubt that Matthew who is
        called Henry’s chancellor in Foliot’s letters.” Stubbs,
        _Gerv. Cant._, vol. i. p. 125, note 2. (“Master Matthew, the
        chancellor,” is named in Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cli., Giles, vol.
        i. pp. 201, 202). In his _Lect. on Med. and Mod. Hist._, p.
        120, Bishop Stubbs speaks of Matthew as the king’s “tutor, who
        was some time his chancellor, and who probably was identical
        with the Bishop of Angers, Matthew of London.” Bishop Matthew
        of Angers is described by the editors of _Gall. Christ._ (vol.
        xiv. col. 570) as a native of _Loudun_--“Losduni natus.” He was
        consecrated in 1155, which seems hardly to leave time for his
        chancellorship.

To teach the boy “good manners”--in the true sense of those words--must
have been a somewhat difficult task amid his present surroundings.
Bristol, during the years of Henry’s residence there, fully kept up
its character as the “stepmother of all England”; he must have been
continually seeing or hearing of bands of soldiers issuing from the
castle to ravage and plunder, burn and slay, or troops of captives
dragged in to linger in its dungeons till they had given up their
uttermost farthing or were set free by a miserable death. It seems
likely, however, that the worst of these horrors occurred during
Robert’s absence and without his sanction, for even the special
panegyrist of Stephen gives the earl credit for doing his utmost to
maintain order and justice in the shires over which he ruled.[1091] It
was not his fault if matters had drifted into such a state that his
efforts were worse than useless; and his good intentions were at any
rate not more ineffectual than those of the king. Within the domestic
circle itself it is not unlikely that the child was better placed under
the influence of Robert and Mabel than either in the household of his
violent-tempered mother or in that of his refined but selfish father,
whom he rejoined in the spring of 1147, a year before the return of the
Empress. He was in his sixteenth year when Geoffrey ceded to him the
duchy of Normandy. A boy of that age, especially in the house of Anjou,
was counted a man, and expected to act as such. The cession was in fact
intended and understood as a solemn proclamation both to friends and
foes that henceforth they would have to deal with King Henry’s chosen
heir no longer indirectly, but in his own person; that his rights were
to be vindicated in future not by his parents but by himself.

        [1091] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 94.

He lost no time in beginning his work. In the middle of May 1149
Stephen, while endeavouring to put down a fresh revolt of the earls of
Chester and Pembroke,[1092] was startled by news of Henry’s arrival in
England. The young duke of the Normans landed we know not where, and
made his way northward, recruiting a few of his mother’s old adherents
as he went: his great-uncle King David welcomed him at Carlisle, and
there knighted him on Whit-Sunday.[1093] Stephen evidently took this
act as a challenge, for he immediately retorted by knighting his eldest
son Eustace, thus pointedly setting up his own heir as a rival to his
young kinsman.[1094] He then hastened with all his forces to York,
but no hostilities took place.[1095] The intended campaign of David
and Henry was frustrated by Ralf of Chester’s failure to keep his
engagement with them;[1096] the two kings sat awhile, one at York and
the other at Carlisle, each waiting for the other to strike, till David
grew weary and retired to his own kingdom,[1097] taking his nephew with
him; and in January Henry again withdrew beyond the sea.[1098] He saw
that the political scales were as yet too evenly balanced to be turned
by the mere weight of his maiden sword; and his work was being done for
him, better than he could do it himself, by clerk and primate, abbot
and Pope--most surely of all, by the blundering king himself.

        [1092] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 124–127, gives the details
        of this rising.

        [1093] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 140, 141. Cf. Hen.
        Hunt., l. viii. c. 29 (Arnold, p. 282). Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p.
        159. Rob. Torigni, a. 1149. The writer of _Gesta Steph._ (pp.
        128, 129) has a most romantic account of Henry’s adventures.
        Henry, he says, came over with a very small force, and nothing
        to pay them with except promises. He made an attempt upon
        Bourton and Cricklade, and was repulsed; whereupon his troops
        all fell away and left him so helpless that he was obliged to
        ask his mother for some money. She had none to give him; he
        then asked his uncle Gloucester, but the latter, “suis sacculis
        avide incumbens,” refused. Then Henry in desperation appealed
        to the king, beseeching his compassion for the sake of their
        kindred blood; and Stephen at once sent him the needful sum.
        The trait is just what might be expected in Stephen; but it is
        hard to conceive Henry ever getting into such a plight; and the
        mention of Robert of Gloucester as still alive shews there must
        be something wrong in the story.

        [1094] Hen. Hunt. as above. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 160. _Gesta
        Steph._ (Sewell), p. 130.

        [1095] Hen. Hunt. as above.

        [1096] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 159, 160. Ralf had agreed to
        give up his claims on Carlisle and accept instead the honour
        of Lancaster for himself and the hand of one of David’s
        granddaughters for his son; he promised on these conditions to
        join David and Henry in an attack upon Lancaster, but was, as
        usual, false to the tryst.

        [1097] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 29 (Arnold, p. 282).

        [1098] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 142.

A double chain connected English politics with those of the Roman
court. The links of the one chain were S. Bernard and Henry Murdac;
those of the other were Theobald of Canterbury and Thomas of London.
What was the exact nature of those communications between the primate
and the Pope of which Thomas was the medium--how much of the credit of
Theobald’s policy is due to himself and how much to his confidential
instrument and adviser--we have no means of determining precisely.
The aim of that policy was to consolidate the forces of the English
Church by deepening her intercourse and strengthening her connexion
with the sister-Churches of the West, and thus bring the highest
religious and political influences of Latin Christendom to bear upon
the troubles of the English state. The way had been paved by Henry of
Winchester in his legatine days. He and the councils which he convened
had first suggested the possibility of finding a remedy for the lack
of secular administration in an appeal to the authority of the canon
law, now formulated as a definite code by the labours of a Bolognese
lawyer, Gratian. The very strifes and jealousies which arose from
Henry’s over-vigorous assertion of his authority tended to a like
result; they led to more frequent appeals to Rome, to elaborate legal
pleadings, to the drawing of subtle legal distinctions unknown to the
old customary procedure of the land; as a contemporary writer expresses
it, “Then were laws and lawyers first brought into England.”[1099] On
the Continent the study of the civil jurisprudence of the Roman Empire
had been revived together with that of the canon law; some members of
Archbishop Theobald’s household resolved to introduce it into England,
hoping thereby, as it seems, to sow amid the general confusion some
seeds of a more orderly and law-abiding spirit. During the time of
comparative quiet which intervened between his first journey to Rome in
1143 and his expedition with Theobald to the council of Reims in 1148,
Thomas of London had spent a year at Bologna and Auxerre to perfect
himself in the literary culture which he had somewhat neglected in
his youth.[1100] The university of Bologna was the chief seat of the
new legal learning; it may therefore have been through Thomas that a
Lombard teacher, Vacarius, was induced to visit England in 1149 and
open lectures at Oxford on the Roman law.[1101] Rich and poor flocked
to hear him, and at the request of his poorer scholars he made an
abridgement of the Code and Digests, sufficient for practical use,
and more within reach of their scanty means than the heavy folios of
Justinian.[1102] His lectures however were summarily brought to an end
by order of the king; Stephen, scared by young Duke Henry’s presence
in the north, jealous of the primate, jealous of the Church, jealous
of everything in which he saw or thought he saw the least token of an
influence which might be used against himself, at once silenced the
teacher and ordered the students to give up their books. He gained
as little as is usually gained by such a mode of proceeding in such
cases. The study of the civil law only spread and prospered the more
for his efforts to hinder it;[1103] and the law-school of the future
university of Oxford may have sprung from a germ left in the cloisters
of Oseney or S. Frideswide’s by the brief visit of the Lombard master,
just as the divinity-school may have sprung from a germ left there
sixteen years before by the lectures of Robert Pulein.

        [1099] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 384.

        [1100] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        17.

        [1101] Gerv. Cant. as above. Rob. Torigni, a. 1149. Joh.
        Salisb., _Polycraticus_, l. viii. c. 22 (Giles, vol. iv. p.
        357), says that “domus venerabilis patris Theobaldi” brought
        the Roman law into England.

        [1102] Rob. Torigni, a. 1149.

        [1103] Joh. Salisb. as above.

Stephen had struck at the southern primate indirectly this time; with
the northern one he was still at open feud. One use which he made of
his stay in Yorkshire was to exact a heavy fine from the inhabitants
of Beverley, as a punishment for having given shelter to Henry Murdac.
After the king’s departure the archbishop at last succeeded in
enforcing his interdict at York; Eustace hurried thither, insisted upon
the restoration of the services, and drove out all who refused to take
part in them; there was a great tumult, in which the senior archdeacon
was killed by the followers of the king’s son.[1104] About the same
time a cardinal-legate, John Paparo, on his way to Ireland, asked for a
safe-conduct through the dominions of the English king; Stephen refused
to give it unless he would promise to do nothing on his journey to the
prejudice of the English realm. John went home highly indignant at such
an insinuation against his honour and that of the Apostolic See.[1105]
Meanwhile Archbishop Murdac was writing bitter complaints both to S.
Bernard and to the Pope. They apparently determined to give Stephen a
warning which even he could not fail to understand; and they did it by
sending a commission as resident legate _a latere_ for all Britain to
the archbishop of Canterbury.[1106]

        [1104] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 160. Will. Newb., l. i. c. 17
        (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 56, 57).

        [1105] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 164. In the _Hist. Pontif._
        (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx. pp. 518, 519) this first
        legation of John Paparo seems to be dated some years earlier.
        But the _Hist. Pontif._ is very erratic in its chronology; and
        John of Hexham seems quite clear and consistent in his account
        of the matter.

        [1106] The date of Theobald’s legatine commission seems to be
        nowhere stated. He had certainly received it before Lent 1151;
        it was therefore in all probability granted some time in 1150,
        under the circumstances related above.

The warning took effect; Stephen changed his policy at once. He was
weary of all his fruitless labour; his chief anxiety now was to secure
the crown to his son; and he suddenly awoke to the necessity of setting
himself right with the one power which alone could enable him to carry
out his desire. Eustace himself was sent to act as mediator between
his father and Henry Murdac; a reconciliation took place, and the
archbishop was enthroned at York on S. Paul’s day 1151. Thence he went
to keep Easter with the Pope, having undertaken, at Stephen’s request,
to intercede for him with Eugene concerning the state of politics in
England, and especially to obtain, if possible, the papal sanction
to a formal acknowledgement of Eustace as heir to the crown.[1107]
The southern primate meanwhile was beginning his legatine career with
a Mid-Lenten council in London, at which Stephen, Eustace, and the
principal barons of England were present. The main feature of this
council was a crowd of appeals to Rome, whereof three were made by
the bishop of Winchester.[1108] One of these appeals must have been
against the suspension to which he had been sentenced at the council
of Reims, and by which the Pope, less placable than the primate, still
held him bound. Moreover, complaints against him were pouring into
Rome from all quarters; so he carried his appeals in person, and went
to clear himself before the supreme pontiff. He succeeded in obtaining
absolution;[1109] his friends, of whom there were still many at
the papal court, tried hard to win for him something more--either a
renewal of the legation, or the accomplishment of his old scheme of a
primacy over Wessex, or at least the exemption of his own see from the
jurisdiction of Canterbury; but Eugene was inexorable. He believed that
Stephen’s misconduct towards the Church was instigated by his brother;
a very natural view, but somewhat unjust to the bishop.[1110] The
truth seems rather to be that Henry, after vainly trying to rule the
storm, had for awhile been swept away by its violence. Now he had
emerged into the calm once more; and there henceforth he was content
to remain. He consoled himself for the failure of his political hopes
with a choice collection of antique statues purchased in Rome for the
adornment of his palace at Winchester, and sailed quietly home with
these treasures, stopping on his way to pay his devotions at the shrine
of S. James at Compostella.[1111] At his request the Pope ordered
Archbishop Murdac to absolve Hugh of Puiset, who was making himself
useful at Winchester, not on clerical duty, but in taking charge of the
bishop’s castles during his absence.[1112] With Hugh’s absolution the
schism in the northern province came to an end, and the English Church
was once again reunited.

        [1107] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 162.

        [1108] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 31 (Arnold, p. 282): “Totum illud
        concilium novis appellationibus infrenduit.” It is, however,
        rather too hard upon Henry of Winchester when he adds that
        appeals to Rome had not been used in England till that prelate
        in his legatine days “malo suo crudeliter intrusit.”

        [1109] Ann. Winton. a. 1151 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii.
        pp. 54, 55).

        [1110] As the author of the _Hist. Pontif._ (Pertz, _Mon.
        Germ. Hist._, vol. xx. p. 542) truly says: “Credebatur
        fratrem suum regem contra ecclesiam instigare; sed rex, quod
        manifesta declarant opera, nec illius nec sapientis alterius
        consilio agebatur.”

        [1111] _Hist. Pontif._ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx.),
        p. 542.

        [1112] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 158, 162. He places Hugh’s
        absolution in 1150, but on his own shewing it cannot have
        occurred before 1151.

For England and for Stephen alike the prospect seemed to be
brightening. Stephen however was clearly beginning to feel that for
him as well as for his Angevin rivals it was time to give place to
a younger generation. It must have been chiefly for Eustace’s sake
that he valued his crown; and in Eustace’s case, as in that of Henry
Fitz-Empress, there were many circumstances which might make the
pretensions of the child more generally acceptable than those of the
parent. Eustace seems to have been about the same age as Henry, or
probably a few years older; he was free from the personal obloquy
and suspicion attaching to Stephen from the errors of the past; on
the other hand, as the son of Matilda of Boulogne, he might reap the
benefit of his mother’s well-earned personal popularity, as well as
of her descent from the royal house of Wessex. Henceforth, therefore,
Stephen showed a disposition to treat Henry Fitz-Empress as the rival
less of himself than of his son, and to follow up every movement in
Henry’s public life by a parallel step in the career of Eustace. And
as Henry’s first independent act had been a sort of reconnoitring
expedition to England, so the first retaliation was a visit made by
Eustace to the king of France, with a view to ascertain his chances of
support in an attempt to regain Normandy.

The existing phase of the rivalry between the houses of Anjou and
Blois--their struggle for the dominion of Normandy and England--was
a matter which concerned the interests of the French Crown almost
as deeply as the earlier phase in which Fulk the Black and Odo of
Champagne strove with each other for political mastery over their
common lord paramount. Neither the accumulation of England, Normandy,
Maine, Anjou and Touraine in a single hand, nor the acquisition of
Normandy and England by a branch of the mighty and troublesome house
which already held Blois, Chartres and Champagne, could be viewed by
the French king without grave uneasiness. Either alternative had its
dangers; to Louis VII., however, the danger would appear much less
threatening than to his father. Shortly before the dying Louis VI.
granted the investiture of Normandy to Stephen’s little son in 1137,
the last of the old line of the dukes of Aquitaine--William IX., son
of the gay crusader and troubadour whom the Red King had hoped to
succeed--died on a pilgrimage at Compostella.[1113] His only son was
already dead, and before setting out for his pilgrimage he did what a
greater personage had done ten years before: with the consent of his
barons, he left the whole of his dominions to his daughter. Moreover,
he bequeathed the girl herself as wife to the young King Louis of
France.[1114] This marriage more than doubled the strength of the
French Crown. It gave to Louis absolute possession of all western
Aquitaine, or Guyenne as it was now beginning to be called; that is,
the counties of Poitou and Gascony, with the immediate overlordship
of the whole district lying between the Loire and the Pyrenees, the
Rhône and the ocean:--a territory five or six times as large as his
own royal domain, and over which his predecessors had never been able
to assert more than the merest shadow of a nominal superiority.[1115]
To a man who was at once king of France and duke of Aquitaine it was
comparatively no great matter whether the dominions of Henry I. were to
be annexed to those of Geoffrey of Anjou or allied to those of Theobald
of Blois. The truest interest of France, however, obviously was that
England and Normandy should be divided, one of them being held by each
of the two competitors; and it was doubtless with this view that Louis,
while sanctioning and aiding Geoffrey’s conquest of the Norman duchy,
still kept on peaceful terms with the English king, and held to a
promise of marriage made some years before between his own sister and
Stephen’s son Eustace.[1116]

        [1113] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 909.
        _Hist. Franc._ (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii.), p. 116.
        Anon. Chron. (_ibid._) p. 119. Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Maxent.
        a. 1137 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 34, 432).

        [1114] Suger, _Vita Ludov._ (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii.)
        p. 62. Chron. Mauriniac. (_ibid._) p. 83. _Hist. Franc._
        (_ibid._), p. 116. Ord. Vit. as above. See also Besly, _Comtes
        de Poitou_, p. 137.

        [1115] Perhaps the most striking indication of the importance
        of the duke of Aquitaine is the ceremony of the ducal crowning,
        which Louis, as husband of the duchess, underwent at Poitiers
        immediately after his marriage; Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist.
        Norm. Scriptt._), p. 911. There was a special “Ordo ad
        benedicendum ducem Aquitaniæ” (printed in Besly, _Comtes de
        Poitou, preuves_, pp. 183 _et seq._, and _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._,
        vol. xii. pp. 451–453), nearly as solemn as the office for the
        crowning of a king.

        [1116] Rob. Torigni, a. 1139. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
        112. Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 125.

At the time of Geoffrey’s final success Louis was at deadly strife
with the count of Blois; a strife in which the king was wholly in the
wrong, and for whose disastrous consequences he afterwards grieved so
deeply that his penitence was the chief motive which induced him to
go on crusade.[1117] Since then, Geoffrey in his turn had incurred
the royal displeasure. There was a certain Gerald, lord of a castle
called Montreuil-Bellay, near the southern border of Anjou--one of
the fortresses raised by the great castle-builder Fulk Nerra in the
earliest days of his warfare with Odo of Blois--whom an Angevin
chronicler describes as an absolute monster of wickedness,[1118] but
who had so won the favour of the king that he made him seneschal of
Poitou. In 1147 this Gerald was the ring-leader of a fresh revolt of
the Angevin barons against their count. The revolt was as usual soon
put down: but it was not so easy to punish Gerald; for Montreuil was
an almost impregnable fortress, with a keep of great strength and
height, “lifting itself up to the stars,” surrounded by a double wall
and rampart, and further protected by an encircling chasm, very deep
and precipitous, which was called the “Valley of Judas,” and prevented
any engines of war from coming within range of the castle.[1119] Some
time in 1148 Geoffrey built three towers of stone in the neighbourhood
of Montreuil, as a base for future operations against it.[1120] In
the summer of 1150 an outrage committed by Gerald upon the abbot and
monks of S. Aubin at Angers brought matters to a crisis;[1121] Geoffrey
made the monks’ quarrel his own and at once set his engineers to level
the ground all around Montreuil, in preparation for bringing up his
machines to the assault. After nearly twelve months’ labour,[1122]
however, the “Judas-Valley” still yawned between himself and his
foes, till he ordered the annual fair usually held at Saumur to be
transferred to Montreuil. In a fortnight the energies of the crowd
who flocked to the fair, joined to those of his own soldiers, filled
up the valley and made it into level ground.[1123] Geoffrey could now
bring his engines within range, and he used them with such effect that
at the first assault the outworks were destroyed and the garrison
driven to take refuge in the keep. A summons to surrender was, however,
scornfully rejected by Gerald, trusting in the strength of his tower
and the expected help of the king.[1124]

        [1117] See Arbois de Jubainville, _Comtes de Champagne_, vol.
        ii. pp. 344 _et seq._

        [1118] Chron. Mairom. (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 84.

        [1119] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 282–284.
        See also Chron. S. Serg. a. 1151 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 147).

        [1120] Rob. Torigni, a. 1149. As he himself, as well as the
        chronicles, makes the siege last altogether three years and end
        in 1151, he must mean 1148.

        [1121] See the whole curious story in _Cartæ et Chronn. de
        Obedientiâ Mairomni_ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), pp. 65 _et seq._

        [1122] Chron. Mairom. (as above), p. 87. Chron. S. Serg. a.
        1151 (_ib._ p. 147).

        [1123] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p. 284.

        [1124] _Ib._ p. 285.

For Louis had now returned from Palestine;[1125] and so great was his
wrath at Geoffrey’s treatment of his favourite that he consented to
join Eustace in an attack upon the Norman duchy. Its defence was left
to its young duke, then busy with the siege of Torigni on the Vire,
held against him by his cousin Richard Fitz-Count--a son of Earl Robert
of Gloucester.[1126] Louis and Eustace marched upon Arques; Henry led
a force of Normans, Angevins and Bretons to meet them; but his “older
and wiser” barons averted a battle,[1127] and nothing more came of the
expedition. Geoffrey had never stirred from his camp before Montreuil.
Despite a formidable array of engines,[1128] he made little progress;
every breach made in the walls by day was mended by night with oaken
beams, of which the besieged seemed to have a never-ending supply.
Geoffrey was characteristically taking counsel with his books as to the
best method of overcoming this difficulty when some monks of Marmoutier
came to him on an errand for their convent. One of them took up the
book which the count laid down--the treatise of Vegetius Renatus _De
Re Militari_, then, and long after, the standard work on military
engineering. It may have been some memory of bygone days when he, too,
had worn helm and hauberk instead of cowl and scapulary that brought
into the monk’s eyes a gleam which made Geoffrey exclaim, “Stay with
me till to-morrow, good brother, and what you are now reading shall be
put in action before you.” Next day a large red-hot iron vessel filled
with boiling oil was launched from the beam of a mangonel against one
of the timber insertions in the wall, and its bursting set the whole
place on fire.[1129] Gerald, his spirit broken at last, came forth with
his family and his garrison “like serpents crawling out of a cave,” as
a hostile chronicler says,[1130] and surrendered to the mercy of the
count, who sent him to prison at Angers. The keep was razed at once,
save one fragment of wall, left by Geoffrey, and still standing at this
hour, as a memorial of his victory and of the skill and perseverance by
which it had been won.[1131]

        [1125] He returned in the autumn of 1149. See Rob. Torigni, _ad
        ann._, and M. Delisle’s note thereon, vol. i. p. 252, note 1.

        [1126] Rob. Torigni, a. 1151 and 1154.

        [1127] Rob. Torigni, a. 1151. See also Chronn. S. Albin. a.
        1150 and S. Serg. a. 1151 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 36, 148).

        [1128] “Petroritas, fundibularias, mangonellos et arietes,”
        _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 285, and “sex
        tormenta quæ vulgo perreriæ vocantur.” Chron. S. Serg. (as
        above), p. 147.

        [1129] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), pp. 286, 287. The monk
        is called “frater G.” M. Marchegay suggests that he may have
        been the “Gauterius Compendiensis,” monk of Marmoutier, whom
        the writer names among his authorities in the Proœmium to his
        _Hist. Abbrev._ (_ib._ p. 353). If so, this detailed account
        of the last scene at the siege of Montreuil is due to an
        eye-witness.

        [1130] Chron. Mairom. (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 87.

        [1131] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 287.

The count of Anjou now moved northward to help his son against the
king. By the help of a brother of his old ally William Talvas he gained
possession of La Nue, a castle belonging to the king’s brother Count
Robert of Dreux.[1132] Louis and Robert avenged themselves by burning
the town of Séez. Presently after, in August, Louis gathered together
all his forces and brought them down the Seine to a spot between
Meulan and Mantes. Geoffrey and Henry collected an opposing army on
their side of the Norman border; but an attack of fever detained the
king in Paris, and a truce was made until he should recover.[1133] The
ostensible ground of the dispute was Geoffrey’s treatment of Gerald
of Montreuil, which certainly seems to have been unjustly cruel. Not
content with receiving his unconditional surrender, razing his castle,
and forcing him to make full atonement to the injured monks of S.
Aubin, Geoffrey still persisted in keeping in prison not only Gerald
himself but also his whole family. The Pope anathematized him for his
unchristianlike severity;[1134] but anathemas usually fell powerless
upon an Angevin count. Geoffrey was in truth visiting upon Gerald his
wrath at the double-dealing of Gerald’s royal master; for he was well
aware that King Louis’s interference was prompted by far other motives
than disinterested sympathy for his seneschal. Louis was, according to
his wont, playing fast and loose with the rival claimants of Normandy,
in such shameless fashion that his own chief minister, Suger, had
been the first to reprove him in strong terms for his unwarrantable
attack upon the Angevins, had stood firmly by Geoffrey all through the
struggle, and was now endeavouring, through the mediation of the count
of Vermandois and the bishop of Lisieux, to baffle the schemes of
Eustace and his party and bring the king back to his old alliance with
Anjou.[1135]

        [1132] Rob. Torigni, a. 1151 (Delisle, vol. i. p. 254; see the
        editor’s note 3, _ib._)

        [1133] Rob. Torigni, a. 1151.

        [1134] Geoff. Clairv., _Vita S. Bern._, l. iv. c. 3 (_S. Bern.
        Opp._, Mabillon, vol. ii. col. 1135).

        [1135] Suger, Epp. cl., cliii., clxvii., clxviii., clxxv.
        (Migne, _Patrologia_, vol. 186, cols. 1418, 1419–1420,
        1427–1429, 1432).

As soon as Louis was sufficiently recovered a meeting was held in Paris
to discuss the possibility of a settlement, and the cause of peace
was pleaded by no less an advocate than S. Bernard in person. But,
almost for the first time, Bernard pleaded in vain; Geoffrey started
up in the midst of the colloquy, and without a word of salutation to
any one, sprang upon his horse and rode away. The assembly broke up in
despair, and Gerald, who had been brought to hear its result, threw
himself at the feet of S. Bernard to implore a last benediction before
returning, as he thought, to lifelong captivity. “Fear not,” replied
the saint, “deliverance is nearer than you think.” Scarcely had the
prisoner turned away when his jailer reappeared.[1136] Geoffrey during
his solitary ride had revolved the political situation in his mind and
perceived that for his son’s sake he must make peace with the king.
Matters in England had reached such a crisis that it was absolutely
necessary to secure Henry’s tenure of Normandy, as he might at any
moment be required to go beyond sea. To that end Geoffrey did more than
give up his personal vengeance upon Gerald of Montreuil; he persuaded
Henry to give up the Norman Vexin--the land between the Epte and the
Andelle, so long the battle-ground of France and Normandy--to the king
of France, in exchange for the investiture of the rest of the duchy.
If we may believe the French chroniclers, the young duke made a yet
further sacrifice and became the “liegeman” of the king--a form of
homage to which none of his predecessors had ever stooped.[1137] Of
the homage in some shape or other there is however no doubt;[1138]
and it appears that the same opportunity was taken to secure for
Henry, without waiting for his father’s death, the investiture of his
father’s own dominions.[1139]

        [1136] Geoff. Clairv., _Vita S. Bern._, l. iv. c. 3 (_S. Bern.
        Opp._, Mabillon, vol. i. col. 1135).

        [1137] _Hist. Ludov._, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 127;
        _Chron. Reg. Franc._ (_ibid._), p. 213. Both these writers,
        however, tell an apocryphal story of Louis, at Geoffrey’s and
        Henry’s request, reconquering the duchy for them and receiving
        these concessions in return for his help.

        [1138] Rob. Torigni, a. 1151.

        [1139] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 291 (Marchegay, _Comtes_,
        p. 336).

Geoffrey was but just entering his thirty-ninth year, and one can
hardly help speculating for a moment as to his plans for his own
future. For him, now that his work in the west was done, there was no
such brilliant opening in the east as there had been for Fulk V. when
he, too, in the prime of manhood, had chosen to make way for a younger
generation. But Geoffrey had begun public life at an earlier age than
either his father or his son; and he seems to have had neither the
moral nor the physical strength which had enabled one Angevin count
to carry on for half a century, without break and without slackening,
the work upon which he had entered before he was fifteen, and to
die in harness at the very crowning-point of his activity and his
success. Geoffrey Plantagenet was no Fulk Nerra; he was not even a
Fulk of Jerusalem; and he may well have been weary of a political
career which must always have been embittered by a feeling that he was
the mere representative of others, labouring not for himself, hardly
even for his country or his race, but only that the one might be
swallowed up in the vast dominions and the other merged in the royal
line of his ancestors’ Norman foe. He may have seriously intended to
pass the rest of his days among his books; or he may have felt an
inner warning that those days were to be very few. With a perversity
which may after all have been partly the effect of secretly failing
health, although he had now set Gerald at liberty he still refused
to acknowledge that he had treated him with unjust severity, or to
seek absolution from the Pope’s censure; and he even answered with
blasphemous words to the gentle remonstrances of S. Bernard. “With
what measure thou hast meted it shall be meted to thee again” said the
saint at last as he turned away; one of his followers, more impetuous,
boldly prophesied that Geoffrey would die within a year. He did die
within a fortnight.[1140] On his way home from the king’s court,[1141]
overcome with the heat, he plunged into a river to cool himself;[1142]
a fever was the consequence; he was borne to Château-du-Loir, and
there on September 7 he passed away.[1143] His last legacy to his son
was a piece of good advice, given almost with his dying breath:--not
to change the old customs of the lands over which he was called to
rule, whether by bringing those of Normandy and England into Anjou,
or by seeking to transfer those of the Angevin dominions into the
territories which he inherited from his mother.[1144] Dying in the
little border-fortress whence his grandfather Elias had gone forth to
liberate Maine, Geoffrey was buried, by his own desire, not among his
Angevin forefathers at Tours or at Angers, but in his mother’s home at
Le Mans.[1145] A splendid tomb, bearing his effigy adorned with gold
and gems, was raised over his remains in the cathedral church,[1146]
whence it has disappeared to become a mere antiquarian curiosity in a
museum. Geoffrey’s sole surviving monument is the one which he made for
himself--the ruined, blackened fragment of his great ancestor’s keep at
Montreuil.

        [1140] Geoff. Clairv., _Vita S. Bern._, l. iv. c. 3 (_S. Bern.
        Opp._, Mabillon, vol. ii. col. 1135).

        [1141] At Paris, says Rob. Torigni, a. 1151; on the frontier
        of Normandy and France, say the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay,
        _Comtes_), p. 156. But if it was the assembly at which Henry
        received his investiture, that was certainly in Paris; and
        there does not seem time enough for another.

        [1142] _Gesta Cons._ as above.

        [1143] _Ibid._ _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (_ibid._), p. 292. Chronn.
        S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1151 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 36,
        37, 147). Rob. Torigni, a. 1151; etc.

        [1144] “Ne Normanniæ vel Angliæ consuetudines in consulatûs
        sui terram, vel e converso, variæ vicissitudinis altercatione
        permutaret.” _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), pp. 292, 293.

        [1145] Chron. S. Serg. a. 1151 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 147);
        _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p. 292. “Inque solo materno
        sibi locum eligens sepulturæ.” R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p.
        16 (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 341).

        [1146] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p. 293. “Hic solus
        omnium mortalium intra muros civitatis Cinomannicæ sepultus
        est,” says Rob. Torigni, a. 1151.

Stephen could not do what Geoffrey had done. His kingdom was no mere
fief to be passed from hand to hand by a formal ceremony of surrender
and investiture; the crowned and anointed king of England could not so
easily abdicate in favour of his son. He might however do something to
counterbalance Henry’s advancement by obtaining a public recognition
of Eustace as his heir. In Lent 1152, therefore, he summoned a great
council in London, at which all the earls and barons swore fealty to
Eustace.[1147] Still the king felt that his object was far from being
secured. He himself was a living proof how slight was the worth of
such an oath when the sovereign who had exacted it was gone. There
was, however, one further step possible, a step without precedent in
England, but one which the kings of France had taken with complete
success for several generations past: the solemn coronation and unction
of the heir to the throne during his father’s lifetime. It was at this
that Stephen had aimed when he sent Archbishop Henry of York to Rome.
He took an unusually wise as well as a characteristically generous
measure in intrusting his cause to a reconciled enemy; nevertheless
the attempt failed. Pope Eugene by his letters absolutely forbade
the primate to make Eustace king; therefore, when Stephen called
upon Theobald and the other bishops to anoint and crown the youth,
they one and all refused. Father and son were both equally vexed and
angry. They shut up all the bishops in one house and tried to tease
them into submission. A few, remembering that “King Stephen never
had loved clerks,” and that it was not the first time he had cast
bishops into prison,[1148] were so frightened that they gave way;
the majority stood firm, and the primate himself escaped down the
Thames in a fishing-boat, made his way to Dover, and thence retreated
beyond sea.[1149] Without him there was nothing to be done, and of his
yielding there was no chance whatever; for close at his side stood the
real fount and source of the papal opposition--Thomas of London.[1150]

        [1147] Ann. Waverl. a. 1152 (Luard, _Ann. Monast_., vol.
        ii. p. 234). Ann. Winton. Contin. a. 1152 (Liebermann,
        _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 82).

        [1148] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 32 (Arnold, p. 284).

        [1149] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 151. _Vita Theobald._
        (Giles, _Lanfranc_, vol. i.), p. 338.

        [1150] Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 150.

Some of Henry’s partizans in England now thought it time for him to
interfere, and despatched his uncle Reginald earl of Cornwall to urge
him to come over at once.[1151] Soon after Easter a meeting of the
Norman barons--already summoned by Henry in the previous autumn,[1152]
but delayed by the unexpected catastrophe of his father’s death--was
held at Lisieux to consider the matter.[1153] But whatever the result
of their deliberations may have been, Henry found something else to
do before he could cross the sea. King Louis VII. had been meditating
a divorce from his wife, the Aquitanian duchess Eleanor, ever since
their return from the crusade. The great obstacle to his scheme was
his father’s and his own old friend and minister Suger, who saw the
grave political danger of such a measure and opposed it with all the
influence he possessed.[1154] But Suger was dying; and the king had
made up his mind. He took the first step at Christmas 1151 by going
with Eleanor into Aquitaine and withdrawing all his own garrisons
from her territories.[1155] Suger’s death on January 13 recalled him
to Paris,[1156] and at the same time set him free to accomplish his
desire unopposed. A Church council was held under the presidency
of Archbishop Hugh of Sens at Beaugency on the Tuesday before Palm
Sunday;[1157] the king and queen were made out to be akin, and their
union was dissolved.[1158] Eleanor set out for her own dominions;
she had however some trouble in reaching them. She was young and
beautiful; her personal charms were more than equalled by those of
her two great duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony; and more than one
ambitious feudatary was eager to seize the prize which his sovereign
had thrown away. At her first halting-place, Blois, the young count
Theobald--son and successor of Theobald the Great who had died two
months before[1159]--sought to take her by force and make her his wife.
She fled by night to Tours, and there narrowly escaped being captured
with the same intention by a still more youthful admirer, Geoffrey of
Anjou, Henry’s brother. The audacious boy laid a plot to catch her at
Port-de-Piles, on the frontier of Touraine and Poitou; but she was
warned in time and made her escape by another road safe into her own
territory.[1160] Thence she at once wrote to offer herself and her
lands to the husband of her own choice--Henry duke of the Normans. He
set out to join her immediately, and at Whitsuntide they were married
at Poitiers.[1161]

        [1151] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

        [1152] _Ibid._ a. 1151.

        [1153] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

        [1154] _Vita Suger._, l. i. c. 5 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
        xii. p. 104).

        [1155] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1152 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_,
        p. 135). Cf. Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 53 (Labbe, _Nova
        Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 307; _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii.
        p. 437).

        [1156] _Vita Suger._, l. iii. cc. 11, 13 (as above, pp. 111,
        113).

        [1157] _Gesta Ludov._, c. 29 (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
        Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 411). The _Hist. Ludov._ (_ib._ p. 415)
        makes it Friday (March 21) instead of Tuesday.

        [1158] _Gesta Ludov._ and _Hist. Ludov._ as above. Chron.
        Turon. Magn. as above, etc.

        [1159] In January 1152. See Arbois de Jubainville, _Comtes de
        Champagne_, vol. ii. p. 398, note 12.

        [1160] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1152 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_,
        p. 135).

        [1161] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 149. See also Will.
        Newb., l. i. c. 31 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 93); Chron. Turon.
        Magn. a. 1152 (as above); _Hist. Ludov._ (Duchesne, _Hist.
        Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 413, and _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._,
        vol. xii. p. 127); _Fragm. Chron. Com. Pictav._ (_Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 410). This last gives the place; Rob.
        Torigni, a. 1152, gives the season. Whit-Sunday was May 18; and
        a charter referred to by M. Delisle in a note to Rob. Torigni
        _ad ann._ (vol. i. p. 260), proves that they were married
        before May 27. Gervase’s story is the fullest; according to
        him, they married for love, and Eleanor had herself procured
        the divorce for that object--such, at least, was the story
        which she wrote to her young lover. As to the question of
        consanguinity, that of Louis and Eleanor is not very clear; it
        was at any rate more remote than that of Eleanor and Henry,
        who certainly were within the forbidden degrees. One would
        like to know what S. Bernard, who had put a stop to a proposal
        of marriage between Henry and Eleanor’s daughter (S. Bern.
        Ep. ccclxxi., _Opp._, Mabillon, vol. i. col. 333), thought of
        the matter; a saint of the next generation, Hugh of Lincoln,
        thought and said plainly that it was the fatal sin which was
        visited upon the children of the guilty couple in the downfall
        of the Angevin empire. _Magna Vita S. Hugonis_, l. v. c. 16
        (Dimock, p. 332). In his eyes, however, the sin lay in the
        fact not of the kindred between the parties, but of Eleanor’s
        divorce; and it is noteworthy that William of Newburgh, who
        did not live to see the final catastrophe or to know the worst
        crimes of Eleanor’s youngest son, took exactly the same view;
        l. iii. c. 26 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 281).

Suger’s worst fears were now realized. Aquitaine was lost to the king
of France; it had gone to swell the forces of the prince who was
already the mightiest feudatary of the realm, and who would probably
be king of England ere long; and as Louis and Eleanor had no son,
there was very little hope that even in the next generation it would
revert to the French Crown. In feudal law, an heiress had no right
to marry without the consent of her overlord. It seems that Louis
accordingly summoned Henry to appear before the royal court and answer
for his conduct in thus hastily accepting Eleanor’s hand. But Henry
Fitz-Empress, duke of Normandy, count of Anjou, Touraine and Maine,
and duke of Aquitaine--for, rightly or wrongly, he was married, and in
full possession of his wife’s territories--master of more than half
Gaul, from the Flemish to the Spanish March and from the Rhône to the
ocean--could venture to defy a mere king of the French. He therefore
refused to appear before the court or to acknowledge its jurisdiction
in any way.[1162] Eustace seized the favourable moment to regain the
French alliance; he came over to visit King Louis; his long-standing
betrothal with Constance of France ended at last in marriage;[1163] and
Henry, on the point of sailing from Barfleur, just after midsummer,
was stopped by the discovery that Louis, Eustace, Robert of Dreux,
Henry of Champagne,[1164] and his own brother Geoffrey had made a
league to drive him out of all his possessions and divide them among
themselves.[1165]

        [1162] “Qui citatus ad Curiam, venire noluit ad jus faciendum,
        vel capiendum in Regis præsentiâ Palatii judicium omnino
        respuit et contempsit.” _Gesta Ludov._, c. 28 (Duchesne, _Hist.
        Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 411). “Ante dominum suum Regem
        Ludovicum defecit a justitiâ.” _Hist. Ludov._ (_ib._ p. 414).
        This is related as a piece of shameful ingratitude for Louis’s
        supposed help towards the conquest of Normandy. The story then
        proceeds to relate that Louis in wrath besieged and took Vernon
        and Neufmarché, whereupon Henry humbly promised to be more
        obedient for the future, and Louis, accepting his assurances,
        restored the two castles. We are not told on what charge Henry
        had been cited to the court, and no hint is given that the
        quarrel was in any way connected with his marriage, which
        indeed is not mentioned till some time after. Yet I can find
        no indication of any ground for such a citation, except the
        marriage; and that, indeed, would be a most obvious pretext.

        [1163] Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

        [1164] Second son of Theobald the Great of Blois, and betrothed
        husband of the infant princess Mary, eldest child of Louis and
        Eleanor.

        [1165] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152. See also Chron. S. Albin. a. 1152
        (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 37).

Geoffrey by his father’s will had inherited Chinon, Loudun and
Mirebeau;[1166] with this vantage-ground he began operations against
his brother’s authority in Anjou, while the other four princes crossed
the Norman border and laid siege to Neufmarché. Henry set out from
Barfleur on July 16 to relieve Neufmarché, but arrived too late to
save it from surrender;[1167] Louis handed it over to Eustace,[1168]
and proceeded to muster his forces near Chaumont in the French Vexin.
Henry did the like on the banks of the Andelle, and began ravaging
the country between that river and the Epte--the old Norman Vexin, so
lately ceded to Louis as the price of his alliance. In August Louis
brought his host across the Seine at Meulan; Henry crossed lower
down, by the bridge of Vernon, and thinking that the king intended to
attack Verneuil, was hurrying to reach it before him when a message
from the lord of Pacy told him that this last place was the one really
threatened. He turned and proceeded thither at such a pace that several
of his horses fell dead on the road; Louis, finding himself outwitted,
gave up the expedition and returned to Meulan. Henry next invaded the
county of Dreux, burned Brézolles and Marcouville, took hostages from
Richer de l’Aigle--Thomas Becket’s old friend--whose fidelity was
doubtful, and burned his castle of Bonmoulins, which was said to be
“a den of thieves”; he then planted a line of garrisons all along the
Norman frontier, and at the end of August went down into Anjou. There
he blockaded the rebel leaders congregated in the castle of Montsoreau
on the Loire till most of them fell into his hands, and his brother
gave up the useless struggle.[1169] Louis meanwhile profited by his
absence to burn part of the town of Tillières and a village near
Verneuil, and to make an attempt upon Nonancourt, in which however he
failed.[1170] Immediately afterwards he fell sick of a fever; his army
dissolved, and he was obliged to retire into his own domains[1171] and
make proposals for a truce.[1172] Henry was ready enough to accept
them; for he had just received another urgent summons from England, and
he felt that this time it must be answered in person.

        [1166] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1152 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_,
        p. 136).

        [1167] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

        [1168] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 31 (Arnold, p. 283).

        [1169] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152. See also a shorter account in
        Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 149, 150, and a general
        summing-up of the result in Chron. S. Albin. a. 1152
        (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 37).

        [1170] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

        [1171] Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 150.

        [1172] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

Since the Empress’s departure, Stephen had made but little progress in
reducing the castles of those barons who still, either in her name or
in their own, chose to defy his authority. A revolt of Ralf of Chester
and Gilbert of Pembroke in 1149 and two unsuccessful attempts made
by the king to recover Worcester from Waleran of Meulan, to whom he
had himself intrusted it in the days when Waleran was one of his best
supporters,[1173] make up almost the whole military history of the last
four years. Ralf of Chester’s obstinate claim upon Lincoln was at last
disposed of by a compromise.[1174] There was however one fortress which
throughout the whole course of the war had been, almost more than any
other, a special object of Stephen’s jealousy. This was Wallingford, a
castle of great strength seated on the right bank of the Thames some
twelve miles south of Oxford, and held as a perpetual thorn in the
king’s side by a Breton adventurer, Brian Fitz-Count, one of the most
able and energetic as well as most faithful and persevering members of
the Angevin party in England. Hitherto all Stephen’s attempts against
Wallingford--even the erection of a rival fortress, Crowmarsh, directly
over against it--had produced no effect at all. At last, in the winter
of 1152, he built a strong wooden tower at the foot of the bridge over
the Thames whereby alone the garrison of Wallingford obtained their
supplies. Brian and his men saw their convoys hopelessly shut out;
they knew that none of their friends in England were strong enough to
relieve them; they therefore sent to their lord the young duke of the
Normans, and begged that he would either give them leave to surrender
with honour, or send help to deliver them out of their strait.[1175]

        [1173] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 30 (Arnold, p. 282).

        [1174] See the terms in Dugdale, _Baronage_, vol. i. p. 39.

        [1175] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 32 (Arnold, p. 284). Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 153.

Henry did not send; he came. Landing with a small force on the morning
of the Epiphany,[1176] he entered a church to honour the festival with
such brief devotion as a soldier could spare time for, and the first
words that fell on his ear sounded like an omen of success: “Behold,
the Lord the ruler cometh, and the kingdom is in his hand.”[1177]
Before the week was out he had taken the town of Malmesbury and the
outworks of the castle, and was blockading Bishop Roger’s impregnable
keep. Stephen, warned by its commandant, hastened to its relief.
On a bitter January morning king and duke, each at the head of his
troops, met for the first time face to face, divided only by the river
Avon--here at Malmesbury a mere streamlet in itself, but so swollen
by the winter’s rains that neither party dared venture to cross it. A
torrent of rain, sleet and hail was pouring down, drifting before a
violent west wind, striking the Angevins in their backs, but beating
hard in the faces of the king and his host; drenched, blinded, scarce
able to hold their weapons, they stood shivering with cold and terror,
feeling as if Heaven itself had taken up arms against them, till
Stephen turned away in despair and led his dispirited forces back to
London. Malmesbury surrendered as soon as he was gone.[1178] The young
duke marched straight upon Wallingford, demolished Stephen’s wooden
tower at the first assault, and revictualled the castle. He then laid
siege to Crowmarsh. Stephen advanced to relieve it; again the two
armies fronted each other in battle array, but again no battle took
place. The barons, who were only anxious to maintain both the rival
sovereigns as a check upon each other, and dreaded nothing so much
as the complete triumph of either, took advantage of a supposed bad
omen which befell the king[1179] to insist upon a parley, and proposed
that Stephen and Henry in person should arrange terms with each
other, subject to ratification by their respective followers.[1180]
Yielding to necessity, and both fully aware of their advisers’ disloyal
motives, the two leaders held a colloquy across a narrow reach of the
Thames.[1181] For the moment a truce was arranged, on condition that
Stephen should raze Crowmarsh at the end of five days.[1182] As the
barons doubtless expected, however, no solution was reached on the main
question at issue between the rivals, and with mutual complaints of the
treason of their followers they separated once again.[1183]

        [1176] Rob. Torigni, a. 1153, says he came with thirty-six
        ships. Will. Newb., l. i. c. 29 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 88), gives
        the force as one hundred and forty horse and three thousand
        foot. From the sequel it seems that he landed on the Hampshire
        or Dorset coast.

        [1177] “Ecce advenit dominator Dominus, et regnum in manu
        ejus:”--first words of the introit for Epiphany. Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 151, 152.

        [1178] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 34 (Arnold, pp. 285–287). See
        also Rob. Torigni, a. 1153.

        [1179] His horse reared and nearly threw him three times while
        he was marshalling his troops. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 154.

        [1180] _Ibid._ Hen. Hunt. as above (p. 287).

        [1181] Gerv. Cant. as above. Cf. Hen. Hunt. as above (p. 288).

        [1182] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 34 (Arnold, p. 288). Rob.
        Torigni, a. 1153.

        [1183] Hen. Hunt. as above.

But there were others who, in all sincerity, were labouring hard for
peace. Archbishop Theobald was in constant communication with the
king in person and with the duke through trusty envoys, endeavouring
to establish a basis for negotiations between them. He found an
ally in Henry of Winchester, now eager to help in putting an end to
troubles which he at last perceived had been partly fostered by his
own errors.[1184] The once rival prelates, thus united in their best
work, saw their chief obstacle in Eustace.[1185] Not only was it the
hope of his son’s succession which made Stephen cling so obstinately to
every jot and tittle of his regal claims; but Eustace’s character was
such that the mere possibility of his rule could not be contemplated
without dread; and to look for any self-renunciation on his part was
far more hopeless than to expect it from Stephen. Eustace was in fact
a most degenerate son, unworthy not only of his high-souled mother but
even of his weak, amiable father. He had one merit--he was an excellent
soldier;[1186] for the rest, his character was that of the house of
Blois in its most vicious phase, unredeemed by a spark of the generous
warmth and winning graciousness for which so much had been forgiven
to Stephen.[1187] Even with his own party and his own father he could
not keep at peace. The issue of the Crowmarsh expedition threw him
into a fury; after loading his father with reproaches, he deserted him
altogether and rode away to Canterbury, vowing to ravage the whole
country from end to end, sparing neither the property of the churches
nor the holy places themselves. He began with S. Edmund’s abbey. He
was hospitably received there, but his demand for money was refused,
and he ordered the crops to be destroyed. A century and a half before,
the heathen Danish conqueror Swein had in like manner insulted East
Anglia’s patron saint, and had been stricken down by a sudden and
mysterious death. So too it was with Eustace. As he sat at table in the
abbey, the first morsel of food choked him, and in the convulsions of
raging madness he expired.[1188]

        [1184] _Ib._ c. 37 (p. 289).

        [1185] Will. Newb., l. i. c. 30 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 90).

        [1186] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 35 (Arnold, p. 288).

        [1187] _Ibid._ Eng. Chron. a. 1140, and all the contemporary
        writers are unanimous in their accounts of him--except the
        _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell, p. 130).

        [1188] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 155. Rob. Torigni, a.
        1153, says the sacrilege was committed on S. Laurence’s day,
        and the punishment followed “circa octavas.” Cf. Joh. Salisb.,
        _Polycrat._, l. viii. c. 21 (Giles, vol. iv. pp. 354, 355).

Eustace’s death was only one of a striking series. The roll had opened
with Geoffrey of Anjou in September 1151. Suger and Theobald of Blois
both died in January 1152. Politically as well as personally, the
death of the good and wise brother who had stood by him so faithfully
and so unselfishly through all his difficulties in Normandy and at
Rome must have been a heavy blow to Stephen; but heavier still was
the blow that fell upon him three months later, when on May 3 he
lost the wisest, probably, of his counsellors as well as the truest
and bravest of all his partizans in England--his queen, Matilda of
Boulogne.[1189] She was followed in little more than a month by her
cousin Henry of Scotland.[1190] Next year the list of remarkable
deaths was longer still. On this side of the sea it included, besides
Eustace, Ralf earl of Chester,[1191] Walter Lespec,[1192] and David
king of Scots.[1193] Another person who had made some figure in the
history of northern England, William bishop of Durham, had died in
the previous November.[1194] The appointment of Hugh of Puiset to his
vacant chair,[1195] being strongly opposed by Archbishop Murdac,
nearly caused another schism in the province; the southern primate,
however, doubtless feeling that it was no time now for ecclesiastical
squabbles, took the case into his own hands and sent the elect of
Durham to be consecrated at Rome by the Pope.[1196] But the Pope was no
longer Eugene III. Rome lost her Cistercian bishop on July 9, 1153. Six
weeks later Clairvaux itself became a valley of the shadow of death,
as its light passed away with S. Bernard;[1197] and two months later
still the metropolitan chair of York was again vacated, and the three
great Cistercian fellow-workers were reunited in their rest, by the
death of Henry Murdac.[1198] The generation which had been young with
Stephen seemed to be rapidly passing away; the primate, the bishop of
Winchester and the king himself were left almost alone, like survivors
of a past age, in presence of the younger race represented by Henry of
Anjou.

        [1189] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152. Chron. S. Crucis Edinb. a. 1152.
        Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 151.

        [1190] Chron. S. Cruc. Edinb. a. 1152.

        [1191] _Ibid._ a. 1153. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 171. Gerv. Cant.
        (as above), p. 155.

        [1192] Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. v. p. 280.

        [1193] Chron. S. Cruc. Edinb. as above. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p.
        168.

        [1194] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 166.

        [1195] On January 22, 1153; _ib._ p. 167.

        [1196] See details in Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 167, and Gerv.
        Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 157, where the date is wrong.

        [1197] Rob. Torigni, a. 1153.

        [1198] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 171. Walbran, _Memor. of
        Fountains_, vol. i. p. 109.

With the life of Eustace ended the resistance of Stephen. He had
other sons, but they were mere boys; it was hopeless to think of
setting up even the eldest of them as a rival to Henry. The young duke
was carrying all before him; Stamford, Nottingham,[1199] Reading,
Barkwell, had yielded to him already, when Countess Gundrada of Warwick
surrendered Warwick castle,[1200] and the adhesion of Earl Robert of
Leicester placed more than thirty fortresses all at once at the young
conqueror’s disposal.[1201] Henry was, however, fully alive to the
wisdom of securing his kingdom by a legal settlement rather than by
the mere power of the sword. At last a treaty was made, on November
6, in the place where it had been first projected--Wallingford.[1202]
It was agreed that Stephen and Henry should adopt each other as
father and son; that Stephen should keep his regal dignity for the
rest of his life, Henry acting as justiciar and practical ruler of
the kingdom under him; and that after his death Henry should be
king.[1203] The details of the settlement have come down to us only
in a poetical shape which expresses not so much what the contracting
parties actually undertook to do as what needed to be done--what was
the ideal at which the peace-makers aimed, and how far removed from
it was the actual condition of the country. The rights of the Crown,
which the nobles had everywhere usurped, were to be resumed; the
“adulterine castles”--castles built during the anarchy and without the
king’s leave, to the number of eleven hundred and fifteen--were to be
destroyed; all property was to be restored to the lawful owners who had
held it in King Henry’s time. The farms were again to be supplied with
husbandmen; the houses which had been burnt down were to be rebuilt and
filled with inhabitants; the woods were to be provided with foresters,
the coverts replenished with game, the hill-sides covered with flocks
of sheep and the meadows with herds of cattle. The clergy were to enjoy
tranquillity and peace, and to be relieved from all extraordinary and
exorbitant demands. The sheriffs were to be regularly appointed in
accustomed places, and held strictly to their duties; they were not to
indulge their greed, nor to prosecute any one out of malice, nor shew
undue favour to their own friends, nor condone crimes, but to render
to every man his due; some they were to influence by the threat of
punishment, others by the promise of reward. Thieves and robbers were
to be punished with death. Soldiers were to beat their swords into
ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; the Flemings were to
quit the camp for the farm, the tent for the workshop, and render to
their own masters the service which they had so long forced upon the
English people; the country-folk were to dwell in undisturbed security,
the merchants to grow rich through the revival of trade. Finally, one
standard of money was to be current throughout the realm.[1204]

        [1199] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 36 (Arnold, p. 288).

        [1200] Rob. Torigni, a. 1153.

        [1201] Gerv. Cant. (as above), pp. 152, 153.

        [1202] The date is given by Rob. Torigni and Chron. S. Cruc.
        Edinb. a. 1153; the place by Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. ii. p. 255.

        [1203] “... Ferden te ærceb. and te wise men betwux heom and
        makede th. sahte th. te king sculde ben lauerd and king wile
        he liuede, and æfter his dæi ware Henri king; and he helde him
        for fader and he him for sune; and sib and sæhte sculde ben
        betwyx heom and on al Engleland. This and te othre forwuuardes
        thet hi makeden suoren to halden the king and te eorl and te
        b. and te eorles and rice men alle.” Eng. Chron., a. 1140. The
        accounts of Will. Newb., l. i. c. 30 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 90,
        91), R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 296, and Chron. Mailros, a.
        1153, are to much the same effect. Rog. Howden (Stubbs, vol. i.
        p. 212) adds: “Rex vero constituit ducem justitiarium Angliæ
        sub ipso, et omnia regni negotia per ipsum terminabantur.”
        Stephen’s proclamation of the treaty is in Rymer’s _Fœdera_,
        vol. i. p. 18. Its date is Westminster, 1153, and it is in form
        of a writ addressed to the archbishops, bishops, barons, and
        all faithful subjects, proclaiming and notifying to them the
        treaty just made. The primary article, concerning the adoption
        of Henry as heir, is stated exactly as by the chroniclers. The
        remainder of the document relates entirely to details of homage
        done by prelates and barons to Henry, stipulations in behalf of
        Stephen’s son William, and arrangements for surrender of royal
        castles to Henry on Stephen’s death. Finally: “In negotiis
        autem regni ego consilio ducis operabor. Ego vero in toto regno
        Angliæ, tam in parte ducis quam in meâ, regalem justiciam
        exercebo.” By “the duke’s part” and “my part” Stephen probably
        meant simply the parts which each held at the moment; the whole
        clause seems to mean that the regal justice was to be exercised
        in his name and for his profit, but by Henry’s wisdom--which
        agrees very well with Rog. Howden’s statement.

        [1204] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 297. Concerning the
        coinage, Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 211, says: “Fecit
        [Henricus] monetam novam, quam vocabant monetam ducis; et non
        tantum ipse, sed omnes potentes, tam episcopi quam comites et
        barones, suam faciebant monetam. Sed ex quo dux ille venit,
        plurimorum monetam cassavit.” This however is placed under the
        year 1149.

The treaty was ratified in an assembly of bishops, earls and barons,
held at Winchester at the end of the month.[1205] Stephen afterwards
accompanied his adoptive son to London, where he was joyfully welcomed
by the citizens.[1206] King and duke seem to have kept Christmas apart;
Henry indeed set himself to his task of reform in such earnest that he
could have little time to spare for mere festivities. On the octave
of Epiphany another assembly was held at Oxford, where the nobles of
England swore homage and fealty to the duke as to their lord, reserving
only the faith due to Stephen as long as he lived. The next meeting,
at Dunstable, was not quite so satisfactory. Henry, doing his share
of the public work with true Angevin thoroughness, was irritated at
finding that some of the builders of unlicensed castles had gained
the king’s ear and persuaded him to exempt their fortresses from the
sentence of universal destruction. Against this breach of faith the
duke earnestly remonstrated; but he found it impossible to enforce
his wishes without a quarrel which he was too prudent to risk.[1207]
He therefore let the matter rest, and in Lent he accompanied Stephen
to Canterbury and thence to a meeting with the count and countess of
Flanders at Dover.[1208] There it was discovered that some of the
Flemish mercenaries, to whom Henry and his good peace were equally
hateful,[1209] were conspiring to kill him on his return to Canterbury.
The shock of this discovery, added to that of an accident which befell
Stephen’s eldest surviving son William, who is said to have been aware
of the plot,[1210] was too much for the king’s overwrought nerves,
and with a last benediction he hurried his adoptive son out of the
country at once.[1211] Henry passed through Canterbury before the
conspirators were ready for him, made his way to Rochester and London,
and thence safe over sea to Normandy,[1212] where he landed soon after
Easter.[1213]

        [1205] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 156. See also Hen.
        Hunt., l. viii. c. 37 (Arnold, p. 289).

        [1206] Hen. Hunt. as above. Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

        [1207] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 38 (Arnold, pp. 289, 290).

        [1208] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158. The countess was
        Henry’s aunt, Sibyl of Anjou, once the bride of William the
        Clito, now the wife of his rival Theodoric.

        [1209] “Qui duci simul ac paci invidebant.” _Ibid._

        [1210] _Ibid._

        [1211] Will. Newb., l. i. c. 30 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 91, 92).

        [1212] Gerv. Cant. as above.

        [1213] Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

Only fifteen months had passed since his arrival in England; only five
had passed since the treaty of Wallingford; yet in that short time
Henry had made, as the contemporary English chronicler says, “such
good peace as never was here”[1214]--never, that is, since peace and
order were buried with his grandfather, eighteen years before. So well
was the work begun that even when he was thus obliged to leave it
for a while in the weak hands of Stephen, it did not fall to pieces
again. Stephen indeed, as was remarked by the writers of the day,
seemed now at length for the first time to be really king.[1215] For
eighteen years he had been king only in name; his regal dignity had
never been truly respected, his regal authority had never been fully
obeyed, till the last twelve months of his life, when he was avowedly
only holding them in trust for the future sovereign whom “all folk
loved,” because he did what Stephen had failed to do--“he did good
justice and made peace.”[1216] After Henry was gone Stephen gathered
up his failing strength for a campaign against some of the rebellious
castles in the north. Sick and weary as he was, his youthful valour
and prowess were even yet not altogether departed; castle after castle
fell into his hands, the last and most important being that of Drax in
Yorkshire.[1217] He then went southward again to hold another meeting
with the count of Flanders at Dover.[1218] There his health finally
gave way; and eight days before the feast of All Saints his nineteen
years’ reign, with all its troubles and disappointments, its blunders
and failures, its useless labours and hopeless cares, was ended by a
quiet death.[1219]

        [1214] “And hit ward sone suythe god pais, sua th. neure was
        here.” Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

        [1215] Will. Newb. as above (p. 91). Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 39
        (Arnold, p. 290). R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 297.

        [1216] Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

        [1217] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 39 (Arnold, p. 291). Will.
        Newb., l. i. c. 32 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 94). Rog. Howden
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 213.

        [1218] Hen. Hunt. as above. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
        159.

        [1219] Hen. Hunt. and Gerv. Cant. as above. The Ann. Winton.
        Contin. a. 1154 (Liebermann, _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 82) dates
        it a day later.

The primate and the nobles, while they laid him in Feversham abbey
beside his wife and son,[1220] sent the news to the king-elect,
begging him to come and take his crown without delay.[1221] The
message reached Henry just as he was completing the suppression of a
disturbance in Normandy. A series of desultory attacks made by the
French king upon the duchy during Henry’s absence in 1153 had led to
no direct result, but they probably helped to foster the turbulence
of the Norman barons, who were fast getting into their old condition
of lawless independence when at Easter 1154 the duke re-appeared in
their midst. He began to assert his authority by resuming--not all at
once, but gradually and cautiously--the demesne lands of the duchy,
which his father had been compelled to alienate for a time in order
to purchase the support of the nobles. A hurried visit to Aquitaine
was followed in August by peace with the king of France; for Louis
had at last come to see that his opposition was as vain as Stephen’s.
Immediately afterwards the young duke was struck down by a severe
illness. In October he was sufficiently recovered to join Louis in a
campaign for the settlement of some disturbances in the Vexin; thence
he went once more to besiege his rebellious cousin and vassal Richard
Fitz-Count at Torigni. The place had apparently just surrendered when
the tidings of Stephen’s death arrived. Henry took counsel first of
all with his mother; then he summoned his brothers and the barons
of Normandy to meet him at Barfleur; but when he arrived there with
Eleanor the wind was so unfavourable that a whole month elapsed before
they could venture to cross.[1222] Henry, however, could afford to
wait; and England could wait for him. Three weeks without a king had
been enough to throw the whole country into disorder when Henry I.
had died leaving only a woman and an infant as his heirs; six weeks
passed away without any disturbance now while Archbishop Theobald was
guarding the rights of the Crown[1223] for one who had already proved
himself King Henry’s worthy grandson. “No man durst do other than
good, for the mickle awe of him.”[1224] At last, on December 8,[1225]
he landed in Hampshire;[1226] first at Winchester, then in London, he
received a rapturous welcome;[1227] and on the Sunday before Christmas
Henry Fitz-Empress, duke of the Normans, count of Anjou and duke of
Aquitaine, was crowned king of England in Westminster abbey.[1228]

        [1220] Hen. Hunt. as above. Eng. Chron. a. 1154. Will. Newb.,
        l. i. c. 32 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 95).

        [1221] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 40 (Arnold, p. 291).

        [1222] Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

        [1223] “Nutu divino et cooperante Theodbaldo Cantuariensi
        archiepiscopo.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 159.

        [1224] Eng. Chron. a. 1154. Cf. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 40
        (Arnold, p. 291).

        [1225] Gerv. Cant. as above. Rob. Torigni, a. 1154, gives the
        date as December 7. Most likely the crossing was made, as seems
        to have been the usual practice with Henry at least, in the
        night.

        [1226] “Hostreham,” Gerv. Cant. as above. “Apud Noveforest,”
        Hen. Hunt. as above; which Mr. Arnold glosses in the margin
        “Lymington.”

        [1227] Hen. Hunt. and Gerv. Cant. as above.

        [1228] The Chron. S. Albin. a. 1154 (Marchegay, _Eglises_,
        p. 38) says: “xiv kalendas januarii apud Wintoniam rex
        consecratur, et Natale Domini celebrans Londoniæ, cum uxore
        coronatur.” But the English writers mention only one crowning,
        at Westminster. The Eng. Chron. a. 1154, says Henry was “to
        king blessed in London on the Sunday before Midwinter-day.”
        Rob. Torigni _ad ann._, R. Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 299),
        Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 72), Ann. S. Aug.
        Cant. _ad ann._ (Liebermann, _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 82), all
        give the same date; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 159) makes
        it December 17, but as he also calls it the Sunday before
        Christmas, he evidently means 19. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 40
        (Arnold, pp. 291, 292), greets the new king with some hexameter
        verses, and then adds: “Et jam regi novo novus liber donandus
        est.” But the book, if it was ever written, is lost.




CHAPTER IX.

HENRY AND ENGLAND.

1154–1157.


The Christmas-tide of the year 1154 was an epoch in English history
almost as marked as that of 1066. The crowning of Henry Fitz-Empress
was, scarcely less than that of William the Conqueror, the beginning of
a new era; and--unlike many historical events whose importance is only
realized long after they are past--it was distinctly recognized as such
by the men of the period. For the first time since the Norman conquest,
the new king succeeded to his throne without a competitor, and with the
unanimous goodwill of all ranks and all races throughout his kingdom.
Normans and English, high and low, cleric and lay, welcomed the young
Angevin king as the herald of a bright new day which was to dispel
the darkness that had settled down upon the land during the nineteen
winters of anarchy, and to bring back all, or more than all, the peace
and prosperity of England’s happiest ages. But if Henry’s subjects
looked forward to the year which was just beginning with a hope such
as no new year had brought them since his grandfather’s death, Henry
himself may well have contemplated with an anxiety little short of
despair the task which lay before him. It was nothing less than the
resuscitation of the body politic from a state of utter decay. The
legal, constitutional and administrative machinery of the state was at
a deadlock; the national resources, material and moral, were exhausted.
To bring under subjection, once for all, the remnant of the disturbing
forces which had caused the catastrophe, and render them powerless for
future harm:--to disinter from the mass of ruin the fragments of the
old foundations of social and political organization, and build up on
them a secure and lasting fabric of administration and law;--to bring
order out of chaos, life out of decay:--this was the work which a youth
who had not yet completed his twenty-second year now found himself
called to undertake, and to undertake almost single-handed.

The call did not indeed take him by surprise. The last year which he
had spent in England must have given him some knowledge of the state of
things with which as king he would have to deal; and the prospect of
having so to deal with it sooner or later had been constantly before
his eyes from his very infancy. His qualifications for the work must
however have been chiefly innate. The first nine years of his life
spent under the care of mother and father alternately in Anjou; the
next four, under his uncle Earl Robert at Bristol; then two years in
Anjou again, followed by a year with King David of Scotland, three more
spent in securing his continental heritage and that of his bride, a
year occupied in securing England, and another busied with self-defence
in Normandy:--such a training was too desultory to have furnished
Henry with the knowledge or the experience necessary for the formation
of anything like a matured theory of government; and he could have
had no time to think out one for himself in a life so busy and so
short. Yet in his very youth and inexperience there was an element of
strength. He came trammelled by no preconceived political theories, no
party-pledges, no local and personal ties; he came simply with his own
young intellect unwarped by prejudice, unruffled by passion, unclouded
by care; fresh with the untried vigour and elasticity of youth, and
ready, whatever his hand should find to do, fearlessly to do it with
his might.

Thus much, at least, those who crowded to welcome the new sovereign
might read in his very face and figure. Henry of Anjou had no claim
to the personal epithet universally bestowed upon his father; and yet,
as one of his courtiers expressively said, his was a form which a
soldier, having once seen, would hasten to look upon again.[1229] He
was of moderate height,[1230] appearing neither gigantic among small
men nor insignificant among tall ones;[1231] in later days it was
remarked that he had hit the golden mean of stature which his sons had
all either overshot or failed to attain.[1232] His frame was made for
strength, endurance and activity;[1233] thick-set, square-shouldered,
broad-chested:--with arms muscular as those of a gladiator;[1234]
highly-arched feet which looked made for the stirrup;[1235]--a large,
but not disproportionate head, round and well-shaped, and covered
with close-cropped hair of the tawny hue which Fulk the Red seems to
have transmitted to so many of his descendants:[1236] a face which
one of his courtiers describes as “lion-like”[1237] and another as
“a countenance of fire”[1238]--a face, as we can see even in its
sculptured effigy on his tomb, full of animation, energy and vigour;--a
freckled skin;[1239] somewhat prominent grey eyes, clear and soft
when he was in a peaceable mood, but bloodshot and flashing like
balls of fire when the demon-spirit of his race was aroused within
him:--[1240] Henry, his people might guess almost at a glance, was
no mirror of courtly chivalry and elegance, but a man of practical,
vigorous and rapid action. He inherited as little of Geoffrey’s
personal refinement as of his physical grace. When the young duke of
the Normans had first appeared in England, his shoulders covered
with a little short cape such as was then usually worn in Anjou, the
English knights, who since his grandfather’s time had been accustomed
to wear long cloaks hanging down to the ground, were struck by the
novelty of his attire and nicknamed him “Henry Curtmantel.”[1241]
When once the Angevin fashion was transferred to the English court,
however, there was nothing in Henry’s dress to distinguish him from
his servants, unless it were its very lack of display and elegance;
his clothing and headgear were of the plainest kind; and how little
care he took of his person was shewn by his rough coarse hands, never
gloved except when he went hawking.[1242] In his later years he was
accused of extreme parsimony;[1243] even as a young man, he clearly
had no pleasure in pomp or luxury of any kind. He was very temperate
in meat and drink;[1244] over-indulgence in that respect seems indeed
never to have been one of the habitual sins of the house of Anjou;
and whatever complex elements may have had a part in his innermost
moral constitution, in temper and tastes Henry was an Angevin of the
Angevins. His restlessness seems to have outdone that of Fulk Nerra
himself. He was always up and doing; if a dream of ease crossed him
even in sleep, he spurned it angrily from him;[1245] he gave himself no
peace, and as a natural consequence, he gave none to those around him.
When not at war, he was constantly practising its mimicry with hawk
and hound; his passion for the chase--a double inheritance, from his
father and from his mother’s Norman ancestors--was so great as to be
an acknowledged scandal in all eyes.[1246] He would mount his horse at
the first streak of dawn, come back in the evening after a day’s hard
riding across hill, moor and forest, and then tire out his companions
by keeping them on their feet until nightfall.[1247] His own feet were
always swollen and bruised from his violent riding; yet except at meals
and on horseback, he was never known to be seated.[1248] In public or
in private, in council or in church, he stood or walked from morning
till night.[1249] At church, indeed, he was especially restless;
unmindful of the sacred unction which had made him king, he evidently
grudged the time taken from secular occupations for attendance upon
religious duties, and would either discuss affairs of state in a
whisper[1250] or relieve his impatience by drawing little pictures all
through the most solemn of holy rites.[1251] His English or Norman
courtiers, unaccustomed to deal with the demon-blood of Anjou, vainly
endeavoured to account for an activity which remained undiminished when
they were all half dead with exhaustion, and attributed it to his dread
of becoming disabled by corpulence, to which he had a strong natural
tendency.[1252] A good deal of it, however, was probably due to sheer
physical restlessness and superabundant physical energy; and a good
deal more to the irrepressible outward working of an extraordinarily
active mind.

        [1229] “Vir ... quem miles diligenter inspectum accurrebant
        [_accurrebat_?] inspicere.” W. Map, _De Nugis Curialium_,
        dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

        [1230] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29
        (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 71). Peter of Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles,
        vol. i. p. 193).

        [1231] Pet. Blois as above.

        [1232] Gir. Cambr. as above.

        [1233] W. Map as above.

        [1234] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 70). Pet. Blois as above.

        [1235] Pet. Blois as above.

        [1236] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. as above.

        [1237] Pet. Blois as above.

        [1238] Gir. Cambr. as above.

        [1239] See how Merlin’s prophecy about “fortem lentiginosum”
        was applied to him, Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l. i. c. 6
        (Dimock, vol. vi. p. 62).

        [1240] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl.
        Christ. Soc., p. 70). Pet. Blois as above.

        [1241] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. iii. c. 28 (Angl.
        Christ. Soc., p. 157).

        [1242] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 193, 194).

        [1243] See Ralf Niger (Anstruther), p. 169. Ralf, however,
        was a bitter enemy. Gerald on the other hand seems to draw,
        and to imply that Henry drew, a distinction between official
        and personal expenditure: “Parcimoniæ, quoad principi licuit,
        per omnia datus.” _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl.
        Christ. Soc., p. 70). “Largus in publico, parcus in privato”
        (_ib._ p. 71).

        [1244] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 70). Pet. Blois as above (p.
        195). W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 231).

        [1245] W. Map as above (p. 227).

        [1246] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 71). Pet. Blois as
        above (p. 194).

        [1247] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl.
        Christ. Soc., p. 71).

        [1248] _Ibid._ Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).

        [1249] Pet. Blois as above.

        [1250] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 72).

        [1251] “Oratorium ingressus, picturæ et susurro vacabat.” R.
        Niger (Anstruther), p. 169. It is only fair to add that some of
        the highest clergy of the day were just as unscrupulous as the
        king about talking business during mass. See, _e.g._, Chron. de
        Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), pp. 73, 74; and there are plenty of
        other examples.

        [1252] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

It was no light matter to be in attendance upon such a king. His
clerks, some playfully, some in all seriousness, compared his court
to the infernal regions.[1253] His habit of constantly moving about
from one place to another--a habit which he retained to the very end
of his life--was in itself sufficiently trying to those who had to
transact business with him, and was made positively exasperating by
his frequent and sudden changes of plan. “He shunned regular hours
like poison.”[1254] “Solomon saith,” wrote his secretary Peter of
Blois to him once, after vainly striving to track him across land and
sea, “Solomon saith there be three things difficult to be found out,
and a fourth which may hardly be discovered: the way of an eagle in
the air; the way of a ship in the sea; the way of a serpent on the
ground; and the way of a man in his youth. I can add a fifth: the way
of a king in England.”[1255] In a letter to his old comrades of the
court Peter gives a detailed account of the discomforts brought upon
them by Henry’s erratic movements. “If the king has promised to spend
the day in a place--more especially, if his intention so to do has
been publicly proclaimed by a herald--you may be quite sure he will
upset everybody’s arrangements by starting off early in the morning.
Then you may see men rushing about as if they were mad, beating their
packhorses, driving their chariots one into another--in short, such a
turmoil as to present you with a lively image of the infernal regions.
If, on the other hand, the king announces that he will set out early
in the morning for a certain place, he is sure to change his mind; you
may take it for granted that he will sleep till noon. Then you shall
see the packhorses waiting with their burthens, the chariots standing
ready, the couriers dozing, the purveyors worrying, and all grumbling
one at another. Folk run to the women and the tent-keepers to inquire
of them whither the king is really going; for this sort of courtiers
often know the secrets of the palace. Many a time when the king was
asleep and all was silent around, there has come a message from his
lodging, not authoritative, but rousing us all up, and naming the city
or town whither he was about to proceed. After waiting so long in
dreary uncertainty, we were comforted by a prospect of being quartered
in a place where there was a fair chance of accommodation. Thereupon
arose such a clatter of horse and foot that hell seemed to have broken
loose. But when our couriers had gone the whole day’s ride, or nearly
so, the king would turn aside to some other place where he had perhaps
one single house, and just enough provision for himself and none else.
I hardly dare say it,” adds the sorely-tried secretary, “but I verily
believe he took a delight in seeing the straits to which he put us!
After wandering a distance of three or four miles in an unknown wood,
and often in the dark, we thought ourselves lucky if we stumbled upon
some dirty little hovel; there was often grievous and bitter strife
about a mere hut; and swords were drawn for the possession of a lodging
which pigs would not have deemed worth fighting for. I used to get
separated from my people, and could hardly collect them again in three
days. O Lord God Almighty! wilt Thou not turn the heart of this king,
that he may know himself to be but man, and may learn to shew some
grace of regal consideration, some human fellow-feeling, for those whom
not ambition, but necessity, compels to run after him thus?”[1256]

        [1253] _Ibid._, dist. i. c. 2 (pp. 5, 6); dist. v. c. 7 (p.
        238). Pet. Blois, Ep. xiv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 50).

        [1254] R. Niger (Anstruther), p. 169.

        [1255] Pet. Blois, Ep. xli. (Giles, vol. i. p. 125). Arnulf of
        Lisieux makes a like complaint in a more serious tone: Arn.
        Lis., Ep. 92 (Giles, p. 247). See also the remark of Louis of
        France on Henry’s expedition to Ireland in 1172: R. Diceto
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351.

        [1256] Pet. Blois, Ep. xiv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 50, 51).

This bustling, scrambling, roving Pandemonium was very unlike the
orderly, well-disciplined court of the first King Henry, where
everything was done according to rule;--where the royal itinerary was
planned out every month, and its stages duly announced and strictly
adhered to, so that every man knew exactly when and where to find his
sovereign, and his coming brought people together as to a fair:--where
all the earls and barons of the realm were set down in a written list,
according to which every one on his arrival at court was furnished with
a certain allowance of bread, wine and candles for the term of his
sojourn;[1257]--where the king’s own daily life was passed in a steady
routine, holding council with his wise men and giving audiences until
dinner-time, devoting the rest of the day to the society of the young
gallants whom he drew from every country on this side of the Alps to
increase the splendour of his household:--a court which was “a school
of virtue and wisdom all the morning, of courtesy and decorous mirth
all the afternoon.”[1258] Yet this hasty, impetuous young sovereign, in
whose rough aspect and reckless ways one can at first glance discern
so little either of regal dignity or of steady application to regal
duty, was in truth, no less than his grandfather, an indefatigable
worker and a born ruler of men. His way of doing business, apparently
by fits and starts, bewildered men of less versatile intellect and
less rapid decision; but they saw that the business was done, and done
thoroughly, though they hardly understood when or how. They resigned
themselves to be swept along in the whirl of Henry’s unaccountable
movements, for they learned to perceive that those movements did not
spring from mere caprice and perversity, but had always a motive and
an object, inscrutable perhaps to all eyes save his own, but none the
less definite and practical. When he dragged them in one day over a
distance which should have occupied four or five, they knew that it
was to forestall the machinations of some threatening foe. When he ran
over the country from end to end without a word of notice, it was to
overtake his officials at unawares and ascertain for himself how they
were or were not attending to their duty.[1259] If he was never still,
he was also never idle. He seemed to be specially haunted by that dread
of the mischief attendant upon idle hands which an Angevin writer
quaintly puts forth as an apology for the ceaseless warfare in which
his race passed their lives.[1260] Henry’s hands were never idle; in
the intervals of state business, when not laden with bow and arrows,
they almost invariably held a book; for Henry was, to the very close
of his life, the most learned crowned head in Christendom.[1261] He
was a match for the best among his subjects in all knightly exercises
and accomplishments; he was no less a match for the best, among laymen
at least, in scholarship and mental culture. If we may believe one of
his chaplains, Walter Map, he knew something of every language “from
the bay of Biscay to the Jordan,” though he only spoke two, Latin and
his native French;[1262] he evidently never learned to speak, and it
is doubtful how far he understood, the natural tongue of the people of
his island realm. He loved reading; he enjoyed the society of learned
men; his delight was to stand amid a little group of clerks, arguing
out some knotty point with them; not a day passed in his court without
some interesting literary discussion.[1263] His habit of shutting
himself up in his own apartments with a few chosen companions was a
grievance to those who remembered his grandfather’s practice of coming
forth in public at stated hours every day;[1264] yet Henry II. was
never difficult of access; once, when the prior of Witham made a witty
retort to the marshals who refused him admittance to the royal chamber,
the king himself, overhearing the jest, opened the door with a peal
of laughter;[1265] and a courier charged with important news from the
north made his way to the sovereign’s bedside and woke him in the
middle of the night without hesitation.[1266] When he did shew himself
to the people, they thronged him without ceremony; they caught hold of
him right and left, they pulled him this way and that, yet he never
rebuked them, never gave them an angry look, but listened patiently to
what each man had to say, and when their importunity became intolerable
he simply made his escape without a word.[1267] Though not gifted with
a good voice,[1268] he was a ready and pleasant speaker;[1269] and
he had two other natural qualifications specially useful for a king.
Unlike his grandfather Fulk V., who never could remember a face and
constantly had to ask the names of his own familiar attendants,[1270]
Henry never failed to recognize a man whom he had once looked at;
and a thing once heard, if worth remembering, never slipped from his
memory, which was consequently stored with a fund of historical and
experimental knowledge ready for use at any moment.[1271]

        [1257] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, pp. 224,
        225).

        [1258] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 5 (Wright, p. 210).

        [1259] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).

        [1260] See above, p. 343, note 6{1002}.

        [1261] Pet. Blois as above.

        [1262] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

        [1263] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).

        [1264] W. Map as above (p. 230).

        [1265] _Ib._ dist. i. c. 6 (p. 7).

        [1266] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 25 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 189).

        [1267] W. Map, as above, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 231).

        [1268] “Voce quassâ.” Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii.
        c. 29 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 70). This however refers to his
        later years.

        [1269] _Ib._ p. 71. Pet. Blois as above (p. 195).

        [1270] Will. Tyr., l. xiv. c. i.

        [1271] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl.
        Christ. Soc., p. 73).

His worst private vices only reached their full developement in later
years; it is plain, however, that he was much less careful than his
grandfather had been of the outward decorum of his household; and
unluckily his consort was not a woman to control it by her influence
or improve it by her example like the “good Queen Maude.” His wrath
was even more terrific than the wrath of kings is proverbially wont to
be.[1272] His passions were strong, and they were lasting; when once
he had taken a dislike to a man, he could rarely be induced to grant
him his favour; on the other hand, when his friendship and confidence
were once given, he withdrew them with the utmost difficulty and
reluctance;[1273] and he had the gift of inspiring in all who came
in contact with him a love or a hatred as intense and abiding as his
own. His temper was a mystery to those who had not the key to it; it
was the temper of Fulk Nerra. He had the Black Count’s strange power
of fascination, his unaccountable variations of mood, and his cool,
clear head. Like Fulk, he was at one moment mocking and blaspheming
all that is holiest in earth and heaven, and at another grovelling in
an agony of remorse as wild as the blasphemy itself. Like Fulk, he
was an indefatigable builder, constantly superintending the erection
of a wall, the fortification of a castle, the making of a dyke,
the enclosing of a deer-park or a fish-pond, or the planning of a
palace;[1274] and all the while his material buildings were but types
of a great edifice of statecraft which, all unseen, was rising day
by day beneath the hands of the royal architect;--his ever-varying
pursuits, each of which seemed to absorb him for the moment, were but
parts of an all-absorbing whole;--and his seeming self-contradictions
were unaccountable only because the most useful of all his Angevin
characteristics, his capacity for instinctively and unerringly adapting
means to ends, enabled him to detect opportunities and recognize
combinations invisible to less penetrating eyes. This was the moral
constitution which in Fulk III. and Fulk V. had made the greatness of
the house of Anjou; its workings were now to be displayed on a grander
scale and in a more important sphere.

        [1272] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 223).

        [1273] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (_ib._ p. 194). Gir. Cambr. as
        above (p. 71).

        [1274] Pet. Blois as above (p. 195).

The young king saw at once that for his work of reconstruction and
reform in England the counsellors who surrounded him in Normandy were
of no avail; that he must trust solely to English help, and select his
chief ministers partly from among those who had been in office under
his predecessor, partly from such of his own English partizans as were
best fitted for the task. First among the former class stood Richard
de Lucy, who held the post of justiciar at the close of Stephen’s
reign,[1275] who retained it under Henry for five-and-twenty years, and
whose character is summed up in the epithet said to have been bestowed
on him by his grateful sovereign--“Richard de Lucy the Loyal.”[1276]
For thirteen years he shared the dignity and the duties of chief
justiciar with Earl Robert of Leicester,[1277] who, after having been
a faithful supporter of Stephen in his earlier and better days, had
transferred his allegiance to Henry, and continued through life one of
his most trusty servants and friends. The weight of Robert’s character
was increased by that of his rank and descent; as head of the great
house of Leicester, he was the most influential baron of the midland
shires; while as son of Count Robert of Meulan, the friend of Henry
I., he was a living link with that hallowed past which Henry II. was
expected to restore, and a natural representative of its traditions of
honour and of peace. Of the great ministers who had actually served
under the first King Henry only one survived: the old treasurer, Nigel,
bishop of Ely. We know not who took his place on his fall in 1139; but
the treasurer in Stephen’s latter years can have had little more than
an empty title; and when Nigel reappears in office, immediately after
Henry’s accession, it is not as treasurer, but as chancellor.[1278]
This, however, was a merely provisional arrangement; in a few weeks
the bishop of Ely was reinstated in his most appropriate place, on the
right side of the chequered table, gathering up the broken threads
of the financial system which he had learned under his uncle of
Salisbury;[1279] while the more miscellaneous work of the chancellor
was undertaken by younger hands.

        [1275] At the peace he held the Tower of London and the
        castle of Windsor; Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 18: these were
        peculiarly in the custody of the justiciar; Stubbs, _Const.
        Hist._, vol. i. p. 449, note 1.

        [1276] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1540–1541 (Michel, p. 70).

        [1277] Robert appears as _capitalis justicia_ in a charter
        of, apparently, 1155 (Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 3). In
        1159–1160, John of Salisbury describes him as “illustris comes
        Legrecestriæ Robertus, modeste proconsulatum gerens apud
        Britannias” (Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 25; Giles,
        vol. iv. p. 65), and at his death in 1168 he is named in the
        Chron. Mailros (_ad ann._) as “comes justus Leicestrie, et qui
        summa justitia vocatur.”

        [1278] A charter issued at Westminster, evidently soon after
        the coronation, is witnessed by “N. Epọ de Ely et Canc.” Eyton,
        _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 2, note 2.

        [1279] _Dial. de Scacc._, l. i. c. 8 (Stubbs, _Select
        Charters_, p. 199).

Under the old English constitutional system, alike in its native purity
and in the modified form which it assumed under the Conqueror and his
sons, the archbishop of Canterbury was the official keeper of the
royal conscience and the first adviser of the sovereign. Theobald had
contributed more than any other one man to secure Henry’s succession;
he saw in it the crowning of his own life’s work for England; while
Henry saw in Theobald his most weighty and valuable supporter. It
was therefore a matter of course that the primate should resume the
constitutional position which he had inherited from Anselm and Lanfranc
and their old-English predecessors. Theobald, however, was now in
advanced age and feeble health; and when he fully perceived what manner
of man it was to whom he was bound to act as spiritual father and
political guide, he felt that to regulate these strong passions, to
direct these youthful impulses, to follow these restless movements, was
a task too hard for his failing strength. He feared the evil influences
of the courtiers upon the young king, who seemed so willing to be led
aright, and might for that very reason be so easily led astray;[1280]
he feared for the English Church, through which there was already
running a whisper of ill-omen concerning the Angevins’ known hostility
to the rights of religion;[1281] he feared for his own soul, lest Henry
should wander out of the right path for lack of guidance, and the sin
should lie at the door of the incompetent guide.[1282] There was one
man who, if he could but be placed at the young king’s side, might be
trusted to manage the arduous and delicate task. So to place him could
be no very difficult matter; for his own past services to Henry’s cause
were far too great to be left unrewarded. Neither the recommendations
of the bishops of Winchester,[1283] Bayeux and Lisieux,[1284] nor
even those of the primate, could have as much weight as the known
qualifications of the candidate himself in obtaining the office of
chancellor for Thomas Becket.[1285]

        [1280] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 160.

        [1281] _Vita S. Thomæ_, Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol.
        iv.), p. 11.

        [1282] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 160.

        [1283] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        18.

        [1284] “Quorum consiliis rex in primordiis suis innitebatur.”
        Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 12.

        [1285] “Facile regi inspiratum est commendatum habere quem
        propria satis merita commendabant.” E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.),
        p. 363. I cannot attach any importance to the version of
        _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 45–47.

The chancellor’s duties were still much the same as they had been when
first organized by Roger of Salisbury. He was charged with the keeping
of the royal seal, the drawing-up of royal writs and charters, the
conduct of the royal correspondence, the preservation of legal records,
the custody of vacant fiefs and benefices, and the superintendence of
the king’s chaplains and clerks;[1286]--in a word, the management of
the whole clerical and secretarial work of the royal household and of
the government. Officially, he seems to have been ranked below the
chief ministers of state--the justiciar, or even the treasurer;[1287]
personally, however, he was brought more than either of them into
close and constant relations with his sovereign. The actual importance
and dignity of the chancellorship depended in fact upon the capacity of
individual chancellors for magnifying their office. Thomas magnified it
as no man ever did before or since. In a very few months he became what
the justiciar had formerly been, the second man in the kingdom;[1288]
and not in the kingdom alone, but in all the lands, on both sides of
the sea, which owned Henry Fitz-Empress for their sovereign.[1289]
Theobald’s scheme far more than succeeded; his favourite became not
so much the king’s chief minister as his friend, his director, his
master.[1290] The two young men, drawn together by a strong personal
attraction, seemed to have but one heart and one soul.[1291] Thomas
was the elder by fifteen years; but the disparity of age was lost
in the perfect community of their feelings, interests and pursuits.
Thomas was now in deacon’s orders, having been ordained by Archbishop
Theobald at the close of the previous year on his appointment to the
archdeaconry of Canterbury,[1292] an office which was accounted the
highest ecclesiastical dignity in England after those of the bishops
and abbots.[1293] He felt, however, no vocation and no taste for the
duties of sacred ministry, and was only too glad to “put off the
deacon” and fling all his energies into the more congenial sphere
of court life.[1294] Alike in its business and in its pleasures
he was thoroughly at home. His refined sensibilities, his romantic
imagination, revelled in the elegance and splendour which to Henry’s
matter-of-fact disposition were simply irksome; he gladly took all the
burthen of state ceremonial as well as of state business upon his own
shoulders; and he bore it with an easy grace which men never wearied
of admiring. One day he would be riding in coat of mail at the head of
the royal troops, the next he would be dispensing justice in the king’s
name;[1295] and his will was law throughout the land, for all men knew
that his will and Henry’s were one.[1296]

        [1286] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above. On the chancellor’s office
        see Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, vol. i. pp. 352, 353.

        [1287] Will. Fitz-Steph., as above, does indeed say
        “Cancellarii Angliæ dignitas est ut secundus a rege in regno
        habeatur”; but he had in his mind one particular chancellor.
        He also says “Cancellaria emenda non est”; but it seems that
        Thomas himself paid for his appointment (Gilb. Foliot, Ep.
        cxciv., Giles, vol. i. p. 268; Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep.
        ccxxv. pp. 523, 524), like the chancellors before and after
        him, and like the other great ministers of state.

        [1288] “In regno secundus,” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i.
        p. 169. “Secundus a rege,” Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson,
        _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 18. “Nullus par ei erat in regno,
        excepto solo rege,” Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216. E.
        Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 363, and the _Thomas
        Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 49, liken his position to that of
        Joseph.

        [1289] “Secundum post regem in quatuor regnis quis te ignorat?”
        writes Peter of Celle to Thomas (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.
        Ep. ii. p. 4).

        [1290] “Regis amicus,” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 169.
        “Regis rector et quasi magister,” _ib._ pp. 160 and 169.

        [1291] Joh. Salisb., Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 109;
        Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ix. p. 13).

        [1292] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 159, 160. Rog. Howden
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 213. Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_,
        vol. i.), p. 4. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 17.
        Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 168. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 11.

        [1293] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above. He says it was worth a
        hundred pounds of silver.

        [1294] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 173.

        [1295] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 12.

        [1296] _Ibid._ E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 364.

In outward aspect Thomas must have been far more regal than the king
himself. He was very tall and elegantly formed,[1297] with an oval
face,[1298] handsome aquiline features,[1299] a lofty brow,[1300]
large, lustrous and penetrating eyes;[1301] there was an habitual
look of placid dignity in his countenance,[1302] a natural grace in
his every gesture, an ingrained refinement in his every word and
action;[1303] the slender, tapering, white fingers[1304] and dainty
attire of the burgher’s son contrasted curiously with the rough brown
hands and careless appearance of Henry Fitz-Empress; the order,
elegance and liberality of the chancellor’s household contrasted no
less with the confusion and discomfort of the king’s. The riches that
passed through Thomas’s hands were enormous; revenues and honours were
heaped on him by the king; costly gifts poured in upon him daily from
clergy and laity, high and low. But what he received with one hand he
gave away with the other; his splendour and his wealth were shared
with all who chose to come and take a share of them. His door was
always open, his table always spread, for all men, of whatever race or
rank, who stood in need of hospitality.[1305] Besides fifty-two clerks
regularly attached to his household--some to act as his secretaries,
some to take charge of the vacant benefices in his custody, some to
serve his own numerous livings and prebends[1306]--he had almost
every day a company of invited guests to dinner; every day the hall
was freshly strewn with green leaves or rushes in summer and clean
hay or straw in winter, amid which those for whom there was no room
on the benches sat and dined on the floor. The tables shone with gold
and silver vessels, and were laden with costly viands; Thomas stuck
at no expense in such matters; but it was less for his own enjoyment
than for that of his guests;[1307] and these always included a crowd
of poor folk, who were as sumptuously and carefully served as the
rich;[1308] the meanest in his house never had to complain of a dinner
such as the noblest were often obliged to endure in King Henry’s court,
where half-baked bread, sour wine, stale fish and bad meat were the
ordinary fare.[1309] The chancellor’s hospitality was as gracious as it
was lavish. He was the most perfect of hosts; he saw to the smallest
details of domestic service; he noted the position of each guest,
missed and inquired for the absent, perceived and righted in a moment
the least mistake in precedence; if any man out of modesty tried to
take a lower place than was his due, it was in vain; no matter in
what obscure corner he might hide, Thomas was sure to find him out;
he seemed to pierce through curtains and walls with those wonderful
eyes whose glance brightened and cheered the whole table.[1310] No
wonder that barons and knights sent their sons to be educated under his
roof,[1311] and that his personal followers were far more numerous than
those of the king.[1312]

        [1297] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 17. Herb. Bosh.
        (_ibid._), p. 327. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), p. 3. _Thomas
        Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 29.

        [1298] Herb. Bosh. as above.

        [1299] Will. Fitz-Steph., Herb. Bosh., and _Thomas Saga_, as
        above.

        [1300] Herb. Bosh. as above.

        [1301] _Ib._ p. 229.

        [1302] Will. Cant., Will. Fitz-Steph., and _Thomas Saga_, as
        above.

        [1303] Anon. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 84.

        [1304] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 327.

        [1305] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp.
        20, 21. Joh. Salisb., _Entheticus in Polycraticum_ (Giles, vol.
        iii.) p. 3.

        [1306] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above, p. 29.

        [1307] _Ib._ pp. 20, 21.

        [1308] Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 13.

        [1309] Pet. Blois, Ep. xiv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 49).

        [1310] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 229.

        [1311] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._), p. 22.

        [1312] E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 363. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol.
        iv.), p. 13.

Henry might have been jealous of his minister; but there was no
thought of jealousy in his mind. He was constantly in and out at the
chancellor’s house; half in sheer fun, half to see for himself the
truth of the wonderful stories which he heard about it, he would come
uninvited to dinner, riding up suddenly--often bow in hand, on his way
to or from the chase--when Thomas was seated at table; sometimes he
would take a stirrup-cup, nod to his friend and ride away; sometimes he
would leap over the table, sit down and eat. When their work was over,
king and chancellor played together like a couple of schoolboys, and
whether it was in their private apartments, in the public streets, in
the palace, or in church, made no difference at all. It was a favourite
tale among their associates how as they rode together through the
streets of London one winter’s day, the king, seeing a ragged shivering
beggar, snatched at the chancellor’s handsome new mantle of scarlet
cloth lined with vair, crying--“You shall have the merit of clothing
the naked this time!” and after a struggle in which both combatants
nearly fell off their horses, sent the poor man away rejoicing in his
new and strangely acquired garment, while with shouts of applause and
laughter the bystanders crowded round Thomas, playfully offering him
their cloaks and capes in compensation for his loss.[1313]

        [1313] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp.
        24, 25.

It is hardly possible to deny that such enormous wealth as passed
through Thomas’s hands during his tenure of the chancellorship must
have been acquired, in part at least, by means which in the case of a
minister of the Crown in our own day would be accounted little less
than scandalous. But in the twelfth century there was no scandal about
the matter. Costly gifts of all kinds were showered at the feet of
kings and great men openly and as matter of course, and kings and
great men received them as openly, often without any idea of bribery
on either side. Moreover it is to be remembered that Thomas’s position
as chancellor gave him command over a considerable portion of the
royal revenues, and that he was left free to draw upon them at his
own discretion to meet an expenditure of which part was incurred
directly in the king’s behalf, while the whole of it might be regarded
as indirectly tending to the king’s glorification and benefit. The
two friends in fact seem to have had but one purse as well as “one
mind and one heart,” and not till many years later was there any
thought of disentangling their accounts. Amid all the chancellor’s
wild magnificence, there is no evidence of corruption; and there was
certainly no arrogance. Thomas had nothing of the upstart in him; he
never ignored his burgher-origin, he never dropped the friends of his
boyhood; his filial submission to the primate remained unchanged;[1314]
his gratitude to his early teachers at Merton was proved by his choice
of a confessor from among them,[1315] and by his successful efforts to
bring their house under the special patronage of the king.[1316] His
tastes were those of the most refined aristocrat, but his sympathies
were with the people from whose ranks he had sprung; his boundless
almsgiving was doubled in value by the gracious considerateness with
which it was bestowed; his tenderness for the poor was as genuine and
as delicate as that of his mother the good dame Rohese, and he was
quick alike to supply their needs and to vindicate their cause.[1317]

        [1314] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Beckett_, vol. iv.) p. 11.

        [1315] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 21. This
        confessor, Robert by name, was with him all through his exile;
        see Garnier (Hippeau), p. 137.

        [1316] Will. Fitz-Steph. (as above), p. 23.

        [1317] Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 13. Cf. _Thomas Saga_
        (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 49, 55–57.

Like the king himself, Thomas was a standing marvel to his
contemporaries; the strict stood aghast at his unclerical mode of life;
the simple were half inclined to take him for a wizard.[1318] But his
witchery was universal and irresistible; and after all it was only the
magic of a winning personality, a vivid imagination, a dauntless spirit
and a guileless heart. For the chancellor’s frivolity was all on the
surface of his life; its inner depths were pure. Amid the countless
temptations of a corrupt court, no stain ever rested upon his personal
honour. He shared in all the king’s pursuits, except the evil ones;
into them Henry tried to entrap him night and day, but in vain.[1319]
The one thing he would not do, the one thing he would not tolerate, was
evil; the one species of human being to whom his doors were inexorably
closed was a man of known bad character.[1320] Coarseness, immorality,
dishonesty, in word or deed, met with summary and condign punishment at
his hands.[1321] Above all things, “lying lips and a deceitful tongue
were an abomination unto him.”[1322] When in after-days a biographer of
the martyred archbishop copied from the Epistle to the Ephesians the
description of the spiritual armour in which his hero was supposed to
have clothed himself at his consecration, he significantly omitted the
first piece of the panoply;[1323] Thomas had no need then to put on the
girdle of truth, for he had worn it all his life.

        [1318] Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. i.), p. 5.

        [1319] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        21. Cf. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._) p. 166; Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol.
        ii.), p. 303; Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 5, 6; Garnier
        (Hippeau), pp. 12, 13; _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp.
        53–55.

        [1320] “Nota domus cunctis, vitio non cognita soli.”
               “Huic, quæ sola placet, solâ virtute placebis.”

                  Joh. Salisb., _Enthet. in Polycrat._
                  (Giles, vol. iii.) pp. 2, 3.

        [1321] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 8. Will.
        Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 21.

        [1322] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 166.

        [1323] _Ib._ p. 198.

His position at court was no easy one; for a while envy, hatred and
malice assailed him from all sides, and their attacks, added to an
immense load of work, so overwhelmed him that he more than once
declared to his friends and to the primate that he was weary of his
life and would be thankful to end it, or at any rate to break away from
the bondage of the court, if only he could do so with honour. But he
was not the man to forsake a task which he had once undertaken;[1324]
his nature was rather to do it, like the king himself, with all his
might. In the after-years, when friends and foes alike could hardly
look back upon any period of Thomas’s career save in the light of the
martyr’s aureole, more than half the credit of Henry’s early reforms
was bestowed upon the chancellor.[1325] Even at the time, he was
described by no mean authority as the champion of all liberty,[1326]
the defender of all rights, the redresser of all wrongs, the restorer
of peace,[1327] the mediator who stood between king and people to
soften the inflexibility of law and prevent justice from degenerating
into legal wrong.[1328] It is certain that the brightest and happiest
years of Henry’s reign were those during which Thomas held the foremost
rank and took the foremost part in the administration of government.
For the successful execution of Henry’s policy, therefore, Thomas is
entitled to a large share of credit. But that he in any serious degree
influenced and moulded the general scope of that policy is a theory
opposed both to the evidence of actual events and to the inferences
which must be drawn from the characters of the two men, as developed in
their after-careers. Thomas may have suggested individual measures--we
shall see that he did suggest one of very great importance;--he may
have contrived modifications in detail; but Henry’s policy, as a
whole, bears the clear stamp of one mind--his own. The chancellor’s
true merit lies in this, that he was Henry’s best and most thorough
fellow-worker--not so much his counsellor or minister as his second
self. It is not hard to see why they were friends; nor to see, too,
why they were to quarrel so fatally. The same characteristics which
drew them together were fated to part them in the end. The king found
in the burgher’s son a temper as energetic, a spirit as versatile
and impetuous, a tongue as quick and sharp,[1329] a determination as
resolute, dauntless and thorough as his own, with a much less subtle
brain, a much more excitable imagination, and much more sensitive
feelings. While they moved side by side in the same sphere, they had
“but one heart and one soul”; when once their spheres became opposed,
the friends could only change into bitter antagonists.

        [1324] Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 305. Cf. Anon. I.
        (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 12; and _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i.
        p. 59.

        [1325] See Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.),
        p. 19.

        [1326] Joh. Salisb., _Entheticus_, v. 1357 (Giles, vol. v. p.
        282).

        [1327] Joh. Salisb. _Enthet. in Polycrat._ (Giles, vol. iii.)
        p. 3.

        [1328] “Hic est qui regni leges cancellat iniquas,
                Et mandata pii principis æqua facit.”

        Joh. Salisb., _Enthet. in Polycrat._ (Giles, vol. iii.) p. 2.
        This seems to be the earliest version of the jest about law
        and equity, and sums up, in a playful shape, the chancellor’s
        relation to both.

        [1329] Although Thomas was “slightly stuttering in his talk.”
        _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 29. The statement
        occurs in none of the extant Latin lives, but from its very
        strangeness can hardly be anything but a touch of genuine
        tradition. The impediment however can only have been a very
        slight one, and was most likely nothing more than the effect
        of his extreme impetuosity. It certainly did not hinder him
        speaking his mind fully and forcibly upon any important
        occasion when his feelings were deeply stirred.

Henry’s first manifesto was published before Thomas entered his
service. Immediately after his coronation he issued a charter setting
forth the broad principles of his intended policy:--the restoration
and confirmation of all liberties and customs in Church and state as
settled by his grandfather.[1330] The actual wording of the charter was
hardly more explicit than that of Stephen’s; but the marked omission
of all reference to Stephen was in itself a significant indication
that the return to an earlier and better order of things was intended
to be something more than a phrase. On Christmas-day the king held his
court at Bermondsey, and with the counsel of the assembled barons set
himself to enforce at once the provisions of the treaty of Wallingford
which Stephen had proved incapable of executing. Peremptory orders
were issued for the expulsion of the Flemish mercenaries and the
demolition of the unlicensed castles.[1331] The effect was magical.
The Flemings saw at once that their day was over, and vanished like
an army of spectres, so suddenly that folk marvelled whither they
could have gone.[1332] The razing of the castles was necessarily a
less rapid process, but it was accomplished without delay and without
disturbance.[1333] These preliminary obstacles being cleared out of
the way, the next step was to re-assert the rights of the Crown by
abolishing the fiscal earldoms[1334] and reclaiming the demesne lands
and fortresses which had passed into private hands during the anarchy.
Henry proclaimed his determination clearly and firmly; all alienations
of royal revenue and royal property made during the late reign were
declared null and void; all occupiers of crown lands and castles were
summoned to surrender them at once, and the charters of donation from
Stephen whereby they attempted to justify their occupation were treated
simply as waste paper.[1335] There was one at least of the usurping
barons to whom Henry knew that he must carry his summons in person if
he meant it to be obeyed: William of Aumale, the lord of Holderness,
whose father had once aspired to the crown, whom Stephen had made
earl of York, and who ruled like an almost independent chieftain in
Yorkshire, where he held the royal castle of Scarborough and was in no
mind to give it up. As soon as the festival season was over Henry began
to move northward; by the end of January he was at York, and William of
Aumale was at his feet, making complete surrender of Scarborough and
of all his other castles.[1336] Another great northern baron, William
Peverel of the Peak, had been scared into a monastery by the mere
rumour of the king’s approach;[1337] he had been concerned two years
before in an attempt to poison Henry’s earliest English ally, Earl Ralf
of Chester; he knew that he was a doomed man,[1338] and when the king
turned southward again after receiving the surrender of Scarborough,
he dared not trust even his monastic tonsure to save him from his
doom, but fled the country and left all his fiefs to his sovereign’s
mercy.[1339]

        [1330] Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 135.

        [1331] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 160.

        [1332] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 1 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 101, 102).

        [1333] _Ib._ p. 102. Gerv. Cant. as above.

        [1334] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155.

        [1335] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 2 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 103).

        [1336] _Ib._ cc. 2 and 3 (pp. 103, 104).

        [1337] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 161.

        [1338] See a charter of Henry, duke of the Normans, promising
        Peverel’s fief to Ralf on proof of the former’s guilt; Rymer,
        _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 16. Ralf of Chester died in 1153; Joh.
        Hexh. (Raine), p. 171. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 155. See
        above, p. 399.

        [1339] Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 161.

After such an exhibition of Henry’s powers of coercion on the two
chief nobles of the north, lesser men were not likely to venture upon
defiance; the occupiers of crown lands passed from rage to terror and
dismay, and began sullenly to make restitution.[1340] The grantees of
Stephen, however, soon proved to be the least part of the difficulty.
Several of the royal fortresses were held by partizans of the Empress,
who had won them either while warring against Stephen in her behalf,
or by a grant from their imperial mistress in her brief day of power;
and they not unnaturally resented the king’s attempt to deprive them
of what they looked upon as the well-earned rewards of their service to
his mother and himself. Henry, however, had made up his mind that there
must be no distinction of parties or of persons; all irregularities,
no matter whence they proceeded, must be suppressed; every root of
rebellion must be cut off, and every ground of suspicion removed.[1341]
Early in March he called another council in London,[1342] confirmed
the peace and renewed the old customs of the realm,[1343] and again
summoned all holders of royal castles to give an account of their
usurpations.[1344] The two mightiest barons of the west revolted at
once; Roger of Hereford, the son of Matilda’s faithful Miles, hurried
away from court to fortify his castles of Hereford and Gloucester
against the king, and made common cause with Hugh of Mortemer, the lord
of Cleobury and Wigmore, who held the royal fortress of Bridgenorth.
Roger was brought to reason in little more than a week by the
persuasions of his kinsman Bishop Gilbert of Hereford;[1345] Hugh was
suffered to complete his preparations for defiance while Henry kept
the Easter feast and held a great council at Wallingford to settle the
succession to the throne, first upon his eldest child William, and,
in case of William’s death, upon the infant Henry, who was scarcely
six weeks old.[1346] That done, the king marched with all his forces
against Hugh of Mortemer. He divided his host into three parts; one
division laid siege to Cleobury, another to Wigmore,[1347] and the
third, commanded by Henry himself, sat down before Bridgenorth.[1348]
On the spot where the spirit of feudal insubordination, incarnate in
Robert of Bellême, had fought its last fight against Henry I., the
same spirit, represented by Hugh of Mortemer, now fought against Henry
II. The fight had been useless fifty years ago; it was equally useless
now. One after another the three castles were taken, and on July 7 a
great council met beneath the walls of Bridgenorth to witness Hugh’s
surrender.[1349]

        [1340] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 2 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 103).

        [1341] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 161.

        [1342] _Ibid._ Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), p. 72.

        [1343] Chron. de Bello as above.

        [1344] Gerv. Cant. as above.

        [1345] _Ib._ p. 162.

        [1346] _Ibid._ Rob. Torigni, a. 1155, giving the date--Sunday
        after Easter, _i.e._ April 10.

        [1347] Gerv. Cant. as above.

        [1348] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 105).

        [1349] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155. Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ.
        Soc.), p. 75.

At the opposite side of the kingdom two great barons still remained to
be dealt with. One was Hugh Bigod, the veteran turncoat who had been
seneschal to Henry I., and who had (as the Angevin party believed)
perjured himself to oust Matilda from her rights, yet whose hereditary
and territorial influence had, it seems, been great enough to win from
the young king a confirmation of his earldom of Norfolk,[1350] as well
as to procure him a long day of grace before he was called upon to
give up his many unlawfully-acquired castles. The other was William
of Blois, Stephen’s eldest surviving son, by marriage earl of Warren
and Surrey, to whom the treaty of Wallingford had assigned two royal
castles, Pevensey and Norwich. The danger of leaving these important
fortresses in William’s hands was increased by the position of Norwich,
in the very midst of Hugh Bigod’s earldom; and after a year’s delay
Henry determined to put an end to this state of things in East Anglia.
Contrary to all precedent, he summoned the Whitsuntide council of
1157 to meet at Bury S. Edmund’s.[1351] This peaceful invasion of
their territories sufficed to bring both earls to submission. William
contentedly gave up his castles in exchange for the private estates
which his father had held before he became king; Hugh surrendered in
like manner,[1352] and was likewise taken back into favour, to have
another opportunity of proving his ingratitude sixteen years later.
This settlement of East Anglia completed the pacification of the realm.
Even before this, however, as early as the autumn of 1155, peace
and order were so far secured that Henry could venture to think of
leaving the country. At Michaelmas in that year he laid before his
barons a scheme for conquering Ireland as a provision for his brother
William.[1353] The Pope, who was traditionally held to be the natural
owner of all islands which had no other sovereign, had granted a bull
authorizing the expedition;[1354] but the Empress, whose counsel was
always deferentially sought by her royal son, disapproved of his
project;[1355] and when he went over sea in January 1156 it was not to
win a kingdom for his youngest brother in Ireland, but to put down a
rebellion of the second in Anjou.[1356]

        [1350] Granted by Stephen before 1153; Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i.
        p. 18. In the Pipe Roll of 1157 there is a charge “in tercio
        denario comitatûs comiti Hugoni l. libras de anno et dimidio,”
        among the accounts “de veteri firmâ” of Norfolk, rendered by
        Hugh himself as ex-sheriff (Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II., Hunter, p.
        75). As his successor in the sheriffdom renders an account “de
        firmâ dimidii anni” (_ib._ p. 76), the year and half above
        mentioned takes us back to the autumn of 1155. In the Pipe Roll
        of 1156, however, Hugh does not appear at all.

        [1351] Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), p. 85. In the
        Winchester accounts for the year (Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II., Hunter,
        p. 107) is a charge of 22s. “pro portandis coronis regis ad S.
        Ædmundum.” “Coronis” looks as if Eleanor wore her crown also.

        [1352] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157.

        [1353] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155.

        [1354] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v.
        pp. 205, 206).

        [1355] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155.

        [1356] _Ib._ a. 1156.

In England the year of his absence was a year without a history. Not a
single event of any consequence is recorded by the chroniclers save the
death of Henry’s eldest son, shortly before Christmas;[1357] and even
this was a matter of no political moment; for, as we have seen, there
was another infant to take his place as heir-apparent. The blank in
the chronicles has to be filled up from the Pipe Roll which once again
makes its appearance at Michaelmas 1156, and which has a special value
and interest as being the most authoritative witness to the character
of the young king’s efforts for the reorganization of the government,
and to the results which they had already produced. The record itself
is a mere skeleton, and a very imperfect one; the carefulness of
arrangement, the fulness of detail, the innumerable touches of local
and personal colour which make the one surviving Pipe Roll of Henry
I. so precious and so interesting, are sadly wanting in this roll of
the second year of Henry II.; yet between its meagre lines may be read
a suggestive, almost a pathetic story. Its very imperfections, its
lack of order and symmetry, its scantiness of information, its brief,
irregular, confused entries, help us to realize as perhaps nothing else
could how disastrous had been the break-down of the administrative
machinery which we saw working so methodically five-and-twenty years
ago, and how laborious must have been the task of restoration. Three
whole shires, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland, send in no
account at all, for they were still in the hands of the king of Scots;
in almost every shire there are significant notices of “waste,” and a
scarcely less significant charge for repair of the royal manors. The
old items reappear--the Danegeld, the aids from the towns, the proceeds
of justice, the feudal incidents; but the total product amounts to
little more than a third part of the sum raised in 1130; and even this
diminished revenue was only made up with the help of sundry “aids”
and “gifts” (as they were technically called), and of a new impost
specially levied upon some of the ecclesiastical estates under the name
of _scutage_.

        [1357] Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. i. p. 307.

The origin of this tax is implied in its title; it was derived from the
“service of the shield” (_scutum_)--one of the distinguishing marks of
feudal tenure--whereby the holder of a certain quantity of land was
bound to furnish to his lord the services of a fully-armed horseman for
forty days in the year. The portion of land charged with this service
constituted a “knight’s fee,” and was usually reckoned at the extent
of five hides, or the value of twenty pounds annually. The gradual
establishment of this military tenure throughout the kingdom was a
process which had been going on ever since the Norman conquest; the use
of the word “scutage,” implying an assessment of taxation based on the
knight’s fee instead of the old rating division of the hide, indicates
that it was now very generally completed. The scutage of 1156 was
levied, as we learn from another source,[1358] specially to meet the
expenses of a war which Henry was carrying on with his rebel brother
in Anjou. For such a purpose the feudal host itself was obviously not
a desirable instrument. Ralf Flambard’s famous device of 1093, when
he took a money compensation from the English levies and sent it over
sea to pay the wages of the Red King’s foreign mercenaries, suggested
a precedent which might be applied to the feudal knighthood as well
as to the national host. Its universal application might be hindered
at present by a clause in the charter of Henry I., which exempted the
tenants by knight-service from all pecuniary charges on their demesne
lands. It was, however, possible to make a beginning with the Church
lands. These habitually claimed, with more or less success, immunity
from military service except in the actual defence of the country; on
the other hand, now that the bishops and abbots had been made to accept
their temporalities on the same tenure as the lay baronies, there was a
fair shew of reason for compelling them to compromise their claim by a
money contribution assessed on the same basis as the personal service
for which it was a substitute.[1359]

        [1358] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 178).

        [1359] On scutage and knight’s fees see Stubbs, _Const. Hist._,
        vol. i. pp. 431–433, 581, 582, 590.

Such, it seems, was the origin of the great institution of scutage.
Its full developement, which it only attained three years later, was
avowedly the work of Thomas the chancellor; whether or not its first
suggestion came from him is not so clear. At the moment no resentment
seems to have been provoked by the measure; its ultimate tendency
was not foreseen, the sum actually demanded was not great, and the
innovation was condoned on the ground of the king’s lawful need and
in the belief that it was only an isolated demand.[1360] A greater
matter might well have been condoned in consideration of Henry’s loyal
redemption of his coronation-pledges, to which the Pipe Roll bears
testimony. If the king had been prompt in resuming his kingly rights,
he had been no less prompt in striving to fulfil his kingly duties. The
work of necessary destruction was no sooner accomplished than the work
of reconstruction began in all departments of state administration.
The machinery of justice was set in motion once again; the provincial
visitations of the judges of the king’s court were revived; thirteen
shires were visited by some one or more of them between Michaelmas
1155 and Michaelmas 1156. The person most extensively employed in
this capacity was the constable, Henry of Essex:[1361] the chancellor
also appears in the like character, twice in Henry’s company[1362] and
once in that of the earl of Leicester.[1363] Nay, the supreme “fount
of justice” itself was always open to any suitor who could be at the
trouble and expense of tracking its ever-shifting whereabouts; not only
was the chancellor, as the king’s special representative, constantly
employed in hearing causes, but Henry himself was always ready to
fulfil the duty in person; at the most inconvenient moments--in the
middle of the siege of Bridgenorth, at the crisis of his struggle
with the Angevin rebels--he found time and patience to give attentive
hearing to a wearisome suit which had been going on at intervals for
nearly six years between Bishop Hilary of Chichester and Walter de
Lucy the abbot of Battle.[1364] Hand in hand with the revival of order
and law went the revival of material prosperity. In the dry, laconic
prose of the financial record we can find enough to bear out, almost
to the letter, the historians’ poetical version of the work of Henry’s
first two years. The wolves had fled or become changed into peaceable
sheep; the swords had been beaten into ploughshares and the spears into
pruning-hooks;[1365] and the merchants again went forth to pursue their
business, the Jews to seek their creditors, in peace and safety as of
old.[1366]

        [1360] Such was apparently the state of mind of John of
        Salisbury: “Interim scutagium remittere non potest [rex], et a
        quibusdam exactionibus abstinere, quoniam fratris gratia male
        sarta nequicquam coiit.” Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxxviii. (Giles, vol.
        i. p. 178).

        [1361] Pipe Roll 2 Hen. II. (Hunter), pp. 17, 31, 32, 47, 54,
        57, 60, 65.

        [1362] _Ibid._ pp. 17, 65.

        [1363] _Ibid._ p. 26.

        [1364] Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), pp. 75, 76.

        [1365] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.) p.
        19. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 1 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 102).

        [1366] “Exeunt securi ab urbibus et castris ad nundinas
        negotiatores, ad creditores repetendos Judæi.” Will.
        Fitz-Steph. as above.

Henry returned to England soon after Easter 1157.[1367] His first step,
as we have seen, was to secure the obedience of East-Anglia. Having
thus fully established his authority throughout his immediate realm,
his next aim was to assert the rights of his crown over its Scottish
and Welsh dependencies. The princes of Wales, who had long been
acknowledged vassals of England, must be made to do homage to its new
sovereign; the king of Scots owed homage no less, if not for his crown,
at any rate for his English fiefs; moreover, his title to these was
in itself a disputed question. Three English shires, Northumberland,
Cumberland and Westmoreland, had been conquered by David, nominally
in behalf of his niece the Empress Matilda, in the early years of
Stephen’s reign; Stephen, making a virtue of necessity, had formally
granted their investiture to David’s son Henry;[1368] and they were
now in the hands of Henry’s son, the young king Malcolm IV. The story
went that old King David, before he knighted his grand-nephew Henry
Fitz-Empress in 1149, had made him swear that if ever he came to the
English throne he would suffer the king of Scots to keep these shires
in peace for ever.[1369] Henry does not seem to have denied his oath;
he simply refused to keep it, on the ground that it ran counter to his
duty as king. Acting on what his enemies declared to be his habitual
principle, of choosing to do penance for a word rather than for a
deed,[1370] he declared that the crown of England must not suffer such
mutilation, and summoned his Scottish cousin to give back to him the
territory which had been acquired in his name.[1371]

        [1367] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157. Cf. Chron. de Bello (Angl.
        Christ. Soc.), p. 84.

        [1368] Cumberland was granted to Henry of Scotland by Stephen
        in 1136 and Northumberland in 1139; see above, pp. 282,
        300. Westmoreland seems to have counted as a dependency of
        Cumberland.

        [1369] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 211. Will. Newb., l.
        ii. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 105).

        [1370] “Quoties res in arctum devenerat, de dicto malens quam
        de facto pœnitere, verbumque facilius quam factum irritum
        habere.” Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._ dist. ii. c. 24 (Angl.
        Christ. Soc. p. 72).

        [1371] Will. Newb. as above.

Meanwhile, without waiting for Malcolm’s answer, Henry prepared for his
first Welsh war. The domestic quarrels of the Welsh princes furnished
him with an excellent pretext. Owen, prince of North-Wales, had
confiscated the estates of his brother Cadwallader and banished him
from the country; Cadwallader appealed to King Henry, and of course
found a gracious reception.[1372] A council was held at Northampton
on July 17,[1373] and thence orders were issued for an expedition into
North-Wales. The force employed was the feudal levy, but in a new form;
instead of calling out the whole body of knights to serve their legal
term of forty days, Henry required every two knights throughout England
to join in equipping a third[1374]--no doubt for a threefold term of
service. By this expedient he obtained a force quite sufficient for his
purpose, guarded against the risk of its breaking up before its task
was accomplished--a frequent drawback in medieval warfare--and made the
first innovation upon the strict rule of feudal custom in such a manner
as to avoid all offence.

        [1372] Caradoc of Llancarvan (Llwyd), p. 159. Some grants of
        land in Shropshire to Cadwallader appear in the Pipe Rolls of
        1156 and 1157 (Hunter, pp. 43 and 88).

        [1373] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 163.

        [1374] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157. See Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, vol.
        i. pp. 455, 589.

The invasion was to be twofold, by land and sea.[1375] The host
assembled near Chester,[1376] on Saltney marsh,[1377] and was joined
by Madoc Ap Meredith, prince of Powys. Owen of North-Wales, with his
three sons and all his forces, entrenched himself at Basingwerk.[1378]
The king, with his youthful daring,[1379] set off at once by way of
the sea-coast, hoping to fall upon the Welsh at unawares; Owen’s
sons however were on the watch,[1380] and in the narrow pass of
Consilt[1381] the English suddenly found themselves face to face with
the foe. Entangled in the woody, marshy ground, they were easily routed
by the nimble light-armed Welsh;[1382] and a cry that the king himself
had fallen caused the constable, Henry of Essex, to drop the royal
standard and fly in despair. Henry of Anjou soon shewed himself alive,
rallied his troops, and almost, like his ancestor Fulk at Conquereux,
turned the defeat into a victory;[1383] for he cut his way through the
Welsh ambushes with such vigour that Owen judged it prudent to withdraw
from Basingwerk and seek a more inaccessible retreat.[1384] Cutting
down the woods and clearing the roads before him, Henry pushed on to
Rhuddlan, and there fortified the castle.[1385] Meanwhile the fleet had
sailed[1386] under the command of Madoc Ap Meredith.[1387] It touched
at Anglesey and there landed a few troops whose sacrilegious behaviour
brought upon them such vengeance from the outraged islanders[1388] that
their terrified comrades sailed back at once to Chester, where they
learned that the war was ended.[1389] Owen, in terror of being hemmed
in between the royal army and the fleet, sent proposals for peace,
reinstated his banished brother,[1390] performed his own homage to King
Henry,[1391] and gave hostages for his loyalty in the future.[1392]
As the South-Welsh princes were all vassals of North-Wales, Owen’s
submission was equivalent to a formal acknowledgement of Henry’s rights
as lord paramount over the whole country, and the young king was
technically justified in boasting that he had subdued all the Welsh to
his will.[1393]

        [1375] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157. A charge in the year’s Pipe
        Roll--“In locandâ unâ nave ad portandum corredium regis usque
        Pembroc” (Winchester accounts, Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II., Hunter,
        p. 108)--looks as if Henry had meditated an attempt upon South
        as well as North Wales. But it also seems to imply that the
        attempt was not actually made.

        [1376] Ann. Cambr. a. 1158. _Brut y Tywysogion_, a. 1156. (The
        chronology of these Welsh chronicles is hopelessly wrong).

        [1377] Caradoc (Llwyd), p. 159.

        [1378] Ann. Cambr., _Brut y Tywys._, and Caradoc as above.

        [1379] Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l. ii. c. 10 (_Opera_,
        Dimock, vol. vi. p. 137), and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
        165, make no scruple of calling it rashness.

        [1380] Ann. Cambr. and Caradoc as above.

        [1381] “In arcto silvestri apud Coleshulle, id est, Carbonis
        collem” (Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 7, p. 130)--that is, Consilt,
        near Flint. Cf. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p.
        107).

        [1382] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 107, 108). _Brut y Tywys._ a.
        1156. Caradoc (Llwyd), p. 160. Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l.
        ii. c. 7 (Dimock, vol. vi. p. 130) and c. 10 (p. 137).

        [1383] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 108).
        Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 165. Caradoc (Llwyd, p.
        160) has a totally different version of the battle, but it is
        incompatible with the undoubted facts about Henry of Essex.

        [1384] Ann. Cambr. a. 1158. Caradoc (Llwyd), p. 160. _Brut y
        Tywys._ a. 1156.

        [1385] _Ibid._

        [1386] Ann. Cambr. and _Brut y Tywys._ as above.

        [1387] So says Caradoc (as above); but is it possible that
        Madoc, a Welsh prince and one whose territory lay wholly
        inland, should have been put in command of the English fleet?

        [1388] Ann. Cambr. a. 1158. _Brut y Tywys._ a. 1158. Caradoc
        (Llwyd), p. 160. Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l. ii. c. 7
        (Dimock, vol. vi. p. 130).

        [1389] Caradoc as above.

        [1390] Ann. Cambr., _Brut y Tywys._, and Caradoc, as above.

        [1391] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166. Will. Newb., l.
        ii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 108, 109). Mat. Paris (_Hist.
        Angl._, Luard, vol. i. p. 308) says the homage was done at
        Snowdon; how could this be?

        [1392] See reference to the hostages in Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II.
        (Hunter), p. 114.

        [1393] “Subjectis ad libitum Walensibus,” Rob. Torigni,
        a. 1157. The only entries in this year’s Pipe Roll visibly
        relating to the Welsh war are: “Pro thesauro conducendo ad
        Waliam xxxi s. et viii d.” (Oxfordshire, Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II.,
        Hunter, p. 82), and a payment of two marks of silver by the
        abbot of Abbotsbury “de Exercitu Wal.” (Dorset, _ib._ p. 99).
        In the next year’s roll there are several references to the
        matter; Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II. (Hunter) pp. 114, 170, 175. The
        first relates to the hostages, the second to payments made to
        Henry’s Welsh allies, and the last is a payment made to Ralf
        “_vitulus_” (cf. Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 73,
        Hardy, p. 767) of Winchester “de Itinere de Waliâ”--_i.e._ for
        the fleet.

It was doubtless on his triumphant return that the king of Scots came
to meet him at Chester.[1394] Whichever of the royal kinsmen might
have the better cause, Malcolm now clearly perceived that the power to
maintain it was all on Henry’s side. He therefore surrendered the three
disputed shires,[1395] with the fortresses of Newcastle, Bamborough and
Carlisle,[1396] and acknowledged himself the vassal of the English king
“in the same manner as his grandfather had been the man of King Henry
the Elder.”[1397] The precise import of this formula is uncertain, and
was probably not much less so at the time; the exact nature and grounds
of the Scottish homage to England formed a question which both parties
usually found it convenient to leave undetermined.[1398] For Henry’s
present purpose it sufficed that, on some ground or other, the homage
was done.

        [1394] Chron. Mailros, a. 1157.

        [1395] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 105, 106).

        [1396] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157.

        [1397] Chron. Mailros, a. 1157.

        [1398] The Scottish theory seems to be that Malcolm did homage
        for the earldom of Huntingdon, which had lapsed on his father’s
        death, and which Will. Newb. (as above, p. 106) and Rob.
        Torigni (a. 1157) say was now granted afresh to him. But, on
        the one hand, the treatise “De Judithâ uxore Waldevi comitis”
        in _Chroniques Anglo-Normandes_ (Francisque Michel, vol. ii.
        p. 128) says that Huntingdon was not granted to Malcolm till
        1159; and on the other, the terms of homage as stated by the
        Chron. Mailros exclude Huntingdon, which was granted to Henry
        of Scotland not by Henry I. but by Stephen. The truth probably
        lurks in another phrase of Rob. Torigni (a. 1157), which
        says that Malcolm surrendered, besides the three fortresses
        above-named, Edinburgh “et comitatum Lodonensem.” This can
        only mean that he made a surrender of Lothian, to receive its
        investiture again on the same terms as his forefathers--_i.e._
        as a fief of the English Crown. Huntingdon appears in the Pipe
        Rolls of 1156, 1157 and 1158, but without mention of its third
        penny.

The closing feast of the year was celebrated with a brilliant gathering
of the court at Lincoln. More cautious than his predecessor, Henry did
not venture to defy local tradition by appearing in his regal insignia
within the city itself; he wore his crown on Christmas day, not in the
great minster on the hill-top, but in the lesser church of S. Mary
in the suburb of Wigford beyond the river.[1399] Next Easter the king
and queen went through this ancient solemnity of the “crown-wearing”
together, and for the last time, in Worcester cathedral. When the
moment came for making their oblations, they laid their crowns upon the
altar and vowed never to wear them again.[1400] The motive for this
renunciation was probably nothing more than Henry’s impatience of court
pageantry; but the practice thus solemnly forsaken was not revived,
save once under very exceptional circumstances in the middle of the
next reign, till the connexion between England and Anjou was on the
eve of dissolution; and as it happens, the abandonment of this custom
of Old-English royalty marks off one of the lesser epochs in Henry’s
career. He was about to plunge into a sea of continental politics and
wars which kept him altogether away from his island-realm for six
years, and from which he never again thoroughly emerged. This last
crown-wearing at Worcester serves as a fitting point at which we may
leave our own country for a while and glance once more at the history
of the lands united with her beneath the sceptre of the Angevin king.

        [1399] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 117,
        118). Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216; it is he who gives
        the name of the suburb, “Wikeford.” Will. Newb. has a wrong
        date; the Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II. (Hunter), p. 136, settles that
        point.

        [1400] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216; more briefly,
        R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302; both with very confused
        dates, but again they are set right by the Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II.
        (Hunter), p. 175.




CHAPTER X.

HENRY AND FRANCE.

1156–1161.


Formidable as was the task of England’s internal reorganization, it
was but a small part of the work which lay before Henry Fitz-Empress.
His accession brought the English Crown into an entirely new relation
with the world at large. The realm which for ages had been counted
almost as a separate sphere, whose insularity had been strong enough
to survive even the Norman conquest and to turn the conqueror’s own
native land into a dependency of the conquered island, suddenly became
an unit in a vast group of states gathered into the hands of a single
ruler, and making up altogether the most extensive and important
empire in Christendom. Among the earlier kings of England Cnut is the
only one whose dominions were at all comparable in extent to those of
Henry II. But the empire of Cnut and that of Henry differed widely in
character and circumstances. Cnut’s northern empire was to a certain
extent homogeneous; its members had at least one thing in common
besides their common allegiance--they were all, geographically and
politically, almost as completely severed from the rest of Europe as
England herself. It was only as an indirect consequence partly of his
territorial power, but still more of his personal greatness, that Cnut
and his realms came into connexion with central and southern Europe. In
Henry’s case, on the contrary, such a connexion was rendered inevitable
by the geographical position of his continental territories. They lay
in the very heart of western Christendom; they covered the largest and
some of the fairest regions of Gaul; they positively surrounded on two
sides the domains of the French Crown to which they owed a nominal
homage; they touched the borders of Spain, and they went very near to
those old Burgundian lands which formed the south-western march of
Germany and the north-western march of Italy. Again, Cnut’s territories
were all perfectly independent of any ruler save himself; no rival
power disputed his claims to any one of them; no other sovereign had
any pretension to receive homage from him. Henry, on the other hand,
was by the possession of his Gaulish fiefs placed in direct personal
connexion with the French king who was not merely his neighbour but
also his overlord. A like connexion had indeed existed between the
Norman kings of England and the French kings as overlords of Normandy.
But Henry’s relations with France were far more complex and fraught
with far weightier political consequences than those of his Norman
predecessors. He held under the king of France not a single outlying
province, but--at the lowest reckoning--not less than five separate
fiefs, all by different titles and upon different tenures, which were
yet further complicated by the intricate feudal and political relations
of these fiefs one with another.

Normandy was the least puzzling member of the group; Henry had
inherited it from his mother, and held it on the same tenure as
all her ancestors from Hrolf downwards. About Anjou, again--the
original patrimony of the heirs of Fulk the Red--there could hardly
be any question; and the old dispute whether Maine should count as
an independent fief of the Crown or as an underfief of Normandy or
of Anjou was not likely to be of any practical consequence when the
immediate ruler of all three counties was one and the same. Yet all
these had to be treated as separate states; each must have its special
mention in the homage done by Henry to Louis; each must be governed
according to its own special customs and institutions. So, too, must
the other appendage of Anjou--Touraine, for which homage was still
owed to the count of Blois, and where he still possessed a few outlying
lands which might easily be turned into bones of contention should he
choose to revive the ancient feud. Lastly, over and above all this
bundle of family estates inherited from his father and his mother,
Henry’s marriage had brought him the duchy of Aquitaine:--that is,
the immediate possession of the counties of Poitou and Bordeaux; the
overlordship of a crowd of lesser counties and baronies which filled
up the remaining territory between the Loire and the Pyrenees; and
a variety of more or less shadowy claims over all the other lands
which had formed part of the old Aquitanian kingdom, and whose feudal
relations with each other, with Poitou and with the Crown of France
were in a state of inextricable confusion:--added to which, there was a
personal complication caused by the two marriages of Eleanor, whereby
her second husband owed homage to the first for the territories which
he held in her name. Without going further into the details of the
situation, we can easily see that it was crowded with difficulties
and dangers, and that it would require the utmost care, foresight and
self-restraint on the part of both Henry and Louis to avoid firing,
at some point or other, a train which might produce an explosion
disastrous to both alike.

Henry’s chief assistant in the management of his continental affairs
was his mother, the Empress Matilda. Still closer to his side, indeed,
stood one who in after-years shewed herself gifted with far greater
administrative sagacity, and who had already acquired considerable
political experience as queen of France and duchess of Aquitaine. As
yet, however, Henry was likely to derive less assistance from the
somewhat dangerously quick wit of his wife than from the mature wisdom
of his mother. Matilda had been a harsh, violent, impracticable woman;
but there was in her character an element of moral and intellectual
grandeur which even in her worst days had won and kept for her the
devotion of men like Miles of Hereford and Brian Fitz-Count, and which
now in her latter years had fairly gained the mastery over her less
admirable qualities. She had inherited a considerable share of her
father’s talents for government; she had indeed failed to use them in
her own behalf, but she had learned from her failure a lesson which
enabled her to contribute not a little, by warnings and suggestions,
to the success of her son. In England, where the haughtiness of her
conduct had never been forgiven, whatever was found amiss in Henry’s
seems to have been popularly laid to her charge.[1401] In Normandy,
however, she was esteemed far otherwise. From the time of her son’s
accession to the English crown she lived quietly in a palace which her
father had built hard by the minster of Notre-Dame-des-Prés, outside
the walls of Rouen;[1402] taking no direct share in politics, but
universally held in profound respect by reason of her dignified and
pious life, and of the influence which she was known to exercise upon
the mind and policy of the young duke. His first step on the tidings
of Stephen’s death had been to hold a consultation with her; so long
as she lived, her opinions and her wishes were an element never absent
from his calculations before entering upon any serious undertaking; and
if he did not formally leave her as regent of the Norman duchy, yet he
trusted in great measure to her for the maintenance of its tranquillity
and order during his own absence beyond the sea.

        [1401] “Nos autem illi doctrinæ [sc. maternæ] fidenter
        imputamus omnia quibus erat tædiosus” [rex]. W. Map. _De Nug.
        Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

        [1402] _Draco Norm._, l. iii. cc. 1, 2, vv. 37–66 (Howlett,
        _Will. Newb._, vol. ii. pp. 712–714).

A personal visit was, however, necessary to make sure of his ground
with the king of France. As soon, therefore, as matters in England were
sufficiently composed, early in 1156 Henry went to Normandy;[1403]
Louis came to meet him on the border, and shortly afterwards, at a
second meeting, received a repetition of his homage for all his French
fiefs, including the duchy of Aquitaine.[1404] It was time; for to
every one of those fiefs, except Aquitaine and Normandy, there was
a rival claimant in the person of his brother. The story went that
Geoffrey Plantagenet as he lay dying at Château-du-Loir had made the
bishops and barons around his bed promise that they would not suffer
him to be laid in the grave till his eldest son had sworn to abide by
the contents of a will which he had just executed. When they called
upon Henry to take the oath, he hesitated a long while; at last, seeing
no other means of getting his father buried in peace, with a burst
of tears he swore as he was required. After the funeral the will was
read; and Henry found himself thereby pledged to make over the whole
of his patrimonial territories--Anjou, Touraine and Maine--to his
brother Geoffrey, as soon as the addition of the English crown to his
Norman coronet should put him in complete possession of his mother’s
heritage. Till then Geoffrey was to be content with three castles,
Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau. For the moment Henry dissembled his
vexation; the contingency contemplated in the will was still in the
unknown future. But before it came to pass Geoffrey, as we have seen,
provoked his brother’s ill-will by using his three castles as a basis
of rebellion. Henry on his part sought and obtained a papal absolution
from the extorted oath, and flatly refused to keep it.[1405] Hereupon
Geoffrey again began stirring up a revolt whose suppression was one
of the chief objects of Henry’s visit to the continent in 1156. The
brothers met at Rouen, but they could not agree; Geoffrey hurried
back to fortify his three castles, and Henry followed to besiege
them.[1406] The troops which he employed were, as we have already seen,
mercenaries paid out of the proceeds of a scutage levied in England;
and if the chancellor’s share in the matter amounted to nothing more
than the suggestion of this contrivance, its perfect success in every
way would be enough to justify the statement of a contemporary, that
Henry “profited greatly by his assistance.”[1407] Loudun and Mirebeau
were successively besieged and taken;[1408] and in July the fall of
Geoffrey’s last and mightiest fortress, Chinon, brought him to complete
surrender of all his claims, for which he accepted a compensation
in money from his brother.[1409] Next month Queen Eleanor came over
to share her husband’s triumph;[1410] she doubtless accompanied him
in a progress through Aquitaine, where he received homage from the
vassals of the duchy, took hostages for their fidelity,[1411] and kept
Christmas at Bordeaux.[1412] Every part of his continental dominions
was thus thoroughly secured before he returned to England in the spring
of 1157.[1413]

        [1403] He was at Rouen on Candlemas day. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

        [1404] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 215. Between the two
        meetings with Louis came one with the count and countess of
        Flanders at Rouen. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

        [1405] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 112, 113).

        [1406] Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

        [1407] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 162, says that Henry
        won his success “Thomæ cancellarii sui magno fretus auxilio.”
        It is not quite clear whether Thomas was with him in person; he
        was certainly in England part of this year, witness the Pipe
        Roll.

        [1408] Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

        [1409] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 114).
        Rob. Torigni, a. 1156. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1156 (Marchegay,
        _Eglises_, p. 38). The first states the compensation as “terram
        planam ex quo fructuum utilitas proveniret”; the second as a
        thousand pounds sterling and two thousand Angevin _per annum_.
        All say Geoffrey lost his castles, except Loudun, which Henry
        restored to him (Chron. S. Albin. as above). The date is from
        Rob. Torigni.

        [1410] She and Richard de Lucy were both with Henry at Saumur
        on August 29. Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), p. 76.

        [1411] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 215.

        [1412] Anon. Chron., _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 121.

        [1413] Eleanor went back independently before Easter. “In
        corredio reginæ quando venit de Normanniâ” appears among the
        accounts “de veteri firmâ” of Hampshire, Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II.
        (Hunter), p. 107.

Henry and Eleanor had now two children living. The eldest, born in
London on February 28, 1155,[1414] and baptized by his father’s name,
had already been recognized as his heir; the second was a girl, born
in 1156,[1415] and named after her grandmother the Empress Matilda. A
third, Richard, was born at Oxford[1416] on September 8, 1157.[1417]
Eleanor had moreover by her former marriage with Louis of France two
daughters, Mary and Adela, betrothed to the brother-counts of Champagne
and Blois;[1418] while the second marriage of Louis with Constance of
Castille had given him one child, the infant princess Margaret.[1419]
Early in 1158 Henry resolved to secure the hand of this little girl
for his eldest son, and he sent his chancellor over sea to make the
proposal to Louis.[1420]

        [1414] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1155
        (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 38).

        [1415] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302.

        [1416] _Ibid._

        [1417] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1157 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 39).

        [1418] _Gesta Ludov._, c. 29 (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
        Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 411). _Hist. Ludov._ (_ibid._) p. 415.
        Mary had once been proposed as wife for Henry Fitz-Empress,
        but S. Bernard put a stop to the scheme on the ground of
        consanguinity (see above, p. 393, note 2{1161})--an objection
        which, however, applied still more strongly to Henry’s marriage
        with her mother. Mary was betrothed to Henry of Champagne before
        the Crusade (_Gesta Ludov._, c. 18, as above, pp. 403, 404).
        Adela was born in 1149 or 1150, and apparently betrothed to
        Theobald of Blois in 1152 or soon after (_ib._ cc. 27, 29, as
        above, pp. 410, 411; _Hist. Ludov._, _ib._ pp. 414, 415).
        Neither couple was married till 1164.

        [1419] _Gesta Ludov._, c. 29 (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
        Scriptt._, vol. iv.), p. 411. _Hist. Ludov._ (_ibid._), p. 415.

        [1420] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        29. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302.

Never, since Haroun-al-Raschid sent his envoys to Charles the Great,
had such an embassy been seen in western Europe. Thomas made up his
mind to display before the eyes of astonished France all the luxury and
splendour which the wealth of the island-realm could procure, that King
Henry might be glorified in his representative.[1421] The six ships
with which he habitually crossed the Channel[1422]--the king himself
had but one for this purpose, till his chancellor presented him with
three more[1423]--can hardly have sufficed for the enormous train which
he took with him on this occasion. It comprized, in the first place,
some two hundred members of his household, knights, clerks, stewards,
servants, squires, and young pages of noble blood, all provided with
horses and fitted out with new and gay attire as beseemed their several
degrees. Thomas himself had twenty-four changes of raiment, most of
which he gave away in the course of his journey; besides a quantity of
rich silks, rare furs, and costly cloths and carpets, “fit to adorn
the sleeping-chamber of a bishop.” He had a right royal train of
coursing-dogs and hawks of all kinds. Above all, he had eight mighty
chariots, each drawn by five horses equal to war-chargers in beauty
and strength; beside each horse ran a stalwart and gaily-clad youth,
and each chariot had its special conductor. Two of these vehicles were
laden with casks of ale, to be given to the French, who marvelled at
the beverage, strange to them, which the English thought superior
to wine. The other chariots bore the furniture of the chancellor’s
chapel, of his private chamber, and of his kitchen; others again
contained treasure, provisions for the journey, necessaries of the
toilet, trappings and baggage of all kinds. Next, there were twelve
sumpter-horses, of which eight were loaded with coffers containing the
gold and silver vessels of the chancellor’s household, vases, ewers,
goblets, bowls, cups, flagons, basins, salt-cellars, spoons, plates and
dishes. Other chests and packages held the money for daily expenses and
gifts, the chancellor’s own clothes, and his books. One pack-horse,
which always went first, bore the sacred vessels, altar-ornaments and
books belonging to the chapel. To each horse there was a well-trained
groom; to each chariot was fastened a dog, large, strong and “terrible
as a lion or a bear”; and on the top of every chariot sat a monkey. The
procession travelled along the road in regular order; first came the
foot-pages, to the number of about two hundred and fifty, in groups of
six, ten or more, “singing together in their native tongue, after the
manner of their country.” They were followed at a little distance by
the coursing-dogs and hounds coupled and in leashes under the charge
of their respective keepers. Next, the great chariots covered with
hides came heavily rolling and rattling along; after them trotted
the pack-horses, each with a groom; these again were followed by the
squires, bearing the shields and leading the chargers of the knights;
then came a crowd of other attendants, pages, and those who had charge
of the hawks; then the sewers and other servants of the chancellor’s
household; then his knights and his clerks, all riding two and two;
and lastly, amid a select group of friends, the chancellor himself. In
every town and village along the road the French rushed out to inquire
the meaning of such a startling procession, and when told that it was
the chancellor of the king of England coming on a mission to the king
of France, exclaimed: “If this is the chancellor, what must his master
be?”

        [1421] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

        [1422] Partly, it seems, for the sake of giving a free passage
        to any one who wanted to go. _Ib._ p. 23.

        [1423] _Ibid._ p. 26.

Immediately after landing Thomas notified his arrival to Louis; at
Meulan he received an answer, fixing a day for an audience in Paris.
It was the custom of the French kings to provide at their own expense
for every man who came to their court during his sojourn there; Louis
therefore issued a proclamation in Paris forbidding the sale of any
article whatsoever to the chancellor or his attendants. Thomas however
was resolved to decline the royal hospitality; he sent his caterers in
disguise and under feigned names to all the fairs round about--Lagny,
Corbeil, Pontoise, S. Denys--where they bought up such an abundance
of bread, meat, fish and wine that when he reached his lodging at the
Temple he found it stocked with three days’ provisions for a thousand
men. One dish of eels, which had cost a hundred shillings sterling, was
long remembered as an instance of the English chancellor’s prodigality.
Every possible courtesy was interchanged between him and the French
king. Every member of the court, were he count, baron, knight or
serving-man, received some token of insular wealth and generosity;
Thomas gave away all his gold and silver plate, all his costly
raiment; to one a cloak, to another a fur cape, to another a pelisse,
to another a palfrey or a destrier.[1424] The masters and scholars
of the university came in for their share; the chancellor’s gracious
reception of them, and of the citizens with whom the English scholars
lodged,[1425] was a marked feature in his visit to Paris.[1426] The
embassy was successful; Louis promised his daughter’s hand to the heir
of England, and Thomas went home in triumph, having finished up his
expedition by capturing and casting into prison at Neufmarché a certain
Guy of Laval whose lawless depredations were a continual insult to
King Henry and a continual terror to his subjects.[1427] Henry himself
soon afterwards went over sea, partly, no doubt, to confirm the family
alliance thus concluded with Louis. But there was also another reason
which urgently required his presence in Gaul.

        [1424] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp.
        29–33.

        [1425] “Cives scholarium Angligenarum creditores”(_ib._ p. 32)
        must mean something like this.

        [1426] _Ibid._

        [1427] _Ibid._ p. 33.

A fresh opening had presented itself to the ambition of the Angevin
house in a quarter where they seem to have had no dealings since the
time of Geoffrey Martel, but which was intimately associated with their
earliest traditions and with the very foundations of their power. The
long rivalry between the counts of Nantes and of Rennes had ended,
like that between the dukes of Normandy and the counts of Anjou, in
a marriage, and for eighty-two years all Britanny had been united
beneath the immediate and undisputed sway of the one ducal house, when
in 1148 Duke Conan III. on his death-bed disavowed the young Hoel who
had hitherto passed as his son and heir.[1428] The duchy split up
into factions once again; the greater part accepted the rule of Count
Eudo of Porhoët, who was married to Conan’s only daughter Bertha; the
people of Nantes alone, fired with their old spirit of independence and
opposition, opened their gates to Hoel and acknowledged him as their
count. Hoel however proved unable to cope with the superior forces
of his rival; at the end of eight years his people grew hopeless of
maintaining their independence under him. Rather than give it up once
more to those whom they looked upon as representatives of the hated
supremacy of Rennes, they fell back upon their old traditional alliance
with Anjou, and having driven out the unfortunate Hoel, offered
themselves and their country to young Geoffrey Plantagenet.[1429]
Geoffrey, smarting under the defeat which he had just sustained at
his brother’s hands in Anjou, was naturally delighted with this new
acquisition, and all the more as he had a fair prospect of enjoying
it in peace; for Eudo at that very moment was suddenly confronted
by another rival. Earl Conan of Richmond, Bertha’s son by a former
marriage, being now grown to manhood, came over from England in this
same summer of 1156 to claim the heritage which his stepfather had
usurped;[1430] and during the struggle which ensued between them
neither party had time or energy to spare for dislodging the Angevin
intruder from Nantes, where he remained undisputed master for nearly
two years.

        [1428] Chron. Britann. _ad ann._ (Morice, _Hist. Bret.,
        preuves_, vol. i. col. 103).

        [1429] _Ib._ a. 1148, 1156, 1157 (as above). Chron. Brioc.
        (_ibid._), col. 37.

        [1430] Chron. Brioc. as above. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

On July 26, 1158, Geoffrey died.[1431] The county of Nantes was at
once seized by Conan and claimed by the king of England as heir to his
childless brother;[1432] and on the eve of the Assumption Henry landed
in Normandy to enforce his claim. Before resorting to arms, however,
he deemed it prudent to secure the assent of the lord paramount of
Britanny, King Louis of France, to his intended proceedings. The
negotiations were again intrusted to the chancellor, and again with
marked success. At a conference held on the last day of August[1433]
Louis did far more than sanction Henry’s claim upon Nantes; he granted
him a formal commission to arbitrate between the competitors for
the dukedom of Britanny and settle the whole question in dispute as
he might think good, in virtue of his office as grand seneschal of
France.[1434] This office was now little more than honorary, and was
held throughout the greater part of the reign of Louis VII. by the
count of Blois; but the rival house of Anjou seems to have also put
forth a claim to it, which Louis admitted for a moment, as on the
present occasion, whenever it suited his own purposes.[1435] From
Argentan, on September 8, Henry issued a summons to the whole feudal
host of Normandy to assemble at Avranches on Michaelmas-day for an
expedition into Britanny. He himself spent the interval in a visit to
Paris, where he was entertained by Louis with the highest honours; the
betrothal of little Henry and Margaret was ratified, and the baby-bride
was handed over to the care of her future father-in-law, who intrusted
her for education to a faithful Norman baron, Robert of Neubourg.[1436]
The host gathered at Avranches on the appointed day, but only to
witness Conan’s submission. He knew that he was no match for the king
of England with the king of France at his back; so he put himself into
Henry’s hands, and received his confirmation in the dukedom of Britanny
in return for the surrender of Nantes.[1437] Henry, after a visit to
the Mont-S.-Michel and a brief halt at Pontorson to restore the castle,
proceeded to take formal possession of Nantes; he then went to besiege
Thouars,[1438] whose lord was in rebellion against him. In November he
met Louis at Le Mans,[1439] and thence conducted him on a triumphal
progress through Normandy. After going through Pacy and Evreux to
Neubourg, that the French king might see his little daughter, they were
received with a solemn procession at Bec; they then visited the abbey
of Mont-S.-Michel, where Louis had a vow to pay, and from Avranches
Henry escorted his guest by way of Bayeux, Caen and Rouen safely and
honourably back to his own dominions.[1440]

        [1431] Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
        p. 166). Chron. S. Albin. a. 1158 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 39).

        [1432] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. Chron. Brioc. (Morice, _Hist.
        Bret., preuves_, vol. i.), col. 37. Chron. Britann. a. 1158
        (_ib._ col. 103).

        [1433] Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
        p. 167).

        [1434] “Eo tempore, per industriam Thomæ cancellarii a
        Lundoniâ, rex Angliæ a rege Francorum Christianissimo, viro
        tamen nimis simplici, optinuit ut quasi senescallus regis
        Francorum intraret Britanniam, et quosdam ibidem inter se
        inquietos et funebre bellum exercentes coram se convocaret et
        pacificaret, et quem inveniret rebellum violenter coherceret.”
        Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

        [1435] On the office of seneschal of France see A. Luchaire,
        _Hist. des Institutions Monarchiques sous les premiers
        Capétiens_, vol. i. pp. 173–181. The treatise of Hugh of
        Clères “De senescalciâ et majoratu regni Franciæ” (printed in
        Marchegay, _Comtes d’Anjou_, pp. 387–394), which sets forth
        the Angevin claim in detail, is shown by M. Mabille to be a
        forgery (Introd., pp. xlix–li); and so too, it seems, is the
        only charter in which Henry appears as seneschal (_ib._ p. li,
        note). The treatise was, however, written between 1150 and
        1168 (_ib._ p. li), and must therefore have been intended to
        support a claim made at that time. M. d’Arbois de Jubainville
        (_Comtes de Champagne_, vol. ii. pp. 270–274; vol. iii. pp. 96,
        97) gives from charters a list of the seneschals of France from
        A.D. 1091 to A.D. 1163. No count of Anjou appears; and from
        1154 to 1163 (inclusive) the seneschal each year is Theobald of
        Blois. That the Angevin claim was, however, not only made but
        occasionally admitted--doubtless for some special purpose--is
        shewn by the passage of Gerv. Cant. quoted above (note 3
{1434}), and also by two passages in Robert of Torigni, none of
        which are noticed by M. Luchaire. In A.D. 1169 Robert tells us
        that the younger Henry did homage to Louis at Montmirail for the
        county of Anjou, “et concessit ei rex Francorum ut esset
        senescallus Franciæ, quod pertinet ad feudum Andegavense;” and
        he adds that at Candlemas young Henry officiated as seneschal to
        the king in Paris; after which he proceeds to abridge from the
        pseudo-Hugh de Clères the story of the origin of the dignity. In
        A.D. 1164 he says: “Comes Carnotensis Tedbaudus despondit filiam
        Ludovici regis Franciæ, et ideo rex ei concessit dapiferatum
        Franciæ, quem comes Andegavensis antiquitus habebat.” M. de
        Jubainville’s list shews that Theobald had been seneschal long
        before this; but the words shew that the Angevin claim was well
        known, at any rate in the Angevin dominions.

        [1436] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158.

        [1437] _Ibid._ Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_,
        vol. ii. p. 169). Chron. Britann. (Morice, _Hist. Bret.,
        preuves_, vol. i.), col. 104. This last dates the surrender
        “circa festivitatem S. Dionysii” [Oct. 9]; the two former make
        it Michaelmas. According to Rob. Torigni the actual cession
        comprised the city of Nantes and the northern half of the
        county, said to be worth sixty thousand shillings Angevin.

        [1438] Rob. Torigni and Contin. Becc. as above. Chron. S.
        Albin. a. 1158 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 39). Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

        [1439] Gerv. Cant. as above.

        [1440] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle,
        _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii. pp. 169, 170). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
        vol. i. p. 166.

The county of Nantes was in itself a very trifling addition to the
vast possessions of Henry Fitz-Empress; yet its acquisition was a
more important matter than appears at first sight. Nantes, by its
geographical position, commanded the mouth of the Loire; its political
destinies were therefore of the highest consequence to the princes
whose dominions lay along the course of that river. The carefully
planned series of advances whereby Geoffrey Greygown and Fulk the
Black had gradually turned the whole navigable extent of the Loire
into a high-way through their own territories would have been almost
useless had they not begun by securing the entrance-gate. To Henry, who
as count of Poitou had command of the opposite shore of the estuary,
there might have been less danger in the chance of hostility at Nantes;
but the place was, for another reason, of greater value to him than
it could ever have been to his ancestors. From the English Channel
to the Pyrenees he was master of the entire western half--by far the
larger half--of Gaul, with one exception: between his Norman and his
Aquitanian duchy there jutted out the Breton peninsula. Britanny
must have been in Henry’s eyes something like what Tours had been in
those of Geoffrey Martel:--a perpetual temptation to his ambition, a
fragment of alien ground which must have seemed to him destined almost
by the fitness of things to become absorbed sooner or later into
the surrounding mass from which it stood out in a sort of unnatural
isolation. By his acquisition of Nantes he had gained a footing in
the Breton duchy, somewhat as his forefathers had gained one in the
city of Tours by their canonry at S. Martin’s; and as a grant of
investiture from the French king had served as the final stepping-stone
to Martel’s great conquest, so the privilege of arbitration conferred
by Louis upon Henry might pave the way for more direct intervention
in Britanny. The meaning of this autumn’s work is well summed up by
Gervase of Canterbury: “This was Henry’s first step towards subduing
the Bretons.”[1441] A week before the assembly at Avranches his fourth
son had been born;[1442] the infant was baptized by the name of
Geoffrey. It would indeed have been strange if the name made famous by
Henry’s own father, as well as by so many of the earlier members of the
family, had been allowed to drop out of use in the next generation. Yet
by the light of after-events one may suspect that its revival at this
particular moment had a special reference to the memory of the lately
deceased Count Geoffrey of Nantes, and that the new-born child’s future
destiny as duke of Britanny was already foreshadowed, however vaguely,
in his father’s dreams.

        [1441] “Hic fuit primus ingressus ejus super Britones
        edomandos.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

        [1442] On September 23; Rob. Torigni, a. 1158.

The year closed amid general tranquillity. So cordial was, or seemed to
be, the alliance of the two kings, that they planned a joint crusade
against the Moors in Spain, and wrote to ask the Pope’s blessing upon
their undertaking;[1443] and a long-standing dispute between Henry and
Theobald of Blois was settled before Christmas by the mediation of
Louis.[1444] In England the year is marked by nothing more important
than a new issue of coinage.[1445] The administration of the country
was directed by the two justiciars, assisted, formally at least, by the
queen,[1446] until shortly before Christmas, when she went over sea
to keep the feast with her husband at Cherbourg.[1447] Unhappily, the
beginnings of strife followed in her train.

        [1443] Letter of Adrian IV.--date, February 19 [1159]--in
        Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. pp. 590, 591.

        [1444] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. The quarrel had originated in
        Henry’s refusal, when he succeeded his father as count of
        Anjou, to do homage for Touraine. To this was added a dispute
        about Fréteval and Amboise. See details in _Gesta Ambaz.
        Domin._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 216, 222, 223.

        [1445] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302. There are some
        references to this new coinage in the Pipe Roll of the year (4
        Hen. II., Hunter, pp. 114, 181). Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i.
        p. 215, misdates it 1156.

        [1446] Richard de Lucy and Eleanor seem to share the regency
        during her stay in England; see Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp.
        42, 43, and Palgrave, _Eng. Commonwealth_, vol. ii. pp. v, vi.
        After her departure her place seems to be taken by Robert of
        Leicester.

        [1447] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

The duchy of Aquitaine, or Guyenne, as held by Eleanor’s predecessors,
consisted, roughly speaking, of the territory between the Loire and
the Garonne. More exactly, it was bounded on the north by Anjou and
Touraine, on the east by Berry and Auvergne, on the south-east by the
Quercy or county of Cahors, and on the south-west by Gascony, which had
been united with it for the last hundred years. The old Karolingian
kingdom of Aquitania had been of far greater extent; it had in fact
included the whole country between the Loire, the Pyrenees, the Rhône
and the ocean. Over all this vast territory the counts of Poitou
asserted a theoretical claim of overlordship by virtue of their ducal
title; they had, however, a formidable rival in the house of the counts
of Toulouse. These represented an earlier line of dukes of Aquitaine,
successors of the dukes of Gothia or Septimania, under whom the capital
of southern Gaul had been not Poitiers but Toulouse, Poitou itself
counting as a mere underfief. In the latter half of the tenth century
these dukes of Gothia or _Aquitania Prima_, as the Latin chroniclers
sometimes called them from the old Roman name of their country, had
seen their ducal title transferred to the Poitevin lords of _Aquitania
Secunda_--the dukes of Aquitaine with whom we have had to deal. But
the Poitevin overlordship was never fully acknowledged by the house of
Toulouse; and this latter in the course of the following century again
rose to great importance and distinction, which reached its height
in the person of Count Raymond IV., better known as Raymond of St.
Gilles, from the name of the little county which had been his earliest
possession. From that small centre his rule gradually spread over the
whole territory of the ancient dukes of Septimania. In the year of
the Norman conquest of England Rouergue, which was held by a younger
branch of the house of Toulouse, lapsed to the elder line; in the year
after the Conqueror’s death Raymond came into possession of Toulouse
itself; in 1094 he became, in right of his wife, owner of half the
Burgundian county of Provence. His territorial influence was doubled
by that of his personal fame; he was one of the chief heroes of the
first Crusade; and when he died in 1105 he left to his son Bertrand,
over and above his Aquitanian heritage, the Syrian county of Tripoli.
On Bertrand’s death in 1112 these possessions were divided, his son
Pontius succeeding him as count of Tripoli, and surrendering his claims
upon Toulouse to his uncle Alfonso Jordan, a younger son of Raymond
of St. Gilles.[1448] Those claims, however, were disputed. Raymond’s
elder brother, Count William IV., had left an only daughter who, after
a childless marriage with King Sancho Ramirez of Aragon,[1449] became
the wife of Count William VIII. of Poitou.[1450] From that time forth
it became a moot point whether the lord of St. Gilles or the lord of
Poitiers was the rightful count of Toulouse. Raymond unquestionably
bore the title and exercised its functions for some six years before
his brother’s death and his niece’s second marriage,[1451] and one
historian asserts that he had acquired the county by purchase from his
brother.[1452] Another story relates that William of Poitou having
married the heiress of Toulouse after her father’s death,[1453]
immediately entered upon her inheritance, but afterwards pledged
it to Raymond in order to raise money for the Crusade.[1454] The
reckless, spendthrift duke, whose whole energies were given up to
verse-making, discreditable adventures, and either defying or eluding
the ecclesiastical authorities who vainly strove to check the scandals
of his life, never found means to redeem his pledge; neither did his
son William IX.,[1455] although it appears that he did at some time or
other contrive to obtain possession of Toulouse.[1456] On his death,
however, it immediately passed back into the hands of Alfonso Jordan.

        [1448] On the counts of Toulouse and St. Gilles see Vic and
        Vaissète, _Hist. du Languedoc_ (new ed., 1872), vol. iii.

        [1449] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 48 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
        vol. ii. p. 304).

        [1450] _Ibid._ Rob. Torigni, a. 1159. This second marriage took
        place in 1094: MS. Chron. quoted by Besly, _Comtes de Poitou,
        preuves_, p. 408.

        [1451] Vic and Vaissète, _Hist. du Languedoc_, vol. iii. pp.
        452, 453.

        [1452] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv. c. 388 (Hardy, p. 603).

        [1453] William IV. of Toulouse died in 1093. Vic and Vaissète,
        _Hist. du Languedoc_, vol. iii. p. 465.

        [1454] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10
        (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 121, 122). It will be remembered that
        Duke William sought to pledge his own Poitou to the Red King
        for the same purpose.

        [1455] Will. Newb. as above (p. 122).

        [1456] Geoff. Vigeois, as above, describes Eleanor’s father as
        “Guillelmus dux Aquitaniæ filius Guillermi et filiæ comitis
        Tholosani, qui jure avi sui urbem Tholosanam possedit.” Besly
        (_Comtes de Poitou_, p. 132) has an account of the matter, but
        I cannot find his authorities.

With all these shiftings and changes of ownership the kings of France
had never tried to interfere. Southern Gaul--“Aquitaine” in the wider
sense--was a land whose internal concerns they found it wise to leave
as far as possible untouched. It was, even yet, a land wholly distinct
from the northern realm whose sovereign was its nominal overlord.
The geographical barrier formed by the river Loire had indeed been
long ago passed over, if not exactly by the French kings, at least
by the Angevin counts. But a wider and deeper gulf than the blue
stream of Loire stood fixed between France and Aquitaine. They were
peopled by different races, they belonged to different worlds. There
was little community of blood, there was less community of speech,
thought and temper, of social habits or political traditions, between
the Teutonized Celt of the north and the southern Celt who had been
moulded by the influences of the Roman, the Goth and the Saracen.
Steeped in memories of the Roman Empire in its palmiest days, and
of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse which had inherited so large a
share of its power, its culture and its glory, Aquitania had never
amalgamated either with the Teutonic empire of the Karolings or with
the French kingdom of their Parisian supplanters. Her princes were
nominal feudataries of both; but, save in a few exceptional cases, the
personal and political relations between the northern lord paramount
and his southern vassals began and ended with the formal ceremonies of
investiture and homage. In the struggle of Anjou and Blois for command
over the policy of the Crown, in the struggle of the Crown itself to
maintain its independence and to hold the balance between Anjou and
Normandy, the Aquitanian princes took no part; the balance of powers
in northern Gaul was nothing to them; neither party ever seriously
attempted to enroll them as allies; both seem to have considered them,
as they considered themselves, totally unconcerned in the matter.
Whatever external connexions and alliances they cultivated were in
quite another direction--in the Burgundian provinces which lay around
the mouth of the Rhône and the western foot of the Alps, and on the
debateable ground of the Spanish March, the county of Barcelona, which
formed a link between Gascony and Aragon. The marriage of Louis and
Eleanor, however, altered the political position of Aquitaine with
respect not only to the French Crown but to the world at large. She was
suddenly dragged out of her isolation and brought into contact with the
general political system of northern Europe, somewhat as England had
been by its association with Normandy. The union of the king and the
duchess was indeed dissolved before its full consequences had time to
work themselves out. Its first and most obvious result was a change in
the attitude of the Crown towards the internal concerns of Aquitaine.
Whether the count of Toulouse paid homage to the count of Poitou, or
both alike paid it immediately to the Crown--whether Toulouse and
Poitiers were in the same or in different hands--mattered little or
nothing to the earlier kings whose practical power over either fief was
all bound up in the mere formal grant of investiture. But to Eleanor’s
husband such questions wore a very different aspect. To him who was in
his own person duke of Aquitaine as well as its overlord, they were
matters of direct personal concern; the interests of the house of
Poitou were identified with those of the house of France. For his own
sake and for the sake of his posterity which he naturally hoped would
succeed him in both kingdom and duchy, it was of the utmost importance
that Louis should strive to make good every jot and tittle of the
Poitevin claims throughout southern Gaul.

Four years after his marriage, therefore, Louis summoned his host
for an expedition against the count of Toulouse.[1457] It tells
very strongly against the justice of the Poitevin claims in that
quarter that one of his best advisers--Theobald of Blois--so greatly
disapproved of the enterprize that he refused to take any part in it
at all;[1458] and it may be that his refusal led to its abandonment,
for we have no record of its issue, beyond the fact that Alfonso Jordan
kept Toulouse for the rest of his life, and dying in 1148 was succeeded
without disturbance by his son Raymond V.[1459] Four years later the
duchy of Aquitaine passed with Eleanor’s hand from Louis VII. to Henry
Fitz-Empress. Once again the king of France became its overlord and
nothing more:--his chance of enforcing his supremacy fainter than ever,
yet his need to enforce it greater than ever, since Aquitaine, far from
sinking back into her old isolation, was now linked together with Anjou
and Normandy in a chain which encircled his own royal domain as with a
girdle of iron. In these circumstances the obvious policy of France and
Toulouse was a mutual alliance which might enable them both to stand
against the power of Henry. It was cemented in 1154 by the marriage
of Raymond V. with Constance, widow of Eustace of Blois and sister
of Louis VII.[1460] Four more years passed away; Henry’s energies
were still tasked to the uttermost by more important work than the
prosecution of a doubtful claim of his wife against the brother-in-law
of her overlord and former husband. Whether the suggestion at last came
from Eleanor herself, during the Christmas-tide of 1158, we cannot
tell; we only know that early in 1159 Henry determined to undertake the
recovery of Toulouse.

        [1457] At Midsummer 1141. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
        Scriptt._), p. 923.

        [1458] _Alterius Roberti App. ad Sigebertum_, _Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. xiii. p. 331.

        [1459] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1460] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 122).

A summons to Raymond to give back the county to its heiress was of
course met with a refusal.[1461] It was a mere formal preliminary,
and so was also a conference between Henry and Louis at Tours, where
they discussed the matter and failed to agree upon it,[1462] but
parted, it seems, without coming to any actual breach; Henry indeed
was evidently left under the impression that his undertaking would
meet with no opposition on the part of France.[1463] Early in Lent he
went to Poitiers and there held council with the barons of Aquitaine.
The upshot of their deliberations was an order for his forces to meet
him at Poitiers on Midsummer-day, ready to march against the count of
Toulouse.[1464]

        [1461] _Ib._ (p. 123).

        [1462] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
        p. 171).

        [1463] “Inde graves inimicitiæ inter ipsum” [sc. Ludovicum]
        “et regem Anglorum ortæ sunt, cum videret sibi regem Francorum
        nocere, de cujus auxilio plurimum confidebat” remarks Rob.
        Torigni on Louis’s arrival at Toulouse (a. 1159).

        [1464] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
        pp. 171, 172).

A question now arose of what those forces were to consist. The feudal
levies of Eleanor’s duchy might fairly be called upon to fight for
the supposed rights of their mistress; those of Anjou and Maine
might perhaps be expected to do as much for the aggrandizement of
their count; but to demand the services of the Norman knighthood
for an obscure dynastic quarrel in southern Gaul--still more, to
drag the English tenants-in-chivalry across sea and land for such a
purpose--would have been both unjust and impolitic, if not absolutely
impracticable. On the other hand, the knights of Aquitaine were of
all Henry’s feudal troops those on whom he could least depend; and
they would be moreover, even with the addition of those whom he could
muster in his paternal dominions, quite insufficient for an expedition
which was certain to require a large and powerful host, and whose
duration it was impossible to calculate. In these circumstances the
expedient which had been tentatively and in part adopted three years
before was repeated, and its application this time was sweeping and
universal. The king gave out that in consideration of the length and
hardship of the way which lay before him, and desiring to spare the
country-knights, citizens and yeomen, he would receive instead of
their personal services a certain sum to be levied as he saw fit upon
every knight’s fee in Normandy and his other territories.[1465] This
impost, which afterwards came to be known in English history as the
“Great Scutage,” was, as regards England, the most important matter
connected with the war of Toulouse. It marks a turning-point in the
history of military tenure. It broke down the old exemption of “fiefs
of the hauberk” from pecuniary taxation, in such a way as to make the
encroachment upon their privilege assume the shape of a favour. To
the bulk of the English knighthood the boon was a real one; military
service beyond sea was a burthen from which they would be only too glad
to purchase their release; the experiment, so far as it concerned them,
succeeded perfectly, and made a precedent which was steadily followed
in after-years. From that time forth the word “scutage” acquired
its recognized meaning of a sum paid to the Crown in commutation of
personal attendance in the host; and the specially cherished privilege
of the tenants-in-chivalry came to be not as formerly exemption from
money-payment on their demesne lands, but, by virtue of their payment,
exemption from service beyond sea.

        [1465] “Rex igitur Henricus ... considerans longitudinem
        et difficultatem viæ, nolens vexare agrarios milites nec
        burgensium nec rusticorum multitudinem, sumptis LX. solidis
        Andegavensium in Normanniâ de feudo uniuscujusque loricæ et de
        reliquis omnibus tam in Normanniâ quam in Angliâ, sive etiam
        aliis terris suis, secundum hoc quod ei visum fuit,” etc. Rob.
        Torigni, a. 1159.

The sums thus raised in 1159 are however entered in the Pipe Roll of
the year not as scutage but under the vaguer and more comprehensive
title of _donum_. The reason doubtless is that they were assessed, as
the historians tell us and as the roll itself shews, not only upon
those estates from which services of the shield were explicitly due,
but also upon all lands held in chief of the Crown, and all Church
lands without distinction of tenure:[1466]--the basis of assessment in
all cases being the knight’s fee, in its secondary sense of a parcel of
land worth twenty pounds a year. Whatever the laity might think of this
arrangement, the indignation of the clergy was bitter and deep. The
wrong inflicted on them by the scutage of 1156 was as nothing compared
with this, which set at naught all ancient precedents of ecclesiastical
immunity, and actually wrung from the Church lands even more than from
the lay fiefs.[1467] Their wrath however was not directed solely or
even chiefly against the king. A large share of the blame was laid at
the chancellor’s door; for the scheme had his active support, if it was
not actually of his contriving. Its effects on English constitutional
developement were for later generations to trace; the men of the
time saw, or thought they saw, its disastrous consequences in the
after-lives of its originators. In the hour of Thomas’s agony Gilbert
Foliot raked up as one of the heaviest charges against him the story of
the “sword which his hand had plunged into the bosom of his mother the
Church, when he spoiled her of so many thousand marks for the army of
Toulouse”;[1468] and his own best and wisest friend, John of Salisbury,
who had excused the scutage of 1156, sorrowfully avowed his belief that
the scutage of 1159 was the beginning of all Henry’s misdoings against
the Church, and that the chancellor’s share in it was the fatal sin
which the primate had to expiate so bitterly.[1469]

        [1466] “Secundum ejus scutagium assisum pro eodem exercitu
        Walliæ” [this writer assigns a like object to the scutage of
        1156, but in both cases he is contradicted by chronology and
        contemporary evidence] “reperies in rotulo anni quinti regis
        ejusdem inferius. Fuitque assisum ad duas marcas pro quolibet
        feodo, non solum super prælatos, verum tam super ipsos quam
        super milites suos, secundum numerum feodorum, qui tenuerunt
        de rege in capite; necnon et super residuos milites singulorum
        comitatuum in communi.” [Cf. Rob. Torigni as quoted above, p.
        459, note 2.] “Intitulaturque illud scutagium, _De Dono_. Eâ
        quidem, ut credo, ratione, quod non solum prælati qui tenentur
        ad servicia militaria sed etiam alii, abbates utpote de Bello
        et de Salopesbirie et alii, tunc temporis dederunt auxilium.”
        Alex. Swereford (_Liber Ruber Scacc._) quoted in Madox, _Hist.
        Exchequer_, vol. i. p. 626. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
        167, calls it a scutage: “Scotagium sive scuagium de Angliâ
        accepit.” The references to it are in almost every page of
        the Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II. (Pipe Roll Soc.); the most important
        are collected by Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. pp. 626, 627.
        There are also a few notices in the next year; Pipe Roll 6
        Hen. II. (Pipe Roll Soc.), pp. 3, 6, 24, 29, 30, 32, 51. There
        are a few entries of “scutage” by that name--from the abbot
        of Westminster (Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II., pp. 6, 24, 27; 6 Hen.
        II., pp. 11, 24, 28), the bishop of Worcester (5 Hen. II.,
        p. 24), William of Cardiff (_ibid._), the abbot of Evesham
        (_ib._ p. 25), and the earl of Warwick (_ib._ p. 26). Some of
        these pay “donum” as well. In reference to this matter some
        of the Northumbrian tenants-in-chivalry are designated by a
        title which is somewhat startling in the middle of the twelfth
        century: the sheriff of Northumberland renders an account “de
        dono militum et _tainorum_” (Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II., p. 14). What
        was the distinction between them?

The sum charged on the knight’s fee in Normandy was sixty shillings
Angevin;[1470] in England it seems to have been two marks.[1471]
The proceeds, with those of a similar tax levied upon Henry’s
other dominions,[1472] amounted to some hundred and eighty
thousand pounds,[1473] with which he hired an immense force of
mercenaries.[1474] But his host did not consist of these alone. The
great barons of Normandy and England, no less than those of Anjou,
Aquitaine and Gascony, were eager to display their prowess under
the leadership of such a mighty king. The muster at Poitiers was
a brilliant gathering of Henry’s court, headed by the chancellor
with a picked band of seven hundred knights of his own personal
following,[1475] and by the first vassal of the English Crown, King
Malcolm of Scotland,[1476] who came, it seems, to win the spurs which
his cousin had refused to grant him twelve months ago, when they met
at Carlisle just before Henry left England in June 1158.[1477] The
other vassal state was represented by an unnamed Welsh prince;[1478]
and the host was further reinforced by several important allies. One
of these was Raymond Trencavel, viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne,
a baron whom the count of Toulouse had despoiled, and who gladly
seized the opportunity of vengeance.[1479] Another was William of
Montpellier.[1480] The most valuable of all was the count of Barcelona,
a potentate who ranked on an equality with kings.[1481] His county
of Barcelona was simply the province which in Karolingian times had
been known as the Spanish March--a strip of land with the Pyrenees
for its backbone, which lay between Toulouse, Aragon, Gascony and
the Mediterranean sea. It was a fief of the West-Frankish realm; but
the facilities which every marchland in some degree possesses for
attaching itself to whichever neighbour it may prefer, and so holding
the balance between them as to keep itself virtually independent
of them all, were specially great in the case of the Spanish March,
whose rulers, as masters of the eastern passes of the Pyrenees, held
the keys of both Gaul and Spain. During the last half-century they
had, like the lords of another marchland, enormously strengthened
their position by three politic marriages. Dulcia of Gévaudan, the
wife of Raymond-Berengar III. of Barcelona, was heiress not only to
her father’s county of Gévaudan, but also, through her mother, to the
southern half of Provence, whose northern half fell to the share of
Raymond of St.-Gilles. Her dower-lands were settled upon her younger
son. He, in his turn, married an heiress, Beatrice of Melgueil, whose
county lay between Gévaudan and the sea; and the dominions of the
house of St.-Gilles were thus completely cut in twain, and their
eastern half surrounded on two sides, by the territories of his son,
the present count of Provence, Gévaudan and Melgueil.[1482] The elder
son of Dulcia, having succeeded his father as Count Raymond-Berengar
IV. of Barcelona, was chosen by the nobles of Aragon to wed their
youthful queen Petronilla, the only child of King Ramirez the Monk. He
had thus all the power of Aragon at his command, although, clinging
with a generous pride to the old title which had come down to him from
his fathers, he refused to share his wife’s crown, declaring that the
count of Barcelona had no equal in his own degree, and that he would
rather be first among counts than last among kings.[1483] A man with
such a spirit, added to such territorial advantages, was an ally to be
eagerly sought after and carefully secured. Henry therefore invited him
to a meeting at Blaye in Gascony, and secured his co-operation against
Toulouse on the understanding that the infant daughter of Raymond
and Petronilla should in due time be married to Henry’s son Richard,
and that the duchy of Aquitaine should then be ceded to the young
couple.[1484]

        [1467] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxlv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 223;
        Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. cxciv., p. 378).

        [1468] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxciv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 269;
        Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ccxxv., p. 525).

        [1469] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxlv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 223, 224).

        [1470] See above, p. 459, note 2{1465}.

        [1471] So says Alex. Swereford. See above, p. 460 note{1466}.

        [1472] “De aliis vero terris sibi subjectis inauditam similiter
        censûs fecit exactionem.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167.
        Cf. above, p. 459, note 2{1465}.

        [1473] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167. He makes this to
        be the proceeds of the scutage in England alone, but see Bishop
        Stubbs’s explanation, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 457, note 4,
        and his remarks in the preface to _Gesta Hen. Reg._ (“Benedict
        of Peterborough”), vol. ii. pp. xciv–xcvi.

        [1474] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1475] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        33.

        [1476] Gerv. Cant. as above. Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1477] Chron. Mailros, a. 1158.

        [1478] “Quidam rex Gualiæ.” Gerv. Cant. as above.

        [1479] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 125). He
        miscalls him _William_ Trencavel.

        [1480] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1481] “Vir magnus et potens, nec infra reges consistens.”
        Will. Newb. as above (p. 123).

        [1482] On these marriages, etc., see Vic and Vaissète, _Hist.
        du Languedoc_, vol. iii.

        [1483] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. pp.
        123–125). Raymond’s speech, and the whole story of Raymond,
        Ramirez and Petronilla, as given in this chapter, form a
        charming romance, whose main facts are fully borne out by the
        more prosaic version of Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1484] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

A last attempt to avert the coming struggle was made early in June;
the two kings met near the Norman border, but again without any
result.[1485] Immediately after midsummer, therefore, Henry and his
host set out from Poitiers and marched down to Périgueux. There, in
“the Bishop’s Meadow,” Henry knighted his Scottish cousin, and Malcolm
in his turn bestowed the same honour upon thirty noble youths of his
suite.[1486] The expedition then advanced straight into the enemy’s
country. The first place taken was Cahors; its dependent territory was
speedily overrun;[1487] and while in the south Raymond Trencavel was
winning back the castles of which the other Raymond had despoiled him,
Henry led his main force towards the city of Toulouse itself.[1488]
Count and people saw the net closing round them; they had seen it
drawing near for months past, and one and all--bishop, nobles and
citizens--had been writing passionate appeals to the king of France,
imploring him, if not for the love of his sister, at least for the
honour of his crown, to come and save one of its fairest jewels from
the greedy grasp of the Angevin.[1489] Louis wavered till it was all
but too late; he was evidently, and naturally, most unwilling to
quarrel with the king of England. He began to move southward, but
apparently without any definite aim; and it was not till after another
fruitless conference with Henry in the beginning of July[1490] that
he at last, for very shame, answered his brother-in-law’s appeal by
throwing himself into Toulouse almost alone, as if to encourage its
defenders by his presence, but without giving them any substantial
aid.[1491] Perhaps he foresaw the result. Henry, on the point of
laying siege to the city, paused when he heard that his overlord was
within it. Dread of Louis’s military capacity he could have none;
personal reverence for him he could have just as little. But he
reverenced in a fellow-king the dignity of kingship; he reverenced in
his own overlord the right to that feudal obedience which he exacted
from his own vassals. He took counsel with his barons; they agreed
with him that the siege should be postponed till Louis was out of the
city--a decision which was equivalent to giving it up altogether.[1492]
The soldiers grumbled loudly, and the chancellor loudest of all. Thomas
had now completely “put off the deacon,” and flung himself with all
his might into the pursuit of arms. His knights were the flower of the
host, foremost in every fight, the bravest of the brave; and the life
and soul of all their valour was the chancellor himself.[1493] The
prospect of retreat filled him with dismay. He protested that Louis had
forfeited his claim to Henry’s obedience by breaking his compact with
him and joining his enemies, and he entreated his master to seize the
opportunity of capturing Toulouse, city, count, king and all, before
reinforcements could arrive.[1494] Henry however turned a deaf ear to
his impetuous friend. Accompanied by the king of Scots and all his
host, he retreated towards his own dominions just as a body of French
troops were entering Toulouse.[1495]

        [1485] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
        p. 172).

        [1486] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 58 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
        vol. ii. p. 310). The Chron. Mailros, a. 1159, says Malcolm was
        knighted at Tours on the way back from Toulouse; Geoff. Vigeois
        implies that it was on the way out.

        [1487] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.),
        p. 34. Rob. Torigni, a. 1159. Cf. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10
        (Howlett, vol. i. p. 126), who however has got the sequence of
        events wrong.

        [1488] Will. Newb. as above.

        [1489] Letters of Peter archbishop of Narbonne:--Hermengard
        viscountess of Narbonne:--“commune consilium urbis Tolosæ et
        suburbii”--Epp. xxxiii., xxxiv., ccccxiv., Duchesne, _Hist.
        Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. pp. 574, 575, 713. The archbishop
        curiously describes the threatening invader as “Dux Normanniæ.”
        The citizens make a pitiful appeal; the viscountess makes a
        spirited one, and wishes the king “Karoli regis magnanimitatem.”

        [1490] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
        pp. 173, 174).

        [1491] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        33. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 125).

        [1492] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        33, Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 58 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol.
        ii. p. 310), Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p.
        125), the _Draco Norm._, l. i. c. 12, vv. 437–464 (_ib._ vol.
        ii. pp. 608, 609), and R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 303,
        attribute the retreat to Henry’s reverence for his overlord;
        Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167, seems to look upon it as
        a measure of necessity; but considering that Louis had brought
        almost nothing but himself to Raymond’s aid, one does not see
        what necessity there could be in the case. The _Draco_ alone
        mentions Henry’s consultation with the barons--unless there
        is some allusion to it in the words of Will. Fitz-Steph., who
        describes Henry as “vanâ superstitione et reverentiâ tentus
        consilio aliorum.”

        [1493] The English archdeacon’s unclerical doings in this war
        were however quite eclipsed by those of the archbishop of
        Bordeaux. See a letter from the citizens of Toulouse to King
        Louis; Ep. ccccxxv., Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol.
        iv. p. 718.

        [1494] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        34.

        [1495] _Ibid._

He had, however, conquered the greater part of the county,[1496]
and had no intention of abandoning his conquests; but the task of
protecting them against Raymond and Louis together, without the
support of Henry’s own presence, was a responsibility which all his
great barons declined. Two faithful ministers accepted the duty:
Thomas the chancellor and Henry of Essex the constable.[1497] Thomas
fixed his head-quarters at Cahors;[1498] thence, with the constable’s
aid, he undertook to hold the country by means of his own personal
followers,[1499] backed by Raymond of Barcelona, Trencavel, and William
of Montpellier.[1500] He ruled with a high hand, putting down by
proscription and even with the sword every attempt at a rising against
Henry’s authority storming towns and burning manors without mercy in
his master’s service;[1501] in helm and hauberk he rode forth at the
head of his troops to the capture of three castles which had hitherto
been considered impregnable.[1502] Henry’s “superstition” (as it was
called by a follower of Thomas)[1503] about bearing arms against
his overlord applied only to a personal encounter in circumstances
of special delicacy; he had no scruples in making war upon Louis
indirectly, as he had done more than once before, and was now doing
not only through Thomas but also at the opposite end of France. The
English and Scottish kings had retired from Toulouse to Limoges,
where they arrived about Michaelmas.[1504] Meanwhile Count Theobald
of Blois, now an ally of Henry, was despatched by him “to disquiet
the realm of France”--that is, doubtless, to make a diversion which
should draw off the attention of the French from Toulouse and leave a
clear field to the operations of Thomas. The French king’s brothers,
Henry, bishop of Beauvais, and Robert, count of Dreux, retaliated by
attacking the Norman frontier with fire and sword.[1505] Thomas, having
chased away the enemies across the Garonne and secured the obedience
of the conquered territory, hurried northward to join his sovereign,
whom he apparently followed into Normandy. There he undertook the
defence of the frontier. Besides his seven hundred picked knights,
he maintained at his own cost for the space of forty days twelve
hundred paid horsemen and four thousand foot in his master’s service
against the king of France on the marches between Gisors, Trie and
Courcelles; he not only headed his troops in person, but also met in
single combat a valiant French knight of Trie, Engelram by name; and
the layman went down before the lance of the warlike archdeacon, who
carried off his opponent’s destrier as the trophy of his victory.[1506]
The king himself marched into the Beauvaisis, stormed Gerberoi, and
harried the surrounding country till he gained a valuable assistant
in Count Simon of Montfort, who surrendered to him all his French
possessions, including the castles of Montfort, Rochefort and Epernon.
As these places lay directly in the way from Paris to Etampes and
Orléans, Louis found himself completely cut off from the southern part
of his domain, and was compelled to ask for a truce. It was made in
December, to last till the octave of Pentecost.[1507] Henry’s wife had
now joined him; they kept Christmas together at Falaise,[1508] and
Henry used the interval of tranquillity to make some reforms in the
Norman judicature.[1509] When the truce expired the two kings made
a treaty of peace,[1510] negotiated as usual by the indefatigable
chancellor;[1511] the betrothal of little Henry and Margaret was
confirmed, and the Vexin was settled upon the infant couple. As for the
Aquitanian quarrel, Louis formally restored to Henry all the rights
and holdings of the count of Poitou, except Toulouse itself; Henry and
Raymond making a truce for a year, during which both were to keep their
present possessions, and complete freedom of action was left to their
respective allies.[1512]

        [1496] _Ibid._ Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1497] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        34.

        [1498] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1499] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

        [1500] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1501] E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 365. Herb.
        Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 175, 176.

        [1502] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._), p. 34.

        [1503] _Ib._ p. 33. See above, p. 465, note 1{1485}.

        [1504] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 58 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
        vol. ii. p. 310).

        [1505] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1506] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp.
        34, 35.

        [1507] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

        [1508] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

        [1509] Contin. Becc. a. 1160 (Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. ii.
        p. 180).

        [1510] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

        [1511] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 24 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 159).

        [1512] The treaty is printed in Lyttelton’s _Hen. II._, vol.
        iv. pp. 173, 174. It has no date; we have to get that from Rob.
        Torigni--May 1160. The terms of the treaty are summarized by
        Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 218, who places it a year too
        late. He also introduces a second betrothal, between Richard
        and Adela, the second daughter of Louis and Constance. But the
        treaty printed by Lyttelton says nothing of this; and if it be
        the treaty mentioned by Rob. Torigni the clause is impossible,
        for Adela was not born till the autumn of 1160.

This imperfect settlement, as far as Toulouse was concerned, advanced
no further towards completion during the next thirteen years. Henry’s
expedition could hardly be called a success; and whatever advantage he
had gained over Raymond was dearly purchased at the cost of a quarrel
with Louis. There can be little doubt that Henry had fallen into a
trap; Louis had misled him into lighting the torch of war, and then
turned against him in such a way as to cast upon him the blame of
the subsequent conflagration. The elements of strife between the two
kings could hardly have failed to burst sooner or later into a blaze;
the question was whose hand should kindle it. In spite of Henry’s
Angevin wariness, Louis had contrived to shift upon him the fatal
responsibility; and for the rest of his life the fire went smouldering
on, breaking out at intervals in various directions, smothered now and
then for a moment, but never thoroughly quenched; consuming the plans
and hopes of its involuntary originator, while the real incendiary
sheltered himself to the last behind his mask of injured innocence.

For six months all was quiet. In October the two kings held another
meeting; the treaty was ratified, and little Henry, who had lately
come over from England with his mother, was made to do homage to Louis
for the duchy of Normandy.[1513] About the same time the queen of
France died, leaving to her husband another infant daughter.[1514]
Disappointed for the fourth time in his hopes of a son, Louis in
his impatience set decency at defiance; before Constance had been
a fortnight in her grave he married a third wife, Adela of Blois,
daughter of Theobald the Great, and sister of the two young counts who
were betrothed to the king’s own elder daughters.[1515] His subjects,
sharing his anxiety for an heir, easily forgave his unseemly haste
and welcomed the new queen, who in birth, mind and person was all
that could be desired.[1516] It would, however, have been scarcely
possible to find a choice more irritating to Henry of Anjou. On either
side of the sea, the house of Blois seemed to be always in some way
or other crossing his path; in their lives or in their deaths, they
were perpetually giving him trouble. At that very time the death of
Stephen’s last surviving son, Earl William of Warren,[1517] had led
to a quarrel between the king and his dearest friend. William was
childless, and the sole heir to his county of Boulogne was his sister
Mary, abbess of Romsey. This lady was now brought out of her convent
to be married by Papal dispensation to Matthew, second son of the
count of Flanders.[1518] The scheme, devised by King Henry,[1519] was
strongly opposed by the bridegroom’s father,[1520] and also by Henry’s
own chancellor. Thomas, somewhat unexpectedly perhaps, started up as a
vindicator of monastic discipline, remonstrated vehemently against the
marriage of a nun, and used all his influence at Rome to hinder the
dispensation; he gained, however, nothing save the enmity of Matthew,
and a foretaste of that kingly wrath[1521] which was to burst upon him
with all its fury three years later. Even without allowing for Henry’s
probable frame of mind in consequence of this affair, the French king’s
triple alliance with the hereditary rivals of the Angevin house would
naturally appear to him in the light of a provocation and a menace.
The chancellor seems to have made his peace by suggesting an answer to
it.

        [1513] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

        [1514] _Ibid._ R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 303. _Hist.
        Ludov._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv.), p.
        415. Constance died on October 4; Lamb. Waterloo, _Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. xiii. p. 517.

        [1515] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 303. Cf. Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167, and Rob. Torigni, a. 1160. Adela was
        crowned at Paris with her husband on S. Brice’s day (November
        13); _Hist. Ludov._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol.
        iv.), p. 416.

        [1516] _Hist. Ludov._ as above.

        [1517] He died in October 1159, on the way home from Toulouse;
        Rob. Torigni, _ad ann._

        [1518] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160. Lamb. Waterloo (_Rer. Gall.
        Scriptt._, vol. xiii.), p. 517. According to Matthew Paris,
        _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. i. p. 314, the marriage took place
        in 1161.

        [1519] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 328.

        [1520] Lamb. Waterloo as above.

        [1521] Herb. Bosh. as above. Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._
        (Madden), vol. i. pp. 314, 315.

One of Henry’s great desires was to recover the Vexin, which at his
father’s suggestion he had ceded to Louis in 1151 as the price of the
investiture of Normandy. By the last treaty between the two kings it
had been settled that this territory should form the dowry of little
Margaret; her father was to retain possession of it, and to place
its chief fortresses in the custody of the Knights Templars, for the
next three years, until she should be wedded to young Henry with the
consent of Holy Church; whenever that should take place, Henry’s
father was to receive back the Vexin. In other words, the dowry was
not to be paid till the bride was married; and there was evidently a
tacit understanding, at any rate on the French side, that this was
not to be for three years at least.[1522] Later in the summer two
cardinal-legates visited France and Normandy on business connected with
a recent Papal election.[1523] Henry, apparently at the instigation
of Thomas,[1524] persuaded them to solemnize the marriage of the two
children on November 2 at Neubourg.[1525] The written conditions of
the treaty were fulfilled to the letter--the babes were wedded with
the consent of Holy Church, represented by the Pope’s own legates;
and the castles of the Vexin were at once made over to Henry by the
Templars,[1526] three of whom were present at the wedding.[1527] Louis
found himself thoroughly outwitted. His first step was to banish the
three Templars, who were cordially received by Henry;[1528] his next
was to concert with the brothers of his new queen a plan of retaliation
in Anjou. The house of Blois naturally resented a curtailment of the
possessions of the crown which they now hoped one day to see worn by
a prince of their own blood. Louis and Theobald accordingly set to
work to fortify Chaumont, a castle which Gelduin of Saumur had long
ago planted on the bank of the Loire as a special thorn in the side
of the Angevin counts. Henry flew to the spot, put king and count
to flight, besieged and took the castle of Chaumont together with
thirty-five picked knights and eighty men-at-arms whom Theobald had
sent to reinforce its garrison; he then fortified Fréteval and Amboise,
and, secure from all further molestation, went to keep Christmas with
Eleanor in his native city of Le Mans.[1529]

        [1522] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 24 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 159),
        distinctly states that the children were not to be married till
        they were of a fit age; and such was no doubt the intention of
        Louis; but it was by no means expressed in the treaty:--“Totum
        remanens Wilcassini” [_i.e._ all except three of its fiefs
        which were specially reserved to Henry] “regi Francie; hoc
        modo, quod ipse illud remanens dedit et concessit maritagium
        cum filiâ suâ filio regis Anglie habendum. Et eum unde
        seisiendum ab Assumptione B. Marie proximâ post pacem factam in
        tres annos, et si infra hunc terminum filia regis Francie filio
        regis Anglie desponsata fuerit, assensu et consensu Sancte
        Ecclesie, tunc erit rex Anglie seysitus de toto Wilcassino,
        et de castellis Wilcassini, ad opus filii sui.” Treaty in
        Lyttelton, _Hen. II._, vol. iv. p. 173. The question turned on
        the construing of “_tunc_.” Louis intended it to mean “then,
        when the three years are expired, if the children shall be
        wedded”; Henry and his friends the Templars made it mean “then,
        when the children are wedded, whether the three years are
        expired or not.”

        [1523] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 197). Of
        their business we shall see more later.

        [1524] This must surely be the meaning of Herb. Bosh.
        (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 175: “Quam industrie
        munitiones quinque munitissimas, in Franciæ et Normanniæ sitas
        confinio, domino suo regi, ad cujus tamen jus ab antiquo
        spectare dignoscebantur, a rege Francorum per matrimonium, sine
        ferro, sine gladio, absque lanceâ, absque pugnâ, in omni regum
        dilectione et pace revocaverit, Gizortium scilicet, castrum
        munitissimum, et alia quatuor.” Cf. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson),
        vol. i. p. 57, which seems however to refer rather to the
        drawing-up of the treaty.

        [1525] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 304. Cf. Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 168, Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 218,
        and Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

        [1526] Rog. Howden and Rob. Torigni, as above. Will. Newb., l.
        ii. c. 24 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 159).

        [1527] Roger of Pirou, Tostig of S. Omer and Richard of
        Hastings; Rog. Howden as above.

        [1528] _Ibid._

        [1529] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

A year of peace followed: Henry spent the greater part of it in
Normandy, garrisoning the castles of the duchy, strengthening its
newly-recovered border-fortresses, providing for the restoration of the
old royal strongholds and the erection of new ones in all parts of his
dominions, and superintending the repair of his palace at Rouen, the
making of a park at Quévilly, and the foundation of an hospital for
lepers at Caen.[1530] The chancellor was still at his side, and had
lately, as a crowning mark of his confidence, been intrusted with the
entire charge of his eldest son. Thomas received the child into his own
household, to educate him with the other boys of noble birth who came
to learn courtly manners and knightly prowess in that excellent school;
he playfully called him his adoptive son, and treated him as such in
every respect.[1531] Little Henry was now in his seventh year, and his
father was already anxious to secure his succession to the throne. The
conditional homage which he had received as an infant was, as Henry
knew by personal experience, a very insufficient security. Indeed, the
results of every attempt to regulate the descent of the crown since
the Norman conquest tended to prove that the succession of the heir
could be really secured by nothing short of his actual recognition and
coronation as king during his father’s life-time. This was now becoming
an established practice in France and Germany. In England, where the
older constitutional theory of national election to the throne had
never died out, such a step had never been attempted but once; and that
attempt, made by Stephen in behalf of his son Eustace, had ended in
signal failure. Discouraging as the precedent was, however, Henry had
made up his mind to follow it; and in the spring of 1162 he sent his
boy over sea and called upon the barons of England to do him homage and
fealty, as a preliminary to his coronation as king.[1532]

        [1530] _Ibid._ a. 1161.

        [1531] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        22. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), pp. 176, 177.

        [1532] E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 366. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol.
        iv.), p. 13.

A matter so important and so delicate could be intrusted to no one but
the chancellor. He managed it, like everything else that he took in
hand, with a calm facility which astonished every one. He brought the
child to England, presented him to the bishops and barons of the realm
in a great council summoned for the purpose,[1533] knelt at his feet
and swore to be his faithful subject in all things, reserving only the
fealty due to the elder king so long as he lived and reigned;[1534] the
whole assembly followed his example, and thus a measure which it was
believed that Henry’s personal presence would hardly have availed to
carry through without disturbance was accomplished at once and without
a word of protest,[1535] save from the little king himself, who with
childish imperiousness, it is said, refused to admit any reservation
in the oath of his adoptive father.[1536] Henry probably intended that
the boy’s recognition as heir to the crown should be speedily followed
by his coronation.[1537] This, however, was a rite which could only be
performed by the primate of all England; and the chair of S. Augustine
was vacant. Once again it was to Thomas that Henry looked for aid;
but this time he looked in vain. Thomas had done his last act in the
service of his royal friend. The year which had passed away since
Archbishop Theobald’s death had been, on both sides of the sea, a year
of almost ominous tranquillity. It was in truth the forerunner of a
storm which was to shatter Henry’s peace and to cost Thomas his life.

        [1533] Anon. I. as above. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 306.

        [1534] R. Diceto as above.

        [1535] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 13.

        [1536] Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. i. p. 316.

        [1537] Such an intention is distinctly stated by E. Grim
        (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 366: ... “filio suo, jam
        tunc coronando in regem.”




CHAPTER XI.

THE LAST YEARS OF ARCHBISHOP THEOBALD.

1156–1161.


All Henry’s endeavours for the material and political revival of
his kingdom had been regulated thus far by one simple, definite
principle:--the restoration of the state of things which had existed
under his grandfather. In his own eyes and in those of his subjects the
duty which lay before him at his accession, and which he had faithfully
and successfully fulfilled, was to take up the work of government and
administration not at the point where he found it, but at the point
where it had been left by Henry I. and Roger of Salisbury: to pull
down and sweep away all the innovations and irregularities with which
their work had been overlaid during the last nineteen years, and bring
the old foundations to light once more, that they might receive a
legitimate superstructure planned upon their own lines and built upon
their own principles. In law, in finance, in general administration,
there was one universal standard of reference:--“the time of my
grandfather King Henry.”

But there was one side of the national revival, and that the most
important of all, to which this standard could not apply. The religious
and intellectual movement which had begun under Henry I., far from
coming to a standstill at his death, had gone on gathering energy and
strength during the years of anarchy till it had become the one truly
living power in the land, the power which in the end placed Henry II.
on his throne. It looked to find in him a friend, a fellow-worker,
a protector perhaps; but it had no need to go back to a stage which
it had long since overpassed and make a new departure thence under
the guidance of a king who was almost its own creation. At the very
moment of Henry’s accession, the hopes of the English Church were
raised to their highest pitch by the elevation of an Englishman to the
Papal chair. Nicolas Breakspear was the only man of English birth who
ever attained that lofty seat; and the adventures which brought him
thither, so far as they can be made out from two somewhat contradictory
accounts, form a romantic chapter in the clerical history of the time.
Nicolas was the son of a poor English clerk[1538] at Langley, a little
township belonging to the abbey of S. Alban’s.[1539] The father retired
into the abbey,[1540] leaving his boy, according to one version of the
story, too poor to go to school and too young and ignorant to earn his
bread; he therefore came every day to get a dole at the abbey-gate,
till his father grew ashamed and bade him come no more; whereupon
the lad, “blushing either to dig or to beg in his own country,” made
his way across the sea.[1541] Another version asserts that Nicolas,
being “a youth of graceful appearance, but somewhat lacking in clerkly
acquirements,” sued to the abbot of S. Alban’s for admission as a
monk; the abbot examined him, found him insufficiently instructed, and
dismissed him with a gentle admonition: “Wait awhile, my son, and go
to school that you may become better fitted for the cloister.”[1542]
Whether stung by the abbot’s hint or by his father’s reproofs, young
Nicolas found his way to Paris and into its schools, where he worked
so hard that he out-did all his fellow-students.[1543] But the life
there wearied him as it had wearied Thomas Becket; he rambled on
across Gaul into Provence, and there found hospitality in the Austin
priory of S. Rufus. His graceful figure, pleasant face, sensible talk
and obliging temper so charmed the brotherhood that they grew eager
to keep him in their midst,[1544] and on their persuasion he joined
the order.[1545] It seems that he was even made superior of the house,
but the canons afterwards regretted having set a stranger to rule over
them, and after persecuting him in various ways appealed to the Pope to
get rid of him. The Pope--Eugene III.--at first refused to hear them;
but on second consideration he decided to give them over to their own
evil devices and offer their rejected superior a more agreeable post
in his own court.[1546] Nicolas, who had already twice visited Rome,
proceeded thither a third time and was made cardinal[1547] and bishop
of Albano.[1548] Shortly afterwards he was appointed legate to Norway
and Denmark, an office which he filled with prudence and energy during
some years.[1549] Returning to Rome about 1150, he apparently acted as
secretary to Eugene III. until the latter’s death in July 1153.[1550]
The next Pope, Anastasius III., reigned only sixteen months, and dying
on December 2, 1154, was succeeded by the bishop of Albano, who took
the name of Adrian IV.[1551]

        [1538] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 109).

        [1539] _Gesta Abbat. S. Albani_ (Riley), vol. i. p. 112.

        [1540] Will. Newb. as above. Probably he separated from his
        wife in consequence of some of the decrees against clerical
        marriage passed under Henry I.; that she was not dead is plain
        from John of Salisbury’s mention of her as still living in the
        days of his friendship with Nicolas. Joh. Salisb., _Metalog._,
        l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p. 205).

        [1541] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 109, 110).

        [1542] _Gesta Abbat._ as above. The abbot’s name is there given
        as Robert, but this must be wrong, as Robert did not become
        abbot till 1151, and by 1150, as we shall see, Nicolas was at
        Rome.

        [1543] _Gesta Abbat._ (as above), pp. 112, 113.

        [1544] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 110).

        [1545] _Ibid._ _Gesta Abbat._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 113.

        [1546] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 110, 111). The church of S.
        Rufus (diocese Valence) had between 1145 and 1151 an abbot
        named N.... The editors of _Gall. Christ._ (vol. xvi. cols.
        359, 360) will not allow that this N. was Nicolas Breakspear,
        and of course the date will not agree with the version of his
        history in the _Gesta Abbat._; but it agrees perfectly with
        that of Will. Newb.; while the _Gesta’s_ dates are confuted by
        Nicolas’s undoubted signatures at Rome.

        [1547] _Gesta Abbat._ as above.

        [1548] Will. Newb. as above (p. 111). Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

        [1549] Will. Newb. as above.

        [1550] “A partir de l’année 1150, on trouve la souscription
        de _Nicolaus episcopus Albanensis_ au bas des bulles d’Eugène
        III.” Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. i. p. 288, note 2.

        [1551] Will. Newb. as above (p. 111). Date from Cod. Vatic.,
        Baronius, _Annales_ (Pagi), vol. xix. p. 77.

The English Church naturally hailed with delight the accession of a
pontiff who was at once one of her own sons and a disciple of Eugene,
whom the leaders of the intellectual and spiritual revival in England
had come to regard almost as their patron saint.[1552] Adrian indeed
shared all their highest and most cherished aspirations far more deeply
and intimately than Eugene himself could have done. It was in the
cloisters of Canterbury that these aspirations were gradually taking
definite shape under the guidance of Archbishop Theobald. There,
beneath the shadow of the cathedral begun by Lanfranc and completed
by S. Anselm, their worthy successor had been throughout the last ten
or twelve years of the anarchy watching over a little sanctuary where
all that was noblest, highest, most full of hope and promise in the
dawning intellectual life of the day found a peaceful shelter and a
congenial home. The _Curia Theobaldi_, the household of Archbishop
Theobald, was a sort of little school of the prophets, a seminary into
which the vigilant primate drew the choicest spirits among the rising
generation, to be trained up under his own eyes in his own modes of
thought and views of life, till they were fitted to become first the
sharers and then the continuators of his work for the English Church
and the English nation. Through his scholars had come the revival of
legal and ecclesiastical learning in England; through them had come the
renewal of intercourse and sympathy with the sister-Churches of the
west; through them had been conducted the negotiations with Rome which
had led to the restoration of order and peace; and in them, as Theobald
hoped, the Church, having saved the state, would find her most fitting
instruments for the work of reform and revival which still remained to
be done within her own borders. One by one, as the occasion presented
itself, he began to send them forth to take independent positions in
the Church or in the world. Of the chosen three whom he specially
trusted, the first who thus left his side was John of Canterbury,
who in 1153 succeeded Hugh of Puiset as treasurer of York. Next year
Theobald was able to place another of his disciples in the northern
metropolis in a far more important capacity: he succeeded in obtaining
the royal assent to the appointment of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque as
archbishop of York, in succession to S. William, who had been restored
by Pope Anastasius after Henry Murdac’s death, but died six weeks after
his restoration.[1553]

        [1552] John of Salisbury frequently writes of him as “Sanctus
        Eugenius.”

        [1553] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 298, 299. Gerv. Cant.
        (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 26 (Howlett,
        vol. i. pp. 80, 82). Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.),
        pp. 10, 11.

Roger’s history before his entrance into the primate’s household is
so completely lost that even the rendering of his surname is a matter
of some doubt; it may have been derived from the English town of
Bishopsbridge, and if so Roger was now going back as primate to his
own native shire; it seems however more probable that he came from
Pont-l’Evêque in Normandy.[1554] He was evidently some years older
than Theobald’s other favourites, John of Canterbury and Thomas of
London; for we find him and Gilbert Foliot quarrelling, apologizing,
lecturing and forgiving each other with an outspoken freedom and
familiarity possible only between two men of equal standing who have
been friends from their youth.[1555] With Thomas Becket, on the other
hand, Roger was never upon really friendly terms; jealous, no doubt,
of the younger man who seemed likely to supersede him in the primate’s
confidence, Roger lost no opportunity of teasing the “hatchet-clerk”
(as he called Thomas, from the nickname of the man who had first
introduced him to Theobald), and made his life so wretched that he
was twice driven to quit the archbishop’s house and take refuge with
Theobald’s brother, Walter, archdeacon of Canterbury, till the latter
smoothed the way for his return.[1556] On Walter’s elevation to the see
of Rochester in 1148 his archdeaconry was given to Roger;[1557] he also
held some other preferments, all of which he was at one time in great
danger of losing--most likely on account of his share in the famous
“swimming-voyage” to Reims; but his friend Gilbert Foliot secured him
the protection of the Pope;[1558] and the restoration of the archbishop
would naturally involve that of the archdeacon. After six years’ tenure
of his office at Canterbury Roger was called to go up higher. Theobald
had more than one reason for desiring his archdeacon’s elevation. He
wished it for Roger’s own sake; he wished it still more for the sake
of his younger favourite, whom he longed to establish in a position of
dignity and importance, yet close to his own side; above all, he wished
it for the sake of the Church;[1559] for he naturally hoped that in
leaving one of his own foremost disciples seated on the metropolitan
chair of York, he would be leaving at least one prelate of the highest
rank firmly pledged to those schemes of ecclesiastical policy and
organization which he himself had most at heart. His confidence in
Roger was over-great. After all the disputes about the canonical
relations between Canterbury and York which had wasted the energies of
Lanfranc and embittered the last days of S. Anselm, Theobald missed his
opportunity of securing at last a full acknowledgement of Canterbury’s
superior rights, and was rash enough to consecrate Roger without
requiring from him a profession of obedience.[1560] The large-hearted
primate evidently never dreamed that any question of obedience could
arise between himself and one of his spiritual sons, or that Roger’s
loyalty to him could fail to be extended to his successor. He never
discovered his mistake; it was Roger’s old rival, and with him the
English Church, who ultimately had to bear its unhappy consequences.

        [1554] There is a bit of evidence on this side in _Thomas Saga_
        (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 40, where the writer calls him “Rogerum
        Nevstriensem.”

        [1555] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. cix.–cxi. (Giles, vol. i. pp.
        135–145). This was after Roger became archbishop; the quarrel
        went so far that Roger appealed to Rome about it, and carried
        his appeal in person. (What can be the date of this?) Gilbert
        owns that he had let his sharp tongue run away with him; Roger
        lectures him soundly, but ends with “ecce jam in occursum
        vestrum vetus festinat amicus,” and a proposal to kill the
        fatted calf in celebration of his repentance (Ep. cx. p. 141).

        [1556] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        16. Cf. Anon I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 9, 10; E. Grim (_ib._
        vol. ii.), p. 362; and Gamier (Hippeau), p. 10.

        [1557] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 133.

        [1558] “Clericus ... dilecti filii vestri domini Cantuariensis
        archiepiscopi Magister R. de Ponte Episcopi vestrum adit
        urgente necessitate præsidium ut ad tuenda ea quæ canonice
        possidet a vestrâ imploret serenitate patrocinium.” Gilb.
        Foliot, Ep. xvii (Giles, vol. i. p. 30). The salutation of
        the letter runs “Summo Dei gratiâ Pontifici E., frater G.
        Glocestriæ dictus abbas”; it looks very much as if written
        in the interval between the council of Reims and Gilbert’s
        consecration.

        [1559] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 10.

        [1560] “Sed professionem non fecit” [Roger], significantly
        remarks R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 298. Roger was
        consecrated at Westminster on October 10, 1154; _ibid._ Gerv.
        Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158.

Immediately after Roger’s consecration Thomas was raised by his
primate to deacon’s orders and made archdeacon of Canterbury.[1561]
A few months later the accession of Henry II. opened the way for his
advancement in another direction. His appointment to the chancellorship
involved a great self-sacrifice on the part of Theobald; for the
chancellor’s duties--at least as conceived by Thomas, and as Theobald
had intended him to conceive them--took him not only quite away from
those of his archdeaconry and from his primate’s side, but very often
out of the country altogether; so that Theobald in giving him up to the
king had condemned himself to pass his declining years apart from the
object of his warmest earthly affections. But the _Curia Theobaldi_ was
by no means deserted; though it had lost its most brilliant star, there
was no lack of lesser lights to brighten the primate’s home-circle;
there was one whose soft mild radiance, less dazzling than the glory
of Thomas, was a far truer and steadier reflex of Theobald’s own calm
and gentle spirit. Yet John of Salisbury had entered the archbishop’s
household within a comparatively recent period. His father’s name seems
to have been Reinfred;[1562] his family connexions were all in or
around the city whence his surname was derived;[1563] but there is some
indication that John himself may have been born in London.[1564] In the
year after the death of Henry I. he went to study in Paris, and there
received his first lessons in dialectics from the greatest scholar of
the day--sitting at the feet of Peter Abelard, and eagerly drinking in,
to the utmost capacity of his young mind, every word that fell from
the master’s lips. Abelard departed all too soon, and John pursued his
studies for about two years under his successors Alberic and Robert,
of whom the latter, although commonly called “Robert of Melun” from
having taught with distinction in that place, was an Englishman by
birth, and will come before us again in later days as Gilbert Foliot’s
successor in the bishopric of Hereford. It must have been precisely
during those two years that Thomas of London also was in Paris for the
first time, striving for his mother’s sake to overcome his dislike of
books; and it was possibly there that the two young Englishmen, who
must have been of nearly the same age, began to form an acquaintance
which afterwards ripened into a lifelong friendship. And it can only
have been about the same time, and in that same wonderful meeting-place
where so many of the happiest and most fruitful associations of the
time had their beginnings, that John of Salisbury first met with
Nicolas of Langley.

        [1561] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
        17. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 168. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.),
        p. 4. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 11. Garnier (Hippeau), p.
        10. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 159. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
        vol. i. p. 213, where he is called “Thomas Beket”--apparently
        for the first time.

        [1562] “Magister B. filius Reinfred peccator, fraterculus
        meus,” is named by Joh. Salisb. Ep. xc. (Giles, vol. i. p. 135).

        [1563] See his correspondence _passim_.

        [1564] There is among John’s letters a most enigmatical
        one--Ep. cxxx. (Giles, vol. i. p. 109)--without date, address,
        or writer’s name, but very much in the tone and style of John’s
        familiar letters--in which a Londoner, or rather a man who
        tried to make himself out to be such, is described as “concivis
        noster.” It looks very much as if written by John to Thomas.

Thomas went home to the plodding life of a city merchant’s clerk;
Nicolas set out on the long course of wandering which was to bring him
at last to the Papal chair; John, having as he says “steeped himself
to the finger-tips in dialectics, and moreover learned to think his
knowledge greater than it really was,” applied himself for the next
three years to the schools of the grammarians William of Conches
and Richard l’Evêque, with whom he went over again the whole course
of his previous studies, penetrated somewhat deeper into those of
the _quadrivium_ which he had begun under the direction of a German
named Hardwin, and improved some slight notions of rhetoric which
he had acquired at the lectures of a certain Master Theodoric. His
relatives were quite unable to maintain him all this while; like all
poor students of the day, he earned his living and his college-fees
by teaching others, and as he pleasantly says “What I learned was
the better fixed in my mind, because I constantly had to bring it
out for my pupils.” One of these pupils was William of Soissons, to
whom he taught the elements of logic, “and who afterwards contrived,
as his followers say, a method of breaking down the old strongholds
of logic, producing unexpected consequences, and overthrowing the
opinions of the ancients.” John however declined to believe in a
“system of impossibilities,” for which he at any rate was clearly not
responsible; for he had soon transferred his pupil to the care of one
Master Adam, an English teacher deeply versed in Aristotelian lore. It
seems just possible that this Master Adam, who was at this time helping
John in his studies not as a teacher but as a friend,[1565] was the
same who many years before had stood in a somewhat similar relation
to Gilbert Foliot.[1566] He may, however, perhaps be more probably
identified with Adam “du Petit-Pont”--so called from the place where
he lectured in Paris--who in 1176 became bishop of S. Asaph’s.[1567]
After a while John found that with all his efforts he could hardly
earn enough to live upon in Paris; so by the advice of his friends he
determined to set up a school elsewhere.[1568] While sitting at the
feet of the “Peripatetic” doctors on the Mont-Ste.-Geneviève he had
become acquainted with a young native of Champagne, Peter by name,
who was studying in the school of S. Martin-des-Champs.[1569] The two
friends, it seems, settled together at Provins in Peter’s native land,
and there, under the protection of the good Count Theobald,[1570]
laboured and prospered for three years.[1571] Long afterwards, from
his anxious post at the side of the dying Archbishop Theobald, John’s
thoughts strayed tenderly back to the days which he and his young
comrade, with hearts as light as their purses, had spent among the
roses of Champagne: “I am the same that ever I was,” he wrote to
Peter, now abbot of Celle, “only I possess more than you and I had
between us at Provins.”[1572] He returned to Paris, revisited his
old haunts on the Mont-Ste.-Geneviève, and was amused to find his
old school-companions just where and as he had left them. “They
did not seem to have advanced an inch towards disposing of the old
questions, nor to have added one new proposition.” He, in his three
years of healthy meditation in the country, had discovered that
their dialectics, however useful as a help to other studies, were in
themselves but a fruitless and lifeless system; he therefore now gave
himself up to the study of theology under a certain Master Gilbert,
Robert “Pullus”--in whom one is tempted to recognize the Robert Pulein
who had planted the seed of the first English University by his
divinity-lectures at Oxford in 1133--and lastly, Simon of Poissy.

        [1565] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol.
        v. pp. 78–80). Adam’s nationality appears in l. iii. c.
        3 (p. 129), where he is described as “noster ille Anglus
        Peripateticus Adam.”

        [1566] See below, p. 492, 493.

        [1567] Wright, _Biogr. Britt. Lit._, vol. ii. pp. 245, 246.

        [1568] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v.
        pp. 80, 81).

        [1569] On Peter of Celle see Migne, _Patrologia_, vol. ccii.
        cols. 399, 400, and _Gall. Christ._, vol. xii. col. 543.

        [1570] Cf. Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxxxii. and cxliii. (Giles, vol.
        i. pp. 114, 206); and see also Demimuid, _Jean de Salisbury_,
        pp. 26, 27.

        [1571] “Reversus itaque in fine triennii.” Joh. Salisb.
        _Metalog._ as above (p. 81).

        [1572] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 114).

John’s whole career in the schools, after occupying about twelve
years,[1573] apparently came to an end shortly before the council of
Reims. His old friend Peter had already retired into the peace of the
cloister, and about this time became abbot of Celle, near Troyes.
There John, who was utterly without means of living, found a shelter
and a home, nominally, it seems, in the capacity of Peter’s “clerk” or
secretary, but in reality as the recipient of a generous hospitality
which sought for no return save the enjoyment of his presence and his
friendship.[1574] Such a light as John’s, however, could not long
remain thus hidden under a bushel. So felt Peter himself;[1575] and
at that moment a better place for it was easily found. At the council
of Reims, or during his exile after it, the archbishop of Canterbury
probably met the abbot of Celle and his English “clerk”;[1576] he
certainly must have met the abbot of Clairvaux; and S. Bernard, with
his unerring instinct, had already discovered John’s merits. He named
him to Theobald in terms of commendation; and it was he who furnished
the letter of introduction,[1577] as it was Peter who furnished the
means,[1578] wherewith John at last made his way to the archbishop’s
court,[1579] of which he soon became one of the busiest and most
valued members. So busy was he--so “distracted with diverse and adverse
occupations,” as he himself said--that he complained of being scarce
able to steal an hour for the literary and philosophical pursuits
which he so dearly loved. Ten times in the next thirteen years[1580]
did he cross the Alps, twice did he visit Apulia, on business with
the Roman court for his superiors or his friends; besides travelling
all over England and Gaul on a variety of errands, and fulfilling a
crowd of home-duties which left him scarcely time to look after his
own private affairs, much less to indulge in study.[1581] The greater
part of the communications between Theobald and Eugene III. must
have passed through his hands, either as messenger or as amanuensis;
but his name never figures in their diplomatic history; his place
therein was a subordinate one. It was not in his nature to take the
foremost rank. Not that he was unfit for it:--with his gracious, genial
temper; his calm clear judgement, generally sound because always
disinterested; his delicate wit, his easy, elegant scholarship, and his
wide practical experience of the world--John of Salisbury might have
adorned far higher positions in either Church or state than any which
he ever actually occupied. But his own position was a thing of which
he seems never to have thought, save as a means of serving others. His
apology for his unwilling neglect of literature--“I am a man under
authority”[1582]--might have been the motto of his life. He left it to
others to lead; if they led in the way of righteousness, they might be
sure of one faithful adherent who would serve and follow them through
good report and evil report, who would try to clear the path before
them at any risk to himself; who would criticize their conduct and
tell them of their errors with fearless simplicity, while striving to
avert the consequence of those errors and to cover their retreat; who
in poverty and exile, incurred for another’s sake, would make light
of his own sufferings and be constantly endeavouring to relieve those
of his fellow-sufferers, and who would always find or make a silver
lining to the darkest cloud. This was what John did for the possible
acquaintance of his early student-days whom he had now rejoined in
the household of Archbishop Theobald. To the end of his life he was
more than satisfied to count the friendship of Thomas Becket as his
chief title of honour, and to let whatever share of lustre might have
been his own go to brighten the aureole of his friend. It brightened
it far more than he knew. When detractors and panegyrists have both
done their worst, there remains this simple proof of the real worth of
Thomas--that he inspired such devotion as this in a man such as John of
Salisbury, and that he knew how to appreciate it as it deserved.

        [1573] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v. p.
        81).

        [1574] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 117). Pet.
        Cell. Epp. lxvii.–lxxv. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol. ccii. cols.
        513–522).

        [1575] Pet. Cell. Ep. lxx. (as above, col. 516).

        [1576] The _Historia Pontificalis_, certainly the work of one
        who was present at this council, is attributed to John.

        [1577] S. Bern. Ep. ccclxi. (Mabillon, vol. i. col. 325).

        [1578] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 117).

        [1579] From the Prologue to the _Polycraticus_, l. i. (_Joh.
        Salisb. Opp._, Giles, vol. iii. p. 13), it appears that at the
        time of writing it John had been twelve years at the court. As
        the _Polycraticus_ was written during the war of Toulouse, this
        takes us back to 1148. He must in fact have joined Theobald
        very soon after the council of Reims.

        [1580] He himself makes it twenty years (Joh. Salisb.
        _Metalog._, prolog. l. iii., Giles, vol. v. p. 113); but
        he cannot possibly have left Paris before 1147, and the
        _Metalogicus_ was finished before Theobald’s death in 1161.
        Either there is something wrong in John’s reckoning, or in his
        copyist’s reading of it, or this passage was added some years
        after the completion of the book.

        [1581] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._ as above.

        [1582] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, prolog. l. vii. (Giles, vol.
        iv. p. 80).

It was however John’s friendship with Nicolas of Langley which in these
years of his residence in the primate’s household made him so valuable
to Theobald as a medium of communication with Rome. We can hardly doubt
that this acquaintance, too, had begun in Paris; now, as the English
cardinal-secretary and the envoy of the English primate discussed
in the Roman court the prospects of their common mother-country and
mother-Church, their acquaintance ripened into a friendship which no
change of outward circumstances could alter or disturb. Nicolas cared
more for John than for his own nearest relatives; he declared in public
and in private that he loved him above all men living; he delighted in
unburthening his soul to him. When he became Pope there was no change;
a visit from John was still Adrian’s greatest pleasure; he rejoiced in
welcoming him to his table, and despite John’s modest remonstrances
insisted that they should be served from the same dish and
flagon.[1583] King and primate were both alike quick to perceive and
use such an opportunity of strengthening the alliance between England
and Rome; while Adrian on his part was all the more ready to give a
cordial response to overtures made to him from the land of his birth,
when they came through the lips of his dearest friend. As a matter of
course, it was John who very soon after the accession of Henry II. was
sent to obtain a Papal authorization for the king’s projected conquest
of Ireland.[1584] Naturally, too, it was John who now became Theobald’s
private secretary and confidential medium of communication with Pope
Adrian. A considerable part of the correspondence which goes under
John’s name really consists of the archbishop’s letters, John himself
being merely the amanuensis. This part of his work, however, was a
relaxation which he only enjoyed at intervals; he was still constantly
on active duty of some kind or other not only at the court of the
primate but also at that of the king; and sorely did he long to escape
from its weary trifling, to find rest for his soul in the pursuit of
that “divine philosophy” which had been the delight of his youth.[1585]
But obedience, not inclination, had brought him to court, and obedience
kept him there. Thomas knew his worth and would not let him go; at
last, to pacify his uneasiness, he bade him relieve his mind by pouring
it out in a book. John protested he had scarce time to call his soul
his own, much less his intellect or his hands.[1586] He was, however,
set free by the removal of the court over sea for the expedition
against Toulouse; and while Thomas was riding in coat of mail at the
head of his troops against Count Raymond and King Louis, John was
writing his _Polycraticus_ in the quiet cloisters of Canterbury.[1587]

        [1583] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p.
        205).

        [1584] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v.
        pp. 205, 206).

        [1585] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. prolog. (Giles, vol.
        iii. p. 13).

        [1586] _Ib._ l. vii. prolog. (vol. iv. p. 80).

        [1587] _Ib._ l. i. prolog. (vol. iii. p. 16). Cf. _ib._ l.
        viii. c. 24 (vol. iv. p. 379).

This book of _Polycraticus on the Triflings of Courtiers and the
Foot-prints of Philosophers_[1588] is a strange medley of moral and
political speculations, personal experiences, and reflections upon men
and things, old and new. Its greatest charm lies in the revelation of
the writer’s pure, sweet, child-like character, shining unconsciously
through the veil of his scholastic pedantries and rambling metaphysics;
its historical value consists in the light which it throws on the
social condition of England with respect to a crowd of matters which
the chroniclers leave wholly in the dark. “Part of it,” says the author
in his dedication, “deals with the trifles of the court; laying most
stress on those which have chiefly called it forth. Part treats of
the foot-prints of the philosophers, leaving, however, the wise to
decide for themselves in each case what is to be shunned and what to be
followed.”[1589] We need not weary ourselves with John’s meditations
upon Aristotle and Plato and their scholastic commentators; they
all come round to one simple conclusion--that the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom, and the love of Him the end of all true
philosophy.[1590] It is in the light of this truth that he looks at
the practical questions of the day, and reviews those “trifles of
the court” which are really the crying abuses of the government, the
ecclesiastical administration, and society at large. In the forefront
of all he does not hesitate, although dedicating his book to the
chancellor whose passion for hunting almost equalled that of the king
himself, to set the inordinate love of the chase and the cruelties
of the forest-law.[1591] The tardiness of the royal justice and the
corruption of the judges--“_justitiæ errantes_, justices errant are
they rightly called who go erring from the path of equity in pursuit
of greed and gain”[1592]--was also, after seven years of Henry’s
government, still a ground of serious complaint. So, too, was the decay
of valour among the young knighthood of the day--a consequence of the
general relaxation of discipline, first during the years of anarchy,
and then in the reaction produced by the unbroken peace which England
had enjoyed since Henry’s accession. Chivalry was already falling
back from its lofty ideal; military exercises were neglected for the
pleasures and luxury of the court; the making of a knight, in theory a
matter almost as solemn as the making of a priest, was sinking into a
mere commonplace formality;[1593] and the consequences were beginning
to be felt on the Welsh border.[1594] John was moved to contrast
the present insecurity of the marches with their splendid defence
in Harold’s time,[1595] and to lament that William the Conqueror,
in his desire to make his little insular world share the glories of
the greater world beyond the sea, had allowed the naturally rich and
self-sufficing island to be flooded with luxuries of which it had no
need, and thus fostered rather than checked the indolent disposition
which had helped to bring its people under his sway.[1596]

        [1588] _Polycraticus de Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis
        Philosophorum._

        [1589] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. prolog. (Giles, vol.
        iii. p. 13).

        [1590] This is the idea which runs through the whole of
        _Polycraticus_, and indeed through all John’s writings. It is
        neatly expressed in two lines of his _Entheticus_ (vv. 305,
        306, Giles, vol. v. p. 248):

        “Si verus Deus est hominum sapientia vera, Tunc amor est veri
        philosophia Dei.”


        [1591] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. c. 4 (Giles, vol. iii.
        pp. 19–32).

        [1592] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (p. 322). Cf. cc. 10, 11 (pp.
        300–311). Pet. Blois, Ep. xcv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 297), makes a
        like play on the title of the judges.

        [1593] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. cc. 2, 3, 5, 8–10
        (Giles, vol. iv. pp. 8–12, 15, 16, 20–23).

        [1594] _Ib._ cc. 6, 16 (pp. 16, 17, 39, 40).

        [1595] _Ib._ c. 6 (p. 18).

        [1596] _Ib._ l. viii. c. 7 (p. 238).

The ills of the state had each its counterpart in the Church; the
extortions and perversions of justice committed by the secular judges
were paralleled by those of the ecclesiastical officials, deans and
archdeacons;[1597] and at the bottom of the mischief lay the old root
of all evil. Simony was indeed no longer public; spiritual offices
were no longer openly bought with hard cash; but they were bought with
court-interest instead;[1598] the Church’s most sacred offices were
filled by men who came straight from the worldly life of the court to a
charge for which they were utterly unfit;[1599] although, in deference
to public opinion, they were obliged to go through an elaborate shew
of reluctance, and Scripture and hagiology were ransacked for examples
of converted sinners, which were always found sufficient to meet any
objections against a candidate for consecration and to justify any
appointment, however outrageous.[1600] All the sins of the worldly
churchmen, however, scarcely move John’s pure soul to such an outburst
of scathing sarcasm as he pours upon the “false brethren” who sought
their advancement in a more subtle way, by a shew of counterfeit
piety:--the ultra-monastic, ultra-ascetic school, with their overdone
zeal and humility, and their reliance on those pernicious exemptions
from diocesan jurisdiction which the religious orders vied with each
other in procuring from Rome, and which were destroying all discipline
and subverting all rightful authority.[1601]

        [1597] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (vol. iii. pp. 327, 328).

        [1598] _Ib._ l. vii. c. 18 (vol. iv. pp. 149, 152).

        [1599] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (vol. iii. p. 329).

        [1600] _Ib._ l. vii. cc. 18, 19 (vol. iv. pp. 149–152, 156–158).

        [1601] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vii. c. 21 (Giles, vol. iv.
        pp. 169–178). It is to be noted that the two orders which John
        considers to be least infected with this hypocrisy are those of
        the Chartreuse and of Grandmont. _Ib._ c. 23 (pp. 180, 181).

Over against the picture of the world and the Church as they actually
were, the disciple of Archbishop Theobald sets his ideal of both as
they should be--as the primate and his children aimed at making them.
For John’s model commonwealth, built up in a somewhat disjointed
fashion on a foundation partly of Holy Writ and partly of classic
antiquity, is not, like the great Utopia of the sixteenth century,
the product of one single, exceptionally constituted mind; it is a
reflection of the plans and hopes of those among whom John lived and
worked, and thus it helps us to see something of the line of thought
which had guided their action in the past and which moulded their
schemes for the future. Like all medieval theorists, they began at the
uppermost end of the social and political scale; they started from a
definite view of the rights and duties of the king, as the head on
which all the lower members of the body politic depended. The divine
right of kings, the divine ordination of the powers that be, were
fundamental doctrines which they understood in a far wider and loftier
sense than the king-worshippers of the seventeenth century:--which they
employed not to support but to combat the perverted theory that “the
sovereign’s will has the force of law,” already creeping in through the
influence of the imperial jurisprudence;[1602]--and which were no less
incompatible with the principle of invariable hereditary succession.
“Lands and houses and suchlike things must needs descend to the next
in blood; but the government of a people is to be given only to him
whom God has chosen thereto, even to him who has God’s Spirit within
him and God’s law ever before his eyes.... Not that for the mere love
of change it is lawful to forsake the blood of princes, to whom by the
privilege of the divine promises and by the natural claims of birth the
succession of their children is justly due, if only they walk according
to right. Neither, if they turn aside from the right way, are they
to be immediately cast off, but patiently admonished till it become
evident that they are obstinate in their wickedness”[1603]--then, and
then only, shall the axe be laid to the root of the corrupt tree, and
it shall cumber the ground no more.[1604]

        [1602] _Ib._ l. iv. c. 7 (vol. iii. p. 241).

        [1603] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. v. c. 6 (Giles, vol. iii.
        p. 278).

        [1604] _Ib._ l. iv. c. 12 (pp. 259, 260).

Such was the moral which the wisest and most thoughtful minds in
England drew from the lessons of the anarchy. On a like principle, it
was in the growth of a more definite and earnest sense of individual
duty and responsibility, as opposed to the selfish lawlessness which
had so long prevailed, that they trusted for the regeneration of
society. They sought to teach the knights to live up to the full
meaning of their vows and the true objects of their institution--the
protection of the Church, the suppression of treason, the vindication
of the rights of the poor, the pacification of the country;[1605]
so that the consecration of their swords upon the altar at their
investiture should be no empty form, but, according to its original
intention, a true symbol of the whole character of their lives and, if
need be, of their deaths.[1606] And then side by side with the true
knight would stand the true priest:--both alike soldiers of the Cross,
fighting in the same cause though with different weapons--figured,
according to John’s beautiful application of a text which medieval
reformers never wearied of expounding, by the “two swords” which
the Master had declared “enough” for His servants, all the lawless
undisciplined activity of self-seekers and false brethren being
merely the “swords and staves” of the hostile multitude.[1607] Into a
detailed examination of the rights or the duties of the various classes
of the people no one in those days thought it necessary to enter;
their well-being and well-doing were regarded as dependent upon those
of their superiors, and the whole question of the relation between
rulers and ruled--“head and feet,” according to the simile which
John borrows from Plutarch--was solved by the comprehensive formula,
“Every one members one of another.”[1608] To watch over and direct the
carrying-out of this principle was the special work of the clergy;
and the clerical reformers were jealous for the rights of their order
because, as understood by them, they represented and covered the rights
of the whole nation; the claims which they put forth in the Church’s
name were a protest in behalf of true civil and religious liberty
against tyranny on the one hand and license on the other.[1609] “For
there is nothing more glorious than freedom, save virtue; if indeed
freedom may rightly be severed from virtue--for all who know anything
aright know that true freedom has no other source.”[1610]

        [1605] _Ib._ l. vi. c. 8 (vol. iv. p. 21).

        [1606] _Ibid._ c. 10 (p. 23). Cf. Pet. Blois, Ep. xciv. (Giles,
        vol. i. pp. 291–296).

        [1607] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 8 (Giles, vol. iv.
        p. 21). John’s use of the text is perhaps only a generalization
        from S. Bernard’s application of it to Suger and the count of
        Nevers, left regents of France in 1149. Odo of Deuil, _Rer.
        Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 93.

        [1608] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 20 (as above, pp.
        51, 52).

        [1609] _Ib._ l. vii. c. 20 (pp. 161–169).

        [1610] _Ibid._ c. 25 (p. 192).

How far these lofty views had made their way into the high places of
the Church it was as yet scarcely possible to judge. The tone of the
English episcopate had certainly undergone a marked change for the
better during the last six years of Stephen’s reign. Theobald’s hopes
must, however, have been chiefly in the rising generation. Of the
existing bishops there was only one really capable of either helping
or hindering the work which the primate had at heart; for Henry of
Winchester, although his royal blood, his stately personality and
his long and memorable career necessarily made him to his life’s end
an important figure in both Church and state, had ceased to take an
active part in the affairs of either, and for several years lived
altogether away from England, in his boyhood’s home at Cluny.[1611]
A far more weighty element in the calculations of the reforming party
was the character and policy of the bishop of Hereford, Gilbert
Foliot. From the circumstances in which we find Gilbert’s relatives in
England,[1612] it seems probable that he belonged to one of the poorer
Norman families of knightly rank who came over either in the train of
the great nobles of the conquest or in the more peaceful immigration
under Henry I. His youth is lost in obscurity; of his education we
know nothing, save by its fruits. Highly gifted as he unquestionably
was by nature, even his inborn genius could hardly have enabled him to
acquire his refined and varied scholarship, his unrivalled mastery of
legal, political and ecclesiastical lore, his profound and extensive
knowledge of men and things, anywhere but in some one or other of the
universities of the day. It is curious that although Gilbert’s extant
correspondence is one of the most voluminous of the time--extending
over nearly half a century, and addressed to persons of the most
diverse ranks, parties, professions and nationalities--it contains not
one allusion to the studies or the companions of his youth, not one
of those half playful, half tender reminiscences of student-triumphs,
student-troubles and student-friendships, which were so fresh in the
hearts and in the letters of many distinguished contemporaries. Only
from an appeal made to him, when bishop of London, in behalf of his old
benefactor’s orphan and penniless children, do we learn that he had
once been the favourite pupil, the ward, almost the adoptive son, of a
certain Master Adam.[1613] It is tempting, but perhaps hardly safe,
to conjecture that this Master Adam was the learned Englishman of that
name who in like manner befriended another young fellow-countryman,
John of Salisbury, when he too was studying in Paris.[1614] This,
however, was not till Gilbert Foliot’s student-days had long been past.
Wherever his youth may have been spent, wherever his reputation may
have been acquired, the one was quite over and the other was fully
established before 1139, when he had been already for some years a
monk of Cluny, had attained the rank of prior in the mother-house, and
had thence been promoted to become the head of the dependent priory of
Abbeville.[1615]

        [1611] He went there in 1155 (Rob. Torigni, _ad ann._), and
        does not reappear in England till March 1159 (Palgrave, _Eng.
        Commonwealth_, vol. ii. p. xii).

        [1612] See his letters _passim_.

        [1613] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. dxv., dxvii. (Giles, vol. ii. pp.
        323, 324, 326). The writer of the first is “Ranulfus de
        Turri”; the second is anonymous. Both appeal earnestly to
        the bishop’s charity and gratitude in behalf of “J. filius
        A. magistri quondam vestri, procuratoris vestri, tutoris
        vestri.... Hæreat animo sanctitatis vestræ illa M. Adæ circa
        vos curarum gravitas, alimoniæ fœcunditas, diligentia doctrinæ,
        specialis impensa benivolentiæ. Quis hodie proprios liberos
        regit providentius, educat uberius, instruit attentius, diligit
        ferventius? Sic pæne amor ille modum excessit, ut vos diligeret
        non quasi excellenter, sed quasi singulariter ... qui vos
        aliquando pro filio adoptavit” (Ep. dxv.). “Tangat memoriam
        vestram illa M. Adæ circa vos curarum gravitas, doctrinæ
        profunditas, alimoniæ ubertas, postremo fervens, immo ardens
        caritas. Hæreat animo vestro quantâ curâ, quali amplexu, quam
        speciali privilegio, illa doctoris vestri, procuratoris,
        tutoris, diligens vigilantia vos non modo supra familiares,
        verum supra quoslibet mortales adoptaverit, qualiterque ejus
        spiritus in vestro, ut ita dicam, spiritu quieverit.” Ep. dxvii.

        [1614] See above, p. 482. In any case, Gilbert’s Master Adam
        is surely a somewhat interesting person, of whom one would
        like to know more. This was the condition of his eldest son,
        when commended to the gratitude of Gilbert: “Pater ejus cum
        fati munus impleret, filium reliquit ære alieno gravatum,
        fratrum numerositate impeditum, redituum angustiis constrictum,
        et quibusdam aliis nexibus intricatum.” Gilb. Foliot, Ep.
        dxvii. (Giles, vol. ii. p. 326). “Onerant enim eum supra modum
        redituum angustiæ, debitorum paternorum sarcinæ, amicorum
        raritas, fratrum sororumque pluralitas et reliquæ sarcinæ
        parentelæ.” Ep. dxv. (_ib._ p. 323).

        [1615] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cclxix. (Giles, vol. i. p. 366).

In 1139 the abbot of S. Peter’s at Gloucester died; Miles the
constable, the lord of Gloucester castle and sheriff of the county,
and the greatest man of the district after Earl Robert himself,
secured the vacant office for Gilbert Foliot,[1616] who was a family
connexion of his own.[1617] The abbey of S. Peter at Gloucester,
founded as a nunnery in the seventh century, changed into a college
of secular priests after the Danish wars, and finally settled as a
house of Benedictine monks in the reign of Cnut, had risen to wealth
and fame under its first Norman abbot, Serlo, some of whose work still
survives in the nave of his church, now serving as the cathedral
church of Gloucester. Gloucester itself, the capital of Earl Robert’s
territories, was still, like Hereford and Shrewsbury, a border-city
whose inhabitants had to be constantly on their guard against the
thievery and treachery of the Welsh, who, though often highly useful
to their English earl as auxiliary forces in war, were anything but
loyal subjects or trustworthy neighbours. The position of abbot of S.
Peter’s therefore was at all times one of some difficulty and anxiety;
and Gilbert entered upon it at a specially difficult and anxious time.
Stephen’s assent to his appointment can hardly have been prompted by
favour to Miles, who had openly defied the king a year ago; he may have
been influenced by fear of giving fresh offence to such a formidable
deserter, or he may simply have been, as we are told, moved by the
report of Gilbert’s great merits.[1618] The new abbot proved quite
worthy of his reputation. His bitterest enemies always admitted that he
was a pattern of monastic discipline and personal asceticism; and his
admirable judgement, moderation and prudence soon made him a personage
of very high authority in the counsels of the English Church. Holding
such an important office in the city which was the head-quarters of
the Empress’s party throughout the greater part of the civil war, he
of course had his full share of the troubles of the anarchy, whereof
Welsh inroads counted among the least. There is no doubt that in
bringing him to England Miles had, whether intentionally or not,
brought over one who sympathized strongly with the Angevin cause; but
Gilbert’s sympathies led him into no political partizanship. During
his nine years’ residence at Gloucester he consistently occupied the
position which seems to have been his ideal through life: that of a
churchman pure and simple, attached to no mere party in either Church
or state, but ready to work with each and all for the broad aims of
ecclesiastical order and national tranquillity. That these aims came
at last to be identified with the success of the Angevin party was
a result of circumstances over which Gilbert had no control. He was
honoured, consulted and trusted by the most diverse characters among
the bishops. Mere abbot of a remote monastery as he was, Nigel of
Ely was glad to be recommended by him to Pope Celestine, Jocelyn of
Salisbury to Lucius, and Alexander of Lincoln to Eugene III.[1619]
He was treated almost as an equal not only by his own diocesan Bishop
Simon of Worcester, by his neighbour Robert of Hereford, and by Jocelyn
of Salisbury, but even by the archbishop of Canterbury and the legate
Henry of Winchester; and he writes in the tone of a patron and adviser
to Bishop Uhtred of Landaff and to the heads of the religious houses on
the Welsh border.[1620] He seems indeed to have been the usual medium
of communication between the Church in the western shires and its
primate at far-off Canterbury, who evidently found him a trustworthy
and useful agent in managing the very troublesome Church affairs of the
Welsh marches during the civil war.

        [1616] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 114. _Hist.
        Monast. S. Pet. Gloc._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 18.

        [1617] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 162.

        [1618] Flor. Worc. Contin., a. 1139 (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 114).
        _Hist. S. Pet. Gloc._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 18.

        [1619] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. v., xi., xxv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 12,
        22, 37).

        [1620] See his correspondence while abbot of Gloucester; _Gilb.
        Foliot Opp._ (Giles), vol. i. pp. 3–94.

When at last the storm subsided and a turn of the tide came with the
spring of 1148, Theobald openly shewed his confidence in the abbot
of Gloucester by commanding his attendance on that journey to Reims
which the king had forbidden, and which was therefore looked upon
as the grand proclamation of ecclesiastical independence, as well
as of devotion to the house of Anjou. Gilbert, with characteristic
caution, excused himself on the plea that the troubles of his house
urgently required his presence at home;[1621] but he ended by going
nevertheless,[1622] and when his friend Bishop Robert of Hereford--one
of the three prelates whom Stephen had permitted to attend the council
of Reims--died during its session, the Pope and the primate rewarded
Gilbert with the succession to the vacant see.[1623] For his perjury in
doing homage to Stephen for its temporalities after swearing to hold
them only of Henry Fitz-Empress he may be supposed to have quieted his
conscience with the plea that there was no other means of securing them
for Henry’s benefit;--a plea which Henry, after some delay,[1624] found
it wise to accept. The heads of the Angevin party knew indeed that
Gilbert regarded all homage to Stephen as simply null and void; he had
just written it plainly to Brian Fitz-Count, when criticizing Brian’s
apology for the Empress, in a letter[1625] which, we may be very sure,
must have been handed about and studied among her friends as a much
more valuable document than the pamphlet which had called it forth.

        [1621] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. vi., vii. (_ib._ pp. 13, 14).

        [1622] He writes--evidently from the spot--a report of the
        council of Reims to Robert archdeacon of Lincoln; Gilb. Foliot,
        Ep. lxxvi. (as above, p. 92). In July he was at Arras with
        Theobald: Ep. lxxiii. (_ib._ p. 89).

        [1623] See above, pp. 370, 371.

        [1624] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. xc., cxxx. (as above, pp. 116, 170).

        [1625] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxix. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 94–102); a
        most interesting and valuable letter, being a detailed review
        of the whole question of the succession, as well as of Brian’s
        “book.” The latter is unhappily lost.

The career of the new bishop of Hereford was but the natural
continuation of that of the abbot of Gloucester. His more exalted
office enabled him to be more than ever Theobald’s right hand in the
direction of the western dioceses. In their secular policy he and
Theobald were wholly at one; whether they really were equally so in
their ideas of Church reform is a question which was never put to the
test; but the tone of Gilbert’s mind, so far as it can be made out
from his letters and from his course in after-years, does not seem to
have altogether harmonized with that which prevailed in the primate’s
household; and the one member of that household with whom Gilbert was
on really intimate terms was precisely the one who, as afterwards
appeared, had imbibed least of its spirit--Roger of Pont-l’Evêque.
Gilbert’s character is not an easy one to read. Its inner depths are
scarcely reflected in his letters, which are almost all occupied with
mere business or formal religious exhortation; we never get from him
such a pleasant little stream of unpremeditated, discursive talk as
John of Salisbury or Peter of Blois delighted to pour out of the
abundance of their hearts into the ears of some old comrade, or such
a flood of uncontrolled passion as revealed the whole soul of Thomas
Becket. Gilbert’s letters are carefully-balanced, highly-finished
compositions; almost every one of them reads as if it had received as
much polishing, in proportion to its length and importance, as the
review of Earl Brian’s book, which, the abbot owns, occupied what
should have been his hours of prayer during two days.[1626] A strong
vein of sarcasm, very clever as well as very severe, is the only
token of personal feeling which at times forces its way strangely,
almost startlingly, through the veil of extreme self-depreciation
with which Gilbert strove to cover it. The self-depreciation is even
more disagreeable than the sarcasm; yet it seems hardly fair to
accuse Gilbert of conscious hypocrisy. There was a bitter, sneering
disposition ingrained in his innermost being, and he knew it. His
elaborate expressions of more than monastic humility and meekness
may have been the outcome of a struggle to smother what he probably
regarded as his besetting sin; and if he not only failed to smother it,
but drifted into a much more subtle and dangerous temptation, still
it is possible that he himself never perceived the fact, and was less
a deceiver than a victim of self-deception. During his episcopate at
Hereford, at any rate, no shadow of suspicion fell upon him from any
quarter; primate and Pope esteemed, trusted and consulted him as one of
the wisest as well as most zealous doctors of the English Church; and
when the young king came to his throne he did not fail to shew a duly
respectful appreciation of Gilbert’s character and services.

        [1626] “Et biduo saltem ores pro me, quia biduo mihi est
        intermissa oratio ut literas dictarem ad te.” Gilb. Foliot, Ep.
        lxxix. (Giles, vol. i. p. 102).

The king’s own attitude towards the religious revival was as yet not
very clearly defined. Henry was not without religious impulse; but it
had taken a special direction which indeed might naturally be expected
in a grandson of Fulk of Jerusalem:--a restless desire to go upon
crusade. He had no sooner mounted his throne than he began to urge upon
the English Pope, newly crowned like himself, the importance of giving
special attention to the necessities of the Holy Land.[1627] Four
years later he proposed to join Louis of France in a crusade against
the Moors in Spain. Louis wrote to the Pope announcing this project
and begging for his advice and support; Adrian in reply assured the
two kings of his sympathy and goodwill, but though praising their zeal
he expressed some doubt of its discretion, advised them to ascertain
whether the Spaniards desired their help before thrusting it upon them
unasked, and reminded Louis in plain terms of the disastrous issue of
his former rash crusade.[1628] The warning was needless, for it was
hardly written before the intending brothers-in-arms were preparing to
fight against each other; and before the war of Toulouse was over the
English Pope was dead.[1629]

        [1627] Pet. Blois, Ep. clxviii. (Giles, vol. ii. pp. 116–118).
        The letter is headed merely “Tali Papæ talis rex,” but there
        can be no doubt that they are Henry and Adrian. The king
        congratulates himself and his country--“noster Occidens”--on
        the elevation of a native thereof to the Papal chair, and makes
        suggestions to the Pope about the work which lies before him.

        [1628] Adrian IV. Ep. ccxli. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol.
        clxxxviii., cols. 1615–1617; Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,
        vol. iv. pp. 590, 591). Date, February 18 [1159].

        [1629] Adrian died at Anagni on September 1, 1159. Alex. III.
        Ep. i. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol. cc., col. 70).

His death was a heavy blow to the Church of his native land; and it was
followed by a schism which threatened disastrous consequences to all
western Christendom. Two Popes were elected--Roland of Siena, cardinal
of S. Mark and treasurer of the Holy See, and Octavian, cardinal of S.
Cecilia, a Roman of noble birth. This latter, who assumed the name of
Victor IV., was favoured by the Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa. After a
violent struggle he was expelled from Rome and fled to the protection
of his imperial patron, who thereupon summoned a general council to
meet at Pavia early in the next year and decide between the rival
pontiffs.[1630] Only the bishops of Frederic’s own dominions obeyed the
summons, and only one of the claimants; for Alexander III. (as Roland
was called by his adherents) disdained to submit to a trial whose issue
he believed to have been predetermined against him. He was accordingly
condemned as a rebel and schismatic, and Victor was acknowledged as
the lawful successor of S. Peter.[1631] This decision, however, bound
only the bishops of the Imperial dominions; and its general acceptance
throughout the rest of Christendom, doubtful from the first, became
impossible when Alexander and his partizans published their account
of the mode by which it had been arrived at. Victor--so their story
went--had actually placed his pontifical ring in the Emperor’s hands
and received it back from him as the symbol of investiture.[1632]
The Church at large could have no hesitation in deciding that a man
who thus climbed into the sheepfold by surrendering, voluntarily and
deliberately, the whole principle of spiritual independence whose
triumph Gregory and Anselm had devoted their lives to secure, was no
true shepherd but a thief and robber. Frederic however lost no time
in endeavouring to obtain for him the adhesion of France and England;
and in the last-named quarter he had great hopes of success. Henry had
for several years past shewn a disposition to knit up again the old
political ties which connected England with Germany; friendly embassies
had been exchanged between the two countries;[1633] now that he had
begun to quarrel with France, too, he was likely to be more inclined
towards an imperial alliance. Moreover it might naturally be expected
that Frederic’s bold and apparently successful attempt to revive the
claims of his predecessor Henry IV. on the subject of ecclesiastical
investitures would meet with sympathy from the grandson and
representative of Henry I. Indeed, the official report of the council
of Pavia declares that Henry had actually, by letters and envoys, given
his assent to its proceedings.[1634] But nothing of the kind was known
in Henry’s own dominions;[1635] and it seems that the Emperor was
forestalled by a Norman bishop.

        [1630] Radevic of Freisingen, l. ii. cc. 43, 50–56 (Muratori,
        _Rer. Ital. Scriptt._, vol. vi. cols. 819, 823–834), largely
        made up of official letters. This is the Victorian or
        Imperialist version; for the Alexandrine see Will. Newb., l.
        ii. c. 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 118, 119), and Arn. Lisieux,
        Epp. 21, 22, 23 (Giles, pp. 108–122. Arnulf calls the antipope
        “Otto.”) It seems quite hopeless to reconcile them or decide
        between them.

        [1631] Rad. Freising., l. ii. cc. 64–72 (as above, cols.
        838–853). Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 119,
        120).

        [1632] Arn. Lisieux, Ep. 23 (Giles, p. 118).

        [1633] Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II. (Hunter), p. 112. Cf. Rad.
        Freising., l. i. c. 7 (Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Scriptt._, vol.
        vi. cols. 744, 745). Another embassy from Henry reached
        Frederic in Lombardy, in the winter of 1158–1159, immediately
        after one from Louis. The object of each king was to secure
        Frederic’s alliance against the other, in prospect of the
        coming war of Toulouse; Rad. Freising., l. ii. c. 22 (as above,
        col. 804).

        [1634] Report in Rad. Freising., l. ii. c. 70 (as above, col.
        850). But the bishop of Bamberg, also an eye-witness, says:
        “Nuntius regis Francorum promisit pro eo neutrum se recepturum
        usque dum nuntios Imperatoris recipiat. Nuntius regis Anglorum
        idem velle et idem nolle promisit, tam in his quam in aliis”
        (_ib._ c. 71, col. 851); which leaves it doubtful whether the
        English envoy really echoed the decision of the council, or the
        answer of his French brother.

        [1635] Not even to Stephen of Rouen, the author of the _Draco
        Normannicus_, who has a long account of the schism, curious as
        proceeding from a Norman monk whose sympathies are wholly and
        openly on the opposite side to that which was formally adopted
        by his own sovereign, nation and Church. _Draco Norm._, l. iii.
        cc. 6–11, vv. 361–868 (Howlett, _Will. Newb._, vol. ii. pp.
        724–739).

Arnulf of Lisieux came of a family which had for more than half a
century been constantly mixed up in the diplomatic concerns of Normandy
and Anjou. Arnulf himself had begun his career about 1130 by writing
a treatise in defence of an orthodox Pope against an usurper;[1636]
he had been chosen to succeed his uncle Bishop John of Lisieux[1637]
shortly before Geoffrey Plantagenet’s final conquest of Normandy, and
had bought at a heavy price his peace with the new ruler;[1638] and
for the next forty years there was hardly a diplomatic transaction
of any kind, ecclesiastical or secular, in England or in Gaul, in
which he was not at some moment and in some way or other concerned.
He had little official influence; he had indeed a certain amount of
territorial importance in Normandy, for Lisieux was the capital of a
little county of which the temporal as well as the spiritual government
was vested in the bishop; but a Norman bishop, merely as such, had none
of the political weight of an English prelate; and Arnulf never held
any secular office. He was not exactly a busybody; he was a consummate
diplomatist, of wide experience and far-reaching intelligence, with
whose services no party could afford to dispense; and his extraordinary
caution and sagacity enabled him to act as counsellor and guide of
all parties at once without sacrificing his own reputation as a sound
Churchman and a loyal subject. In his youth he had come in contact with
most of the rising scholars and statesmen of the day in the schools of
Paris; and as he was an indefatigable and accomplished letter-writer,
he kept up through life a busy correspondence with men of all ranks
and all schools of thought on both sides of the sea.[1639] During the
quarrel between Louis VII. and Geoffrey Plantagenet concerning the
affair of Montreuil-Bellay, Arnulf was intrusted by Suger with a chief
part in the negotiations for the restoration of peace;[1640] the final
settlement in 1151, whereby the investiture of Normandy was secured to
Henry, was chiefly owing to his diplomacy;[1641] he accompanied Henry
to England and was present at his crowning;[1642] and on all questions
of continental policy he continued to be Henry’s chief adviser till he
was superseded by Thomas Becket.

        [1636] See his _Tractatus de Schismate_ in his “Works” (ed.
        Giles), pp. 43–79.

        [1637] In 1141. _Gall. Christ._, vol. xi. cols. 774, 775.

        [1638] _Ib._ col. 775.

        [1639] One of his fellow-students was Ralf de Diceto, the
        future historian and dean of S. Paul’s, to whom he writes
        affectionately in after-years, recalling vividly the memories
        of joy and sorrow which they had shared in their college days.
        Arn. Lis. Ep. 16 (Giles, pp. 100, 101). Another of his early
        friends was Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln, whose good offices
        he earnestly entreated in behalf of the young Duke Henry when
        the latter made his expedition to England in 1149. Ep. 4 (pp.
        85, 86).

        [1640] Suger, Epp. clxvii., clxviii. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol.
        clxxxvi., cols. 1428, 1429).

        [1641] Arn. Lis. Ep. 5 (Giles, pp. 86, 87). One passage looks
        as if the demand for Henry’s investiture had come from England;
        it is described as “postulatio Anglorum.”

        [1642] Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

To Arnulf there was nothing new or startling in a schism at Rome; his
experiences of thirty years before enabled him to penetrate the present
case at once, and as then with his pen, so now with his tongue, he
proved the readiest and most powerful advocate of the orthodox pontiff.
Fortunately, Henry was in Normandy; before any one else had time to
gain his ear and bias his mind, before he himself had time to think of
forming an independent judgement on the subject, Arnulf hurried to his
side,[1643] and set forth the claims of Alexander with such convincing
eloquence that the king at once promised to acknowledge him as Pope.
He refrained however from issuing an immediate order for Alexander’s
acceptance throughout his dominions, partly in deference to the
Emperor,[1644] and partly to make sure of the intentions of the king
of France. Louis, like Henry, had sent a representative to the council
of Pavia, but he had taken care not to commit himself to any decision
upon its proceedings.[1645] He was not naturally inclined to favour the
Emperor’s views. The question of the investitures had never been as
important in France as in Germany or in England, and had been settled
by a kind of tacit concordat which the Most Christian King had no mind
to forfeit his title by disturbing; France was always the staunchest
upholder of the independence of the Apostolic see;[1646] and neither
king nor clergy desired to change their attitude. They met in council
at Beauvais some time in the summer of 1160; a similar gathering of the
Norman bishops, in Henry’s presence, took place in July at Neufmarché;
both assemblies resulted in the acknowledgement of Alexander.[1647] The
formal assent of the Churches of England and Aquitaine had still to be
obtained before either king would fully proclaim his decision.[1648]
Archbishop Theobald’s anxious request for information and instructions
concerning the schism[1649] was answered by an exhaustive and eloquent
statement of the case from the pen of the indefatigable bishop of
Lisieux;[1650] and in accordance with his directions the English
bishops in council assembled unanimously declared their acceptance of
Alexander III. as the lawful successor of S. Peter.[1651]

        [1643] Arn. Lis. Epp. 18 and 21 (Giles, pp. 103, 104, 111).

        [1644] Arn. Lis. Ep. 21 (Giles, p. 111).

        [1645] See above, p. 499, note 3{1634}.

        [1646] Arn. Lis. Ep. 23 (Giles, p. 120).

        [1647] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

        [1648] Arn. Lis. Epp. 23, 24 (Giles, pp. 120, 129).

        [1649] Joh. Salisb. Ep. xliv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 45, 46).

        [1650] Arn. Lis. Ep. 23 (Giles, pp. 116–122). Cf. Gilb. Foliot,
        Ep. cxlviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 197).

        [1651] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii. (as above). Joh. Salisb. Ep.
        lxiv (Giles, vol. i. p. 79).

Alexander’s legates were already in Normandy;[1652] unluckily, however,
the use which Henry made of their presence led as we have seen to a
fresh rupture between him and Louis; and by this the Emperor and the
anti-pope immediately sought to profit. Tempting as their overtures
were to Henry, it does not appear that he ever seriously entertained
them; but the leaders of the English Church, having now learned the
circumstances of the case and grasped the full importance of the
triumph insured to the reforming party by his acceptance of Alexander,
were naturally alarmed lest he should be induced to change his mind.
Their anxiety was increased by the enfeebled state of their own
ranks. The struggles of Bishop Richard of London to clear off the
debts incurred in raising a fine required by Stephen at his election
seemed to have only aggravated the confusion of his affairs, which his
friends the bishops of Hereford and Lincoln were engaged in a desperate
effort to disentangle,[1653] while Richard himself, to complete his
misfortunes, was stricken helpless by paralysis.[1654] Henry of
Winchester had returned to his diocese, after nearly four years’
absence, in 1159;[1655] but by the spring of 1161 he again left the
Church of England to her fate and went back to his beloved Cluny.[1656]
The bishoprics of Chester (or Lichfield), Exeter and Worcester were
vacant;[1657] and, worst of all, Archbishop Theobald was dying.

        [1652] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii (as above).

        [1653] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxx. (Giles, vol. i. p. 158).

        [1654] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 304.

        [1655] See above, p. 492, note 1{1611}.

        [1656] R. Diceto, as above.

        [1657] Walter of Lichfield died December 7, 1160 (Stubbs,
        _Registr. Sac. Ang._, p. 30); Alfred of Worcester, July 31,
        1160; and Robert of Exeter some time in the same year (_ib._ p.
        31).

The primate’s letters during the last few months of his life shew him
calmly awaiting his call to rest, yet anxiously longing to be assured
of the future of those whom he was leaving behind, and to set in order
a few things that were wanting before he could depart altogether in
peace. Very touching are the expressions of his longing to “see the
face of the Lord’s anointed once again”--to welcome the king back to
his country and his home, safely removed from political temptations to
break away from the unity of the Church.[1658] And there was another
for whose return Theobald yearned more deeply still: his own long
absent archdeacon--“the first of my counsellors, nay, my only one,”
as he calls him, pleading earnestly with the king to let him come
home.[1659] For a moment, indeed, Theobald was on the point of being
left almost alone. Some rather obscure mischief-making in high places
had caused John of Salisbury to be visited with the king’s severe
displeasure; treated as a suspected criminal in England, forbidden to
go and clear himself in Normandy, John found his position so unbearable
that he contemplated taking refuge in France under the protection of
his old friend Abbot Peter of Celle.[1660] He seems, however, to have
ended by remaining in England under Theobald’s protection; before
the winter of 1160, at any rate, he was again at Canterbury, watching
over and tending the primate’s gradual decline;--almost overwhelmed
with “the care of all the churches,” which Theobald had transferred
to him;[1661]--characteristically finding relief from his anxieties
in correspondence with old friends, and in the composition of another
little philosophical treatise, called _Metalogicus_, whose chief
interest lies in the sketch which it contains of its author’s early
life.[1662] John’s disinterested affection and devoted services were
fully appreciated by Theobald;[1663] but they could not make up for
the absence of Thomas. Not only did the old man long to see his early
favourite once more; not only were there grave matters of diocesan
administration dependent on the archdeacon’s office and urgently
requiring his personal co-operation:[1664]--it was on far weightier
things than these that the archbishop desired to hold counsel with
Thomas. In the hands of Thomas, as chief adviser and minister of the
king, rested in no small degree the future of the English Church;
Theobald’s darling wish was that it should rest in his hands as primate
of all England.[1665]

        [1658] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxiii, lxiv,* lxiv** (Giles, vol. i.
        pp. 77, 78, 80–82), all from Theobald to Henry.

        [1659] “Qui [sc. Thomas] nobis unicus est et consilii nostri
        primus.” Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxx. (_ib._ p. 93).

        [1660] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxi., xcvi., cviii., cxii., cxiii.,
        cxv., cxxi. (_ib._ pp. 74, 75, 141–144, 158, 160, 161, 164,
        165, 169, 170). See Demimuid, _Jean de Salisbury_, pp. 183–188.

        [1661] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, prolog. (Giles, vol. v. pp. 8,
        9), and l. iv. c. 42 (_ib._ p. 206).

        [1662] _Ib._ l. ii. c. 10 (pp. 78–81).

        [1663] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxiv.* (Giles, vol. i. p. 80), from
        Theobald to Henry.

        [1664] Joh. Salisb. Epp. xlix., lxxi. (_ib._ pp. 51, 52, 94,
        95), both from Theobald to Thomas. The initial in the address
        of lxxi. is clearly wrong. See Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p.
        11, note a.

        [1665] This is distinctly stated by John of Salisbury:--

          “Ille Theobaldus qui Christi præsidet aulæ,
           Quam fidei matrem Cantia nostra colit,
           Hunc successurum sibi sperat et orat, ut idem
           Præsulis officium muniat atque locum.”

          _Entheticus_, vv. 1293–1296 (Giles, vol. v. p. 280.)


Later writers dilate upon the startling contrast between Becket’s
character and policy as chancellor and as archbishop. That contrast
vanishes when we look at the chancellor through the eyes of the
two men who knew him best; and we find that the real contrast lies
between their view of him and that of the outside world which only
saw the surface of his life and could not fathom its inner depths.
Those who beheld him foremost in every military exercise and every
courtly pastime, far outdoing the king himself in lavish splendour
and fastidious refinement, devoting every faculty of mind and body
to the service and the pleasure of his royal friend:--those who saw
all this, and could only judge by what they saw, might well have
thought that for such a man to become the champion of the Church was a
dream to be realized only by miracle or by imposture. But Archbishop
Theobald and John of Salisbury had known his inmost soul, better
perhaps than he knew it himself, before ever he went to court; and
they knew that however startling his conduct there might look, he was
merely fulfilling in his own way the mission on which he had been sent
thither:--making himself all things to all men, if thereby he might by
any means influence the court and the king for good.[1666] Even his
suggestion of the scutage for the war of Toulouse did not seriously
shake their faith in him; they blamed him, but they believed that he
had erred in weakness, not in wilfulness.[1667] In the middle of the
war John dedicated the _Polycraticus_ to him as the one man about the
court to whom its follies and its faults could be criticized without
fear, because he had no part in them.[1668] Thomas himself does not
seem to have contemplated the possibility of removal from his present
sphere. It was not in his nature at any time to look far ahead; and
Henry seemed to find his attendance more indispensable than ever,
declaring in answer to Theobald’s intreaties and remonstrances that he
could not possibly spare him till peace was thoroughly restored.[1669]

        [1666] Joh. Salisb. _Enthet._, vv. 1435–1440 (Giles, vol. v. p.
        285).

        [1667] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxlv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 223, 224).

        [1668] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, prolog. (Giles, vol. iii. p.
        13).

        [1669] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 106).

Thomas was in a strait. His first duty was to his dying spiritual
father; but he could not go against the king’s will without running
such a risk as Theobald would have been the first to disapprove. Thomas
himself therefore at last suggested that the archbishop should try to
move the king by summoning his truant archdeacon to return home at
once on pain of deprivation.[1670] Theobald, unable to reconcile the
contradictory letters of king and chancellor with the general reports
of their wonderful unanimity, steered a middle course between severity
and gentleness, from fear of bringing down the royal displeasure upon
his favourite, whom he yet half suspected of being in collusion with
the king. His secretary, John, had no such doubts; but he too was
urgent that by some means or other Thomas should come over before
the primate’s death.[1671] If he did go, it can only have been for a
flying visit; and there is no sign that he went at all. One thing he
did obtain for Theobald’s satisfaction: the appointment of Bartholomew
archdeacon of Exeter to the bishopric of that diocese.[1672] In April
Richard Peche, on whom the see of Chester had been conferred, was
consecrated at Canterbury by Walter of Rochester, the archbishop
being carried into the chapel to sanction by his presence the rite in
which he was too feeble to assist.[1673] By the hand of the faithful
secretary John he transmitted to King Henry his last solemn benediction
and farewell, and commended to the royal care the future of his church
and the choice of his successor.[1674] A few days later, on April 18,
1161, the good primate passed away.[1675]

        [1670] _Ib._ (p. 105).

        [1671] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 105–107).

        [1672] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxx., lxxi., lxxviii. (as above,
        pp. 94, 95, 106). On Bartholomew see also Ep. xc. (_ib._ pp.
        132–136), where John addresses him as a personal friend.

        [1673] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 168.

        [1674] Joh. Salisb. Ep. liv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 56–58). See
        the archbishop’s will in Ep. lvii. (_ib._ pp. 60–62).

        [1675] Gerv. Cant. as above.




_ERRATA_


  Page 50, line 8 from foot, _insert_ “and” _before_ “bore.”
    ” 158,  ”   5, _for_ “in” _read_ “by.”
    ” 268,  ”  18, _dele_ “the following.”
    ” 274,  ”  14 from foot, _for_ “two” _read_ “three.”
    ” 282,  ”  14, _insert_ “and” _before_ “made.”
    ” 417, lines 3 and 4 from foot, _for_ “husband ... heiress”
      _read_ “head.”
    ” 438, note 5, line 8, _for_ “David” _read_ “Henry of Scotland.”


END OF VOL. I.


_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_




INDEX


  Aaron of Lincoln, ii. 487

  Abelard, i. 480

  Abingdon, its customs in 1185, ii. 475–477;
    its fair, 481, 482.
    _See_ Faricius

  Achard, lord of Châlus, ii. 382, 383

  Aclea, battle of, i. 102

  Acre taken by the crusaders, ii. 319

  Adaland, archbishop of Tours, i. 131, 132

  Adalbert, count of Périgord, i. 145

  Adam, Master, i. 482, 492, 493

  Adam de Bruce, ii. 145

  Adam de Port, ii. 162

  Adela, first wife of Geoffrey Greygown, i. 121, 135

  Adela, countess of Chalon-sur-Saône, second wife of Geoffrey Greygown,
    i. 121, 134, 135, 199

  Adela of France, daughter of Louis VII. and Eleanor, i. 445

  Adela, daughter of Louis VII. and Constance, born, i. 468;
    betrothed to Richard, ii. 62;
    offered to John, 314;
    marries the count of Ponthieu, 374

  Adela of Blois, daughter of Theobald IV., third wife of Louis VII.,
    i. 468

  Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, wife of Stephen-Henry of
    Blois, i. 272;
    her children, 273

  Adela of Vendôme, daughter of Fulk Nerra and Elizabeth, i. 172

  Adela, _see_ Hermengard

  Adelaide or Blanche, mother of Queen Constance, i. 191, 192

  Adelard of Bath, i. 94, 95

  Adeliza of Louvain, second wife of Henry I., i. 94;
    married to William of Aubigny, 298;
    receives the Empress Matilda, i. 309

  Ademar, count of Angoulême, ii. 316, 381, 398, 399

  Ademar, viscount of Limoges, ii. 220, 230, 381, 382

  Adrian IV., Pope, i. 476;
    his relations with the English Church and the _Curia Theobaldi_,
    477;
    friendship with John of Salisbury, 485;
    bull for conquest of Ireland, 431; ii. 95, 96, 182;
    relations with Henry II., i. 497;
    dies, 498.
    _See_ Nicolas

  Ælendis of Amboise, wife of Ingelger, i. 105, 131

  Aerschot, _see_ Arnold

  Agnes of Burgundy, her marriages, i. 174, 197–199;
    kinship with Geoffrey Martel, 136, 175, 199;
    divorced, 212

  Agnes of Merania, ii. 395, 401

  Agnes of Poitou, daughter of William IV., marries Emperor Henry III.,
    i. 176

  “Aids” from towns, i. 25, 29;
    the Sheriff’s, ii. 15;
    _pour fille marier_, 125, 126;
    for the king’s ransom, 325

  Aileach, kings of, _see_ Donell, Murtogh

  Alan Barbetorte, count of Nantes and duke of Britanny, i. 115

  Alan III., duke of Britanny, helps Herbert Wakedog against Avesgaud
    and Fulk, i. 159, note 4{343};
    marriage, 205;
    death, 206, 211

  Alan Fergant, duke of Britanny, his marriages, i. 328, note 4{930}

  Alan, count of Nantes, i. 146

  Alan of Richmond, i. 318, 319, 321

  Albano, _see_ Henry

  Alberic, bishop of Ostia, legate, i. 299, 300

  Alberic, count of Gâtinais, _see_ Geoffrey

  Albinus or Aubin, S., bishop of Angers, i. 98

  Alcuin, i. 181

  Aldgate, priory of Holy Trinity at, i. 66

  Alençon, i. 208, 209;
    treaty of, 217;
    surrendered to Henry I., 233;
    restored to William Talvas, 236;
    won by Fulk V., _ib._
    _See_ Robert, William

  Alexander II., Pope, i. 220

  Alexander III., Pope, i. 498;
    acknowledged in France and England, 502;
    grants the pall to Thomas, ii. 6;
    meets Henry and Louis at Chouzy, 13;
    holds a council at Tours, 14;
    relation to the Becket quarrel, 29, 50–52;
    condemns Constitutions of Clarendon, 42;
    returns to Rome, 55;
    appoints Thomas legate, 67;
    sends commissioners to mediate between Henry and Thomas, 69, 70;
    authorizes Roger of York to crown young Henry, 71;
    forbids him, 72;
    interdicts the Angevin dominions and excommunicates the murderers of
    S. Thomas, 79;
    sends envoys to Henry, 80

  Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, i. 83, 94, 303, 304

  Alfhun, master of S. Bartholomew’s hospital, i. 67

  Alfonso II., king of Aragon, ii. 133;
    helps Richard in Aquitaine, 230, 231

  Alfonso VIII., king of Castille, marries Eleanor, daughter of
    Henry II., ii. 60;
    submits his quarrel with Navarre to Henry’s arbitration, 190

  Alfonso Jordan, count of Toulouse, i. 455, 456, 458

  Alfred of Beverley, ii. 445, 446

  Alice of Maurienne betrothed to John Lackland, ii. 132–134;
    dies, 184

  Almeric of Montfort, i. 232, 236, 237, 238, 241

  Almeric, viscount of Thouars, ii. 395, 427, 428

  Alnwick, ii. 161

  Amboise, i. 105, 106;
    house of the Angevin counts at, 151;
    Odo’s last attack on, 163.
    _See_ Lisoy, Sulpice

  Ambrières, i. 209, 211

  Anagni, _see_ John

  Andegavi, i. 97

  Andely, Isle of, ii. 376, 377;
    besieged by Philip, 411, 412;
    John’s attempt to relieve it, 413–415;
    taken, 416

  Andely, Nouvel or Petit, ii. 377;
    taken by Philip, 416;
    fate of its townsfolk, 417, 418

  _Andes_, i. 97, 130

  Andrew of London, i. 363

  Angareth, wife of William de Barri, ii. 453

  Angers (Juliomagus), i. 98;
    its position as a border-fortress, 101;
    seized by northmen, 103;
    relieved by Charles the Bald, _ib._, 104;
    its aspect in tenth century, 108;
    palace of the counts, 109, 132–134, 165;
    of the bishops, 133;
    fires at, _ib._, 152;
    R. Diceto’s description of, 134;
    Henry I. of France at, 213;
    betrayed to Fulk Rechin, 220;
    Urban II. at, 225;
    burghers of, revolt against Fulk V., 234;
    Fulk Nerra’s buildings at, 165;
    abbeys of S. Aubin and S. Sergius at, 98;
    our Lady of Charity (Ronceray), 165;
    S. Nicolas, _ib._, 172, 214, 225, 228;
    Henry II.’s buildings at, ii. 197, 199, 200;
    Henry and his sons at, 224;
    given up to Arthur, 389;
    seized by his friends, 407;
    retaken by John, 428;
    bishops, _see_ Albinus, Dodo, Rainald, Raino, Ulger

  Angevin March, the, i. 101;
    its extent, 130

  Angevins, _see_ Anjou

  Angoulême, disputed succession, ii. 220.
    _See_ Ademar, Isabel, Matilda, Vulgrin, William

  Anjou, its geographical position and character, i. 97;
    political position, 106, 107;
    its character as a marchland, 107;
    its golden age, 113;
    sources of its history, 126, 127;
    county of, “bipartite,” 128, 129, 130;
    its extent, 97, 130;
    dependence on the duchy of France, 130;
    condition at Fulk Rechin’s death, 229;
    placed under interdict, 242;
    revolts of the barons, 266–267, 343;
    rebels in (1173), ii. 136;
    condition under Henry II., 194–196;
    John acknowledged in, 388;
    accepts Arthur, 389;
    submits to Philip, 425;
    counts of, their origin, i. 105;
    character, 108;
    palace at Angers, 109, 132–134, 165;
    burial-place, 117, note 3{263};
    claims upon Nantes, 116, 117;
    upon Maine, i. 124, 140–142;
    the demon-countess, 143;
    house at Amboise, 151;
    rivalry with Blois, 145, 150, 188, 271, 279;
    extinction of the male line, 214;
    decline after Martel’s death, 215, 218;
    relations with France, 164; ii. 357;
    growth of their power, 187, 188;
    career in Palestine, 239;
    their work for England, 490, 492.
    _See_ Elias, Fulk, Geoffrey, Guy, Henry, Hermengard, Ingelger,
    Lambert, Matilda, Odo, Robert, Sibyl, William

  Annonain, Pont de l’, ii. 200, 201

  Anselm, S., archbishop of Canterbury, i. 8, 9;
    his struggle with Henry I., 15–18;
    consecrates Malchus to Waterford, ii. 89;
    dies, i. 63;
    proposal to canonize him, ii. 14

  Aquitaine, its relations with France, i. 123, 145, 383, 456, 457;
    ii. 202;
    extent and history, i. 454;
    granted to Richard, ii. 62;
    rebels in (1173), 136;
    country and people, 201, 203–205;
    its importance for England, 201;
    relations with Henry II., 203, 205;
    risings in, 58, 109, 220;
    submits, 230;
    proposal to give it to John, 233;
    restored to Richard, 247.
    _See_ Eleanor, Odo, Richard, William

  _Aquitania_, i. 99, 454

  Aragon, _see_ Alfonso, Ramirez, Petronilla

  Arcelles, _see_ Saher

  Archambald, brother of Sulpice of Amboise, i. 194

  Architecture, English, in twelfth century, i. 55

  Aremburg of Maine, betrothed to Geoffrey Martel II., i. 226;
    marries Fulk V., 232;
    dies, 245

  Argentan, i. 373; ii. 79, 80

  Aristotle, study of, in the middle ages, ii. 466, 467

  Arles, _see_ Bertha, Burgundy, Provence, William

  Armagh, synod at, ii. 105.
    _See_ Malachi

  Arms, Assize of, ii. 177, 178

  Arnold, count of Aerschot, i. 362

  Arnulf, bishop of Lisieux, i. 500;
    persuades Henry II. to acknowledge Pope Alexander, 501;
    advises Henry to appeal against Thomas, ii. 65;
    rebels, 140

  Arques, i. 342; ii. 405, 406, 425

  Arthur, King, i. 33;
    Henry II.’s correspondence with, ii. 57 note 2{226}, 447;
    invention and translation of, 447, 448;
    romances of, 448, 449

  Arthur, son of Geoffrey and Constance of Britanny, born, ii. 245;
    recognized by Richard as his heir, 295;
    in custody of Philip, 370;
    joins Richard, 374;
    acknowledged in Anjou, Touraine and Maine, 389;
    does homage to Philip, 390;
    quarrels with Philip and goes to John, 394;
    flies, 395;
    does homage to John, 397;
    knighted, 404;
    meets the Lusignans at Tours, 405;
    besieges Mirebeau, 406;
    captured, _ib._;
    imprisoned, 407;
    death, 408, 429, 430;
    its consequences, 409

  Arundel, i. 10, 309.
    _See_ William

  Assize of Arms, ii. 177, 178;
    of Clarendon, 122, 123;
    of the Forest, 177;
    Great, 122;
    Henry Fitz-Aylwine’s, 485;
    of Measures, 348;
    of _Mort d’ancester_, 172;
    of Northampton, 172, 173;
    later developements, 338–340

  Aubigny, _see_ William

  Aubrey de Vere, i. 305

  Augustinians, _see_ Canons

  _Aulerci Cenomanni_, i. 201, 202

  Aumale, _see_ William

  Austin canons, _see_ Canons

  Austria, _see_ Leopold

  Autun, _see_ Lambert

  Auvergne, its feudal relations, ii. 202, 203;
    attacked by Philip, 252;
    Richard gives up his claims upon, 361

  Auxerre, Thomas Becket studies at, i. 379

  Avesgaud, bishop of Le Mans, i. 159 note 4{343}, 204, 205

  Avice of Gloucester betrothed to John Lackland, ii. 184;
    married, 282;
    divorced, 398

  Avranches, ii. 81

  Axholm, ii. 152, 155

  Azay, conference at, ii. 263


  Baggamore, i. 291

  “Baille-hache,” i. 353, 354

  Bailleul, _see_ Bernard, Jocelyn

  Baldwin II., king of Jerusalem, i. 246

  Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem, ii. 239

  Baldwin IV., king of Jerusalem, ii. 239, 247

  Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, takes the cross, ii. 248;
    preaches the crusade in Wales, 249;
    opposes John’s marriage, 282;
    dies, 296, 297;
    his proposed college, 437

  Baldwin, count of Flanders, i. 235

  Baldwin of Clare, i. 318, 320

  Baldwin of Redvers, i. 284

  Balliol, _see_ Bernard, Jocelyn

  Ballon, ii. 394

  Bamborough, i. 288

  Bar, i. 167

  Barcelona, county of, i. 462.
    _See_ Raymond-Berengar

  Barnwell priory, ii. 463

  Barri, _see_ Gerald, William

  Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter, i. 506

  Bath, i. 35, 296.
    _See_ Adelard

  Bayeux, i. 11, 307.
    _See_ Ralf

  Baynard’s Castle, i. 44

  Beauchamp, _see_ Miles

  Beaugency, council at, i. 392

  Beaulieu abbey (Hants), ii. 400

  Beaulieu abbey (Touraine), i. 154, 155, 168

  Beaumont, _see_ Hermengard

  Beauvais, council at, i. 502

  Becket, _see_ Gilbert, Rohesia, Thomas

  Bedford, i. 320

  Bela III., king of Hungary, marries Margaret of France, ii. 235

  Bellême, house of, i. 204.
    _See_ Robert

  Benedictines contrasted with the Cistercians, i. 73

  “Bene-work,” i. 57

  Berengaria of Navarre, wife of Richard I., ii. 295, 296

  Bermondsey, council at, i. 427

  Bernard, S., abbot of Clairvaux, i. 70, 72;
    his influence, 359;
    relations with Rome, 360, 361;
    with S. Malachi, ii. 94;
    plans for England, i. 364;
    pleads for Gerald of Montreuil, 388;
    recommends John of Salisbury to Abp. Theobald, 483;
    death, 400

  Bernard de Balliol, ii. 145, 161

  Berry, its feudal relations, ii. 202;
    war in, 245, 251, 252

  Bertha of Arles, widow of Odo I. of Blois, marries King Robert,
    i. 149;
    separated, _ib._

  Bertha, daughter of Odo of Blois, wife of Alan of Britanny, i. 205;
    of Hugh II. of Maine, 206

  Bertha, daughter of Conan III. of Britanny, i. 449

  Bertrada of Montfort, marries Fulk Rechin, i. 223, 224;
    elopes with King Philip, 224;
    suspected of contriving her stepson’s death, 228;
    her policy, 232

  Bertrand de Born, ii. 204, 205;
    stirs up revolt in Aquitaine, 209, 220, 366;
    his _sirvente_ for Toulouse, 211, 212;
    sets the young king against Richard, 222;
    submits, 231;
    enters a monastery, 371

  Bertrand, count of Toulouse and Tripoli, i. 455

  Beverley, i. 30, 37, 38.
    _See_ Alfred

  Béziers, _see_ Raymond

  Bigod, _see_ Hugh

  Biota of Maine, i. 217, 218, 254

  Bishops, English, their political position, i. 20;
    appeal against Thomas, ii. 67.
    _See_ Church

  Blanche of Castille, daughter of Alfonso and Eleanor, ii. 395, 397

  Blanche, _see_ Adelaide

  Blanchelande, i. 223, 257

  Bloet, _see_ Robert

  Blois, counts of, their rivalry with Anjou, i. 145, 150, 188;
    their character, 150.
    _See_ Adela, Bertha, Henry, Odo, Stephen, Theobald, William

  Blondel, ii. 324

  Bodmin, gild at, ii. 469

  “Bogis,” Peter, ii. 421, 422

  Bohun, _see_ Humfrey

  Bologna, university of, ii. 460;
    S. Thomas at, i. 379

  Bonmoulins, conference at, ii. 254, 255

  Bonneville, i. 307;
    council at, ii. 157

  “Boon-work,” i. 57

  Bordeaux, _see_ William

  Born, _see_ Bertrand

  Bosham, _see_ Herbert

  Boulogne, _see_ Matilda, Matthew, Mary, William

  Bourbon, _see_ Hermengard

  Bourges, its feudal relations, ii. 202

  Bourgthéroulde, battle of, i. 241

  Brabantines, ii. 223

  Breakspear, _see_ Nicolas

  Breffny, ii. 97

  Brenneville, battle of, i. 237

  Brian Boroimhe, king of Munster, ii. 85

  Brian Fitz-Count, i. 243, 328, 396;
    his “book,” 369

  Bridgenorth, sieges of, i. 10, 429, 430

  Brissarthe, i. 103

  Bristol, i. 33, 34, 295, 296;
    its slave-trade, 35, ii. 87;
    Stephen’s attempt on, i. 296, 297;
    ill-doings of its garrison, 297;
    Dermot of Leinster at, ii. 98, 99;
    Henry II.’s charters to, 118

  Britanny, i. 99;
    its extent under Herispoë, 102 note 1{236}, 130;
    civil wars in, 115;
    Geoffrey Martel’s dealings with, 211, 212;
    claimed by Eudo of Porhoët and Conan of Richmond, 449;
    granted by Henry II. to Conan, 451;
    Henry’s designs on, 452, 453;
    conquered by Henry, ii. 57, 58;
    rebels in (1173), 137;
    barons of, appeal to Philip against John, 408.
    _See_ Alan, Arthur, Conan, Constance, Eleanor, Geoffrey, Herispoë,
    Hoel, Juhel, Nomenoë, Odo, Solomon

  Broc, _see_ Ralf

  Bruce, _see_ Adam, Robert

  Brulon, _see_ Geoffrey

  Burchard, count of Vendôme, i. 149, 189

  Burgundy, kingdom of, granted to Richard I., ii. 331.
    _See_ Hugh, Robert, Rudolf.


  Cadoc, ii. 416, 421, 425

  Cadwallader, brother of Owen of North Wales, i. 435

  Caen, surrendered to Henry I., i. 11;
    to Geoffrey Plantagenet, 307;
    to Philip, ii. 424;
    hospital, i. 471; ii. 198;
    palace, ii. 196, 197.
    _See_ Robert

  _Cæsarodunum_, _see_ Tours

  Cahors, i. 464, 466

  Calixtus II., Pope, i. 237

  Cambridge, ii. 462, 463

  Camville, _see_ Gerard

  Candé, i. 228

  Canons, Austin or Augustinian, their origin, i. 64, 65;
    character, 43, 66, 357;
    in England, 66–69.
    _See_ Aldgate, Barnwell, Carlisle, Chiche, Kirkham, Nostell, Oseney,
    Oxford, Smithfield

  Canons, White, i. 357

  Canon law, its effects in England, ii. 18

  Canterbury, canons of Laon visit, i. 30;
    plot to kill Henry Fitz-Empress at, 403;
    Thomas elected at, ii. 3;
    privilege of the archbishop to crown the king, 62;
    S. Thomas slain at, 79;
    Henry II.’s penance at, 159;
    Louis VII. at, 216;
    Philip of Flanders at, 235;
    Richard at, 328;
    John crowned at, 400.
    _See_ Anselm, Baldwin, Geoffrey, Hubert, John, Ralf, Richard, Roger,
    Theobald, Thomas, Walter, William

  Capua, _see_ Peter

  _Caputii_, ii. 223, 224

  Carcassonne, _see_ Raymond Trencavel

  Carham, i. 286, 287, 292.
    _See_ Wark

  Carlisle, i. 36, 37;
    S. Godric at, 76;
    council at, 300;
    Henry Fitz-Empress knighted at, 377;
    meeting of Henry and Malcolm IV. at, 462;
    besieged by William the Lion, ii. 153, 154;
    meeting of William and Henry at, 237;
    earldom of, granted to Henry of Scotland, i. 282;
    claimed by Ralf of Chester, 314;
    see of, 37, 69

  Carrick, ii. 109, 111

  Carthusians, ii. 435, 436 note 1{2171}

  Carucage of 1194, ii. 328, 329, 342;
    the Great, 352–354

  Carucate, ii. 352

  Cashel, metropolis of Munster, ii. 94;
    council at, 115

  Castille, _see_ Alfonso, Blanche, Constance, Eleanor

  Castle Cary, i. 295, 298

  Celestine II., Pope, i. 355, 356

  Celestine III., Pope, ii. 303, 304, 312, 351

  Celle, _see_ Peter

  _Cenomanni_ (_Aulerci_), i. 201, 202

  Cenomannia, _see_ Maine

  Châlus, ii. 382, 385

  Champagne, _see_ Henry, Odo, Stephen, Theobald

  Chancellor, the, his office, i. 22, 419.
    _See_ Geoffrey, Matthew, Nigel, Ralf, Robert, Roger, Waldric,
    William

  Charles the Bald, Emperor, i. 99, 102, 103, 105

  Charles the Fat, king of West-Frankland and Emperor, i. 104

  Charles the Simple, king of West-Frankland, i. 104

  Charter of Henry I., i. 8;
    Henry II., 427;
    Stephen, 279, 284

  Chartres, _see_ Blois

  Château-Gaillard, ii. 375–380;
    siege, 416–423;
    John’s buildings at, 413, 421, 422

  Châteaudun, i. 156.
    _See_ Landry

  Châteaulandon, _see_ Gâtinais

  Château-du-Loir, i. 390.
    _See_ Gervase

  Châteauneuf-sur-Sarthe, i. 267

  Châteauneuf, _see_ Tours

  Châteauroux, ii. 211, 213, 245, 251

  Châtillon, conference at, ii. 253

  Chaumont-sur-Loire, i. 272 note 1{662}, 471

  Chef-Boutonne, battle of, i. 215, 252, 253

  Cherbourg, siege of, i. 340

  Chester, i. 36;
    its slave-trade, _ib._, ii. 87;
    meeting of Henry II. and Malcolm IV. at, i. 438;
    privileges granted to its burghers at Dublin, ii. 484;
    earldom of, its peculiar character, i. 313, 314.
    _See_ Hugh, Ralf

  Chiche, priory of S. Osyth at, i. 68, 80

  Chichester, _see_ Hilary

  Chinon won by Fulk Nerra, i. 167;
    Geoffrey the Bearded imprisoned at, 221;
    bequeathed to Geoffrey Plantagenet II., 394, 444;
    councils at, ii. 58, 64;
    Henry II.’s buildings at, 197, 200;
    treasury at, plundered by Richard, 246;
    Henry II. at, 263, 267;
    given up to John, 388, 395;
    taken by Philip, 426

  Chouzy, conference at, ii. 13

  Christchurch or Twinham, i. 32

  Chrodegang of Metz, rule of, i. 65

  Chronicle, English, i. 81, 82

  Church, English, under Henry I., i. 63;
    the Augustinian revival, 64–69;
    the Cistercian revival, 69–74;
    new sees, 68, 69;
    its national character, 80;
    political position of the bishops, 20;
    condition during the anarchy, 347–360;
    relations with Rome, 378;
    position at accession of Henry II., 474;
    vacant sees (1161), 503;
    Henry’s schemes of reform, ii. 17–20;
    question of the “two swords,” _ib._ 22, 23;
    quarrel of Henry and Thomas, its effects, 46–50;
    course of the revival after Theobald’s death, 432;
    condition in Henry II.’s later years, 433–438.
    _See_ Clergy

  Church, Irish, its early glory, ii. 82, 86;
    condition in eleventh and twelfth centuries, 91–93;
    settlement at Synod of Kells, 94;
    submits to Henry II., 115

  Circuits, _see_ Justices

  Cirencester, i. 330, 333

  Cistercians or White Monks, their origin, i. 69, 70;
    in England, 71;
    work and influence, 74, 358, 359;
    quarrel with John, ii. 396, 399, 400;
    fall, 434, 435.
    _See_ Cîteaux, Clairvaux, Fountains, Newminster, Pontigny, Rievaux,
    Tintern, Waverley

  Cîteaux, i. 70

  Clairvaux (abbey), i. 70; ii. 70, 94

  Clairvaux (castle), ii. 222, 224

  Clare, _see_ Baldwin, Gilbert, Isabel, Richard, Roger, Walter

  Clarendon, council of, ii. 25–28, 44, 45;
    Constitutions of, 26, 27;
    condemned by the Pope, 42;
    Assize of, 46, 122, 123

  Cleobury, i. 429

  Clergy, their position under Henry I., i. 63, 64;
    regular and secular, 64, 65;
    attitude in the civil war, 321;
    criminal clerks, ii. 19.
    _See_ Church

  Clerkenwell, council at, ii. 241

  Clontarf, battle of, ii. 85

  Cogan, _see_ Miles

  Coinage, debasement under Stephen, i. 293;
    new, in 1149, 402 note 1{1204};
    in 1158, 453

  Colechurch, _see_ Peter

  Cöln, gildhall of its citizens in London, ii. 485.
    _See_ Reginald

  Colombières, conference at, ii. 265, 266

  Commune of Le Mans, i. 222;
    Gloucester, ii. 469;
    London, 309, 310, 344;
    York, 469

  Conan the Crooked, count of Rennes and duke of Britanny, i. 121;
    his war with Geoffrey Greygown, 122, 137–139;
    with Fulk the Black, 146–148

  Conan II., duke of Britanny, i. 211, 212, 220

  Conan III., duke of Britanny, i. 449

  Conan, earl of Richmond, claims Britanny, i. 449;
    duke, 451;
    dies, ii. 80

  Conquereux, first battle of, i. 122, 138;
    second, 147, 148

  Connaught invaded by Miles Cogan, ii. 184.
    _See_ Roderic, Terence

  Conrad III., Emperor, i. 361

  Conrad, marquis of Montferrat, ii. 320, 321

  Consilt, battle of, i. 436

  Constables, _see_ Henry, Humfrey

  Constance of Arles, wife of Robert I. of France, i. 155;
    her parents, 190, 192;
    her policy, 160, 164

  Constance of Britanny, daughter of Conan IV., betrothed to Geoffrey,
    son of Henry II., ii. 57;
    married, 233;
    marries Ralf of Chester, 369;
    imprisoned, 370;
    joins Arthur in Anjou, 389;
    does homage to Philip, 390;
    marries Guy of Thouars, 395;
    dies, 404, note 4{2050}

  Constance of Castille, second wife of Louis VII. of France, i. 446,
    468

  Constance of France, daughter of Louis VI., betrothed to Stephen’s son
    Eustace, i. 384;
    marries him, 394;
    marries Raymond V. of Toulouse, 458

  Constance, heiress of Sicily, ii. 319

  Constantine, Donation of, ii. 95

  Constitutions of Clarendon, ii. 26, 27;
    condemned by the Pope, 42

  Corbeil, _see_ William

  Cork, its origin, ii. 83.
    _See_ Dermot

  Cornwall, _see_ Reginald, William

  Coroners, their origin, ii. 338, 339

  Councils, _see_ Argentan, Armagh, Beaugency, Beauvais, Bermondsey,
   Bonneville, Carlisle, Cashel, Clarendon, Clerkenwell, Chinon,
   Geddington, Gloucester, Inispatrick, Kells, Lisieux, London,
   Neufmarché, Northampton, Nottingham, Oxford, Pavia, Pipewell,
   Poitiers, Rathbreasil, Tours, Wallingford, Westminster,
   Woodstock, Würzburg, York

  Council, the Great, its character, i. 20

  Courcy, _see_ John, William

  Coutances, _see_ Walter

  Coventry, _see_ Hugh

  Cowton Moor, i. 289

  Cricklade, i. 335

  Cross, S., _see_ Winchester

  Crowmarsh, i. 336, 396

  Crown, pleas of the, ii. 337

  Crusade, the second, i. 361–363;
    in Spain, proposed by Louis VII. and Henry II., 453, 497;
    the third, ii. 318–321

  _Curia Regis_, _see_ King’s Court

  Customs, “paternal,” i. 16;
    royal, ii. 22, 26, 27;
    of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, i. 37

  Cyprus, ii. 317, 321


  Danegeld, i. 25;
    abolished, ii. 16, 44

  David I., king of Scots, i. 95;
    invades England, 282, 286, 287, 288;
    defeated at Cowton Moor, 289–291;
    treaties with Stephen, 282, 300;
    joins the Empress in London, 323;
    escapes from Winchester, 328;
    knights Henry Fitz-Empress, 377;
    dies, 399

  David, prince of North-Wales, marries Henry II.’s sister Emma, ii. 181

  David, bishop of S. David’s, ii. 454

  David, brother of William of Scotland, ii. 140, 153;
    claims on Huntingdon and Northampton, 154

  David or Hugh, count of Maine, i. 124, 140

  David’s, S., bishops of, _see_ David, Peter

  Defensor of Le Mans, i. 202

  Denis, S., _see_ Suger

  Denmark, _see_ Ingebiorg

  Déols, ii. 211

  Dermot Mac-Carthy, king of Cork or South Munster, ii. 114

  Dermot Mac-Maelnambo, king of Leinster, ii. 87, 88

  Dermot Mac-Murrough, king of Leinster, ii. 97;
    seeks aid of Henry II., 98;
    returns to Ireland, 100;
    successes in Ossory etc., 102;
    summons Richard of Striguil, 103;
    dies, 106

  Dervorgil, wife of Tighernan O’Ruark, ii. 97

  Devizes, i. 304, 321, 330

  _Dialogus de Scaccario_, i. 26

  Diceto, _see_ Ralf

  Dinan, _see_ Joceas

  Dodo, bishop of Angers, i. 109, 133

  Dol, ii. 148

  Domfront, i. 6, 208, 209

  Donatus, bishop of Dublin, ii. 87

  Doncaster, earldom of, granted to Henry of Scotland, i. 282

  Donell O’Brien, king of Limerick or North Munster, ii. 102, 103, 109,
    111, 114

  Donell O’Lochlainn, king of Aileach, ii. 90

  Donell Kavanagh, ii. 109, 112

  Dorchester, _see_ Remigius

  Dover, i. 295, 299;
    chief mart of the wool trade, 52;
    Geoffrey of York arrested at, ii. 305, 306.
    _See_ Simon, William

  Drausius, S., ii. 65

  Dress, English, in twelfth century, i. 56

  Dreux, _see_ Robert

  Drogo of Nantes, son of Alan Barbetorte, i. 115, 116

  Dublin, its origin, ii. 83;
    metropolis of Leinster, 94;
    taken by Dermot etc., 105;
    attacked by wikings, 106;
    blockaded by Roderic O’Conor, 109;
    Henry II. at, 114, 115;
    colonized by Henry, 118;
    privileges of the Chester merchants at, 484.
    _See_ Donatus, Godred, Gregory, Laurence, Patrick

  Dudley, i. 295, 298

  Dulcia of Gévaudan, i. 463

  Dunstan, S., lives of, i. 80

  Dunster, i. 295

  Durham, S. Godric at, i. 77;
    cathedral, 80;
    treaty made at, 300;
    customs of the bishop’s estates in 1183, ii. 478–480.
    _See_ Hugh, Ralf, Simeon, William


  Eadgyth or Edith, S., i. 33

  Eadgyth, _see_ Matilda

  Eadmer, i. 80, 88

  Eadward the Confessor, king of England, his prophecy, i. 1;
    his laws demanded by the citizens of London, 324

  Eadwulf, prior of Nostell and confessor to Henry I., i. 68;
    bishop of Carlisle, 69

  Ealdhelm, S., i. 84, 86, 90;
    life by Faricius, 81

  Earldoms created by Stephen, i. 293

  Edith, _see_ Eadgyth

  Edmund’s, S., Henry II. at, i. 430;
    massacre of Jews at, ii. 289;
    its customs, 473, 474;
    merchant-gild, 481;
    dispute with Ely, 482, 483

  Eleanor of Aquitaine, daughter of William IX., marries Louis VII. of
    France, i. 383;
    divorced, 392;
    marries Henry, 393;
    claims on Toulouse, 457, 458;
    attempt to divorce her from Henry, ii. 61;
    turns against him, 129;
    imprisoned, 135;
    Richard gives up Aquitaine to, 235;
    regent for Richard, 273, 282;
    arranges his marriage, 295, 296;
    negotiates at Rome, 303;
    returns to England, 314;
    ravages Anjou, and does homage to Philip, 390;
    goes to Spain, 396;
    retires to Fontevraud, 405;
    besieged in Mirebeau, 406;
    dies, 426

  Eleanor, daughter of Henry II., marries Alfonso of Castille, ii. 60,
    189

  Eleanor of Britanny, daughter of Geoffrey and Constance, ii. 244, 325,
    371

  Elias, count of Maine, i. 224, 225;
    war with William Rufus, 225, 226;
    Le Mans surrendered to, 227;
    relations with Henry I., 11, 227, 233;
    marriages, 255;
    death, 233

  Elias of Anjou, son of Fulk V., i. 343

  Elias of Saint-Saëns, i. 235

  Elizabeth of Hainaut, first wife of Philip Augustus, ii. 217, 234,
    note 7{1115}

  Elizabeth of Vendôme, first wife of Fulk Nerra, i. 152

  Ely, see of, founded, i. 68;
    quarrel with S. Edmund’s, ii. 482, 483.
    _See_ Geoffrey, Nigel

  Emma, daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet, ii. 181

  Emperors, _see_ Charles, Conrad, Frederic, Henry, Otto

  Engelram of Trie, i. 467

  England under the Angevins, i. 1–3;
    relations with Rome, 15;
    with Normandy, 23, 24;
    invaded by Robert Curthose, 9;
    journey of canons of Laon in, 30–35;
    its peace under Henry I., 48;
    Flemings settle in, 52;
    town life in twelfth century, 54, 55;
    rural life, 56–62;
    revival under Henry I., 64–95;
    religious revival during the anarchy, 356–358;
    effects of the second Crusade, 362;
    rebels in (1173), ii. 138, 139;
    loyal barons in, 144, 145;
    rebel castles in the north, 152;
    royal strongholds, 153;
    condition of rural population under the Angevins, 473–480;
    fusion of races, 489;
    growth of national feeling, 489.
    _See_ Church, Literature, Towns, Trade.
    _See also_ Eadward, Eleanor, Henry, John, Jane, Matilda, Richard,
    Stephen, William

  “English” and “French,” i. 24

  “English” and “Normans,” different meanings of, i. 23, 24

  English and Normans, fusion of, i. 24, 48, 49; ii. 489, 490

  Englishry, presentment of, abolished, ii. 489

  Essex, _see_ Geoffrey, Henry, William

  Este, _see_ Hugh

  Euclid, Adelard of Bath’s version of, ii. 95

  Eudo, count of Porhoët, i. 449

  Eugene III., Pope, i. 361;
    deposes S. William and consecrates Henry Murdac, 366;
    suspends Henry of Winchester and threatens Stephen, 368;
    makes Abp. Theobald legate, 380;
    forbids the crowning of Eustace, 391;
    dies, 400

  Eustace, son of Stephen, king of England, does homage to Louis VI.
    for Normandy, i. 286;
    knighted, 377;
    goes to York, 380;
    his prospects, 382;
    goes to France, 383;
    betrothed to Constance, 384;
    attacks Normandy, 385;
    receives homage, 391;
    proposal to crown him, _ib._;
    marriage, 394;
    character, 398;
    death, 399

  Eustace Fitz-John, i. 72, 288

  Eva, daughter of Dermot Mac-Murrough, ii. 104

  Evreux ceded to Henry I., i. 11, 62;
    betrayed to Almeric of Montfort, 236;
    fired by Henry I., _ib._, 237;
    granted to Almeric, 238;
    taken by Philip Augustus, ii. 389;
    ceded to him, 396.
    _See_ Simon

  Exchequer, court of, i. 21;
    organization under Bishop Roger, 25–27;
    headquarters, 31;
    Black Book of, ii. 125;
    the Norman Exchequer, 194, 197

  Exeter, i. 32, 284.
    _See_ Bartholomew

  Eynesford, _see_ William


  Falaise besieged by Henry I., i. 11;
    attacked by Geoffrey Plantagenet, 307;
    submits, 338;
    treaties at, ii. 165, 166;
    Arthur imprisoned at, 407;
    submits to Philip, 424

  Faricius, abbot of Abingdon, i. 68 note 1{187}, 81

  Farringdon, i. 335

  Faye, _see_ Ralf

  Ferm of the shire, i. 25;
    of towns, 29

  Ferrers, _see_ Robert

  Ferté-Bernard, La, conference at, ii. 257

  Finchale, i. 77, 78

  Fitz-Alan, _see_ William

  Fitz-Aldhelm, _see_ William

  Fitz-Aylwine, _see_ Henry

  Fitz-Count, _see_ Brian, Richard

  Fitz-David, _see_ Miles

  Fitz-Duncan, _see_ William

  Fitz-Gerald, _see_ Maurice

  Fitz-John, _see_ Eustace, William

  Fitz-Osbert, _see_ William

  Fitz-Peter, _see_ Geoffrey, Simon

  Fitz-Ralf, _see_ William

  Fitz-Stephen, _see_ Robert, William

  Fitz-Urse, _see_ Reginald

  Flambard, _see_ Ralf

  Flanders granted to William the Clito, i. 243;
    trade with England, 30, 51, 52.
    _See_ Baldwin, Matthew, Philip, Theodoric

  Flèche, La, i. 222, 223, 256, 257

  Flemings, their settlements in England and Wales, i. 52, 53;
    in England under Stephen, 285;
    plot to kill Henry, 403;
    expelled, 427;
    land in Suffolk, ii. 155;
    at Hartlepool, 162

  Fleury, abbey, i. 112

  Florence, S., of Saumur, i. 162

  Florence of Worcester, i. 82, 88, 89, 90

  Foliot, _see_ Gilbert

  Folkmoot of London, i. 45

  Fontevraud, i. 248;
    Henry II. buried at, ii. 270–272;
    Richard buried at, ii. 386;
    Eleanor at, 385, 405

  Forest, assizes of, i. 285; ii. 171, 177, 356

  Fornham, battle at, ii. 150

  Foss-Dyke, i. 40

  Foss-Way, i. 38

  Fougères, _see_ Ralf

  Fountains abbey, i. 71–73;
    burnt, 366

  France, duchy of, _see_ French

  France, kingdom of, character of its early history, i. 144;
    condition under Hugh Capet, 145;
    under Louis VI., 230;
    relations with Normandy, 24, 111;
    with Toulouse, 457, 458;
    with Rome, 501, 502;
    union with Aquitaine, 383;
    its developement, ii. 357–361.
    _See_ Adela, Constance, Henry, Hugh, Louis, Margaret, Mary, Odo,
    Philip, Robert

  Frankland, West, northmen in, i. 100.
    _See_ Charles, Lothar, Louis, Odo, Robert, Rudolf

  Frederic Barbarossa, Emperor, supports antipope Victor IV., i. 498;
    relations with Henry II., 499; ii. 55, 60, 238;
    banishes Henry the Lion, 238, 257;
    takes the cross, 256;
    dies, 318

  French, dukes of the, extent of their duchy, i. 103, 105;
    underfiefs, 105;
    claims upon Maine, 124.
    _See_ Hugh, Odo, Robert

  “French and English,” i. 24

  Fréteval, ii. 73, 366

  Fritheswith or Frideswide, S., i. 43.
    _See_ Oxford

  Fulk the Red, first count of Anjou, i. 106;
    his neighbours, 109;
    political position, 109, 110;
    marriage, 110;
    death, 113;
    chronology of his life, 128, 129, 132

  Fulk II. the Good, count of Anjou, i. 113;
    his rule, 113, 115;
    canon of S. Martin’s, 114;
    letter to Louis IV., _ib._;
    marriages, 116;
    claims upon Nantes, _ib._;
    death, 117;
    vision of S. Martin, 118;
    prophecy made to, _ib._;
    its fulfilment, ii. 187, 373

  Fulk III., the Black, count of Anjou, his mother, i. 136;
    surnames, 143, note 2{294};
    character, 144;
    significance of his life, 145, 146, 169;
    war with Conan of Rennes, 146, 147;
    regains Anjou west of Mayenne, 148;
    attacks Blois, 149;
    rivalry with Odo II., 150;
    castle-building, 151;
    seizure of the water-ways, 151–152;
    first marriage, 152;
    first pilgrimage, 153, 192;
    founds Beaulieu abbey, 153–155;
    marries Hildegard, 154;
    second pilgrimage, 156, 192–195;
    his oath, 155;
    contrives the death of Hugh of Beauvais, _ib._;
    sacks Châteaudun, 156;
    alliance with Maine, _ib._;
    victory at Pontlevoy, 157, 158;
    subdues Hugh of Maine, 159;
    imprisons Herbert of Maine, _ib._;
    invested with Saintes, _ib._, 173;
    fortifies Montboyau, 161;
    takes Saumur, 162;
    besieges Montbazon, 163;
    treaty with Odo, _ib._;
    his policy and its success, 164;
    makes peace between Constance and her son, _ib._;
    joins King Henry’s expedition against Sens, _ib._;
    his home, 165;
    buildings at Angers, _ib._;
    third pilgrimage, 166, 195, 196;
    rebellion of his son, 166, 195;
    wins Chinon, 167;
    fourth pilgrimage, 167, 168;
    quarrels with his son, 172, 175;
    death, 168;
    his tomb, _ib._;
    his work, 169, 188

  Fulk IV. Rechin, son of Geoffrey of Gâtinais and Hermengard of Anjou,
    invested with Saintonge, i. 214;
    his character, 219;
    intrigues against his brother, _ib._;
    wins Saumur and Angers, 220;
    captures Geoffrey, _ib._;
    does homage for Touraine, 221;
    cedes Gâtinais to France, _ib._;
    his rule, _ib._;
    drives Geoffrey of Mayenne from Le Mans, 222;
    besieges La Flèche, _ib._, 223, 257;
    receives Robert’s homage for Maine, 223;
    his marriages, 224;
    excommunicated, _ib._;
    absolved, 225;
    quarrels with his eldest son, 227, 228;
    dies, 229;
    his reign and its results, _ib._;
    his Angevin history, 127

  Fulk V., count of Anjou, i. 229;
    character and policy, 231, 232;
    marries Aremburg, 232;
    quarrel with Henry I. and alliance with France, 233;
    homage to Henry, 234;
    revolt of the burghers against, _ib._;
    joins league against Henry, 235;
    wins Alençon, 236;
    treaty with Henry, _ib._;
    goes to Jerusalem, 238;
    quarrel with Henry, 240;
    offers Maine to Clito, _ib._;
    imprisons the legate’s envoys, 242;
    marries Melisenda and becomes king of Jerusalem, 246–248;
    dies, 361

  Fulk the Gosling, count of Vendôme, i. 214


  Gaimar, _see_ Geoffrey

  Galloway, ii. 164, 179, 237

  Gandrea, wife of Theobald III. of Blois, i. 255, 256

  Gascony, Richard’s campaign in, ii. 214;
    revolt in, 316.
    _See_ Guy-Geoffrey, Odo

  Gatian, S., bishop of Tours, i. 179

  Gâtinais, county of, i. 129;
    ceded to France, 221;
    counts, 249, 250

  Gaubert of Mantes, ii. 415

  Geddington, council at, ii. 249

  Gelduin of Saumur, i. 161, 162

  Geoffrey I. Greygown, count of Anjou, i. 118;
    his character, 119;
    joins invasion of Lorraine, 120;
    his marriages, 121, 134–136;
    relations with Britanny, 121, 122, 137–139;
    with Maine, 124, 140–142;
    war with Poitou, 123, 137, 139;
    wins Loudun, 123, 124, 139;
    founds church of our Lady at Loches, 153;
    dies at siege of Marson, 125

  Geoffrey II. Martel, son of Fulk the Black, born, i. 154;
    nursed at Loches, _ib._;
    count of Vendôme, 172;
    quarrel with Fulk, _ib._, 175;
    marries Agnes, 136, 174, 197, 199;
    war with Poitou, 173–175;
    wins Saintonge, 174;
    rebels, 166, 195, 196;
    count of Anjou, 169;
    his character, 170–172;
    invested with Tours, 178;
    besieges it, 184;
    victory at Montlouis, 186;
    treaty with Theobald, 187;
    its significance, 188;
    advocate of see of Le Mans, 205;
    imprisons Bp. Gervase, 206;
    master of Maine, _ib._;
    excommunicated, _ib._;
    revolts, 207;
    wins Alençon and Domfront, 208;
    challenges William and retires, 209;
    war with Aquitaine, 210;
    besieges Ambrières, 211;
    dealings with Nantes, 211, 212;
    marries Grecia, 212;
    blockaded in Saumur, 213;
    joins invasion of Normandy, _ib._, 214;
    loses Vendôme, 214;
    dies, _ib._;
    break-up of his dominions, 215;
    dispute over them, 218;
    his heirs, 251–252

  Geoffrey III. the Bearded, count of Anjou, i. 214;
    victory at Chef-Boutonne, 215, 252, 253;
    receives Robert’s homage for Maine, 217;
    wrongs Marmoutier, 220;
    captured by Fulk, _ib._;
    imprisoned at Chinon, 221;
    released and dies, 228

  Geoffrey Martel II. of Anjou, son of Fulk Rechin, betrothed to
    Aremburg of Maine, i. 226;
    joins Henry I., 11;
    quarrel with Fulk, 227, 228;
    slain, 228

  Geoffrey V. Plantagenet, son of Fulk V. and Aremburg, knighted by
    Henry I., i. 244;
    marriage, _ib._, 258–260;
    his person and character, 261–265;
    quarrels with his wife, 266;
    with Henry, 269, 270;
    invades Normandy, 281, 306, 307;
    revolts against, 266, 267, 306, 343, 384;
    summoned to England, 330;
    treaty with Theobald, 337;
    conquers Normandy, 338–342;
    recalls his son, 343;
    challenge to Stephen, 369;
    cedes Normandy to his son, _ib._, 377;
    his siege of Montreuil, 384, 386;
    treatment of Gerald, 387;
    cedes the Vexin to Louis, 388;
    death, 389, 390;
    burial, 390;
    will, 444

  Geoffrey of Anjou, second son of Geoffrey and Matilda, born, i. 373;
    seeks to marry Eleanor, 393;
    rebels against Henry, 394, 395, 444, 445;
    count of Nantes, 449;
    dies, _ib._

  Geoffrey I., duke of Britanny, i. 137, 148

  Geoffrey, fourth son of Henry II. and Eleanor, born, i. 453;
    acknowledged heir to Britanny, ii. 58;
    duke, 80;
    revolts, 135;
    knighted, 214;
    joins young Henry, 225;
    submits, 232;
    marries Constance, 233;
    dies, 243

  Geoffrey, son of Henry II., bishop-elect of Lincoln, ii., 155;
    takes Kinardferry etc., _ib._;
    chancellor, 245;
    secures castles of Anjou, 256;
    with Henry at Le Mans, 258, 259, 260;
    at La Frênaye, 262;
    goes to Alençon, _ib._;
    rejoins Henry, 263;
    his devotion to Henry, 268;
    appointed archbishop of York, 274, 278, 302;
    early life, 301, 302;
    character, 304;
    consecrated, 305;
    returns to England, _ib._;
    arrested, _ib._;
    released, 306;
    joins John, 307;
    enthroned, 313;
    quarrel with Hugh of Durham, _ib._, 316;
    buys sheriffdom of Yorkshire, 330;
    driven from England, 335;
    redeems the Lincoln church-plate, 487

  Geoffrey (Alberic), count of Gâtinais, marries Hermengard of Anjou,
    i. 214, 249, 250

  Geoffrey of Brulon, ii. 259

  Geoffrey of Chaumont, i. 272, note 1{662}

  Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, justiciar, ii. 355, 356;
    earl of Essex, 393

  Geoffrey Gaimar, ii. 446

  Geoffrey of Lusignan, ii. 59 note 1{235}, 136, 250, 405

  Geoffrey of Mandeville, i. 334, 335

  Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex, ii. 124

  Geoffrey of Mayenne, i. 211;
    holds Le Mans for Walter of Mantes, 218;
    submits to William, _ib._;
    revolts, 221, 222, 224

  Geoffrey of Monmouth, ii. 445, 448

  Geoffrey of Rancogne, ii. 214, 250, 367

  Geoffrey Ridel, archdeacon of Canterbury, ii. 30, 77;
    vice-chancellor, 142;
    bishop of Ely, 176;
    dies, 277

  Geoffrey Talbot, i. 294, 296

  Gerald de Barri (“Giraldus Cambrensis”), ii. 452–460

  Gerald of Montreuil-Bellay, i. 384, 385, 386, 388

  Geraldines, the, ii. 108, 183

  Gerard de Camville, ii. 280, 298, 299, 300, 329

  Gerard la Pucelle, ii. 449

  Gerberga, wife of Fulk the Good, i. 116, note 1{258}

  Germany, English trade with, under the Angevins, ii. 484, 485

  Gersendis of Maine, i. 221, 254–256

  Gervase of Château-du-Loir, bishop of Le Mans, i. 205;
    imprisoned by Geoffrey Martel, 206;
    released, _ib._;
    archbishop of Reims, 207

  _Gesta Consulum Andegavensium_, its authorship and character, i. 126,
    127

  Gévaudan, _see_ Dulcia

  Gilbert of Sempringham, S., i. 359, 360

  Gilbert Becket, i. 50

  Gilbert Foliot, abbot of Gloucester, i. 369, 370, 493;
    bishop of Hereford, 371, 495;
    his earlier history, 492, 493;
    career as abbot, 494, 495;
    relations with Abp. Theobald and with Henry II., 495, 496;
    with Roger of Pont-l’Evêque, 478, 479;
    character, 496, 497;
    remarks on Thomas’s election, ii. 3, 6;
    translated to London, 13, 14;
    relations with Thomas, 13, 31, 49;
    at council of Northampton, 35, 36, 37, 39;
    his attitude in the Becket quarrel, 47–49;
    his share in the bishops’ appeal, 67;
    excommunicated, 70;
    denies the primate’s jurisdiction, _ib._;
    absolved, 72;
    dies, 277

  Gilbert, bishop of Limerick, ii. 92;
    legate in Ireland, _ib._, 93

  Gilbert de Clare, earl of Pembroke, i. 377, 395, 396; ii. 99

  Gilds, i. 29;
    under Henry II. and Richard, ii. 469, 470;
    leather-sellers’, i. 30;
    merchant, i. 29, 36, 40, 43; ii. 481;
    weavers’, i. 30, 52; ii. 481

  Gildhall, i. 129;
    of German merchants, ii. 485

  Gilles, St., _see_ Raymond

  Giraldus Cambrensis, _see_ Gerald

  Gisors, i. 231, 234, 343;
    meeting of Henry I. and Pope Calixtus at, 237, 238;
    of Louis VII. and Henry II. at, ii. 148, 165;
    claimed by Philip, 232, 236

  Glanville, _see_ Hervey, Ralf

  Glastonbury, invention of Arthur at, ii. 447, 448

  Gleeman, the, i. 90

  Gloucester, i. 35, 36;
    abbey and city, 493, 494;
    council at, ii. 170;
    commune at, 469.
    _See_ Avice, Gilbert, Miles, Philip, Robert, William

  Godfrey de Lucy, bishop of Winchester, ii. 277, 288

  Godfrey, abbot of Malmesbury, i. 84, 85

  Godred, king of Dublin, ii. 88

  Godric, S., i. 74–79

  “Goliath, Bishop,” ii. 452

  Gouleton, ii. 396, 402

  Gournay, ii. 403.
    _See_ Hugh

  Graçay, ii. 213, 361

  Grandmesnil, _see_ Ivo, Petronilla

  Grandmont, ii. 58, 226;
    order of, 435

  Gratian, his work on canon law, i. 378

  Grecia of Montreuil, second wife of Geoffrey Martel, i. 212

  Gregory, archbishop of Dublin, ii. 94

  Gregory, bishop of Tours, i. 181

  Gué-St.-Rémy, ii. 244

  Guerech, bishop and count of Nantes, i. 121, 122, 146

  Guimund, prior of S. Frideswide’s, Oxford, i. 43

  “Guirribecs,” i. 306

  Guy of Anjou (son of Fulk the Red), bishop of Soissons, i. 112, 113

  Guy of Anjou, son of Fulk the Good, i. 119

  Guy of Crema, _see_ Paschal

  Guy, viscount of Limoges, ii. 407

  Guy of Lusignan, ii. 59 note 1{235}, 136;
    king of Jerusalem, 247;
    Cyprus, 317, 321;
    ally of Richard, 318, 320

  Guy of Thouars, ii. 395, 424

  Guy-Geoffrey, count of Gascony, i. 176, 212.
    _See_ William VII. of Aquitaine


  Hackington, college at, ii. 437

  Hainaut, _see_ Elizabeth

  Hameline, earl of Warren, son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, ii. 40, 144

  Hamo de Massey, ii. 139

  Hans-house, i. 29;
    at York, 36

  Harding or Stephen, founder of Cîteaux, i. 69, 70

  Harptree, i. 295, 298

  Hasculf Thorgils’ son, ii. 105, 106

  Hautefort, ii. 204, 231

  Haye, La, _see_ Richard

  Henry I., son of William the Conqueror, his early life, i. 4–6;
    character, 6, 7;
    election and coronation, 7;
    charter, 8;
    marriage, 1, 8, 9;
    treaty with Robert, 9;
    proceedings against traitors, 10;
    Norman campaigns, 11;
    victory at Tinchebray, 12, 13;
    policy, 13–15, 19;
    struggle with Anselm, 15–18;
    character of his reign, 19;
    his work, 19, 20;
    love of “foreigners,” 23;
    his ministers, _ib._;
    called “the Lion of Justice,” 26;
    charter to York, 30, 36;
    to Norwich, 41;
    London, 45, 46;
    palace at Woodstock, 44, 94;
    court at Oxford, 44;
    his “good peace,” 30 note 4{58}, 48, 95;
    settles Flemings in Pembroke, 52;
    dealings with the Church, 63;
    results, 64;
    founds see of Ely, 68;
    Carlisle, 69;
    revival of literature under, 80–95;
    relations with Maine, 227;
    with France, 230, 231;
    wars with France and Anjou, 233, 235;
    treaties with Fulk, 234, 236;
    victory at Brenneville, 237;
    meets Calixtus at Gisors, _ib._, 238;
    treaty with Louis, 238;
    wreck of his hopes, 239, 240;
    quarrel with Fulk, 240;
    quells revolt in Normandy, 241;
    alliance with Henry V., _ib._;
    proclaims Matilda his heiress, 243;
    last years, 268–270;
    death, 271;
    possible successors, 274–275;
    state of England after his death, 279;
    burial, 282;
    his court, 413

  Henry II. Fitz-Empress born, i. 268;
    Eadward’s prophecy fulfilled in, 1;
    Witan swear fealty to, 269;
    his early life, 372–374;
    tutors, 375, 376;
    goes to England, 334;
    returns to Anjou, 343;
    duke of Normandy, 369, 377;
    goes to England, 377;
    knighted, _ib._;
    returns, 378;
    besieges Torigni, 386, 405;
    does homage to Louis, 388;
    marries Eleanor, 393;
    ignores Louis’s jurisdiction, 394;
    war with Louis and Geoffrey, 395;
    lands in England, 396;
    besieges Malmesbury, 397;
    colloquy at Wallingford, _ib._;
    treaty with Stephen, 400, 401;
    receives homage, 402;
    plot to kill him, 403;
    returns to Gaul, _ib._;
    effects of his visit to England, _ib._;
    resumes Norman demesnes, 404;
    peace with Louis, 405;
    comes to England, _ib._;
    crowned, _ib._;
    his work, 407;
    person and character, 408–411, 414–417;
    court, 411–413;
    first ministers, 417, 418;
    relations with Becket, 420, 423–427;
    charter, 427;
    settlement of the country, _ib._;
    of the succession, 429;
    subdues William of Aumale, 428;
    and Hugh of Mortemer, 429;
    holds court at S. Edmund’s, 430;
    goes to Anjou, 431;
    scheme for conquering Ireland, _ib._, ii. 95;
    effects of his first two years’ work in England, i. 431–434;
    returns, 434;
    demands Northumberland etc., 435;
    receives Malcolm’s homage, 438;
    wears his crown at Wigford, _ib._, 439;
    at Worcester, 439;
    his position compared with Cnut’s, 2, 440, 441;
    relations with France, 441, 442;
    does homage, 443;
    subdues Geoffrey, 444, 445;
    proposes for Margaret as wife for his son, 446;
    seneschal of France, 450;
    grants Britanny to Conan and obtains Nantes, 451;
    designs on Britanny, 452, 453;
    claims Toulouse, 458;
    great scutage, 459–461;
    his allies, 462, 463;
    knights Malcolm, 464;
    takes Cahors and threatens Toulouse, _ib._;
    withdraws, 465;
    treaty, 467;
    quarrel with Thomas, 469;
    drives Louis from Chaumont, 471;
    principle of his reforms, 474;
    projects of crusade, 453, 497;
    attitude towards the religious revival, 497;
    relations with Adrian IV., _ib._;
    with Germany, 499, 502;
    acknowledges Alexander III. as Pope, 502;
    appoints Thomas archbishop, ii. 1;
    meets Alexander and Louis, 13;
    goes to England, _ib._;
    receives homage of Welsh princes at Woodstock, 14;
    quarrel with Thomas, 15, 16;
    plans of reform in criminal legislature, 17–20;
    propounds his grandfather’s customs at Westminster, 22;
    meets Thomas at Northampton, 23;
    at Oxford, 24;
    publishes constitutions of Clarendon, 26;
    meets Thomas at Woodstock, 31, 32;
    council of Northampton, 32–40;
    sends envoys to the Pope, 41;
    confiscates the primate’s estates and banishes his friends, 42;
    effects of the quarrel, 46–49;
    goes to Normandy, 54;
    receives envoys from the Emperor, 55, 60;
    plans for his children, 57, 60;
    conquers Britanny, 57, 58;
    correspondence with Arthur, 57 note 2{226}, 447;
    meets Raymond, 58;
    attempt to divorce him from Eleanor, 61;
    does homage at Montmirail, _ib._, 62;
    holds council at Chinon, 64;
    appeals to Rome, 65;
    drives Thomas from Pontigny, 68;
    meets him at Montmirail, 69;
    meets Louis and Thomas at Montmartre, 71;
    at Fréteval, 73;
    meets Thomas at Tours and Chaumont, 74;
    goes to Rocamadour, _ib._;
    rash words at Bures, 78;
    absolved, 81;
    promises help to Dermot, 99;
    forbids the war in Ireland, 108;
    summons Richard of Striguil to Wales, 112;
    goes to Ireland, 80, 113;
    his fleet, 112;
    Irish princes submit to, 114;
    settlement of Ireland, 117;
    of Dublin, 118;
    goes to Normandy, 119;
    relations with the barons, 120, 121, 126, 128;
    legal and administrative reforms, 122–127;
    inquest on Norman demesnes, 128;
    alliance with Maurienne, 131;
    receives homage of Toulouse, 133;
    quarrel with young Henry, 134, 135;
    revolt against, 141;
    visits England, 143;
    his adherents, 144–146;
    takes Dol, 148;
    meets Louis, _ib._;
    subdues rebels in Touraine, 151;
    regains Saintes, 157;
    returns to England, 158;
    pilgrimage to Canterbury, 159;
    receives news of William’s capture, 160;
    takes Huntingdon and subdues Hugh Bigod, 163;
    relieves Rouen, 164;
    subdues Poitou, 165;
    reconciled with his sons, _ib._;
    treaty with William the Lion, 166;
    treatment of the rebels, 167;
    end of the struggle, 166, 168;
    his position after it, 169;
    administrative work in England, 170–178;
    his forest visitations, 171;
    receives homage for Scotland, 178;
    dealings with Wales, i. 435–437; ii. 179–181, 237, 453, 455;
    treaty with Roderic O’Conor, ii. 182;
    appoints John king of Ireland, 184;
    character of his empire, 185–187;
    continental policy, 188–191;
    arbitrates between Castille and Navarre, 190;
    administration in Normandy, 192–194;
    buildings, 196, 197;
    religious foundations, 197 and note 4{948};
    hospitals, 198, 199;
    _Levée_, 200;
    bridges, _ib._;
    relations with Aquitaine, 203, 205;
    quarrel with Louis, 212;
    treaty, 213;
    takes Châteauroux, _ib._;
    buys La Marche, 214;
    house of Blois seek his help, 217;
    makes peace in France, _ib._, 219;
    tries to make peace among his sons, 224;
    summons a conference at Mirebeau, 225;
    besieges Limoges, _ib._;
    arrests rebel leaders of 1173, 226;
    forgives young Henry, 227;
    Aquitaine submits to, 230;
    interview with Bertrand de Born, 231;
    homage to Philip, 232;
    proposes to transfer Aquitaine to John, 233, 242;
    makes John governor of Ireland, 234;
    mediates between France and Flanders, 235;
    receives submission of Galloway, 237;
    receives the patriarch Heraclius, 240;
    meets Philip, 244;
    marches into Berry, 245;
    truce, 246;
    reinstates Richard in Aquitaine, 247;
    meets Philip, 248;
    takes the cross, 249;
    musters his forces in Normandy, 252;
    meets Philip, 253;
    conference at Bonmoulins, 254;
    goes into Aquitaine, 256;
    meets Richard, _ib._;
    goes to Le Mans, 257;
    conference at La Ferté, _ib._;
    flies, 259–262;
    returns to Anjou, 262;
    goes to Chinon and Azay, 263;
    submits to Philip at Colombières, 265, 266;
    learns John’s treason, 267;
    last days, 268;
    death, 269;
    burial, 270, 272;
    points out Arthur’s tomb, 447;
    grants trading privileges to Chester, 484;
    grants burial-grounds to the Jews, 486

  Henry, second son of Henry II. and Eleanor, born, i. 429, 445;
    betrothal, 446, 448;
    does homage for Normandy, 468;
    marriage, 470;
    intrusted to Thomas for education, 471, 472;
    recognised heir to the crown, 472, 473;
    receives homage of Malcolm IV., ii. 15;
    withdrawn from Thomas, 23;
    homage at Montmirail, 62;
    receives Geoffrey’s homage for Britanny, _ib._;
    officiates as seneschal and does homage to Philip, _ib._;
    crowned, 72;
    crowned again, 81;
    rebels, 129, 130;
    flies to France, 134;
    threatens to invade England, 158, 162;
    reconciled, 165;
    receives homage of William the Lion, 178;
    joins Richard in Aquitaine, 209, 210;
    besieges Châteauroux, 211;
    at crowning of Philip Augustus, 216, 218, 219;
    character, 221;
    quarrel with Richard, 222;
    enters Aquitaine, 223;
    confesses his league with the Poitevins, 224;
    holds Limoges against his father, 225;
    driven thence, 226;
    plunders Grandmont, _ib._;
    and Rocamadour, 227;
    death, _ib._, 228;
    burial, 230, 232

  Henry III., Emperor, i. 176

  Henry V., Emperor, i. 241, 242

  Henry VI., Emperor, his claims on Sicily, ii. 319;
    demands for Richard’s ransom, 324, 325;
    negotiates with Philip and John, 327;
    grants Burgundian kingdom to Richard, 331;
    conquers Sicily, 371, 372;
    stirs up Richard against France, 372;
    dies, _ib._

  Henry I., king of France, joins Odo II. against Fulk Nerra, i. 163;
    tries to drive Odo from Sens, 164;
    revolt against, 177, 178;
    grants Tours to Geoffrey Martel, 178;
    relations with Normandy and Anjou, 207, 210;
    visits Angers, 213;
    invades Normandy, _ib._;
    defeated at Varaville, _ib._, 214;
    dies, 214

  Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester, his early life, i. 347;
    supports Stephen, 277, 279;
    legate, 305;
    summons Stephen before a council at Winchester, 305;
    advice at siege of Arundel, 309;
    escorts Matilda to Bristol, 310;
    receives her at Winchester, 321;
    holds council there, 322;
    again declares for Stephen, 324, 325;
    his fortress of Wolvesey, 325;
    besieged, 326;
    fires the city, _ib._;
    holds council at Westminster and again proclaims Stephen, 329, 330;
    his Church policy, 348;
    character, 349;
    position as legate, _ib._, 350;
    elected to Canterbury, 350;
    rivalry with Theobald, 351;
    loses the legation, 356;
    goes to Rome, _ib._;
    founds S. Cross, 357;
    suspended, 368;
    appeals, 381;
    absolved, _ib._;
    consecrates S. Thomas, ii. 5;
    at council of Northampton, 35, 36, 37, 41;
    dies, 80

  Henry the Liberal, count of Champagne, joins invasion of Normandy,
    i. 394;
    betrothed to Mary of France, 445

  Henry II., count of Champagne, king of Jerusalem, ii. 321

  Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, betrothed to Matilda, daughter of
    Henry II., ii. 55;
    married, 59, 60;
    exiled 238, 257;
    regains his lands, 319

  Henry, son of David king of Scots, made earl of Carlisle and
    Huntingdon, i. 282;
    Northumberland promised to, 286;
    at battle of the Standard, 290, 291;
    earl of Northumberland, 300;
    at siege of Ludlow, 301, 302;
    dies, 399

  Henry of Albano, legate, ii. 256, 257

  Henry of Essex, constable, i. 434;
    drops standard at Consilt, 436, 437;
    present in war of Toulouse, 466;
    defeated in ordeal of battle, ii. 61

  Henry Fitz-Aylwine, mayor of London, ii. 472;
    his assize, 485

  Henry of Huntingdon, i. 82, 83, 94

  Henry Murdac, abbot of Fountains, i. 365;
    opposes S. William, _ib._;
    archbishop of York, 366;
    his troubles in Yorkshire, 367, 380;
    reconciled to the king and enthroned, 381;
    goes to Rome, _ib._;
    opposes election of Hugh of Puiset to Durham, 399, 400;
    death, 400

  Henry of Pisa, cardinal, ii. 2

  Heraclius, patriarch of Jerusalem, ii. 240

  Herbert I. Wake-dog, count of Maine, saves Fulk at Pontlevoy, i. 157,
    158;
    his surname, 159;
    imprisoned by Fulk, _ib._;
    quarrels with Bp. Avesgaud, _ib._ note 4{343}, 204;
    death, 204;
    daughters, 254, 255

  Herbert II., count of Maine, i. 216

  Herbert Bacco usurps the county of Maine, i. 204;
    quarrels with Bishop Gervase, 205;
    expelled, _ib._

  Herbert Lozinga, bishop of Thetford, removes his see to Norwich,
    i. 41

  Herbert, bishop of Salisbury, withstands Hubert Walter, ii. 350

  Herbert of Bosham, ii. 9, 10, 38, 40, 75;
    verdict on the Becket quarrel, 47

  Hereford, i. 36;
    castle seized by Geoffrey Talbot, 294;
    yields to Stephen, 295.
    _See_ Gilbert, Miles, Robert, Roger

  Herispoë, king of Britanny, i. 130, 203

  Hermengard of Anjou, daughter of Geoffrey Greygown and wife of Conan
    of Rennes, i. 121, 135

  Hermengard (Adela) of Anjou, daughter of Fulk Nerra, wife of Geoffrey
    of Gâtinais, i. 214, 249

  Hermengard of Anjou, daughter of Fulk Rechin, marries Alan Fergant,
    duke of Britanny, i. 328 note 4{930}

  Hermengard of Beaumont, wife of William the Lion, ii. 237

  Hermengard of Bourbon, second wife of Fulk Rechin, i. 224

  Hervey of Glanville, i. 362

  Hervey of Lions, i. 321

  Hervey of Mountmorris, ii. 101, 112

  Hicmar, legate, i. 364

  _Higra_, the, i. 34

  Hilary, bishop of Chichester, ii. 24, 39

  Hildegard, wife of Fulk III. of Anjou, i. 154, 165, 168

  _Historia Comitum Andegavensium_, its authorship and character,
    i. 126, 127

  History, English, under Henry I., i. 81–83, 87–91;
    decay during the anarchy, ii. 438;
    new school of, under Henry II., 439–445;
    romantic school, 445, 449

  Hoel, duke of Britanny, i. 222

  Hoel I., count of Nantes, i. 117, 121

  Hoel II., count of Nantes, i. 212

  Hoel of Rennes, count of Nantes, i. 449

  Holy Land, _see_ Jerusalem

  Hommet, _see_ Richard

  Hospitaliers, i. 357

  Hospitals founded in Stephen’s reign, i. 357;
    Henry II., ii. 198, 199

  Houses, English, in twelfth century, i. 54, 55

  Howden, _see_ Roger

  Hrolf the Ganger, i. 111, 124, 203

  Hubert Walter, dean of York, ii. 278;
    bishop of Salisbury, _ib._, 333;
    elected to Canterbury, 326;
    justiciar, _ib._;
    suppresses revolt, 327;
    early life, 332, 333;
    rivals, 334–336;
    legate, 336;
    his policy, _ib._;
    administration, 337–341, 348, 352–354;
    fires Bow church and hangs William Fitz-Osbert, 347;
    defeated in council at Oxford, 349, 350;
    expedition to Wales, 351;
    resigns the justiciarship, _ib._, 354, 355;
    negotiates with Philip, 374;
    regent for John, 390, 391;
    crowns him, 392;
    chancellor, _ib._;
    persuades John to dismiss the host, 427;
    dies, 428;
    his proposed college, 437

  Hubert de Burgh, ii. 400, 407, 408, 426

  Hugh, S., bishop of Lincoln, excommunicates the De Clères, ii. 306;
    withstands Hubert Walter, 349;
    buries Richard, 386;
    dies, 399

  Hugh of Nonant, bishop of Chester or Coventry, ii. 280, 293, 306, 310,
    329;
    his scheme of “new foundation,” 436

  Hugh of Puiset, treasurer of York, excommunicated, i. 367;
    absolved, 382;
    bishop of Durham, 399, 400;
    rebels, ii. 140, 141;
    makes a truce with the Scots, 151;
    fortifies Northallerton, 152;
    calls in the Flemings, 162;
    submits, 163;
    takes the cross, 248;
    justiciar, 279;
    earl of Northumberland, 280;
    character and antecedents, 283–285;
    quarrels with the chancellor, 288, 291, 292;
    relations with York, 303, 304;
    quarrel with Geoffrey, 313, 316;
    mission to France, 316;
    besieges Tickhill, 323, 327, 328;
    resigns Northumberland, 330;
    tries to regain it, 335;
    dies, 336;
    his _Boldon Buke_, 478–480

  Hugh, duke of Burgundy, i. 103, 104

  Hugh the Great, duke of the French, i. 112, 123, 124, 204

  Hugh Capet, duke of the French, i. 120, 124, 141, 142;
    king, 125

  Hugh I. count of Maine, i. 124;
    subdued by Fulk the Black, 159;
    dies, 156

  Hugh II. count of Maine, set aside by Herbert Bacco, i. 204;
    restored, 205;
    marriage and death, 206

  Hugh of Este, count of Maine, i. 221, 224

  Hugh the Poor, earl of Bedford, i. 320

  Hugh Bigod, i. 278;
    revolts against Stephen, 284;
    earl of Norfolk, 430;
    revolts against Henry, ii. 139;
    takes Norwich, 155;
    submits, 163;
    his punishment, 167

  Hugh, earl of Chester, rebels against Henry II., ii. 138;
    taken prisoner, 148;
    restored, 167

  Hugh Bardulf, ii. 283, 330, 335

  Hugh of Beauvais, seneschal of France, i. 155

  Hugh of Gournay, ii. 146, 403

  Hugh de Lacy, ii. 113, 116;
    governor in Ireland, 117;
    with Henry in Normandy, 145, 147;
    viceroy again, 185;
    slain, 242, 243

  Hugh IX., the Brown, of Lusignan, ii. 398

  Hugh X. of Lusignan, ii. 398, 405

  Hugh of Ste.-Maure, ii. 129, 136

  Hugh of Mortemer, i. 429, 430

  Hugh de Morville, ii. 78

  Hugh of Sillé, ii. 137

  Huitdeniers, _see_ Osbern

  Humbert, count of Maurienne, ii. 132, 133, 134

  Humfrey de Bohun, constable, ii. 113, 145, 149

  Hungary, _see_ Bela

  Huntingdon, siege of, ii. 154, 156;
    surrenders, 163;
    earldom of, i. 282, ii. 154;
    weavers at, i. 30, 52.
    _See_ Henry, Simon

  Hyde abbey, i. 31


  Ilchester, _see_ Richard

  Ingebiorg of Denmark, second wife of Philip Augustus, ii. 395

  Ingelger, son of Tortulf, i. 105, 114, 128–131, 182

  Ingelger, son of Fulk the Red, i. 112

  Inispatrick, synod at, ii. 94

  Innocent II., Pope, i. 299, 351, 355; ii. 93

  Innocent III., Pope, ii. 351

  Inquest, _see_ Jury

  Investitures, i. 15–18

  Ireland, English trade with, i. 32, 35, ii. 87;
    northmen in, ii. 82–86;
    civil wars in, 89–91;
    Henry II.’s proposal to conquer, 95, 431;
    plans of Eugene III. and S. Bernard for, 95;
    bull for its conquest, i. 431, 486, ii. 96;
    Henry II. in, ii. 113–118;
    condition in his later years, 181–185;
    John made governor of, 234;
    John in, 242;
    Gerald’s treatises on, 457, 458.
    _See_ Brian, Dermot, Donell, Malachi, Murtogh, Niall, Roderic,
    Terence.
    _See also_ Church

  Isaac, king of Cyprus, ii. 317, 319

  Isabel of Angoulême, ii. 398;
    married to John, 399

  Isabel de Clare, wife of William the Marshal, ii. 274

  Isabel de Warren, ii. 29

  Issoudun, ii. 361.
    _See_ Ralf

  Ivo of Grandmesnil, i. 10


  Jane, third daughter of Henry II., betrothed to William II. of Sicily,
    ii. 60;
    marries him, 189, 190;
    marries Raymond VI. of Toulouse, 371;
    dies, 397

  Jane of Montferrat, wife of William the Clito, i. 243

  Jerusalem, kingdom of, condition under the Angevin kings, ii. 239;
    taken by Saladin, 247.
    _See_ Baldwin, Fulk, Guy, Henry, Melisenda, Sibyl

  Jews in England, i. 27, 46, 53;
    under Henry II., ii. 486;
    burial-grounds granted to, _ib._;
    massacres of, 289, 290;
    relations with the Christians, 487, 488;
    ordinance for their bonds, 488, 489

  Joceas of Dinan, i. 301

  Jocelyn, bishop of Salisbury, ii. 37, 67, 76

  Jocelyn de Balliol, ii. 66

  John “Lackland,” son of Henry II. and Eleanor, born, ii. 130;
    betrothed to Alice of Maurienne, 132–134;
    to Avice of Gloucester, 184;
    appointed king of Ireland, _ib._;
    proposal to give him Aquitaine, 233;
    knighted and sent to Ireland, 234;
    his misconduct in Ireland, 242;
    recalled, _ib._;
    proposal to crown him, _ib._, 244;
    his treason discovered, 267;
    reconciled to Richard, 274;
    treats with Rees, 280;
    his lands in England, 282;
    marries Avice, _ib._;
    his power in England, 293;
    quarrels with the chancellor, 297–301;
    calls up the barons against him, 307;
    enters London, 309;
    appointed regent, 310;
    alliance with Philip, 314, 323;
    its terms, 363;
    acknowledged heir by the English barons, 314;
    negotiates with the chancellor, 315;
    struggle with the justiciars, 323;
    truce, 324;
    charged with treason, 329;
    reconciled to Richard, 334;
    helps him against Philip, 369;
    acknowledged in Anjou, 388;
    invested as duke of Normandy, _ib._, 389;
    burns Le Mans, 390;
    goes to England, 391;
    crowned, 391–393;
    administrative arrangements, 393;
    quarrel with Philip, 394;
    treaty, 395, 397;
    visits England, 396;
    receives Arthur’s homage, 397;
    Raymond’s, _ib._;
    does homage to Philip, _ib._;
    divorces Avice, 398;
    marries Isabel, 398, 399;
    crowned with her, 399;
    meets the Scot king at Lincoln, _ib._;
    founds Beaulieu abbey, 400;
    crowned at Canterbury, _ib._;
    summons the barons to Portsmouth, _ib._;
    goes to Paris, 401;
    seizes Driencourt, _ib._;
    charges the Poitevin barons with treason, _ib._, 402;
    cited to the French king’s court, 402;
    condemned to forfeiture, 403;
    sends troops into Britanny, 404;
    relieves Mirebeau and captures Arthur, 406;
    destroys Tours, 407;
    quarrels with Otto, _ib._;
    cited by Philip for murder, 408;
    condemned, _ib._;
    his apathy, 410;
    plan for relief of Les Andelys, 413, 414;
    letter to garrison of Château-Gaillard, 419;
    goes to England, _ib._, 420;
    sends ambassadors to Philip, 424;
    summons the host and dismisses it, 427;
    sails to La Rochelle, 428;
    takes Angers, _ib._;
    flies back to England, _ib._;
    comment on Hubert Walter’s death, 428, 429;
    charter to London, 471, 472

  John of Anagni, legate, ii. 257, 258

  John of Canterbury, i, 354;
    treasurer of York, 477; ii. 19;
    bishop of Poitiers, ii. 30, 209

  John de Courcy, ii. 184, 242

  John of La Flèche, i. 222

  John of Marmoutier, i. 126, 127

  John the Marshal, ii. 32, 33, 260

  John Oldman, ii. 157

  John of Oxford excommunicated, ii. 66;
    negotiations at Rome, 68;
    escorts Thomas to England, 75, 77;
    bishop of Norwich, 176

  John Paparo, cardinal, legate to Ireland, i. 380; ii. 94

  John of Salisbury, his studies and early life, i. 480–483;
    enters Abp. Theobald’s household, 483;
    becomes his secretary, 484;
    character, 484, 485;
    relations with Adrian IV., 485, 486;
    with Theobald, 486, 504;
    _Polycraticus_, 486–191;
    _Metalogicus_, 504;
    exiled, ii. 30;
    brings bull “Laudabiliter,” 96

  John Scotus, i. 86, 87

  John, count of Vendôme, ii. 137, 151

  John the Wode, ii. 106

  John, S., knights of, _see_ Hospitaliers

  Jouin-de-Marne, S., battle of, i. 174

  Judges, _see_ Justices

  Judicaël, bishop and count of Nantes, i. 148

  Juhel Berenger, count of Rennes, i. 116

  Julian, S., of Le Mans, i. 202

  _Juliomagus_, _see_ Angers

  Jury, the grand, ii. 338

  Jury-inquest, ii. 122, 123, 353, 354

  Justices itinerant under Henry I., i. 26;
    under Henry II., 433, 434; ii. 124, 125, 173–177;
    commission of 1194, 337;
    circuit of 1198, 356

  Justiciar, the, his office, i. 21.
    _See_ Hubert, Hugh, Ralf, Richard, Robert, Roger, Walter, William


  Kavanagh, _see_ Donell

  Kells, synod at, ii. 94

  Ketel of S. Edmund’s, ii. 472

  Kinardferry, ii. 152, 155

  King’s Court, the, i. 20, 21;
    its judicial work, 25;
    Henry II.’s changes in, ii. 174, 175

  Kinsellagh, ii. 100

  Kirkham priory, i. 67


  Lacy, _see_ Hugh, Roger

  L’Aigle, _see_ Richer

  Lakenheath, dispute about market at, ii. 482, 483

  Lambert, count of the Angevin march, i. 101, 130

  Lambert, count of Autun, i. 121, 134, 135

  Lambeth, college at, ii. 437

  Landry of Châteaudun, i. 156, 193, 194

  Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, consecrates Patrick to Dublin,
    ii. 89

  Langley, _see_ Nicolas

  Laon, canons of, their journey in England, i. 30–35

  Laurence, archbishop of Dublin, ii. 105, 108, 110

  Law, canon, introduced into England, i. 378;
    Roman civil, 379;
    study of, in the schools, ii. 466

  Layamon, ii. 491, 492

  Leather-sellers’ gild at Oxford, i. 30

  Legates in England, i. 350.
    _See_ Alberic, Gilbert, Henry, Hicmar, John, Malachi, Peter,
    Theobald, Thomas, William

  Leia, _see_ Peter

  Leicester, siege of, ii. 146, 147.
    _See_ Robert, Petronilla

  Leinster, _see_ Dermot

  Leopold, duke of Austria, ii. 319, 371

  Lespec, _see_ Walter

  _Levée_, the, on the Loire, ii. 200

  _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, ii. 125

  _Liber Niger_, _see_ Peterborough

  Lichfield, i. 40

  Lidford, gild at, ii. 469

  Lidorius, S., bishop of Tours, i. 179

  Limerick, ii. 83.
    _See_ Donell, Gilbert

  Limoges besieged by Henry II., ii. 225;
    plundered by the young king, 226;
    surrenders, 230.
    _See_ Ademar, Guy

  Lincoln, i. 38–40;
    weavers at, 30, 52;
    merchant gild, 40;
    castle seized by Ralf of Chester, 315;
    besieged by Stephen, _ib._;
    battle of, 316–320, 344–346;
    sacked by Earl Robert, 320;
    castle again seized by Ralf, 334;
    given up to Stephen, 336;
    Stephen at, 337;
    Henry II. at, 438;
    castle besieged by William of Longchamp, ii. 299;
    John at, 399;
    minster-library, 464, 465;
    Richard’s charter to, 470.
    _See_ Aaron, Alexander, Geoffrey, Hugh, Remigius, Robert, William

  Lions, _see_ Hervey

  Lisbon won by English crusaders, i. 363

  Lisieux, council at, i. 392.
    _See_ Arnulf

  Lisoy of Bazogers, commandant of Amboise and Loches, i. 157, 184, 185;
    advice to Geoffrey Martel, 185;
    captures Theobald, 186

  Literature, revival of, under Henry I., i. 80–95;
    under the Angevins, ii. 439–460, 491–492

  Loches, i. 110, 153;
    treaty of, 187;
    pledged to Philip, ii. 364;
    taken by Richard, 366;
    taken by Philip, 426.
    _See_ Lisoy, Thomas

  Lodden, conferences at the, ii. 307, 308

  Lombard, _see_ Peter

  London, its growing importance, i. 31;
    walls and castles, 44;
    cathedral, folkmoot, portreeve, sheriffs, 45;
    fires, _ib._, 55;
    weavers, 30, 52, ii. 481;
    constitution under William I., i. 45;
    under Henry I., _ib._, 46;
    Jews in, 46;
    suburbs, _ib._, 47;
    schools, 47;
    character of its citizens, 47, 48;
    Normans in, 48, 49;
    trade, 49;
    claim of its citizens to elect the king, 277;
    loyal to Stephen, 313;
    submits to the Empress, 323;
    expels her, 324;
    citizens at siege of Winchester, 326;
    hospitals in, 357;
    councils at, 381, 390, 429; ii. 314;
    tumults in (1173), ii. 156–157;
    meeting of barons at, 309, 310, 311;
    the commune, 309, 310, 344;
    rising under William Fitz-Osbert, 345–347;
    gilds in, 469;
    constitution under Henry II., Richard and John, 471, 472;
    foreign commerce, 485;
    gildhall of German merchants, _ib._;
    stone bridge, _ib._, 486.
    _See_ Andrew, Gilbert, Henry, Richard, Serlo, Thomas, Westminster

  Longchamp, _see_ William

  Lorraine, i. 120

  Lothar, king of West-Frankland, i. 119, 120, 122

  Lothar, _see_ Innocent III.

  Lotharingia, i. 120

  Loudun, i. 123, 124, 139, 394, 444

  Louis the Gentle, Emperor, partition of his realms, i. 98, 99

  Louis From-beyond-sea, King of West Frankland, i. 112, 113;
    Fulk’s letter to, 114;
    dies, 119

  Louis the Lazy (_Fainéant_), King of West Frankland, i. 123;
    marriage, 191;
    death, 125

  Louis VI., King of France, his policy, i. 230;
    supports William Clito, 235;
    defeated at Brenneville, 237;
    treaty with Henry, 238;
    marches against the Emperor, 241;
    grants Flanders to Clito, 243

  Louis VII., King of France, his quarrel with Blois and alliance with
    Anjou, i. 342;
    helps Geoffrey to conquer Normandy, _ib._;
    grants him its investiture, 343;
    takes the cross, 361;
    marries Eleanor, 383;
    strife with Blois, 384;
    attacks Normandy, 385;
    dealings with Geoffrey and Eustace, 386, 387;
    grants Normandy etc. to Henry, 388, 389;
    divorces Eleanor, 392;
    cites Henry to his court, 393;
    war in Normandy, 395;
    receives Henry’s homage, 443;
    marries Constance, 446;
    makes Henry seneschal, 450;
    proposed crusade in Spain, 453, 497;
    claims on Toulouse, 457;
    throws himself into Toulouse, 464;
    attacks Normandy, 466;
    treaty, 467;
    marries Adela, 468;
    alliance with Blois, 469, 471;
    driven from Chaumont, 471;
    acknowledges Alexander III. as Pope, 502;
    meets Alexander and Henry at Chouzy, ii. 13;
    threatens war in Auvergne, 31;
    welcomes Thomas, 42;
    his view of the Becket quarrel, 53, 54;
    receives homage of the two Henrys and grants Aquitaine to Richard,
    62;
    meets Henry at Montmartre, 71;
    Fréteval, 73;
    supports young Henry’s revolt, 135, 136;
    attacks Normandy, 143;
    burns Verneuil, 147;
    meets Henry II. at Gisors, 148;
    besieges Rouen, 164;
    truce, 165;
    renewed quarrel, 212;
    treaty, 213;
    pilgrimage to Canterbury, 216;
    dies, 219

  Louis, son of Philip Augustus, ii. 395, 397

  Lucius II., Pope, i. 356, 360

  Lucy, _see_ Richard

  Ludlow, i. 301

  Lupicar, ii. 413

  Lusignan, _see_ Geoffrey, Guy, Hugh


  Mabel of Glamorgan, wife of Robert, earl of Gloucester, i. 294, 328

  MacCarthy, _see_ Dermot

  MacMurrough, _see_ Dermot, Eva, Murtogh

  Madoc Ap-Meredith, prince of Powys, i. 436, 437

  Maidulf, founder of Malmesbury, i. 83

  Maine (Cenomannia), duchy of, i. 203;
    county, 106, 107;
    its defiance of the house of France, 109;
    claims of Normandy and France upon, 124, 203, 204;
    granted to Geoffrey Greygown, 124, 140–142;
    subject to Geoffrey Martel, 206;
    relations with Normandy and Anjou, 216, 217, 222, 223;
    conquered by William, 218;
    revolts, 221, 222;
    revolts against Robert, 223, 224;
    condition under Elias, 224, 225;
    won back by William Rufus, 3, 226;
    Henry I. overlord of, 227, 233, 234;
    united with Anjou, 233;
    settled on William and Matilda, 236, 238;
    on Sibyl and Clito, 240;
    pedigree of the counts, 253–256;
    rebels in (1173), ii. 137.
    _See_ Aremburg, Biota, David, Elias, Gersendis, Herbert, Hugh,
    Margaret, Paula, Roland

  Maine, river, _see_ Mayenne

  Malachi, S., ii. 93, 94

  Malachi II., king of Ireland, ii. 85

  Malchus, bishop of Waterford, ii. 89

  Malcolm IV., king of Scots, his claims on Northumberland etc., i. 435;
    submits to Henry II., 438;
    at war of Toulouse, 462;
    homage to young Henry, ii. 14, 15

  Malmesbury abbey, i. 83–87;
    castle surrendered to Stephen, 304;
    taken by Henry, 397.
    _See_ Ealdhelm, Godfrey, Maidulf, Turold, Warin, William

  Maminot, _see_ Walkelyn

  Mandeville, _see_ Geoffrey, William

  Manorbeer, ii. 452

  Mans, Le, (_Vindinum_), its early history, i. 201–203;
    cathedral, 202, 238;
    bishop, people and count, 202, 204;
    advocacy of the see granted to Geoffrey Martel, 205;
    taken by William, 218;
    “commune” of, 222;
    surrendered to Elias, 227;
    marriage of Geoffrey and Matilda at, 244;
    Henry Fitz-Empress born at, 268;
    Geoffrey buried at, 390;
    the young king buried at, ii. 230;
    Henry II. at, 257, 258;
    taken by Philip, 259, 263;
    submits to Arthur, 389;
    burnt by John, 390;
    given up to John, 394;
    hospital, 198.
    _See_ Avesgaud, Gervase, Julian, Sainfred

  Mantes, _see_ Gaubert, Walter

  Map, _see_ Walter

  March, Spanish, _see_ Barcelona

  Marche, La, bought by Henry II., ii. 214

  Margaret of France, daughter of Louis VII. and Constance, i. 446;
    betrothed to young Henry, 448;
    intrusted to Henry II., 451;
    Vexin settled upon her, 467;
    married, 470;
    crowned, ii. 81;
    quarrels over her dowry, 232, 236;
    marries Bela of Hungary, 235

  Margaret of Maine, i. 216, 254

  Marmion, _see_ Robert

  Marmoutier, abbey of, i. 181

  Marshal, _see_ John, William

  Marson, i. 125

  Martel, ii. 227

  Martin, S., bishop of Tours, his life, i. 179–181;
    appearance to Fulk the Good, 118;
    “reversion,” 128, 131, 182;
    “subvention,” 182, 187;
    abbey, _see_ Tours

  Martin-le-Beau, S., i. 187

  Mary of Boulogne, daughter of Stephen and Matilda, i. 469

  Mary of France, daughter of Louis VII. and Eleanor, i. 445

  Massey, _see_ Hamo

  Matilda (Eadgyth) of Scotland, first wife of Henry I., i. 9, 17, 93,
    94;
    called “good queen Maude,” 66

  Matilda, daughter of Henry I. of England, widow of Emperor Henry V.,
    i. 242;
    acknowledged as Henry’s heiress, 243, 268, 269, 274;
    marries Geoffrey, 243, 244, 258–260;
    leaves him, 266;
    goes to England, 268;
    returns, _ib._;
    quarrels with Henry, 270;
    qualifications for the throne, 274, 275;
    enters Normandy, 276;
    lands at Arundel, 309;
    goes to Bristol and Gloucester, 310;
    negotiates with the legate, 321;
    in London, 323, 324;
    besieges the legate at Winchester, 325, 326;
    blockaded by the queen, 326;
    escapes, 327, 328;
    goes to Oxford, 329;
    sends for Geoffrey, 330;
    besieged at Oxford, 332;
    escapes, 333;
    returns to Gaul, 344;
    trial of her claims at Rome, 370;
    later years, 442, 443;
    death, ii. 61

  Matilda of Boulogne marries Stephen, i. 273;
    crowned, 283;
    blockades Dover, 299;
    mediates between Stephen and David, 300;
    drives the Empress from London, 324;
    wins over the legate, _ib._;
    besieges Winchester, 326;
    negotiates for Stephen’s release, 328;
    founds S. Katharine’s Hospital, 357;
    tries to reconcile Stephen and Theobald, 369;
    dies, 399

  Matilda, eldest daughter of Henry II. and Eleanor, born, i. 445;
    betrothed to Henry the Lion, ii. 55;
    married, 59–60, 189;
    aid for her marriage, 125;
    death, ii. 257 note 2{1241}

  Matilda of Anjou, daughter of Fulk V., betrothed to William the
    Ætheling, i. 234;
    married, 236;
    quarrel over her dowry, 240;
    nun at Fontevraud, 248

  Matilda of Angoulême, wife of Hugh IX. of Lusignan, ii. 398

  Matilda of Saxony, daughter of Henry the Lion, her suitors, ii. 237;
    marriage, 274

  Matilda of Ramsbury, i. 304

  Matthew, son of Theodoric count of Flanders, marries Mary of Boulogne,
    i. 469;
    dies, ii. 147

  Matthew, tutor to Henry Fitz-Empress, i. 375;
    chancellor, 376

  Maude, “Good Queen,” i. 66.
    _See_ Matilda

  Mauléon, _see_ Savaric

  Maurice, son of Geoffrey Greygown, i. 134, 135;
    regent of Anjou, 153, 156, 194

  Maurice Fitz-Gerald, ii. 100, 102

  Maurice de Prendergast, ii. 102, 110, 111

  Maurienne, ii. 131, 132.
    _See_ Alice, Humbert

  Mayenne or Maine, river, i. 97

  Mayenne, _see_ Geoffrey

  Measures, Assize of, ii. 348

  Meiler Fitz-Henry, ii. 101

  Melgueil, i. 463

  Melisenda, queen of Jerusalem, i. 246, 361

  Melun, i. 149, 189, 190

  Merania, _see_ Agnes

  Mercadier, ii. 383, 390

  Merlin’s prophecy, its fulfilment, ii. 429

  Merton priory, i. 51, 67

  Messina, Richard at, ii. 294–296;
    treaty of, 368, 369

  _Metalogicus_, i. 504

  Metz, _see_ Chrodegang

  Metz (in Gâtinais?), i. 168

  Meulan, _see_ Robert, Waleran

  Middle Kingdom, i. 99, 120

  Middlesex, sheriffs of, i. 46

  Miles Beauchamp, i. 320

  Miles Cogan, ii. 105, 106, 184

  Miles Fitz-David, ii. 101

  Miles of Gloucester defies Stephen, i. 295;
    joins the Empress at Oxford, 324;
    earl of Hereford, 327;
    slain, 334

  Mirebeau, castle built by Fulk Nerra, i. 139, 151;
    siege of, by Geoffrey Plantagenet, 267;
    bequeathed to Geoffrey Plantagenet II., 394, 444;
    Eleanor besieged in, ii. 406;
    Arthur captured at, _ib._

  Mohun, _see_ William

  Molêmes, abbey of, i. 69, 70

  Monmouth, _see_ Geoffrey

  Montbazon, i. 151, 163

  Montboyau, i. 161, 163

  Montcontour or St. Jouin-de-Marne, battle of, i. 174

  Montferrat, _see_ Conrad, Jane, William

  Montfichet’s Castle, i. 44

  Montfort, _see_ Almeric, Bertrada, Robert, Simon

  Montlouis, battle of, i. 186

  Montmartre, conference at, ii. 71

  Montmirail, conference at, ii. 61, 62, 69;
    razed, 365

  Montpellier, _see_ William

  Montrésor, i. 151

  Montreuil-Bellay, siege of, i. 384–387.
    _See_ Gerald, Grecia

  Montrichard, i. 151

  Mont-St.-Michel, siege of, i. 5.
    _See_ Robert

  Moorfields, i. 47

  _Mort d’ancester_, ii. 172

  Mortain, _see_ John, Stephen, William

  Mortemer, _see_ Hugh, Roger

  Morville, _see_ Hugh, Richard

  Mountmorris, _see_ Hervey

  Mowbray, _see_ Robert, Roger

  Munster conquered by the Geraldines, ii. 183.
    _See_ Brian, Donell, Murtogh, Terence

  Murdac, _see_ Henry

  Murtogh Mac-Murrough, ii. 109, 111

  Murtogh O’Brien, king of Munster, ii. 89, 90

  Murtogh O’Lochlainn, king of Aileach, ii. 90, 97, 98


  Nantes, i. 101;
    ceded to the Bretons, 102;
    Angevin claims on, 116, 117;
    attacked by Normans, 117;
    counts and bishops, 121, 122;
    seized by Conan, 146;
    won by Fulk, 148;
    Geoffrey Martel’s dealings with, 212;
    union with Rennes, 449;
    again independent, _ib._;
    seized by Conan IV. and claimed by Henry II., 450;
    surrendered to Henry, 451;
    significance of its acquisition, 452, 453;
    Henry and Geoffrey at, ii. 58.
    _See_ Alan, Drogo, Geoffrey, Guerech, Hoel, Judicaël

  Nest, daughter of Rees Ap-Tewdor, ii. 100, 453

  Neubourg, i. 282, 470

  Neufmarché, council at, i. 502

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne, i. 37

  Newark, i. 304

  Niall of the Nine Hostages, ii. 84

  Nicolas Breakspear or of Langley, i. 475, 476, 481.
    _See_ Adrian

  Nigel, bishop of Ely and treasurer, i. 302;
    defends Devizes, 304;
    chancellor, 418;
    treasurer again, _ib._

  Nomenoë, king of Britanny, i. 101

  Nonancourt, treaty at, ii. 213

  Nonant, _see_ Hugh

  Norfolk, _see_ Hugh Bigod

  Normandy, duchy of, i. 111;
    confusion under Robert Curthose, 11;
    campaigns of Henry I. in, 11–13;
    relations with England, 13, 23, 24;
    with France, 24;
    invaded by Henry of France, 210, 213;
    claimed by Matilda, 276;
    invaded by Geoffrey, 281, 306–308;
    offered to Theobald of Blois, 282, 337;
    Stephen in, 286;
    granted to his son, _ib._;
    conquered by Geoffrey, 338–342;
    ceded to Henry Fitz-Empress, 369, 377;
    attacked by Louis VII. and Eustace, 385, 386, 394;
    inquest on ducal demesnes, ii. 128;
    rebels in (1173), 138, 139;
    attacked by Louis etc., 143;
    loyal barons in (1173), 146;
    Henry’s administration in, 192–194;
    laid under interdict, 315, 380;
    submits to Philip, 424, 425;
    dukes of, their claims upon Maine, i. 124, 203, 216.
    _See_ Geoffrey, Henry, Hrolf, John, Richard, Robert, William

  Normans destroy Fleury, i. 112;
    attack Nantes, 117;
    fusion of Normans and English, 24, 48, 49; ii. 489, 490

  “Normans” and “English,” different meanings of, i. 23, 24

  Northallerton, i. 289

  Northampton, Ralf of Chester seized at, i. 336;
    Henry II. at, ii. 23, 143;
    priory of S. Andrew at, 37;
    meeting of justiciars and barons at, 391;
    Assize of, 172, 173;
    councils at, i. 136; ii. 32–40, 172, 427.
    _See_ David, Simon

  Northmen, their work in Frankland and in England, i. 100;
    enter the Loire, 101;
    sack Nantes, _ib._;
    attack Toulouse, Paris, Bordeaux, 102;
    defeated at Aclea, _ib._;
    sack Tours, _ib._;
    seize Angers, 103;
    driven out, 104;
    besiege Paris, _ib._;
    defeated by Rudolf, 115;
    attacks on Tours, 181, 182.
    _See_ Ostmen

  Northumberland, Scottish claims upon, i. 286

  Norwich, i. 40, 41;
    sacked, ii. 155, 156;
    massacre of Jews at, 289;
    castle, i. 284, 430.
    _See_ Herbert, John

  Nostell priory, i. 68

  Nottingham, i. 320;
    council at, ii. 329


  O’Briens, their rivalry with the O’Neills, ii. 86.
    _See_ Donell, Murtogh, Terence

  O’Conor, _see_ Roderic, Terence

  Octavian, cardinal, _see_ Victor IV.

  Odelin de Umfraville, ii. 145, 153, 160

  Odo, count of Paris, duke of the French and king of West-Frankland,
    i. 104

  Odo, count of Anjou, i. 109, 133

  Odo I., count of Blois, Chartres and Tours, i. 145

  Odo II., count of Blois etc., seizes Melun, i. 149, 189;
    character, 150;
    defeated at Pontlevoy, 157, 158;
    count of Champagne, 160;
    besieges Montboyau, 161;
    Saumur, 163;
    attacks Amboise, _ib._;
    seizes Sens, 164;
    aims at the Empire, 166;
    death, 167

  Odo, count of Gascony and duke of Aquitaine, i. 174, 175

  Odo, son of Robert II. of France, i. 177, 178

  Odo of Britanny, i. 211, 212

  Oilly, _see_ Robert

  O’Lochlainn, _see_ Donell, Murtogh

  O’Neills, their rivalry with the O’Briens, ii. 86

  Orderic, i. 24

  Orkneys, _see_ Ralf

  Orléans, viscounts of, i. 249, 250

  O’Ruark, _see_ Tighernan

  Osbern Huitdeniers, i. 353

  Oseney priory, i. 43

  Ossory, ii. 102

  Ostia, _see_ Alberic

  Ostmen, their settlements in Ireland, ii. 82–84;
    relations with England, 83, 86, 87;
    struggle with Malachi and Brian, 85;
    ecclesiastical relations, 87–89;
    share in Irish politics, 89, 90

  Otto I., Emperor, i. 119

  Otto II., Emperor, i. 119, 120

  Otto of Saxony, son of Henry the Lion, his proposed marriage, ii. 341;
    chosen Emperor, 372, 373;
    quarrel with John, 407

  Otto, cardinal, ii. 69

  Oundle, i. 60

  Owen, prince of North Wales, i. 435, 436, 437; ii. 179

  Oxford, i. 41–44;
    Robert Pulein at, 43;
    Henry I. at, 44;
    bishops seized at, 303, 304;
    Matilda at, 322, 331–333;
    military advantages, 331;
    taken by Stephen, 332;
    Vacarius at, 379;
    Richard I. born at, 445;
    Henry and Thomas meet at, ii. 24;
    Gerald de Barri at, 460;
    councils at, i. 283, 402; ii. 349–350, 427;
    castle, i. 41, 331–334;
    gilds, 30, 43, 52;
    S. Frideswide’s priory, 42;
    Port-meadow, 43;
    schools, _ib._; ii. 462.
    _See_ John


  Paganel, _see_ Ralf

  Pageham, ii. 32

  Palestine, _see_ Jerusalem

  Paparo, _see_ John

  Paris attacked by northmen, i. 102, 104;
    capital of the duchy of France, 105;
    university of, ii. 461.
    _See_ Odo

  Paschal III., antipope, ii. 55

  Patrick, bishop of Dublin, ii. 88, 89

  Patrick, earl of Salisbury, governor of Aquitaine, ii. 58, 59

  Paula of Maine, i. 222, 254

  Pavia, council at, i. 498, 499.
    _See_ William

  Peace, edict for preservation of, ii. 339, 340;
    conservators of, their origin, 340

  Pembroke, Flemings in, i. 52.
    _See_ Gilbert, Richard, William

  Pencarn, ii. 179

  Périgueux, ii. 223

  Périgord, _see_ Adalbert

  Peter, duke of Aquitaine, _see_ William VI.

  Peter “Bogis,” ii. 421, 422

  Peter of Capua, cardinal-legate, ii. 375, 395

  Peter of Celle, i. 482, 483

  Peter of Colechurch, ii. 486

  Peter de Leia, bishop of S. David’s, ii. 455, 456

  Peter Lombard, ii. 461, 467

  Peter of Saintes, tutor to Henry Fitz-Empress, i. 375

  Peterborough, “Black Book” of, i. 58;
    chronicle, 81

  Petronilla, queen of Aragon, wife of Raymond-Berengar IV. of
    Barcelona, i. 463

  Petronilla, wife of Tertullus, i. 128

  Petronilla of Grandmesnil, countess of Leicester, ii. 138, 150

  Pevensey, i. 430

  Peverel, _see_ William

  Philip I., king of France, i. 220, 221, 224

  Philip Augustus, son of Louis VII. of France, born, ii. 56;
    receives young Henry’s homage, 62;
    crowned, 216;
    quarrels with Blois, 217;
    marries Elizabeth, _ib._;
    crowned again, 218;
    succeeds Louis, 219;
    demands Margaret’s dowry, 232, 236;
    quarrel with Flanders, 234;
    plots with Geoffrey, 243;
    claims wardship of Eleanor of Britanny, _ib._;
    of Arthur, 245;
    attacks Berry, _ib._;
    truce, 246;
    takes the cross, 249;
    takes Châteauroux, 251;
    attacks Auvergne, 252;
    negotiates with Richard, 253, 254;
    receives his homage, 255;
    takes Le Mans, 259;
    Tours, 264;
    treaty with Richard, 275;
    policy in Palestine, 320;
    returns to France, 313;
    demands the Vexin etc., _ib._, 314;
    alliance with John, 314, 323, 363;
    attacks Normandy, 363, 364;
    routed at Fréteval, 366, 367;
    secures Arthur, 370;
    war with Flanders, 374;
    truce with Richard, 375;
    takes Evreux, 389;
    receives homage of Arthur, 390;
    of Eleanor, _ib._;
    razes Ballon, 394;
    divorces Ingebiorg, 395;
    treaty with John, 395–397;
    takes Ingebiorg back, 401;
    cites John to his court, 402, 408;
    conquers eastern Normandy, 403;
    besieges Arques, 405, 406;
    burns Tours, 407;
    takes Saumur and enters Poitou, 410;
    successes in Normandy, _ib._;
    takes Isle of Andely, 411–416;
    Petit-Andely, 416;
    Radepont, _ib._;
    Château-Gaillard, 416–423;
    Normandy submits to, 424–425;
    conquers Poitou, 426;
    takes Loches and Chinon, _ib._;
    marches against John, 428

  Philip, count of Flanders, joins young Henry, ii. 141;
    threatens to invade England, 155, 158;
    his policy in France, 216;
    quarrels with France, 234, 235;
    pilgrimage to Canterbury, 235

  Philip de Broi, ii. 21

  Philip Gay, i. 297

  Philip of Gloucester, i. 335, 336

  Philip de Thaun, i. 94

  Pierre-Pécoulée, treaty of, i. 234

  Pipe Rolls, i. 26, 431–432

  Pipewell, council at, ii. 277

  Pisa, _see_ Henry

  Poitiers stormed by Adalbert of Périgord, i. 145;
    Henry and Eleanor married at, 393;
    council at, 458;
    Richard enthroned at, ii. 130;
    taken by Philip, 426.
    _See_ John

  Poitou granted to Hugh the Great, i. 123;
    barons of, appeal to Philip against John, ii. 402;
    conquered by Philip, 426.
    _See_ Aquitaine

  _Polycraticus_, i. 486–491

  Pontaudemer, siege of, i. 241

  Pontigny, abbey of, i. 70;
    S. Thomas at, ii. 42, 54

  Pont-l’Evêque, _see_ Roger

  Pontlevoy, battle of, i. 157, 158

  Popes, _see_ Adrian, Alexander, Calixtus, Celestine, Eugene, Innocent,
    Lucius, Paschal, Urban

  Porhoët, _see_ Eudo

  Port, _see_ Adam

  Portmannimot of Oxford, i. 43

  Port-meadow at Oxford, i. 43

  Port-reeve, i. 29;
    of London, 45.
    _See_ Gilbert Becket

  Portsmouth, ii. 400, 427

  Premonstratensians, i. 357, 358

  Prendergast, _see_ Maurice

  Provence, i. 454, 463.
    _See_ William

  Provins, i. 482

  Pucelle, _see_ Gerard

  Puiset, _see_ Hugh

  Pulein, _see_ Robert

  Pullus, _see_ Robert


  Quévilly, i. 471; ii. 198


  Radepont, ii. 403, 416

  Rahere, founder of S. Bartholomew’s hospital, i. 67

  Rainald, bishop of Angers, i. 193

  Raino, bishop of Angers, i. 131, 132

  Ralf, bishop of the Orkneys, i. 289, 355

  Ralf, bishop of Rochester, made archbishop of Canterbury, i. 68

  Ralf, earl of Chester, his marriage, i. 314;
    claims Carlisle, _ib._;
    seizes Lincoln castle, 315;
    brings Robert to relieve it, 316;
    at battle of Lincoln, 317, 320;
    again seizes the castle, 334;
    joins Stephen, 336;
    imprisoned, _ib._;
    gives up Lincoln, _ib._;
    revolts again, 377, 395;
    dies, 399

  Ralf, earl of Chester, second husband of Constance of Britanny,
    ii. 369, 370

  Ralf of Bayeux, i. 241

  Ralf de Broc, ii. 39, 76, 79, 149

  Ralf de Diceto, dean of S. Paul’s, ii. 439;
    his Angevin History, i. 127

  Ralf of Faye, ii. 129

  Ralf Flambard, justiciar, i. 8, 9, 21, 32, 432;
    bishop of Durham, 80

  Ralf of Fougères, ii. 137, 147, 148, 258

  Ralf de Glanville, ii. 145, 160;
    justiciar, 177;
    takes the cross, 248;
    resigns and dies, 279

  Ralf of Issoudun, ii. 401, 405

  Ralf Paganel, i. 295, 298

  Ralf of Varneville, chancellor to Henry II., ii. 142, 297

  Ralf of Vermandois, i. 307

  Ramirez the Monk, king of Aragon, i. 463

  Ramsbury, _see_ Matilda

  Rancogne, _see_ Geoffrey

  Rathbreasil, synod of, ii. 93

  Raymond-Berengar III., count of Barcelona, i. 463

  Raymond-Berengar IV., count of Barcelona, i. 463, 466

  Raymond of St. Gilles, count of Toulouse, i. 454, 455

  Raymond V., count of Toulouse, his marriage, i. 458;
    war with Henry II., 464–467;
    meets Henry at Grandmont, ii. 58;
    does him homage, 133;
    struggle with Aragon, 211;
    quarrel with Richard, 244, 250, 251;
    death, 371

  Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, marriage, ii. 371;
    homage to John, 397

  Raymond Trencavel, viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne, i. 462, 464,
    466

  Raymond the Fat, ii. 104, 108, 183

  Reading, i. 282, 322; ii. 61, 240, 308

  Redvers, _see_ Baldwin

  Rees Ap-Griffith, prince of South Wales, his dealings with Henry II.,
    ii. 164, 179–181, 237;
    with John and Richard, 280;
    death, 351

  Reginald, earl of Cornwall, i. 391; ii. 144, 146

  Reginald, chancellor to Frederic Barbarossa, and archbishop of Cöln,
    ii. 55

  Reginald Fitz-Urse, ii. 78

  Reims, councils at, i. 206, 237, 367, 368.
    _See_ Gervase, William

  Remigius, bishop of Dorchester, moves his see to Lincoln, i. 39

  Rennes united with Nantes, i. 449.
    _See_ Conan, Hoel, Juhel

  Richard, third son of Henry II. and Eleanor, born, i. 445;
    first betrothal, 463;
    invested with Aquitaine and betrothed to Adela, ii. 62;
    enthroned at Poitiers, 130;
    revolts, 135;
    submits, 165;
    his character, 206–208;
    fights the barons in Aquitaine, 209, 210, 214, 215, 220, 223;
    refuses homage to his brother, 224;
    takes Hautefort, 231;
    refuses to give up Aquitaine, 233;
    war with Geoffrey and John, _ib._;
    reconciled, 234;
    gives up Aquitaine to Eleanor, 235;
    wars with Toulouse, 244, 250, 251;
    negotiates a truce, 246;
    seizes the Angevin treasure, _ib._;
    reinstated in Aquitaine, 247;
    takes the cross, 248;
    tries to regain Châteauroux, 252;
    negotiates with Philip, 253, 254;
    meets Henry and Philip at Bonmoulins, 254;
    homage to Philip, 255;
    encounter with William the Marshal, 261;
    scene with Henry at Colombières, 266;
    comes to Fontevraud, 271;
    reconciled with the Marshal, 272;
    recognized as Henry’s successor, 273;
    duke of Normandy, 274;
    treaty with Philip, 275;
    goes to England, _ib._;
    crowned, 276;
    fills vacant sees, 277, 278;
    his policy, 278;
    appoints justiciars, 279, 283;
    sells sheriffdoms etc., 280;
    dealings with Wales, _ib._;
    with Scotland, 281;
    with John, 281–282;
    goes to Normandy, 287;
    holds council there, 288;
    possible successors, 295;
    treaty with Tancred, _ib._;
    marriage, 296;
    names William of Monreale for the primacy, 297;
    sends Walter of Rouen to England, 297, 298;
    his voyage, 317;
    conquers Cyprus, _ib._;
    alliance with Guy of Lusignan, 318, 320;
    reaches Acre, 319;
    quarrel with Leopold of Austria, _ib._;
    relations with other crusaders, 319–321;
    truce with Saladin, 321;
    homeward voyage, 322;
    wrecked and captured, _ib._;
    given up to the Emperor, 324;
    his ransom, 325, 326;
    negotiates with Philip and John, 327;
    returns to England, 328;
    imposes taxes, _ib._, 329;
    negotiates with Scotland, 330;
    crowned at Winchester, _ib._, 331;
    king of Burgundy, 331;
    leaves England, _ib._;
    forgives John, 334;
    gives license for tournaments, 342;
    annuls his charters, 343, 356;
    sends the abbot of Caen to England, 343;
    quarrel with S. Hugh, 350;
    edict against the clergy, 355;
    cessions to Philip, 361;
    difficulties in Gaul, 361, 362;
    treaty with Philip, 364;
    goes to Normandy, 365;
    to Tours, 365, 366;
    regains Loches, 366;
    routs Philip at Fréteval, _ib._, 367;
    claims wardship of Arthur, 370;
    alliance with Toulouse, 371;
    with Henry VI., 372;
    called to elect an emperor, _ib._;
    league against Philip, 374;
    truce, 375;
    builds Château-Gaillard, 375–380;
    quarrel with Abp. Walter, 380, 381;
    lays siege to Châlus, 382;
    wounded, 384;
    dies, 385, 386;
    burial, 386, 387;
    his encouragement of municipal life, 470;
    grant to merchants of Cöln, 485

  Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, ii. 170, 434

  Richard I., bishop of London, i. 45

  Richard II., bishop of London, i. 502, 503

  Richard Fitz-Nigel, treasurer and bishop of London, ii. 277;
    his _Gesta Henrici_, 439

  Richard of Ilchester, ii. 66;
    bishop of Winchester, 158, 176;
    work in the Exchequer, 193, 194;
    seneschal of Normandy, 193;
    death, 277

  Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke or Striguil, ii. 99, 100;
    goes to Ireland, 103;
    takes Waterford, 104;
    marriage, _ib._;
    blockaded in Dublin, 109, 110;
    summoned by Henry, 112;
    does homage for Leinster, 113;
    in Normandy with Henry, 145, 182;
    governor of Ireland, 182;
    death, 183

  Richard le Breton, ii. 78

  Richard Fitz-Count, son of Robert of Gloucester, i. 386, 405; ii. 146

  Richard Fitz-Godoberd, ii. 100

  Richard of La Haye, i. 340, 341

  Richard of Hommet, constable of Normandy, ii. 146

  Richard de Lucy, justiciar, his character, i. 417;
    his share in election of Thomas, ii. 1–3;
    excommunicated, 66;
    takes Leicester, 146;
    marches against the Scots, 149;
    besieges Huntingdon, 154, 156;
    protests against the forest visitation, 171;
    retires to a monastery, 176

  Richard de Morville, ii. 139, 161

  Richenda de Clères, sister of William of Longchamp, ii. 305

  Richer de l’Aigle, i. 51, 395

  Richmond, _see_ Alan

  Ridel, _see_ Geoffrey

  Rievaux abbey, i. 71

  Robert I., king of France, i. 149, 164

  Robert the Brave, count of Anjou, i. 102;
    duke of the French, 103

  Robert the Magnificent, or the Devil, duke of Normandy, i. 166

  Robert, son of William the Conqueror, betrothed to Margaret of Maine,
    i. 216;
    homage to Geoffrey the Bearded, 217;
    to Fulk Rechin, 223;
    seeks Fulk’s help in Maine, _ib._;
    sells the Cotentin to Henry, 4;
    wars with his brothers, 5, 6;
    pledges Normandy to Rufus, 3;
    crusade, _ib._;
    invades England, 9;
    war with Henry, 11;
    taken prisoner, 13;
    dies, 271

  Robert Bloet, chancellor, justiciar and bishop of Lincoln, i. 22

  Robert II., bishop of Lincoln, ii. 24

  Robert I., bishop of Hereford, i. 370, 495

  Robert of Melun, i. 481;
    bishop of Hereford, ii. 24

  Robert of Bellême, count of Alençon etc., i. 6;
    banished, 10;
    sues for peace, 11;
    flies at Tinchebray, 13;
    captures Elias, 225;
    imprisoned, 233

  Robert, count of Burgundy, i. 178

  Robert, count of Dreux, i. 394

  Robert, earl of Ferrers, ii. 139, 163

  Robert, earl of Gloucester, son of Henry I., friend of William of
    Malmesbury, i. 92, 94;
    escorts Matilda over sea, 243;
    at Henry’s death, 270;
    dispute for precedence with Stephen, 274;
    joins Stephen, 283;
    defies him, 294;
    comes to England, 309;
    marches to Lincoln, 316, 317;
    receives Stephen’s surrender, 320;
    made prisoner, 327;
    exchanged, 329;
    goes to fetch Geoffrey, 330;
    returns, 332;
    besieges Wareham, _ib._;
    takes Portland and Lulworth, 333;
    meets his sister at Wallingford, 334;
    routs Stephen at Wilton, _ib._;
    builds a castle at Farringdon, 335;
    helps Geoffrey in Normandy, 338, 339;
    dies, 343, 344

  Robert I., earl of Leicester and count of Meulan, i. 16, 54, 56

  Robert II., earl of Leicester, joins Henry, i. 400;
    justiciar, 417;
    at council of Northampton, ii. 39;
    refuses the kiss of peace to Reginald of Cöln, 55, 56;
    dies, 61

  Robert III., earl of Leicester, rebels, ii. 138, 142;
    goes to England, 148;
    made prisoner, 150;
    restored, 167;
    repulses Philip from Normandy, 363

  Robert II., count of Meulan, ii. 138

  Robert de Barri, ii. 101

  Robert de Bruce, ii. 145

  Robert, abbot of Caen, ii. 343, 344

  Robert Fitz-Stephen, ii. 100;
    goes to Ireland, 101;
    blockaded in Carrick, 109;
    made prisoner, 111;
    released, 113

  Robert of Marmion, i. 335

  Robert de Montfort defeats Henry of Essex in ordeal, ii. 60;
    rebels, 138

  Robert of Mowbray, ii. 155

  Robert I. of Oilly, i. 41, 42, 331

  Robert II. of Oilly founds Oseney priory, i. 43;
    gives up Oxford to the Empress, 322;
    death, 332

  Robert Pulein, i. 43, 44

  Robert Pullus, i. 483

  Robert of Sablé, i. 343

  Robert of Selby, chancellor of Sicily, i. 365

  Robert of Sillé, ii. 137

  Robert de Stuteville, ii. 145, 153, 160

  Robert of Torigny or _de Monte_, ii. 194

  Robert of Turnham, seneschal of Anjou, ii. 388, 389;
    of Poitou, 426;
    prisoner, 427

  Rocamadour, ii. 74, 226, 227

  Rochelle, La, ii. 428

  Roches, _see_ William

  Rochester, _see_ Ralf, Walter

  Roderic O’Conor, king of Connaught, ii. 97;
    of Ireland, 98;
    treaty with Dermot,102;
    gathers a host against him, 104;
    blockades Dublin, 109, 110;
    routed, 110, 111;
    promises tribute to Henry II., 116;
    treaty, 182

  Roger, king of Sicily, i. 365

  Roger of Pont-l’Evêque, i. 354, 368;
    archbishop of York, 477;
    earlier career, 478, 479;
    accepts the royal customs, ii. 24;
    dispute with S. Thomas, 30;
    crowns young Henry, 72;
    appeals to the king, 78;
    dies, 285

  Roger, chaplain to Henry I., chancellor, bishop of Salisbury and
    justiciar, i. 22;
    his administration, 25, 26;
    called the “Sword of Righteousness,” 26;
    his Church policy, 63;
    joins Stephen, 278;
    his family, 302;
    relations with Stephen and with the Empress, _ib._, 303;
    seized at Oxford, 303, 304;
    death, 310

  Roger, earl of Clare, ii. 12, 16, 180

  Roger, earl of Hereford, i. 429

  Roger of Howden, i. 82; ii. 439

  Roger de Lacy, ii. 400, 401;
    at Château-Gaillard, 411, 417, 418, 423

  Roger of Montrésor, i. 151

  Roger de Mortemer, ii. 299

  Roger de Mowbray, ii. 139, 152, 160, 162, 163

  Roger “the Poor,” chancellor, i. 302, 303

  Rohesia, wife of Gilbert Becket, i. 50, 352

  Roland, count of Maine, i. 203

  Roland of Siena, cardinal, _see_ Alexander III.

  Rome, relations of William and Lanfranc with, i. 15;
    trial of Stephen’s and Matilda’s claims at, 370;
    schism at, 498

  Ronceray, i. 165 note 3{363}, 166; ii. 200

  Roscilla of Loches, wife of Fulk the Red, i. 110

  Rotrou, archbishop of Rouen, ii. 72, 81

  Rouen surrenders to Geoffrey Plantagenet, i. 341, 342;
    besieged by Louis VII., ii. 164;
    palace, 196;
    young Henry buried at, 232;
    Richard’s heart buried at, 387;
    Arthur imprisoned at, 407;
    submits to Philip, 425.
    _See_ Rotrou, Walter

  Rouergue, i. 454

  Roumare, _see_ William

  Roxburgh, i. 287

  Rudolf of Burgundy, king of West-Frankland, i. 111, 115

  Rufus, S., priory of, i. 476


  Saher de Arcelles, i. 363

  Sainfred, bishop of Le Mans, i. 204

  Saintes granted to Fulk Nerra, i. 159, 173;
    taken by William VII. of Aquitaine, 215;
    regained and lost again, 216.
    _See_ Peter

  Saintonge ceded to Geoffrey Martel, i. 174;
    granted to Fulk Rechin, 214;
    war of, 215, 216, 252, 253

  Saint-Saëns, _see_ Elias

  Saints, Old-English, revived veneration for, i. 33, 80

  Saladin tithe, ii. 249

  Salisbury, i. 32–33.
    _See_ Herbert, Hubert, Jocelyn, John, Patrick, William

  Saltwood, ii. 79

  Sancho VI., king of Navarre, submits to Henry II.’s arbitration,
    ii. 190

  Sancho VII., king of Navarre, suppresses revolt in Gascony and attacks
    Toulouse, ii. 316;
    helps Richard, 366, 367

  Saumur, i. 161;
    taken by Fulk Nerra, 162;
    blockaded by William of Poitou, 213;
    betrayed to Fulk Rechin, 220;
    burnt, _ib._;
    Henry II. at, ii. 256;
    taken by Philip, 410;
    abbey of S. Florence, i. 162, 163.
    _See_ Gelduin

  Savaric of Mauléon, ii. 405, 426

  Saxony, _see_ Henry, Matilda, Otto

  Scarborough, i. 428

  Schools, Augustinian, i. 43;
    at Oxford, _ib._, ii. 462;
    London, i. 47;
    Malmesbury, 84, 85.
    _See_ Universities

  Scotland, its relations with Henry I., i. 96.
    _See_ David, Henry, Matilda, William

  Scutage, i. 432, 433;
    the Great, 459–461;
    of 1195, ii. 343;
    1196, 348

  Sees, removal of, i. 40

  Selby, _see_ Robert

  Sempringham, order of, i. 359, 360;
    helps S. Thomas, ii. 41

  Seneschal of France, office of, i. 450

  Sens, i. 164; ii. 42, 68

  Serfdom in twelfth century, i. 61, 62

  Serlo the Mercer, mayor of London, ii. 472

  Severn, valley of, i. 35

  Sherborne castle, i. 304

  “Sheriff’s Aid,” ii. 15

  Sheriffs of London, i. 45; ii. 471;
    Middlesex, i. 46;
    inquest on (1170), ii. 126, 127

  Shrewsbury, i. 295, 298, 299

  Sibyl, queen of Jerusalem, ii. 247, 320

  Sibyl of Anjou, daughter of Fulk V., i. 240, 241

  Sicily conquered by Henry VI., ii. 371, 372.
    _See_ Constance, Jane, Roger, Tancred, William

  Sillé, _see_ Hugh, Robert

  Simeon of Durham, i. 81, 82

  Simon, count of Montfort, i. 467

  Simon de Montfort, count of Evreux, ii. 138

  Simon, earl of Northampton, ii. 144;
    claim to Huntingdon, 154

  Simon of Dover, i. 363

  Simon Fitz-Peter, ii. 21

  Sleaford, i. 304

  Smithfield, i. 47;
    S. Bartholomew’s priory and hospital, 67

  Soissons, ii. 42, 65.
    _See_ Guy, William

  Solomon, king of Britanny, i. 103

  Spain, proposed crusade in, i. 453, 497

  Standard, battle of the, i. 289–291

  Stephen Harding, S., i. 69, 70

  Stephen of Blois, son of Stephen-Henry and Adela, i. 235, 236;
    his “Lombard grandmother,” 256;
    brought up by Henry I., 273;
    count of Mortain, _ib._;
    marriage, _ib._;
    relations with Henry, 274;
    oath to Matilda, _ib._;
    goes to England, 276;
    gains the treasury, 277;
    crowned, 279;
    first charter, _ib._;
    character, 280, 281;
    treaty with Scotland, 282;
    early successes, 283;
    second charter, 284;
    revolt against him, _ib._;
    holds forest assize, 285;
    goes to Normandy, 286;
    invades Scotland, 287;
    relations with the barons, 292, 293;
    with Earl Robert, 294;
    revolt in the west, 295–299;
    grants Northumberland to Henry of Scotland, 300;
    besieges Ludlow, 301, 302;
    takes Leeds, 302;
    seizes Roger of Salisbury and his nephew, 303, 304;
    summoned before a council at Winchester, 305;
    penance, 306;
    truce with Geoffrey, 307;
    besieges Arundel, 309;
    sends Matilda to Bristol, 310;
    keeps Whitsuntide in the Tower, 311;
    besieges Lincoln castle, 315;
    exploits at battle of Lincoln, 319, 320;
    prisoner, 320;
    exchanged, 329;
    takes Wareham and Cirencester, 330;
    Oxford, 332;
    besieges the castle, 332, 333;
    routed at Wilton, 334;
    takes Farringdon, 335;
    builds Crowmarsh, 336;
    imprisons Ralf of Chester, _ib._;
    wears his crown at Lincoln, 337;
    banishes Abp. Theobald, 368;
    trial of his claims at Rome, 370;
    reconciled to Theobald, 371;
    knights Eustace, 377;
    drives Vacarius from Oxford, 379;
    refuses a safe-conduct to John Paparo, 380;
    proposes to crown Eustace, 381, 390;
    imprisons the bishops, 391;
    meets Henry, 397;
    treaty, 400;
    last days, 403;
    death, 404

  Stephen I., count of Champagne, i. 160

  Stephen II., count of Champagne, i. 177;
    rebels, 177, 178;
    defeated, 178, 186;
    dies, 271

  Stephen-Henry, count of Blois, Chartres and Champagne, receives Fulk
    Rechin’s homage, i. 221;
    his parents, 255, 256;
    marriage, 271, 272;
    crusade and death, 272

  Stephen of Turnham, seneschal of Anjou, ii. 273, 279

  Stockbridge, i. 327

  Striguil, _see_ Richard, William

  Strongbow, ii. 99 note 7{445}

  Stuteville, _see_ Robert, William

  Suger, abbot of S. Denis, his views on “Frenchmen and Englishmen,”
    i. 24;
    policy, 387, 388;
    opposes divorce of Louis VII., 392;
    death, _ib._, 399

  Sulpice of Amboise, i. 156, 157, 194

  Synods, _see_ Councils


  Taillebourg, ii. 215

  Talbot, _see_ Geoffrey

  Tallage of 1174, ii. 173; 1194, 337, 342

  Talvas, _see_ William

  Tancarville, _see_ William

  Tancred, king of Sicily, ii. 295

  Tara, ii. 84

  Taxation, i. 25, 26, 27;
    of towns, 29;
    “Sheriff’s Aid,” ii. 15;
    aid _pour fille marier_, 125, 126;
    Saladin tithe, 249;
    tax on moveables, 325;
    taxes in 1194, 328, 329, 337, 342;
    1195, 343;
    1198, 352;
    in London, 344, 345

  Templars, i. 357

  Terence O’Brien, king of Munster, ii. 89

  Terence O’Conor, king of Connaught, ii. 90, 91

  Tertullus, i. 127, 128

  Theobald, abbot of Bec, archbishop of Canterbury, i. 300, 351;
    joins the Empress, 321;
    his policy, 351, 352, 378;
    household, 352, 354, 379, 477;
    legate, 356, 380;
    “swimming-voyage” to Reims, 368;
    banished, _ib._;
    consecrates Gilbert Foliot, 371;
    returns, _ib._;
    holds a council, 381;
    imprisoned, 391;
    escapes, _ib._;
    relations with Henry II., 418;
    consecrates Roger of York, 479;
    last days, 503–504;
    death, 506

  Theobald I. the Trickster, count of Blois, Chartres and Tours, i. 106,
    115, 116

  Theobald III., count of Blois, Chartres and Tours, i. 177;
    rebels, 177, 178;
    marches to relieve Tours, 184, 185;
    prisoner, 186;
    cedes Tours to Geoffrey Martel, 187;
    his marriages, 255, 256;
    seizes Champagne, 271

  Theobald IV. the Great, count of Blois, Chartres and Champagne,
    i. 273;
    character, 275, 276;
    alliance with Henry I., 231;
    wars with Louis VI., _ib._, 235;
    invited to Normandy, 282, 337;
    treaties with Geoffrey, _ib._;
    with Stephen, 286;
    opposes Louis VII.’s attempt on Toulouse, 457;
    quarrel with Louis, 384;
    death, 392, 399

  Theobald V., count of Blois etc., seeks to marry Eleanor, i. 392;
    betrothed to Adela, 445;
    ally of Henry II., 466

  Theobald Walter, ii. 293, 343

  Theodoric, count of Flanders, i. 342

  Thierceville, i. 354

  Thomas of London, son of Gilbert Becket, his boyhood, i. 50, 51;
    studies in Paris, 352;
    clerk to Osbern Huitdeniers, 353;
    enters Theobald’s household, 353, 354;
    goes with him to Rome, 356;
    to Reims, 368;
    studies at Bologna and Auxerre, 379;
    opposes crowning of Eustace, 391;
    chancellor, 418;
    archdeacon of Canterbury, 420, 479, 480;
    his person, 421;
    life as chancellor, 421–425;
    relations with Henry, 423, 425–427;
    embassy to France, 446–448;
    exploits in war of Toulouse, 465, 466;
    combat with Engelram of Trie, 467;
    opposes marriage of Mary of Boulogne, 469;
    takes charge of young Henry and procures his recognition as heir,
    471–473;
    relations with Roger of Pont-l’Evêque, 478;
    with John of Salisbury, 485;
    character as chancellor and as primate, 504, 505;
    archbishop of Canterbury, ii. 1–3;
    consecrated, 4–5;
    institutes Trinity-Sunday, 5;
    receives his pall and resigns the chancellorship, 6;
    life as archbishop, 7–10;
    his _eruditi_, 8;
    plans of Church reform, 11;
    reclaims alienated lands, 11, 12;
    dispute with Roger of Clare, 12, 16;
    with William of Eynesford, 17;
    resigns archdeaconry, 13;
    relations with Gilbert Foliot, _ib._, 31;
    at council of Tours, 14;
    resists Henry at Woodstock, 15, 16;
    refuses the “customs,” 22, 23;
    young Henry taken from him, 23;
    meets Henry at Northampton, _ib._;
    consecrates Robert of Melun, 24;
    accepts the customs, _ib._;
    swears to them at Clarendon, 25;
    rejects the constitutions of Clarendon, 28;
    forbids marriage of William of Anjou, 29;
    dispute with Roger of York, 30;
    attempts flight, 31;
    meets Henry at Woodstock, 31, 32;
    dispute with John the marshal, 32, 33, 34;
    at council of Northampton, 33–40;
    flight, 41;
    goes to Soissons and Sens, 42;
    effects of the quarrel in England, 46–49;
    resigns his ring to the Pope, 52;
    goes to Pontigny, 42, 54;
    life there, 63;
    writes to Henry, 63, 64;
    pilgrimage to Soissons, 65;
    excommunications at Vézelay, 66;
    legate, 67;
    goes to Sens, 68;
    meets Henry at Montmirail, 69;
    excommunications at Clairvaux, 70;
    meets Henry at Montmartre, 71;
    proclaims interdict, 71;
    forbids crowning of young Henry, 72;
    meets Henry at Fréteval, 73;
    Tours and Chaumont, 74;
    his estates restored, 74;
    returns to England, 77;
    excommunicates the De Brocs, 78;
    slain, 79;
    canonized, 431;
    results of his life and death, 431–433;
    lives of, 439

  Thomas Pactius, prior of Loches, i. 126, 127, 153, note 3{318}

  Thorgils, ii. 82

  Thouars, _see_ Almeric, Guy

  Thurstan, archbishop of York, his charter to Beverley, i. 30, 38;
    protects Fountains, 71;
    makes truce with the Scots, 286;
    organizes defence of Yorkshire, 288, 289;
    dies, 354

  Tiberias, battle of, ii. 247

  Tickhill, ii. 282, 291, 299, 323, 328

  Tighernan O’Ruark, chief of Breffny, ii. 97, 109, 111, 114

  Tinchebray, battle of, i. 12, 13, 227

  Tintern abbey, i. 71

  Tithe, the Saladin, ii. 249

  Torigni, 386, 405.
    _See_ Robert

  Tortulf the Forester (Torquatius), i. 105, 127, 128

  Totnes, gild at, ii. 469

  Toucques, i. 307

  Toulouse, relations with France, i. 457, 458;
    war of Henry II. against, 464–466;
    its results, 468;
    attacked by Sancho of Navarre and the seneschal of Gascony, ii. 316;
    counts, i. 454–456.
    _See_ Alfonso, Bertrand, Raymond, William

  Touraine, i. 107;
    ceded to Geoffrey Martel, 187, 188

  Tournaments authorized by Richard I., ii. 342

  Tours (_Cæsarodunum_) sacked by northmen, i. 102;
    early history, 178–183;
    granted to Geoffrey Martel, 178;
    siege, 184;
    ceded by Theobald, 187;
    council at, ii. 14;
    taken by Philip, 264;
    Richard at, 365, 366;
    meeting of Arthur and the Lusignans at, 405;
    burnt by Philip, 407;
    destroyed by John, _ib._;
    S. Martin’s abbey, i. 102, 113, 114, 181–183;
    its banner, 186;
    Châteauneuf, 183, ii. 264, 366.
    _See_ Adaland, Gatian, Gregory, Lidorius, Martin, Odo, Theobald

  Towns, English, their origin and character, i. 27–29;
    taxation, 25, 29;
    _firma burgi_, 29;
    condition under Henry I., 30–54;
    fusion of races in, 48, 49;
    progress under the Angevins, ii. 468–472

  Tracy, _see_ William

  Trade, English, with Flanders, i. 30, 52;
    with Ireland, 32, 34, 35; ii. 87;
    of Winchester, i. 32;
    Bristol, 34, 35; ii. 87;
    Chester, i. 36; ii. 87;
    Lincoln, i. 39, 40;
    Norwich, 40;
    London, 49;
    under the Angevins, ii. 481–485

  Treasurers, _see_ Nigel, Richard

  Trencavel, _see_ Raymond

  Trent, river, i. 40, 344, 345

  Trèves (near Saumur), i. 162

  Trie, _see_ Engelram

  Trinity Sunday instituted, ii. 5

  Trussebut, _see_ William

  Tuam, metropolis of Connaught, ii. 94

  Tunbridge, ii. 12, 16

  Turlogh, _see_ Terence

  Turnham, _see_ Robert, Stephen

  Turold, abbot of Malmesbury, i. 84

  _Turones_ or _Turoni_, i. 179

  Twinham or Christchurch, i. 32


  Ulger, bishop of Angers, i. 370

  Ulster invaded by John de Courcy, ii. 184

  Umfraville, _see_ Odelin

  Universities, ii. 460–468.
    _See_ Bologna, Cambridge, Oxford, Paris

  Urban II., Pope, i. 225

  Urban III., Pope, ii. 242, 247

  Ursus or Ours, S., i. 110


  Vacarius, i. 379

  Varaville, i. 213

  Varneville, _see_ Ralf

  Vegetius Renatus, his book _De Re Militari_, i. 386

  Vendôme, abbey of Holy Trinity at, i. 172.
    _See_ Adela, Burchard, Elizabeth, Fulk, Geoffrey, John

  Verdun, treaty of, i. 98

  Vere, _see_ Aubrey

  Vermandois, ii. 360.
    _See_ Ralf

  Verneuil, ii. 364, 365, 425

  Vexin, the French, granted to William Clito, i. 243

  Vexin, the Norman, ceded to Louis VII., i. 388;
    settled on Margaret, 467, 471;
    seized by Henry II., 470

  Vézelay, S. Thomas at, ii. 66

  Victor IV., antipope, i. 498, 499; ii. 55

  Vienna, Richard I. captured at, ii. 322

  Villeins in twelfth century, i. 57–62

  Vulgrin, count of Angoulême, invades Poitou, ii. 209;
    submits to Richard, 210, 215;
    dies, 220


  Wace, ii. 446

  Walbrook, i. 46

  Waldric or Gualdric, chancellor of England and bishop of Laon, i. 22,
    30

  Waleran, count of Meulan, rebels, i. 241;
    raises siege of Carham, 287;
    escorts the Empress to Bristol, 310;
    submits to Geoffrey, 337, 338

  Wales, Flemish settlers in, i. 52;
    Henry I.’s dealings with, 96;
    condition in twelfth century, ii. 99;
    Henry II.’s wars in, i. 435–437; ii. 179–181, 237;
    crusade preached in, ii. 249;
    Gerald’s books on, 458.
    _See_ Cadwallader, David, Madoc, Nest, Owen, Rees

  Walkelyn Maminot, i. 295, 299

  Wallingford, the Empress at, i. 334;
    blockaded by Stephen, 396;
    relieved by Henry, 397;
    treaty of, 400;
    council at, 429;
    granted to John, ii. 282;
    taken from him, 323, 328

  Walter of Coutances, archbishop of Rouen, ii. 297;
    sent to England, 298, 300;
    supports John against W. Longchamp, 308, 309;
    justiciar, 311, 312;
    hostage for Richard’s ransom, 326;
    quarrel with Richard, 380, 381;
    invests John as duke, 389

  Walter, archdeacon of Canterbury, i. 478;
    bishop of Rochester, _ib._, 506; ii. 4

  Walter, count of Mantes, i. 217, 218

  Walter de Clare, i. 71

  Walter Lespec founds Kirkham priory, i. 67;
    Rievaux, 71;
    at battle of the Standard, 289;
    death, 399

  Walter Map, ii. 449–452

  Walter, _see_ Hubert

  Wareham, i. 295, 299, 330, 332, 333

  Warin, abbot of Malmesbury, i. 84

  Wark, ii. 153.
    _See_ Carham

  Warren, _see_ Isabel, Hameline, William

  Waterford, its origin, ii. 83;
    taken by Richard of Striguil, 104;
    Henry II. at, 113;
    bull “Laudabiliter” published at, 182.
    _See_ Malchus

  Waverley abbey, i. 71

  Weavers, gilds of, i. 30, 52; ii. 481

  “Week-work,” i. 57

  Weobly, i. 296

  Westminster, i. 46;
    coronations at, i. 279, 405; ii. 72, 276, 391, 399;
    councils at, i. 300, 329, 330; ii. 3, 22, 23, 190

  Wexford, ii. 102, 109, 111, 117

  Wherwell, i. 327

  _White Ship_ wrecked, i. 239

  Wigford, i. 439

  Wigmore, i. 429

  William, S., archbishop of York, i. 354, 355, 364–367, 478

  William the Conqueror, king of England and duke of Normandy, his
    ecclesiastical customs, i. 16;
    charter to London, 45;
    shelters Bp. Gervase of Le Mans, 206;
    helps King Henry against Geoffrey Martel, 207;
    besieges Domfront, 208, 209;
    regains Alençon and fortifies Ambrières, 209;
    challenges Geoffrey, 211;
    treaty with Herbert of Maine, 216;
    conquers Maine, 218;
    Maine revolts against, 221, 222;
    treaty with Anjou, 223;
    death, _ib._

  William II. Rufus, king of England, regains Maine, i. 3;
    restores Carlisle, 36;
    his palace at Westminster, 46;
    war with Elias, 225, 226;
    death, 3, 226

  William the Lion, king of Scots, does homage to young Henry, ii. 72;
    joins his rebellion, 140;
    invades England, 149, 153, 154;
    his border castles, 152;
    prisoner, 161, 162;
    does homage for his crown, 166, 178;
    marriage, 237;
    negotiations with Richard, 281, 330, 341;
    with John, 391, 393;
    homage to John, 399

  William II. the Good, king of Sicily, betrothed to Jane, daughter of
    Henry II., ii. 60;
    marriage, 189;
    death, 318

  William the Ætheling, son of Henry I., betrothed to Matilda of Anjou,
    i. 234;
    receives homage, _ib._;
    marriage, 236;
    drowned, 239

  William, eldest son of Henry II. and Eleanor, i. 429, 431

  William of Corbeil, prior of Chiche, archbishop of Canterbury, i. 68;
    joins Stephen, 278;
    crowns him, 279;
    dies, 299, 300

  William, archbishop of Bordeaux, ii. 140

  William I. Shockhead (_Tête-d’Etoupe_), count of Poitou and duke of
    Aquitaine, i. 123

  William II. Fierabras, duke of Aquitaine, i. 123, 139, 173

  William IV. the Great, duke of Aquitaine, i. 159, 173

  William V. the Fat, duke of Aquitaine, i. 173, 174

  William VI. (Peter) the Bold, duke of Aquitaine, i. 176;
    relations with Geoffrey Martel, 210–213;
    death, 213

  William VII. (Guy-Geoffrey), duke of Aquitaine, i. 215;
    war with Anjou, _ib._, 252, 253;
    regains Saintonge, 216

  William VIII., duke of Aquitaine, offers his duchy in pledge to
    William Rufus, i. 3;
    imprisons Fulk of Anjou, 229;
    marriage, 455

  William IX., duke of Aquitaine, bequeaths his daughter to Louis VII.
    of France, i. 383;
    claims on Toulouse, 455

  William Longsword, duke of Normandy, i. 111

  William of Longchamp, bishop of Ely and chancellor, ii. 277, 279;
    character and antecedents, 285–287;
    justiciar, 288;
    proceedings at York, 290;
    quarrel with Hugh of Durham, 291;
    legate, _ib._;
    his difficulties, 292, 293;
    his rule, 294;
    quarrels with John, 298–301;
    struggle with Geoffrey of York, 305, 306;
    with John etc., 307–311;
    his fall, 311, 312;
    appeals to the Pope and excommunicates his enemies, 312;
    negotiates with Eleanor and John, 315;
    goes to England for Richard’s ransom, 325;
    makes truce with Philip, 367;
    mission to Germany, 372;
    death, 373, note 4{1866}

  William, dean of York, i. 355;
    bishop of Durham, _ib._;
    death, 399

  William Giffard, chancellor, i. 22;
    bishop of Winchester, 71

  William I., count of Arles or Provence, i. 190, 191

  William, count of Angoulême, ii. 136

  William IV. count of Toulouse, i. 455

  William of Aubigny, earl of Arundel, i. 298; ii. 144, 145, 149

  William of Aumale, earl of York, i. 289

  William of Blois, chancellor of Lincoln, ii. 456, 461

  William, earl of Gloucester, ii. 144, 163, 184

  William de Mandeville, earl of Essex, ii. 144;
    supports Henry II., 145, 260;
    justiciar, 279;
    death, 282

  William the Marshal rebels against Henry II., ii. 139;
    relations with the young king, 228;
    early history, 260;
    encounter with Richard, 261;
    arranges Henry’s funeral, 269, 270;
    meeting with Richard, 272;
    marriage, 274;
    co-justiciar, 279;
    regent for John, 390, 391;
    earl of Striguil, 393;
    sent to Normandy, 400, 401;
    goes to relieve Les Andelys, 413;
    ambassador to Philip, 424;
    persuades John to dismiss the host, 427

  William, marquis of Montferrat, ii. 60

  William of Mortain, earl of Cornwall, i. 11, 13

  William of Roumare, i. 314;
    earl of Lincoln, 315

  William, earl of Salisbury, ii. 144

  William Longsword, earl of Salisbury, son of Henry II., ii. 428

  William, earl of Warren and count of Mortain and Boulogne (son of
    Stephen), i. 430, 469

  William of Anjou, third son of Geoffrey and Matilda, born, i. 374;
    proposal to conquer Ireland for him, 431;
    death, ii. 29

  William de Barri, ii. 453

  William the Clito, son of Robert of Normandy, i. 235, 238;
    betrothed to Sibyl of Anjou, 240;
    marriage annulled, 241;
    excommunicated, 242;
    Flanders granted to, 243;
    marriage, _ib._;
    death, 266

  William de Courcy, seneschal of Normandy, ii. 146, 193

  William of Dover, i. 335

  William of Eynesford, ii. 17

  William Fitz-Alan, i. 295, 298

  William Fitz-Aldhelm, seneschal to Henry II., ii. 113, 116;
    governor of Ireland, 183

  William Fitz-Duncan, i. 287

  William Fitz-John, i. 295

  William Fitz-Ralf, seneschal of Normandy, ii. 194, 260

  William Fitz-Osbert or Long-beard, ii. 345–347

  William Fitz-Stephen, ii. 38

  William of Malmesbury, i. 83–93;
    his account of the Angevins, 196

  William of Mohun, i. 295

  William “the Monk,” i. 342

  William, lord of Montpellier, i. 462, 466

  William of Newburgh, ii. 441–445

  William Peverel, i. 295, 299, 320, 428

  William of Pavia, cardinal, ii. 69

  William, archbishop of Reims, ii. 218

  William des Roches, ii. 394, 407, 426

  William of Soissons, i. 481

  William de Stuteville, ii. 160, 393

  William Talvas, lord of Alençon, i. 236, 270, 281

  William of Tancarville, chamberlain of Normandy, ii. 142

  William de Tracy, ii. 78

  William Trussebut, i. 307

  William de Vesci, ii. 145, 160

  William of Ypres, i. 285, 294;
    at battle of Lincoln, 318, 319;
    helps the queen in Kent, 324;
    at siege of Winchester, 326;
    captures Earl Robert, 327;
    tries to reconcile Stephen and Abp. Theobald, 369

  Wilton, i. 33;
    battle at, 334

  Winchester, i. 31;
    treaty of, 9;
    fair, 32;
    Stephen received at, 277;
    Matilda received at, 321;
    palace, 325;
    siege, 326;
    Matilda’s escape from, 327, 328;
    councils at, 305, 322, 402;
    hospital of S. Cross, 357;
    coronations at, ii. 81, 330;
    meetings of John and W. of Longchamp at, 298, 299, 300.
    _See_ Henry, Richard, William

  Windsor, ii. 182, 314, 323, 328

  Witham, river, i. 38, 40

  Wolvesey-house, i. 325

  Woodstock, Henry I. at, i. 44, 94;
    Henry II. and Thomas at, ii. 31, 32;
    Welsh princes at, 14, 179;
    council at, 14–16, 43, 44

  Wool-trade, Flemish and English, i. 30, 52

  Worcester, i. 35;
    its historical school, 81, 82;
    Henry II. at, 439

  Würzburg, council at, ii. 56


  York, i. 36;
    Henry I.’s charter to, _ib._;
    S. Mary’s abbey, 71;
    dispute for the primacy, 354, 355, 364–366;
    tumults at, 380;
    Henry Murdac enthroned at, 381;
    end of the schism, 382;
    Henry II. and William the Lion at, ii. 178;
    massacre of Jews at, 289, 290;
    council at, 340;
    commune at, 469.
    _See_ Geoffrey, Henry, Hubert, Hugh, John, Roger, Thurstan, William

  Yorkshire, its condition under Henry I., i. 36, 38




Transcriber’s Note


The Errata have been moved to the end of the book, the corrections
listed in them have been applied to this transcription.

Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of paragraphs.

All references to footnote numbers (i.e. page and note number) are
followed by the footnote number used here in braces e.g. {386}.

Some formatting and punctuation in citations and the index have been
standardized.

Variant spelling, inconsistent hyphenation and inconsistent spelling
of people’s names are retained, as are inconsistent punctuation after
roman numerals (e.g. “i.” and “i” both occur) and inconsistent use of
italics, however a few palpable printing errors have been corrected.

“Guib. Noviog. Opp. Opp.” has been changed to “Guib. Noviog. Opp.” in
all the footnotes it occurs.

In footnote 727 (originally Page 289 Footnote 5) “The the king” is
quoted correctly.

In footnote 1040 (originally Page 360 Footnote 1) “xcix*” has been
changed to “lix*” in “see Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. vi. pt. 2, pp.
iii*–lix*”.

In footnote 1229 “_De Nugis Curialibus_” has been changed to “_De Nugis
Curialium_”

In footnote 1291 The closing bracket has been moved: “Joh. Salisb., Ep.
lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 109; Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ix. p.
13).” has been changed to “Joh. Salisb., Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i.
p. 109); Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ix. p. 13.”