KING WILLIAM’S LATER WARS.
=1. The Affairs of Wales.=--William was now king over all England, but
he had not yet won that lordship over the whole of Britain which had
been held by the old Kings of the English. But it was his full purpose
to win this also, as well as the rule of his immediate kingdom. But of
course neither the Scots nor the Welsh were inclined to give him any
greater submission than they could help, and there was much fighting
on both borders. The care of the Welsh marches William put into the
hands of his earls. It was only on the borders and on the exposed
coasts that he placed earls at all. Besides his brother Odo in Kent and
his friend William Fitz-Osbern at Hereford, there was Earl Gospatric
in Northumberland to guard the northern border against the Scots, and
Earl Ralph in Norfolk to guard the east coast against the Danes. But he
did not appoint any earls to succeed Edwin and Morkere. Parts however
of Edwin’s earldom were given to two great Norman leaders, Roger of
Montgomery who became Earl of Shrewsbury, and Hugh of Avranches who
became Earl of Chester. Their duty, along with the Earl of Hereford,
was to keep the Welsh march. They received vast estates and special
powers, the Earl of Chester especially being more like a vassal prince
than an ordinary earl. All these earls had much fighting with the
Welsh, and they took much land from them and built many castles. Earl
Roger especially built a castle to which he gave the name of his own
castle in Normandy, Montgomery, whence a town, and afterwards a shire,
took its name. The Welsh princes moreover were always fighting among
themselves, and they were often foolish enough to call in the Normans
against one another. So the English border advanced. At last in 1081
it is said that King William went on a pilgrimage to Saint David’s,
and about the same time he founded the castle at Cardiff. Of the three
earls of the border, William, Roger, and Hugh, the last two outlived
King William. But Earl William Fitz-Osbern left England in 1071, to
marry Richildis Countess of Flanders and to try to win her county.
There he was killed, and was succeeded in his earldom by his son Roger,
of whom we shall hear presently.
=2. The First War with Scotland.=--King Malcolm of Scotland had all
this while given himself out as a friend of the English. He had at
least promised them help, and he had at any rate given all English
exiles a welcome shelter in Scotland. But, as if England had become an
enemy’s country now that it was conquered by William, in the course
of the year 1070 he invaded Northumberland and harried the land most
cruelly, destroying whatever little the Normans had left. Yet none
the less, when Edgar and his sisters came to seek shelter again, he
received them most kindly, and after a little while he married Edgar’s
sister Margaret. This marriage was of great importance in the history
of Scotland. For Margaret brought English ways into Scotland and made
many reforms, and for her goodness she was called a saint. From this
time the English part of the dominions of the King of Scots, namely
the earldom of Lothian and those parts of Scotland, like Fife, which
took to English ways, had altogether the upper hand over the really
Scottish part of the land. No doubt this marriage made William look
on Malcolm as still more his enemy, but he could not as yet avenge
his inroad. The most part of 1071 he was busy at Ely, and in 1072 he
was wanted in Normandy, where the affairs of Flanders made things
dangerous. But in August 1072 he set out to invade Scotland by sea and
land. It is to be noticed that Eadric, the hero of Herefordshire, went
with him. For we can well believe that, now that William was really
king over the whole land, Englishmen were quite ready to serve him in a
war with the Scots, especially after Malcolm’s invasion. But there was
no fighting; for Malcolm came and met William at Abernethy and became
his man, as, since the days of Edward the Unconquered, the Kings of
Scots had ever been to the Kings of the English. Thus had William won,
not only the kingdom of all England, but the lordship of all Britain,
like the kings who had been before him.
=3. Affairs of Ireland.=--There is in truth some reason to believe that
William sought for a lordship even beyond the isle of Britain, such as
the kings who were before him had never had. The English Chronicle says
that, if King William had lived two years longer, he would have won all
Ireland by his wisdom, without any fighting. We cannot tell how this
might have been; but it is certain that, though William never had the
rule of any part of Ireland, yet in his day England began to have much
more to do with Ireland, both with the Danes who were settled there
and with the native Irish. This showed itself in bishops from Ireland
coming to England to be consecrated by Lanfranc. This was admitting an
English supremacy in spiritual things which was very likely to grow
into a supremacy in temporal things also.
=4. Affairs of Northumberland.=--As William came back from Scotland, it
is to be noticed that he confirmed the privileges of the bishopric of
Durham. He had just given that see to a new bishop, Walcher from Lower
Lorraine. The bishops of Durham came gradually to have great temporal
rights, like the earls of Chester. Had all earls and all bishops been
like these two, the kingdom of England might have fallen to pieces, as
Germany did. King William also took away the earldom of Northumberland
from Gospatric, and gave it to Waltheof, who was already Earl of
Northampton and Huntingdon. Earl Waltheof and Bishop Walcher were close
friends. But Waltheof began his rule by a great crime. This was killing
the sons of Carl, though they had been his comrades at the taking of
York, because their father Carl, a chief man in the North, had killed
Waltheof’s grandfather Ealdred. This was the custom of deadly feud,
which was common in Scotland long after. Gospatric went to Scotland,
where King Malcolm gave him lands. But he either kept or afterwards
received lands in England, and his descendants went on as chief men in
the North. One son of his, Dolfin, seems to have received from King
Malcolm a small part of Cumberland, namely the land about Carlisle.
This was not yet part of the kingdom of England.
=5. The War of Maine.=--William’s next warfare was on his own side of
the sea. The city and land of Maine, which he had won in 1063, now
revolted against him. The men of Maine first chose as their count Hugh
the son of the Lombard Marquess Azo, because his mother Gersendis was
the sister of their last count Herbert. But she and her husband and son
did not agree with the citizens of Le Mans; so the people proclaimed
a _commune_. That is, Le Mans should be a free city, as Exeter had
striven to be. The whole land of Maine joined the citizens, but they
were betrayed by the nobles; so that the story of Le Mans is like the
story of Exeter. Then King William in 1073 crossed the sea, taking with
him a great host of English, among whom, there is some reason to think,
was Hereward himself. One is sorry to think that a man who had fought
so well for freedom in his own land should go and fight against freedom
in another land; but we may be sure that the English of that day were
glad to fight with French-speaking men anywhere. With this army William
laid waste the whole land, and at last the city surrendered, and was,
as usual with him, well treated. Le Mans lost its new freedom; but it
kept all its old rights and customs. Then William made peace with Count
Fulk of Anjou, who also had claims over Maine; William’s eldest son
Robert was to do homage to Fulk for the county. Thus King William won
the land of Maine the second time, ten years after his first conquest.
=6. William’s Enemies.=--At this time of his reign William had to spend
a great part of his time out of England. King Philip of France was his
enemy and Count Robert of Flanders. And Count Robert’s daughter was
married to Cnut of Denmark, which helped to ally two of his enemies
more closely. But the strangest thing is that one German writer says
that in 1074 it was fully believed that King William was thinking of
an expedition into Germany and of getting himself crowned at Aachen.
Another German writer, on the other hand, tells the story quite the
other way, and says that King Henry of Germany (who was afterwards
Emperor) sent to ask William’s help against his own enemies. Either
way such stories show that William was very much in men’s thoughts and
mouths everywhere. And King Philip and Count Robert made a very subtle
plot for William’s annoyance. This was to plant the Ætheling Edgar at
Montreuil, in the land between Normandy and Flanders. He would thus be
able to get together English exiles, men from France and Flanders,
and volunteers and mercenaries of all kinds, to trouble the Norman
frontier. Edgar was now in Scotland with his sister Queen Margaret.
He set out to go to France, but was driven back by a storm. And then
William saw that it was his best policy to win Edgar over to himself.
So he sent for him to Normandy, and he kept him for many years at his
court in great honour.
=7. The Revolt of the Earls.=--Meanwhile a revolt broke out in England,
which was not, like the revolt of Ely, a rising of the English people
against strangers, but a revolt of a few of the great men for their
own ends. Roger, Earl of Hereford, gave his sister Emma in marriage to
Ralph, Earl of Norfolk, against the King’s orders, which was in itself
an offence. Then at the bride-ale they began to talk treason, and to
plot how they might kill the King and divide the kingdom. Earl Waltheof
too was there; but it is not clear how far he consented to their
schemes. On the whole it seems most likely that he at first agreed
and swore, and then repented and drew back. He went and confessed to
Archbishop Lanfranc, who told him to go and tell the King everything.
So Waltheof crossed to Normandy and told everything, and the King
received him kindly and kept him with him. Meanwhile the two other
earls had revolted openly. But they found few men to help them, except
their mercenaries and a number of Bretons who were attached to Earl
Ralph. Ralph moreover made a league with King Swegen for a Danish fleet
to be sent yet again. The English, who might have risen for Edgar or
Swegen, thought that no good was likely to come of a revolt like this,
and they fought for the King against the earls. Earl Roger was stopped
by Bishop Wulfstan and Abbot Æthelwig; the Norman bishops Odo and
Geoffrey went against Earl Ralph, who fled to Denmark, while his wife
defended the castle of Norwich against the King. The Danes, under Cnut,
came at last, and sailed up to York; but they did nothing except rob
the minster. Norwich castle surrendered; the revolt was altogether put
down, and those who had a hand in it were punished in various ways; but
none of them were put to death.
=8. The Death of Waltheof.=--Ralph of Norfolk had escaped, and his
latter end was better than his beginning; for he and his wife went to
the crusade and died on the way. Roger of Hereford was kept in prison,
some say for the rest of his days. But Waltheof, whose crime, if he
had done any, was less than theirs, was in Normandy with the King, and
seemingly in his favour. He came back to England with the King, and
was soon after put in prison. He was twice brought for trial before an
assembly of the great men, and the second time, at Pentecost 1076, he
was condemned to death and was beheaded on the hills near Winchester
on May 31. This was the only time in his whole reign that William put
any man to death except in war. And it is strange that William, who
had forgiven his enemies, Waltheof himself among them, over and over
again, should have dealt so much more harshly with Waltheof than with
Roger and others who were far more guilty. But it is said that Waltheof
had many Norman enemies, his wife Judith among them. His earldom of
Northumberland was given to his friend Bishop Walcher. The English
looked on him as a saint and martyr, and believed that miracles were
wrought at his tomb at Crowland. And men generally believed that, after
Waltheof’s death, King William’s good luck, which had hitherto followed
him in such a wonderful way, began to forsake him.
=9. The Rebellion of Robert.=--And so it did, whether the death of
Waltheof had anything to do with it or not. The very same year the
Conqueror suffered his first defeat. For some reason or other, he
besieged Dol in Britanny; but he failed and had to fly. Then his son
Robert got discontented, because his father refused to give up any part
of his dominions to him. Robert went away, and tried to get various
princes to help him. King Philip did give him help, and many of the
young nobles of Normandy joined him. In 1079 Philip put him in the
castle of Gerberoi, and William came to besiege it. In a sally, Robert
overthrew his father, who was saved by the Englishman Tokig, son of
Wiggod of Wallingford. But William could not take Gerberoi, and he was
persuaded to be reconciled to Robert. Meanwhile Malcolm of Scotland
made another frightful inroad into Northumberland, and in 1080 Robert
was sent to chastise him. Robert did very little, but on his way back
he founded a new castle by the Tyne, whence the town of Newcastle took
its name. Robert then again quarrelled with his father, and went away
into France, never to come back as long as his father lived.
=10. The Death of Matilda.=--William and his Queen Matilda had lived
in all love and confidence up to the time of William’s quarrel with
Robert. Then for the first time they also quarrelled, because Matilda
would send gifts to her son in his banishment, against his father’s
orders. A little later, in 1083, she died. Their second son Richard had
already died in a strange way while hunting in the New Forest, and one
of their daughters died while on her way to marry a Spanish king. But,
besides Robert, William’s other sons, William and Henry, were living;
one daughter, Constance, was married to Count Alan of Britanny, and
another, Adela, to Count Stephen of Chartres. Another, Cecily, was a
nun. Just about the time of Matilda’s death there was another revolt in
Maine, where the Viscount Hubert held the castle of Sainte-Susanne for
three years (1083–1086) against all William’s power. The castle could
not be taken, and at last William was driven to receive Hubert to his
favour.
=11. The Death of Bishop Walcher.=--William had thus during these
years to undergo several domestic losses and several defeats in war
on the mainland. But his hold on England was as firm as ever. After
the revolt of the earls, there was nothing which could be called a
rebellion, only a local outbreak, in which a local governor lost his
life on account of one particular wrong deed. This was Bishop Walcher
of Durham, to whom William had given the earldom of Northumberland.
This bishop seems, as a temporal ruler, to have been weak rather than
oppressive; he is not charged with wrong-doing himself, but with
failing to punish wrong-doers. He had several favourites, both English
and foreign, who did much mischief. At last some of them murdered one
Ligulf, an Englishman of the highest rank in the country, and withal a
chief friend of the bishop himself. But even these men he spared, so
that the people believed that he had himself a hand in Ligulf’s murder.
So when an Assembly met to judge the case, the people, headed by the
chief Englishmen present, killed the bishop and all his followers. Then
Odo was sent to punish them; but he took money, and put innocent men
to death, and again harried the land. This was in 1080, the year that
Robert was sent against the Scots. This was not a revolt against the
Norman king as such, but rather a riot, such as might have happened
just as well under Edward or Harold, if any earl of theirs had given
the same offence.
=12. Death of Cnut of Denmark.=--Thus there was nothing, except the
inroad of Malcolm, to be called war in England after the revolt of the
earls in 1075. But in William’s last years a very formidable attack on
England was threatened. Cnut of Denmark, who had twice sailed up the
Humber, never quite gave up the thoughts of conquering or delivering
England. When he himself became king, he made great preparations, and
was joined by his father-in-law Robert of Flanders, and by Olaf of
Norway, the son of Harold Hardrada. In 1085 Cnut got together a great
fleet, and William brought over a vast host of mercenaries to guard the
land. But a quarrel arose between Cnut and his brother Olaf, and the
next year Cnut was killed in a church by his own men, and was called a
saint and martyr. Thus the danger was turned away from William.
=13. Summary.=--We have thus seen how William, having gradually
conquered all England, went on to assert the old lordship of the
English crown over the rest of Britain. He could not however, any more
than the kings before him, keep matters wholly quiet on the Welsh and
Scottish borders. In Wales the power of his earls advanced; but King
Malcolm, though he became William’s man, remained a dangerous enemy. In
England there was no real popular revolt after the submission of Ely.
The English generally did not favour the rebel earls, and the death of
Bishop Walcher was a riot rather than a revolt. On the whole, the land
remained quite quiet under William’s rule. Beyond sea Maine revolted
and was conquered afresh; but after this great success came several
petty wars in which William’s good fortune came to an end. Yet, when
England was concerned, it came back again, as the great preparations
of Cnut came to nothing. William had also his domestic troubles, the
rebellion of one son, the death of another, and the death of his wife.
And in all this the men of the time saw the penalty for the death of
Waltheof.