CHAPTER IX.

HENRY II.

{1172.} As Britain was first peopled from Gaul, so was Ireland probably

from Britain; and the inhabitants of all these countries seem to have

been so many tribes of the Celtae, who derive their origin from an

antiquity that lies far beyond the records of any history or tradition.

The Irish, from the beginning of time, had been buried in the most

profound barbarism and ignorance; and as they were never conquered or

even invaded by the Romans, from whom all the western world derived its

civility, they continued still in the most rude state of society, and

were distinguished by those vices alone, to which human nature, not

tamed by education or restrained by laws, is forever subject. The small

principalities into which they were divided, exercised perpetual rapine

and violence against each other: the uncertain succession of their

princes was a continual source of domestic convulsions; the usual title

of each petty sovereign was the murder of his predecessor; courage and

force, though exercised in the commission of crimes, were more honored

than any pacific virtues; and the most simple arts of life, even tillage

and agriculture, were almost wholly unknown among them. They had felt

the invasions of the Danes and the other northern tribes; but these

inroads, which had spread barbarism in other parts of Europe, tended

rather to improve the Irish; and the only towns which were to be found

in the island, had been planted along the coast by the freebooters of

Norway and Denmark. The other inhabitants exercised pasturage in the

open country, sought protection from any danger in their forests and

morasses, and being divided by the fiercest animosities against each

other, were still more intent on the means of mutual injury than on the

expedients for common or even for private interest.

Besides many small tribes, there were in the age of Henry II. five

principal sovereignties in the island, Minister, Leinster Meath, Ulster,

and Connaught; and as it had been usual for the one or the other of

these to take the lead in their wars, there was commonly some prince,

who seemed, for the time, to act as monarch of Ireland. Roderic

O’Connor, king of Connaught, was then advanced to this dignity;[*] but

his government, ill obeyed even within his own territory, could not

unite the people in any measures, either for the establishment of order,

or for defence against foreigners.

[* Hoveden, p. 527]

The ambition of Henry had, very early in his reign, been moved, by the

prospect of these advantages, to attempt the subjecting of Ireland;

and a pretence was only wanting to invade a people who, being always

confined to their own island, had never given any reason of complaint to

any of their neighbors. For this purpose he had recourse to Rome, which

assumed a right to dispose of kingdoms and empires; and not foreseeing

the dangerous disputes which he was one day to maintain with that see,

he helped, for present, or rather for an imaginary convenience, to give

sanction to claims which were now become dangerous to all sovereigns.

Adrian III., who then filled the papal chair, was by birth an

Englishman; and being on that account the more disposed to oblige Henry,

he was easily persuaded to act as master of the world, and to make,

without any hazard or expense, the acquisition of a great island to his

spiritual jurisdiction. The Irish had, by precedent missions from the

Britons, been imperfectly converted to Christianity; and, what the pope

regarded as the surest mark of their imperfect conversion, they followed

the doctrines of their first teachers, and had never acknowledged any

subjection to the see of Rome. Adrian, therefore, in the year 1156

issued a bull in favor of Henry; in which, after premising that this

prince had ever shown an anxious care to enlarge the church of God on

earth, and to increase the number of his saints and elect in heaven, he

represents his design of subduing Ireland as derived from the same pious

motives: he considers his care of previously applying for the

apostolic sanction as a sure earnest of success and victory; and having

established it as a point incontestable, that all Christian kingdoms

belong to the patrimony of St. Peter, he acknowledges it to be his own

duty to sow among them the seeds of the gospel, which might in the last

day fructify to their eternal salvation: he exhorts the king to invade

Ireland, in order to extirpate the vice and wickedness of the natives,

and oblige them to pay yearly, from every house a penny to the see of

Rome: he gives him entire right and authority over the island, commands

all the inhabitants to obey him as their sovereign, and invests with

full power all such godly instruments as he should think proper to

employ in an enterprise thus calculated for the glory of God and

the salvation of the souls of men.[*] Henry, though armed with this

authority, did not immediately put his design in execution; but being

detained by more interesting business on the continent, waited for a

favorable opportunity of invading Ireland. Dermot Macmorrogh, king of

Leinster, had, by his licentious tyranny, rendered himself odious to his

subjects, who seized with alacrity the first occasion that offered of

throwing off the yoke, which was become grievous and oppressive to them.

This prince had formed a design on Dovergilda, wife of Ororic, prince

of Breffny; and taking advantage of her husband’s absence, who, being

obliged to visit a distant part of his territory, had left his wife

secure, as he thought, in an island surrounded by a bog, he suddenly

invaded the place, and carried off the princess.[**] This exploit,

though usual among the Irish, and rather deemed a proof of gallantry

and spirit,[***] provoked the resentment of the husband; who, having

collected forces, and being strengthened by the alliance of Roderic,

king of Connaught, invaded the dominions of Dermot, and expelled him his

kingdom. The exiled prince had recourse to Henry, who was at this time

in Guienne, craved his assistance in restoring him to his sovereignty,

and offered, on that event, to hold his kingdom in vassalage under the

crown of England. Henry, whose views were already turned towards making

acquisitions in Ireland, readily accepted the offer; but being at that

time embarrassed by the rebellions of his French subjects, as well as

by his disputes with the see of Rome, he declined, for the present,

embarking in the enterprise, and gave Dermot no further assistance than

letters patent, by which he empowered all his subjects to aid the Irish

prince in the recovery of his dominions.[****]

[* M. Paris, p. 67. Girali. Camltr. Spel. Concil.

vol. ii. p. 51. Rymer, vol. i. p. 15.]

[** Girald. Cambr. p. 760]

[*** Spencer, vol. vi.]

[**** Girald. Cambr. p. 760]

Dermot, supported by this authority, came to Bristol; and after

endeavoring, though for some time in vain, to engage adventurers in the

enterprise, he at last formed a treaty with Richard, surnamed Strongbow,

earl of Strigul. This nobleman, who was of the illustrious house of

Clare, had impaired his fortune by expensive pleasures; and being ready

for any desperate undertaking, he promised assistance to Dermot, on

condition that he should espouse Eva, daughter of that prince, and be

declared heir to all his dominions. While Richard was assembling his

succors, Dermot went into Wales; and meeting with Robert Fitz-Stephens,

constable of Abertivi, and Maurice Fitz-Gerald he also engaged them in

his service, and obtained their promise of invading Ireland. Being now

assured of succor, he returned privately to his own state; and lurking

in the monastery of Fernes, which he had founded, (for this ruffian

was also a founder of monasteries,) he prepared every thing for the

reception of his English allies.

The troops of Fitz-Stephens were first ready. That gentleman landed in

Ireland with thirty knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred archers;

but this small body, being brave men, not unacquainted with discipline,

and completely armed,--a thing almost unknown in Ireland,--struck a

great terror into the barbarous inhabitants, and seemed to menace them

with some signal revolution. The conjunction of Maurice de Prendergast,

who, about the same time, brought over ten knights and sixty archers,

enabled Fitz-Stephens to attempt the siege of Wexford, a town inhabited

by the Danes; and after gaining an advantage, he made himself master

of the place. Soon after, Fitz-Gerald arrived with ten knights,

thirty esquires, and a hundred archers; and being joined by the former

adventurers, composed a force which nothing in Ireland was able to

withstand. Roderic, the chief monarch of the island, was foiled in

different actions: the prince of Ossory was obliged to submit, and give

hostages for his peaceable behavior; and Dermot, not content with

being restored to his kingdom of Leinster, projected the dethroning of

Roderic, and aspired to the sole dominion over the Irish.

In prosecution of these views, he sent over a messenger to the earl of

Strigul, challenging the performance of his promise, and displaying

the mighty advantages which might now be reaped by a reënforcement of

warlike troops from England. Richard, not satisfied with the general

allowance given by Henry to all his subjects, went to that prince,

then in Normandy, and having obtained a cold or ambiguous permission,

prepared himself for the execution of his designs. He first sent over

Raymond, one of his retinue, with ten knights and seventy archers, who,

landing near Waterford, defeated a body of three thousand Irish that

had ventured to attack him, and as Richard himself, who brought over

two hundred horse and a body of archers, joined, a few days after,

the victorious English, they made themselves masters of Waterford, and

proceeded to Dublin, which was taken by assault. Roderic, in revenge,

cut off the head of Dermot’s natural son, who had been left as a hostage

in his hands; and Richard, marrying Eva, became soon after, by the death

of Dermot, master of the kingdom of Leinster, and prepared to extend his

authority over all Ireland. Roderic, and the other Irish princes, were

alarmed at the danger; and combining together, besieged Dublin with an

army of thirty thousand men; but Earl Richard, making a sudden sally at

the head of ninety knights with their followers, put this numerous

army to rout, chased them off the field, and pursued them with great

slaughter. None in Ireland now dared to oppose themselves to the

English.

Henry, jealous of the progress made by his own subjects, sent orders to

recall all the English, and he made preparations to attack Ireland in

person; but Richard and the other adventurers found means to appease

him, by making him the most humble submissions, and offering to hold

all their acquisitions in vassalage to his crown. That monarch landed in

Ireland at the head of five hundred knights, besides other soldiers;

he found the Irish so dispirited by their late misfortunes, that, in a

progress which he made through the island, he had no other occupation

than to receive the homage of his new subjects. He left most of the

Irish chieftains or princes in possession of their ancient territories;

bestowed some lands on the English adventurers; gave Earl Richard the

commission of seneschal of Ireland; and after a stay of a few months,

returned in triumph to England. By these trivial exploits, scarcely

worth relating, except for the importance of the consequences, was

Ireland subdued, and annexed to the English crown.

The low state of commerce and industry during those ages made it

impracticable for princes to support regular armies, which might retain

a conquered country in subjection; and the extreme barbarism and poverty

of Ireland could still less afford means of bearing the expense.

The only expedient by which a durable conquest could then be made or

maintained, was by pouring in a multitude of new inhabitants, dividing

among them the lands of the vanquished, establishing them in all offices

of trust and authority, and thereby transforming the ancient inhabitants

into a new people. By this policy the northern invaders of old, and of

late the duke of Normandy, had been able to fix their dominions, and

to erect kingdoms which remained stable on their foundations, and were

transmitted to the posterity of the first conquerors. But the state of

Ireland rendered that island so little inviting to the English, that

only a few of desperate fortunes could be persuaded, from time to time,

to transport themselves thither; and instead of reclaiming the natives

from their uncultivated manners, they were gradually assimilated to

the ancient inhabitants, and degenerated from the customs of their

own nation. It was also found requisite to bestow great military and

arbitrary powers on the leaders, who commanded a handful of men amidst

such hostile multitudes; and law and equity, in a little time, became as

much unknown in the English settlements, as they had ever been among the

Irish tribes. Palatinates were erected in favor of the new adventurers;

independent authority conferred; the natives, never fully subdued,

still retained their animosity against the conquerors; their hatred was

retaliated by like injuries; and from these causes the Irish, during the

course of four centuries, remained still savage and untractable: it was

not till the latter end of Elizabeth’s reign, that the island was fully

subdued; nor till that of her successor, that it gave hopes of becoming

a useful conquest to the English nation.

Besides that the easy and peaceable submission of the Irish left Henry

no further occupation in that island, he was recalled from it by another

incident, which was of the last importance to his interest and safety.

The two legates, Albert and Theodin, to whom was committed the trial

of his conduct in the murder of Archbishop Becket, were arrived in

Normandy; and being impatient of delay, sent him frequent letters, full

of menaces, if he protracted any longer making his appearance before

them. He hastened therefore to Normandy, and had a conference with them

at Savigny, where their demands were so exorbitant, that he broke off

the negotiation, threatened to return to Ireland, and bade them do

their worst against him. They perceived that the season was now past

for taking advantage of that tragical incident; which, had it been hotly

pursued by interdicts and excommunications, was capable of throwing

the whole kingdom into combustion. But the time which Henry had happily

gained, had contributed to appease the minds of men; the event could

not now have the same influence as when it was recent; and as the

clergy every day looked for an accommodation with the king, they had not

opposed the pretensions of his partisans, who had been very industrious

in representing to the people his entire innocence in the murder of the

primate, and his ignorance of the designs formed by the assassins. The

legates, therefore, found themselves obliged to lower their terms; and

Henry was so fortunate as to conclude an accommodation with them. He

declared upon oath, before the relics of the saints, that so far from

commanding or desiring the death of the arch bishop, he was extremely

grieved when he received intelligence of it; but as the passion which

he had expressed on account of that prelate’s conduct, had probably been

the occasion of his murder, he stipulated the following conditions as an

atonement for the offence. He promised, that he should pardon all such

as had been banished for adhering to Becket, and should restore them to

their livings; that the see of Canterbury should be reinstated in all

its ancient possessions; that he should pay the templars a sum of money

sufficient for the subsistence of two hundred knights during a year in

the Holy Land; that he should himself take the cross at the Christmas

following, and, if the pope required it, serve three years against the

infidels, either in Spain or Palestine; that he should not insist on the

observance of such customs derogatory to ecclesiastical privileges, as

had been introduced in his own time; and that he should not obstruct

appeals to the pope in ecclesiastical causes, but should content himself

with exacting sufficient security from such clergymen as left his

dominions to prosecute an appeal, that they should attempt nothing

against the rights of his crown. Upon signing these concessions, Henry

received absolution from the legates, and was confirmed in the grant of

Ireland made by Pope Adrian; and nothing proves more strongly the great

abilities of this monarch than his extricating himself on such easy

terms from so difficult a situation. He had always insisted, that the

laws established at Clarendon contained not any new claims, but

the ancient customs of the kingdom; and he was still at liberty,

notwithstanding the articles of this agreement, to maintain his

pretensions. Appeals to the pope were indeed permitted by that treaty;

but as the king was also permitted to exact reasonable securities from

the parties, and might stretch his demands on this head as far as he

pleased, he had it virtually in his power to prevent the pope from

reaping any advantage by this seeming concession. And on the whole, the

constitutions of Clarendon remained still the law of the realm; though

the pope and his legates seem so little to have conceived the king’s

power to lie under any legal limitations, that they were satisfied with

his departing, by treaty, from one of the most momentous articles of

these constitutions, without requiring any repeal by the states of the

kingdom.

Henry, freed from this dangerous controversy with the ecclesiastics and

with the see of Rome, seemed now to have reached the pinnacle of human

grandeur and felicity, and to be equally happy in his domestic situation

and in his political government. A numerous progeny of sons and

daughters gave both lustre and authority to his crown, prevented the

danger of a disputed succession, and repressed all pretensions of

the ambitious barons. The king’s precaution also, in establishing the

several branches of his family, seemed well calculated to prevent all

jealousy among the brothers, and to perpetuate the greatness of his

family. He had appointed Henry, his eldest son, to be his successor

in the kingdom of England, the duchy of Normandy, and the counties of

Anjou, Maine, and Touraine; territories which lay contiguous, and which,

by that means, might easily lend to each other mutual assistance both

against intestine commotions and foreign invasions. Richard, his

second son, was invested in the duchy of Guienne and county of Poictou;

Geoffrey, his third son, inherited, in right of his wife, the duchy of

Brittany, and the new conquest of Ireland was destined for the appanage

of John, his fourth son. He had also negotiated, in favor of this last

prince, a marriage with Adelais, the only daughter of Humbert, count

of Savoy and Maurienne; and was to receive as her dowry considerable

demesnes in Piedmont, Savoy, Bresse, and Dauphiny. But this exaltation

of his family excited the jealousy of all his neighbors, who made those

very sons, whose fortunes he had so anxiously established, the means of

imbittering his future life, and disturbing his government.

Young Henry, who was rising to man’s estate, began to display his

character, and aspire to independence: brave, ambitious, liberal,

munificent, affable: he discovered qualities which give great lustre to

youth; prognosticate a shining fortune; but, unless tempered in mature

age with discretion, are the forerunners of the greatest calamities. It

is said that at the time when this prince received the holy unction, his

father, in order to give greater dignity to the ceremony, officiated at

table as one of the retinue; and observed to his son that never king was

more royally served. “It is nothing extraordinary,” said young Henry to

one of his courtiers, “if the son of a count should serve the son of a

king.” This saying, which might pass only for an innocent pleasantry, or

even for an oblique compliment to his father, was, however, regarded as

a symptom of his aspiring temper; and his conduct soon after justified

the conjecture.

{1173.} Henry, agreeable to the promise which he had given both to the

pope and French king, permitted his son to be crowned anew by the hands

of the archbishop of Rouen, and associated the Princess Margaret, spouse

to young Henry, in the ceremony.[*] He afterwards allowed him to pay

a visit to his father-in-law at Paris, who took the opportunity of

instilling into the young prince those ambitious sentiments to which he

was naturally but too much inclined.

[* Hoveden, p. 529. Diceto, p. 560. Brompton, p.

1080. Gervase, p. 1421. Trivet, p. 58. It appears from

Madox’s History of the Exchequer, that silk garments were

then known in England, and that the coronation robes of the

young king and queen cost eighty-seven pounds ten shillings

and fourpence, money of that age.]

Though it had been the constant practice of France, ever since the

accession of the Capetian line, to crown the son during the lifetime

of the father without conferring on him any present participation of

royalty; Lewis persuaded his son-in-law, that, by this ceremony, which

in those ages was deemed so important, he had acquired a title to

sovereignty, and that the king could not, without injustice, exclude

him from immediate possession of the whole, or at least a part of his

dominions. In consequence of these extravagant ideas, young Henry,

on his return, desired the king to resign to him either the crown of

England or the duchy of Normandy; discovered great discontent on the

refusal; spake in the most undutiful terms of his father; and soon

after, in concert with Lewis, made his escape to Paris, where he was

protected and supported by that monarch.

While Henry was alarmed at this incident, and had the prospect of

dangerous intrigues, or even of a war, which, whether successful or

not, must be extremely calamitous and disagreeable to him, he received

intelligence of new misfortunes, which must have affected him in the

most sensible manner. Queen Eleanor, who had disgusted her first husband

by her gallantries, was no less offensive to her second by her jealousy;

and after this manner carried to extremity, in the different periods of

her life, every circumstance of female weakness. She communicated her

discontents against Henry to her two younger sons, Geoffrey and Richard;

persuaded them that they were also entitled to present possession of the

territories assigned to them; engaged them to fly secretly to the court

of France; and was meditating herself an escape to the same court, and

had even put on man’s apparel for that purpose, when she was seized by

orders from her husband, and thrown into confinement. Thus Europe saw

with astonishment the best and most indulgent of parents at war with

his whole family; three boys, scarcely arrived at the age of puberty,

require a great monarch, in the full vigor of his age and height of his

reputation, to dethrone himself in their favor; and several princes not

ashamed to support them in these unnatural and absurd pretensions.

Henry, reduced to this perilous and disagreeable situation, had recourse

to the court of Rome. Though sensible of the danger attending the

interposition of ecclesiastical authority in temporal disputes, he

applied to the pope, as his superior lord, to excommunicate his enemies,

and by these censures to reduce to obedience his undutiful children,

whom he found such reluctance to punish by the sword of the

magistrate.[*] Alexander, well pleased to exert his power in so

justifiable a cause, issued the bulls required of him; but it was soon

found, that these spiritual weapons had not the same force as when

employed in a spiritual controversy; and that the clergy were very

negligent in supporting a sentence which was nowise calculated to

promote the immediate interests of their order. The king, after taking

in vain this humiliating step, was obliged to have recourse to arms,

and to enlist such auxiliaries as are the usual resource of tyrants, and

have seldom been employed by so wise and just a monarch.

The loose government which prevailed in all the states of Europe, the

many private wars carried on among the neighboring nobles, and the

impossibility of enforcing any general execution of the laws, had

encouraged a tribe of banditti to disturb every where the public peace,

to infest the highways, to pillage the open country, and to brave all

the efforts of the civil magistrate, and even the excommunications of

the church, which were fulminated against them. Troops of them were

sometimes enlisted in the service of one prince or baron, sometimes

in that of another: they often acted in an independent manner, under

leaders of their own; the peaceable and industrious inhabitants, reduced

to poverty by their ravages, were frequently obliged for subsistence to

betake themselves to a like disorderly course of life; and a continual

intestine war, pernicious to industry, as well as to the execution

of justice, was thus carried on in the bowels of every kingdom. Those

desperate ruffians received the name sometimes of Brabançons, sometimes

of Routiers or Cottereaux; but for what reason is not agreed by

historians; and they formed a kind of society or government among

themselves, which set at defiance the rest of mankind. The greatest

monarchs were not ashamed, on occasion, to have recourse to their

assistance; and as their habits of war and depredation had given them

experience, hardiness, and courage, they generally composed the most

formidable part of those armies which decided the political quarrels

of princes. Several of them were enlisted among the forces levied by

Henry’s enemies; but the great treasures amassed by that prince enabled

him to engage more numerous troops of them in his service; and the

situation of his affairs rendered even such banditti the only forces on

whose fidelity he could repose any confidence.

[* Epist. Petri Bles. epist. 136, in Biblioth.

Patr. tom. xxiv. p. 1048. His words are, “Vestrae

jurisdictionis est regnum Angliæ, et quantum ad feudatorii

juris obligationem, vobis duntaxat obnoxius teneor.” The

same strange paper is in Rymer, vol. i. p. 35, and Trivet,

vol. i. p. 62.]

His licentious barons, disgusted with a vigilant government,

were more desirous of being ruled by young princes, ignorant of public

affairs, remiss in their conduct, and profuse in their grants; and as

the king had insured to his sons the succession to every particular

province of his dominions, the nobles dreaded no danger in adhering to

those who, they knew, must some time become their sovereigns. Prompted

by these motives, many of the Norman nobility had deserted to his son

Henry; the Breton and Gascon barons seemed equally disposed to embrace

the quarrel of Geoffrey and Richard. Disaffection had crept in among the

English; and the earls of Leicester and Chester in particular had openly

declared against the king. Twenty thousand Brabançons, therefore, joined

to some troops which he brought over from Ireland, and a few barons

of approved fidelity, formed the sole force with which he intended to

resist his enemies.

Lewis, in order to bind the confederates in a closer union, summoned

at Paris an assembly of the chief vassals of the crown, received their

approbation of his measures, and engaged them by oath to adhere to the

cause of young Henry. This prince, in return, bound himself by a like

tie never to desert his French allies; and having made a new great seal,

he lavishly distributed among them many considerable parts of those

territories which he purposed to conquer from his father. The counts of

Flanders, Boulogne, Blois, and Eu, partly moved by the general jealousy

arising from Henry’s power and ambition, partly allured by the prospect

of reaping advantage from the inconsiderate temper and the necessities

of the young prince, declared openly in favor of the latter. William,

king of Scotland, had also entered into this great confederacy; and

a plan was concerted for a general invasion on different parts of the

king’s extensive and factious dominions.

Hostilities were first commenced by the counts of Flanders and Boulogne

on the frontiers of Normandy. Those princes laid siege to Aumale, which

was delivered into their hands by the treachery of the count of that

name: this nobleman surrendered himself prisoner; and on pretence of

thereby paying his ransom, opened the gates of all his other fortresses.

The two counts next besieged and made themselves masters of Drincourt;

but the count of Boulogne was here mortally wounded in the assault; and

this incident put some stop to the progress of the Flemish arms.

In another quarter, the king of France, being strongly assisted by his

vassals, assembled a great army of seven thousand knights and their

followers on horseback, and a proportionable number of infantry;

carrying young Henry along with him he laid siege to Verneuil, which

was vigorously defended by Hugh de Lacy and Hugh de Beauchamp, the

governors. After he had lain a month before the place, the garrison,

being straitened for provisions, were obliged to capitulate; and they

engaged, if not relieved within three days, to surrender the town, and

to retire into the citadel. On the last of these days, Henry appeared

with his army upon the heights above Verneuil. Lewis, dreading an

attack, sent the archbishop of Sens and the count of Blois to the

English camp, and desired that next day should be appointed for a

conference, in order to establish a general peace, and terminate the

difference between Henry and his sons. The king, who passionately

desired this accommodation, and suspected no fraud, gave his consent;

but Lewis, that morning, obliging the garrison to surrender, according

to the capitulation, set fire to the place, and began to retire with his

army. Henry, provoked at this artifice, attacked the rear with vigor,

put them to rout, did some execution, and took several prisoners. The

French army, as their time of service was now expired, immediately

dispersed themselves into their several provinces, and left Henry free

to prosecute his advantages against his other enemies.

The nobles of Brittany, instigated by the earl of Chester and Ralph de

Fougeres, were all in arms; but their progress was checked by a body

of Brabançons, which the king, after Lewis’s retreat, had sent against

them. The two armies came to an action near Dol, where the rebels were

defeated, fifteen hundred killed on the spot, and the leaders, the earls

of Chester and Fougeres, obliged to take shelter in the town of Dol.

Henry hastened to form the siege of that place, and carried on the

attack with such ardor, that he obliged the governor and garrison to

surrender themselves prisoners. By these rigorous measures and happy

successes, the insurrections were entirely quelled in Brittany; and the

king, thus fortunate in all quarters, willingly agreed to a conference

with Lewis, in hopes that his enemies, finding all their mighty efforts

entirely frustrated, would terminate hostilities on some moderate and

reasonable conditions.

The two monarchs met between Trie and Gisofs; and Henry had here the

mortification to see his three sons in the retinue of his mortal enemy.

As Lewis had no other pretence for war than supporting the claims of

the young princes, the king made them such offers as children might be

ashamed to insist on, and could be extorted from him by nothing but his

parental affection, or by the present necessity of his affairs.[*] He

insisted only on retaining the sovereign authority in all his dominions;

but offered young Henry half the revenues of England, with some places

of surety in that kingdom; or, if he rather chose to reside in Normandy,

half the revenues of that duchy, with all those of Anjou. He made a like

offer to Richard in Guienne; he promised to resign Brittany to Geoffrey;

and if these concessions were not deemed sufficient, he agreed to add

to them whatever the pope’s legates, who were present, should require of

him.[**] The earl of Leicester was also present at the negotiation; and

either from the impetuosity of his temper, or from a view of abruptly

breaking off a conference which must cover the allies with confusion, he

gave vent to the most violent reproaches against Henry, and he even put

his hand to his sword, as if he meant to attempt some violence against

him. This furious action threw the whole company into confusion, and put

an end to the treaty.[***]

The chief hopes of Henry’s enemies seemed now to depend oft the state of

affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most imminent

danger. One article of Prince Henry’s agreement with his foreign

confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and all its

other fortresses, into the hands of ihe earl of Flanders:[****] yet so

little national or public spirit prevailed among the independent English

nobility, so wholly bent were they on the aggrandizement each of himself

and his own family, that, notwithstanding this pernicious concession,

which must have produced the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of

them had conspired to make an insurrection, and to support the prince’s

pretensions.

[* Hoveden, p. 539.]

[** Hoveden, p. 536. Brompton, p. 1085.]

[*** Hoveden, p. 536.]

[**** Hoveden, p. 533. Brompton, p. 1084. Gal.

Neubr. p. 508.]

The king’s principal resource lay in the church and the bishops with

whom he was now in perfect agreement; whether that the decency of their

character made them ashamed of supporting so unnatural a rebellion, or

that they were entirely satisfied with Henry’s atonement for the murder

of Becket and for his former invasion of ecclesiastical immunities. That

prince, however, had resigned none of the essential rights of his crown

in the accommodation: he maintained still the same prudent jealousy of

the court of Rome; admitted no legate into England, without his swearing

to attempt nothing against the royal prerogatives; and he had even

obliged the monks of Canterbury, who pretended to a free election on the

vacancy made by the death of Becket, to choose Roger, prior of Dover, in

the place of that turbulent prelate.[*]

[* Hoveden, p. 537.]

The king of Scotland made an irruption into Northumberland, and

committed great devastations; but being opposed by Richard de Lucy, whom

Henry had left guardian of the realm, he retreated into his own country,

and agreed to a cessation of arms. This truce enabled the guardian to

march southwards with his army, in order to oppose an invasion which

the earl of Leicester, at the head of a great body of Flemings, had made

upon Suffolk. The Flemings had been joined by Hugh Bigod, who made them

masters of his castle of Framlingham; and marching into the heart of the

kingdom, where they hoped to be supported by Leicester’s vassals, they

were met by Lucy, who, assisted by Humphry Bohun, the constable, and the

earls of Arundel, Glocester, and Cornwall, had advanced to Farnham with

a less numerous, but braver army to oppose them. The Flemings, who were

mostly weavers and artificers, (for manufactures were now beginning to

be established in Flanders,) were broken in an instant, ten thousand of

them were put to the sword, the earl of Leicester was taken prisoner,

and the remains of the invaders were glad to compound for a safe retreat

into their own country.

{1174.} This great defeat did not dishearten the malecontents; who,

being supported by the alliance of so many foreign princes, and

encouraged by the king’s own sons, determined to persevere in their

enterprise. The earl of Ferrars, Roger de Moubray, Archetil de Mallory,

Richard de Moreville, Hamo de Mascie, together with many friends of the

earls of Leicester and Chester, rose in arms: the fidelity of the

earls of Clare and Glocester was suspected; and the guardian, though

vigorously supported by Geoffrey, bishop of Lincoln, the king’s natural

son by the fair Rosamond, found it difficult to defend himself, on all

quarters, from so many open and concealed enemies. The more to augment

the confusion, the king of Scotland, on the expiration of the truce,

broke into the northern provinces with a great army[*] of eighty

thousand men; which, though undisciplined and disorderly, and better

fitted for committing devastation, than for executing any military

enterprise, was become dangerous from the present factious and turbulent

spirit of the kingdom.

[* W. Heming. p. 501.]

Henry, who had baffled all his enemies in France, and had put his

frontiers in a posture of defence, now found England the seat of danger;

and he determined by his presence to overawe the malecontents, or by

his conduct and courage to subdue them. He lauded at Southampton; and

knowing the influence of superstition over the minds of the people,

he hastened to Canterbury, in order to make atonement to the ashes of

Thomas à Becket, and tender his submissions to a dead enemy. As soon as

he came within sight of the church of Canterbury, he dismounted walked

barefoot towards it, prostrated himself before the shrine of the saint,

remained in fasting and prayer during a whole day, and watched all night

the holy relics. Not content with this hypocritical devotion towards

a man whose violence and ingratitude had so long disquieted his

government, and had been the object of his most inveterate animosity, he

submitted to a penance still more singular and humiliating. He assembled

a chapter of the monks, disrobed himself before them, put a scourge of

discipline into the hands of each, and presented his bare shoulders to

the lashes which these ecclesiastics successively inflicted upon him.

Next day he received absolution; and, departing for London, got soon

after the agreeable intelligence of a great victory which his generals

had obtained over the Scots, and which, being gained, as was reported,

on the very day of his absolution, was regarded as the earnest of his

final reconciliation with Heaven and with Thomas a Becket William,

king of Scots, though repulsed before the castle of Prudhow, and other

fortified places, had committed the most horrible depredations upon

the northern provinces; but on the approach of Ralph de Glanville, the

famous justiciary, seconded by Bernard de Baliol, Robert de Stuteville,

Odonel de Umfreville, William de Vesci, and other northern barons

together with the gallant bishop of Lincoln, he thought proper to

retreat nearer his own country, and he fixed his camp at Alnwick. He had

here weakened his army extremely, by sending out numerous detachments in

order to extend his ravages; and he lay absolutely safe, as he imagined,

from any attack of the enemy. But Glanville, informed of his situation,

made a hasty and fatiguing march to Newcastle; and allowing his soldiers

only a small interval for refreshment, he immediately set out towards

evening for Alnwick. He marched that night above thirty miles; arrived

in the morning, under cover of a mist, near the Scottish camp; and

regardless of the great numbers of the enemy, he began the attack with

his small but determined body of cavalry. William was living in such

supine security that he took the English at first for a body of his own

ravagers who were returning to the camp; but the sight of their banners

convincing him of his mistake, he entered on the action with no greater

body than a hundred horse, in confidence that the numerous army which

surrounded him would soon hasten to his relief. He was dismounted on

the first shock, and taken prisoner; while his troops, hearing of this

disaster, fled on all sides with the utmost precipitation. The dispersed

ravagers made the best of their way to their own country; and discord

arising among them, they proceeded even to mutual hostilities, and

suffered more from each other’s sword than from that of the enemy.

This great and important victory proved at last decisive in favor of

Henry, and entirely broke the spirit of the English rebels. The bishop

of Durham, who was preparing to revolt, made his submissions; Hugh

Bigod, though he had received a strong reénforcement of Flemings, was

obliged to surrender all his castles, and throw himself on the king’s

mercy; no better resource was left to the earl of Ferrars and Roger

de Moubray; the inferior rebels imitating the example, all England was

restored to tranquillity in a few weeks; and as the king appeared to

be under the immediate protection of Heaven, it was deemed impious any

longer to resist him. The clergy exalted anew the merits and

powerful intercession of Becket; and Henry, instead of opposing this

superstition, plumed himself on the new friendship of the-saint, and

propagated an opinion which was so favorable to his interests.[*]

[* Hoveden, p. 539.]

Prince Henry, who was ready to embark at Gravelines with the earl of

Flanders and a great army, hearing that his partisans in England were

suppressed, abandoned all thoughts of the enterprise, and joined

the camp of Lewis, who, during the absence of the king, had made an

irruption into Normandy and had laid siege to Rouen.[*] The place was

defended with great vigor by the inhabitants;[**] and Lewis, despairing

of success by open force, tried to gain the town by a stratagem, which,

in that superstitious age, was deemed not very honor able. He proclaimed

in his own camp a cessation of arms on pretence of celebrating the

festival of St. Laurence; and when the citizens, supposing themselves in

safety, were so imprudent as to remit their guard, he purposed to

take advantage of their security. Happily, some priests had, from mere

curiosity, mounted a steeple, where the alarm bell hung; and observing

the French camp in motion, they immediately rang the bell, and gave

warning to the inhabitants, who ran to their several stations. The

French, who, on hearing the alarm hurried to the assault, had already

mounted the walls in several places; but being repulsed by the enraged

citizens were obliged to retreat with considerable loss.[***] Next day,

Henry, who had hastened to the defence of his Norman dominions, passed

over the bridge in triumph; and entered Rouen in sight of the French

army. The city was now in absolute safety; and the king, in order to

brave the French, monarch, commanded the gates, which had been walled

up, to be opened; and he prepared to push his advantages against the

enemy. Lewis saved himself from this perilous situation by a new piece

of deceit, not so justifiable. He proposed a conference for adjusting

the terms of a general peace, which he knew would be greedily embraced

by Henry; and while the king of England trusted to the execution of his

promise, he made a retreat with his army into France.

[* Brompton, p. 1096.]

[** Diceto, p. 578.]

[*** Brompton, p. 1096 Gul. Neubr. p. 411. W.

Heming. p, 503]

There was, however, a necessity on both sides for an accommodation.

Henry could no longer bear to see his three sons in the hands of his

enemy; and Lewis dreaded lest this great monarch, victorious in all

quarters, crowned with glory, and absolute master of his dominions,

might take revenge for the many dangers and disquietudes which the arms,

and still more the intrigues, of France had, in his disputes both with

Becket and his sons, found means to raise him. After making a cessation

of arms, a conference was agreed on near Tours; where Henry granted his

sons much less advantageous terms than he had formerly offered; and he

received their submissions. The most material of his concessions were

some pensions which he stipulated to pay them, and some castles which

he granted them for the place of their residence; together with an

indemnity for all their adherents, who were restored to their estates

and honors.[*]

Of all those who had embraced the cause of the young princes, William,

king of Scotland, was the only considerable loser by that invidious and

unjust enterprise. Henry delivered from confinement, without exacting

any ransom, about nine hundred knights, whom he had taken prisoners; but

it cost William the ancient independency of his crown as the price of

his liberty. He stipulated to do homage to Henry for Scotland and all

his other possessions; he engaged that all the barons and nobility of

his kingdom should also do homage; that the bishops should take an

oath of fealty; that both should swear to adhere to the king of England

against their native prince, if the latter should break his engagements;

and that the fortresses of Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, Roxborough, and

Jedborough should be delivered into Henry’s hands, till the performance

of articles.[**] {1175.} This severe and humiliating treaty was executed

in its full rigor. William, being released, brought up all his barons,

prelates, and abbots; and they did homage to Henry in the cathedral

of York, and acknowledged him and his successors for their superior

lord.[***]

[* Rymer, vol. i. p. 35. Benedict. Abbas, p. 88.

Hoveden, p. 540 Diceto, p. 583. Brompton, p. 1098. W.

Heming. p. 505. Chron. Dunst. p. 36.]

[** M. Paris, p. 91. Chron. Dunst. p. 36. Hoveden,

p. 545. M West. p. 251. Diceto, p. 584. Brompton, p. 1103.

Rymer, vol i, p. 39. Liber Nig. Scac. p. 36.]

[*** Benedict Abbas, p. 113.]

The English monarch stretched still further the rigor of the conditions

which he exacted. He engaged the king and states of Scotland to make a

perpetual cession of the fortresses of Berwick and Roxborough, and to

allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain in his hands for a limited time

This was the first great ascendant which England obtained over Scotland;

and indeed the first important transaction which had passed between the

kingdoms. Few princes have been so fortunate as to gain considerable

advantages over their weaker neighbors with less violence and injustice

than was practised by Henry against the king of Scots, whom he had taken

prisoner in battle, and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all

the neighbors of that prince, and even his own family, were, without

provocation, combined against him.[*]

Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with

honor from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great danger,

was employed for several years in the administration of justice, in the

execution of the laws, and in guarding against those inconveniencies,

which either the past convulsions of his state, or the political

institutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned. The provisions which

he made, show such largeness of thought as qualified him for being a

legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well for the future as

the present happiness of his kingdom.

{1176.} He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false

coining, arson; and ordained that these crimes should be punished by

the amputation of the right hand and right foot.[**] The pecuniary

commutation for crimes, which has a false appearance of lenity, had

been gradually disused; and seems to have been entirely abolished by the

rigor of these statutes. The superstitious trial by water ordeal, though

condemned by the church,[***] still subsisted; but Henry ordained, that

any man accused of murder, or any heinous felony, by the oath of the

legal knights of the county, should, even though acquitted by the

ordeal, be obliged to abjure the realm.[****]

All advances towards reason and good sense are slow and gradual. Henry,

though sensible of the great absurdity attending the trial by duel or

battle, did not venture to abolish it: he only admitted either of

the parties to challenge a trial by an assize or jury of twelve

freeholders.[*****]

[* Some Scotch historians pretend, that William

paid, besides, one hundred thousand pounds of ransom, which

is quite incredible. The ransom of Richard I., who, besides

England, possessed so many rich territories in France, was

only one hundred and fifty thousand marks, and yet was

levied with great difficulty. Indeed, two thirds of it only

could be paid before his deliverance.]

[** Benedict. Abbas, p. 132. Hoveden, p. 549.]

[*** Seldeni Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 204,]

[**** Benedict. Abbas, p. 132.]

[***** Glanv. lib. ii. cap. 7.]

This latter method of trial seems to have been very ancient in England,

and was fixed by the laws of King Alfred: but the barbarous and violent

genius of the age had of late given more credit to the trial by

battle, which had become the general method of deciding all important

controversies. It was never abolished by law in England; and there is

an instance of it so late as the reign of Elizabeth: but the institution

revived by this king, being found more reasonable and more suitable to a

civilized people, gradually prevailed over it.

The partition of England into four divisions, and the appointment of

itinerant justices to go the circuit in each division, and to decide the

causes in the counties, was another important ordinance of this prince,

which had a direct tendency to curb the oppressive barons, and to

protect the inferior gentry and common people in their property.[*]

Those justices were either prelates or considerable noblemen; who,

besides carrying the authority of the king’s commission, were able,

by the dignity of their own character, to give weight and credit to

the laws.

That there might be fewer obstacles to the execution of justice, the

king was vigilant in demolishing all the new erected castles of the

nobility, in England as well as in his foreign dominions; and he

permitted no fortress to remain in the custody of those whom he found

reason to suspect.[**]

But lest the kingdom should be weakened by this demolition of the

fortresses, the king fixed an assize of arms, by which all his subjects

were obliged to put themselves in a situation for defending themselves

and the realm. Every man possessed of a knight’s fee was ordained to

have for each fee, a coat of mail, a helmet, a shield, and a lance;

every free layman, possessed of goods to the value of sixteen marks,

was to be armed in like manner; every one that possessed ten marks

was obliged to have an iron gorget, a cap of iron, and a lance; all

burgesses were to have a cap of iron, a lance, and a wambais; that is,

a coat quilted with wool, tow, or such like materials.[***] It appears

that archery, for which the English were afterwards so renowned, had

not at this time become very common among them. The spear was the chief

weapon employed in battle.

[* Hoveden, p. 590].

[** Benedict. Abbas, p. 202. Diceto p. 585.]

[*** Benedict, Abbas, p. 305. Annal. Waverl. p.

181.]

The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation

with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible

with a civilized, and indeed with any species of government. If a

clergyman were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation

only: if he were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but

excommunication and ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned

for by penances and submission.[*] Hence the assassins of Thomas

à Becket himself, though guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and the

most repugnant to the sentiments of that age, lived securely in their

own houses, without being called to account by Henry himself, who was

so much concerned, both in honor and interest, to punish that crime, and

who professed or affected, on all occasions, the most extreme abhorrence

of it. It was not till they found their presence shunned by every one

as excommunicated persons, that they were induced to take a journey to

Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the pontiff, and to submit to

the penances imposed upon them; after which, they continued to possess

without molestation their honors and fortunes, and seem even to have

recovered the countenance and good opinion of the public. But as the

king, by the constitutions of Clarendon, which he endeavored still

to maintain,[**] had subjected the clergy to a trial by the civil

magistrate, it seemed but just to give them the protection of that

power, to which they owed obedience: it was enacted, that the murderers

of clergymen should be tried before the justiciary, in the presence of

the bishop or his official; and besides the usual punishment for murder,

should be subjected to a forfeiture of their estates, and a confiscation

of their goods and chattels.[***]

[* Petri Bles. epist. 73, apud Bibl. Patr. torn.

xxiv. p. 992.]

[** Gervase, p. 1433. ]

[*** Diceto, p. 592. Gervase, p. 1433]

The king passed an equitable law, that the goods of a vassal should not

be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal be surety for the

debt; and that the rents of vassals should be paid to the creditors of

the lord, not to the lord himself. It is remarkable, that this law was

enacted by the king in a council which he held at Verneuil, and which

consisted of some prelates and barons of England, as well as some of

Normandy, Poictou, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Brittany and the statute

took place in all these last-mentioned territories,[*] though totally

unconnected with each other;[**] a certain proof how irregular the

ancient feudal government was, and how near the sovereigns, in some

instances, approached to despotism, though in others they seemed

scarcely to possess any authority. If a prince, much dreaded and

revered like Henry, obtained but the appearance of general consent to

an ordinance which was equitable and just, it became immediately an

established law, and all his subjects acquiesced in it, If the prince

was hated or despised; if the nobles, who supported him, had small

influence; if the humors of the times disposed the people to question

the justice of his ordinance; the fullest and most authentic assembly

had no authority. Thus all was confusion and disorder; no regular idea

of a constitution; force and violence decided every thing.

The success which had attended Henry in his wars, did not much encourage

his neighbors to form any attempt against him; and his transactions with

them, during several years, contain little memorable. Scotland remained

in that state of feudal subjection to which he had reduced it, and

gave him no further inquietude. He sent over his fourth son, John, into

Ireland, with a view of making a more complete conquest of the island;

but the petulance and incapacity of this prince, by which he enraged the

Irish chieftains, obliged the king soon after to recall him.[***]

[* Benedict. Abbas, p. 248. It was usual for the

kings of England, after the conquest of Ireland, to summon

barons and members of thai country to the English

parliament. Molineux’s case of Ireland, p. 64, 65, 66.]

[** Spelman even doubts whether the law were not

also extended to England. If it were not, it could only be

because Henry did not choose it; for his authority was

greater in that kingdom than in his transmarine dominions.]

[*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 437, etc.]

The king of France had fallen into an abject superstition; and was

induced, by a devotion more sincere than that of Henry, to make a

pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket, in order to obtain his intercession

for the cure of Philip, his eldest son. He probably thought himself

well entitled to the favor of that saint, on account of their ancient

intimacy; and hoped that Becket, whom he had protected while on earth,

would not now, when he was so highly exalted in heaven, forget his old

friend and benefactor. The monks, sensible that their saint’s honor was

concerned in the case, failed not to publish that Lewis’s prayers were

answered, and that the young prince was restored to health by Becket’s

intercession. That king himself was soon after struck with an apoplexy,

which deprived him of his understanding: Philip though a youth of

fifteen, took on him the administration, till his father’s death, which

happened soon after, {1180.} opened his way to the throne; and he proved

the ablest and greatest monarch that had governed that kingdom since

the age of Charlemagne. The superior years, however, and experience of

Henry, while they moderated his ambition, gave him such an ascendant

over this prince, that no dangerous rivalship for a long time arose

between them. The English monarch, instead of taking advantage of

his own situation, rather employed his good offices in composing

the quarrels which arose in the royal family of France; and he was

successful in mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his mother

and uncles. These services were but ill requited by Philip, who, when

he came to man’s estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the royal

family of England, and encouraged Henry’s sons in their ungrateful

and undutiful behavior towards him. Prince Henry, equally impatient

of obtaining power, and incapable of using it, renewed to the king the

demand of his resigning Normandy; and on meeting with a refusal, he fled

with his consort to the court of France: but not finding Philip at

that time disposed to enter into war for his sake, he accepted of his

father’s offers of reconciliation, and made him submissions. It was

a cruel circumstance in the king’s fortune, that he could hope for no

tranquillity from the criminal enterprises of his sons but by their

mutual discord and animosities, which disturbed his family and threw his

state into convulsions. Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne,

and who had displayed his valor and military genius by suppressing the

revolts of his mutinous barons refused to obey Henry’s orders, in doing

homage to his elder brother for that duchy; and he defended himself

against young Henry and Geoffrey, who, uniting their arms, carried war

into his territories.[**]

[* Ypod. Neust. p. 451.]

[** Benedict. Abbas, p 383. Diceto, p.617.]

The king with some difficulty composed this difference; but immediately

found his eldest son engaged in conspiracies, and ready to take arms

against himself. While the young prince was conducting these criminal

intrigues, he was seized with a fever at Martel, {1183.} a castle near

Turenne to which he had retired in discontent; and seeing the approaches

of death, he was at last struck with remorse for his undutiful behavior

towards his father. He sent a message to the king, who was not far

distant; expressed his contrition for his faults; and entreated the

favor of a visit, that he might at least die with the satisfaction of

having obtained his forgiveness. Henry, who had so often experienced

the prince’s ingratitude and violence, apprehended that his sickness was

entirely feigned, and he durst not intrust himself into his son’s hands:

but when he soon after received intelligence of young Henry’s death,

and the proofs, of his sincere repentance, this good prince was affected

with the deepest sorrow; he thrice fainted away; he accused his own hard

hearted ness in refusing the dying request of his son; and he lamented

that he had deprived that prince of the last opportunity of making

atonement for his offences, and of pouring out his soul in the bosom of

his reconciled father.[*] This prince died in the twenty-eighth year of

his age.

The behavior of his surviving children did not tend to give the king any

consolation for the loss. As Prince Henry had left no posterity, Richard

was become heir to all his dominions; and the king intended that John,

his third surviving son and favorite, should inherit Guienne as his

appanage; but Richard refused his consent, fled into that duchy, and

even made preparations for carrying on war, as well against his father

as against his brother Geoffrey, who was now put in possession of

Brittany. Henry sent for Eleanor, his queen, the heiress of Guienne, and

required Richard to deliver up to her the dominion of these territories;

which that prince, either dreading an insurrection of the Gascons in her

favor, or retaining some sense of duty towards her, readily performed;

and he peaceably returned to his father’s court. No sooner was this

quarrel accommodated, than Geoffrey, the most vicious perhaps of all

Henry’s unhappy family, broke out into violence; demanded Anjou to be

annexed to his dominions of Brittany; and on meeting with a refusal,

fled to the court of France, and levied forces against his father.[**]

{1185.} Henry was freed from this danger by his son’s death who was

killed in a tournament at Paris.[***]

[* Benedict. Abbas, p. 393. Hoveden, p. 621.

Trivet, vol. i. p. 84,]

[** Gul. Neubr. p. 422.]

[*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 451. Gervase, p. 1480.]

The widow of Geoffrey, soon after his decease, was delivered of a

son who received the name of Arthur, and was invested in the duchy of

Brittany, under the guardianship of his grandfather, who, is duke of

Normandy, was also superior lord of that territory. Philip, as lord

paramount, disputed some time his title to this wardship; but was

obliged to yield to the inclinations of the Bretons, who preferred the

government of Henry.

But the rivalship between these potent princes, and all their inferior

interests, seemed now to have given place to the general passion for

the relief of the Holy Land and the expulsion of the Saracens.

Those infidels, though obliged to yield to the immense inundation of

Christians in the first crusade, had recovered courage after the

torrent was past; and attacking on all quarters the settlements of the

Europeans, had Deduced these adventurers to great difficulties, and

obliged them to apply again for succors from the west. A second crusade,

under the emperor Conrade, and Lewis VII., king of France, in which

there perished above two hundred thousand men, brought them but a

temporary relief; and those princes, after losing such immense armies,

and seeing the flower of their nobility fall by their side, returned

with little honor into Europe. But these repeated misfortunes, which

drained the western world of its people and treasure, were not yet

sufficient to cure men of their passion for those spiritual adventures;

and a new incident rekindled with fresh fury the zeal of the

ecclesiastics and military adventurers among the Latin Christians.

Saladin, a prince of great generosity, bravery, and conduct, having

fixed himself on the throne of Egypt, began to extend his conquests over

the East; and finding the settlement of the Christians in Palestine an

invincible obstacle to the progress of his arms, he bent the whole force

of his policy and valor to subdue that small and barren, but important

territory. Taking advantage of dissensions which prevailed among the

champions of the cross, and having secretly gained the count of Tripoli,

who commanded their armies, he invaded the frontiers with a mighty power

and, aided by the treachery of that count, gained over them at Tiberiade

a complete victory, which utterly annihilated the force of the already

languishing kingdom of Jerusalem {1187.} The holy city itself fell into

his hands after a feeble resistance; the kingdom of Antioch was almost

entirely subdued and except some maritime towns, nothing considerable

remained of thope boasted conquests, which, near a century before, it

had cost the efforts of all Europe to acquire.

The western Christians were astonished on receiving this dismal

intelligence. Pope Urban III., it is pretended, died of grief; and

his successor, Gregory VIII., employed the whole time of his short

pontificate in rousing to arms all the Christians who acknowledged his

authority. The general cry was, that they were unworthy of enjoying any

inheritance in heaven, who did not vindicate from the dominion of the

infidels the inheritance of God on earth, and deliver from slavery that

country which had been consecrated by the foot-steps of their Redeemer.

{1188.} William, archbishop of Tyre, having procured a conference

between Henry and Philip near Gisors, enforced all these topics; gave a

pathetic description of the miserable state of the eastern Christians;

and employed every argument to excite the ruling passions of the

age, superstition, and jealousy of military honor. The two monarchs

immediately took the cross; many of their most considerable vassals

imitated the example; and as the emperor Frederic I. entered into the

same confederacy, some well-grounded hopes of success were entertained;

and men flattered themselves that an enterprise, which had failed under

the conduct of many independent leaders, or of imprudent princes, might

at last, by the efforts of such potent and able monarchs, be brought to

a happy issue.

The kings of France and England imposed a tax, amounting to the tenth

of all movable goods, on such as remained at home; but as they exempted

from this burden most of the regular clergy, the secular aspired to

the same immunity; pretended that their duty obliged them to assist the

crusade with their prayers alone; and it was with some difficulty they

were constrained to desist from an opposition, which in them who had

been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises, appeared with the

worst grace imaginable. This backwardness of the clergy is perhaps a

symptom that the enthusiastic ardor which had at first seized the people

for crusades, was now by time and ill success considerably abated; and

that the frenzy was chiefly supported by the military genius and love of

glory in the monarchs.

But before this great machine could be put in motion, there were still

many obstacles to surmount. Philip, jealous of Henry’s power, entered

into a private confederacy with young Richard; and working on his

ambitious and impatient temper, persuaded him, instead of supporting

and aggrandizing that monarchy which he was one day to inherit, to seek

present power and independence by disturbing and dismembering it. {1189.}

In order to give a pretence for hostilities between the two kings,

Richard broke into the territories of Raymond, count of Toulouse, who

immediately carried complaints of this violence before the king of

France, as his superior lord. Philip remonstrated with Henry; but

received for answer, that Richard had confessed to the archbishop of

Dublin, that his enterprise against Raymond had been undertaken by the

approbation of Philip himself, and was conducted by his authority. The

king of France, who might have been covered with shame and confusion by

this detection, still prosecuted his design, and invaded the provinces

of Berri and Auvergne, under color of revenging the quarrel of the count

of Toulouse. Henry retaliated by making inroads upon the frontiers of

France and burning Dreux. As this war, which destroyed all hopes of

success in the projected crusade, gave great scandal, the two kings held

a conference at the accustomed place between Gisors and Trie, in order

to find means of accommodating their differences; they separated on

worse terms than before; and Philip, to show his disgust, ordered a

great elm, under which the conferences had been usually held, to be

cut down; as if he had renounced all desire of accommodation, and was

determined to carry the war to extremities against the king of England.

But his own vassals refused to serve under him in so invidious a cause;

and he was obliged to come anew to a conference with Henry, and to offer

terms of peace. These terms were such as entirely opened the eyes of the

king of England, and fully convinced him of the perfidy of his son, and

his secret alliance with Philip, of which he had before only entertained

some suspicion. The king of France required that Richard should be

crowned king of England in the lifetime of his father, should be

invested in all his transmarine dominions, and should immediately

espouse Alice, Philip’s sister, to whom he had been formerly affianced,

and who had already been conducted into England. Henry had experienced

such fatal effects, both from the crowning of his eldest son, and from

that prince’s alliance with the royal family of France, that he rejected

these terms; and Richard, in con sequence of his secret agreement with

Philip, immediately revolted from him, did homage to the king of France

for all the dominions which Henry held of that crown, and received the

investitures, as if he had already been the lawful possessor. Several

historians assert, that Henry himself had become enamored of young

Alice, and mention this as an additional reason for his refusing these

conditions; but he had so many other just and equitable motives for

his conduct, that it is superfluous to assign a cause, which the great

prudence and advanced age of that monarch render somewhat improbable.

Cardinal Albano, the pope’s legate, displeased with these increasing

obstacles to the crusade, excommunicated Richard, as the chief spring

of discord; but the sentence of excommunication, which, when it was

properly prepared and was zealously supported by the clergy, had often

great influence in that age, proved entirely ineffectual in the present

case. The chief barons of Poictou, Guienne, Normandy, and Anjou, being

attached to the young prince, and finding that he had now received the

investiture from their superior lord, declared for him, and made inroads

into the territories of such as still adhered to the king. Henry,

disquieted by the daily revolts of his mutinous subjects, and dreading

still worse effects from their turbulent disposition, had again recourse

to papal authority; and engaged the cardinal Anagni, who had succeeded

Albano in the legateship, to threaten Philip with laying an interdict

on all his dominions. But Philip, who was a prince of great vigor and

capacity, despised the menace, and told Anagni, that it belonged not to

the pope to interpose in the temporal disputes of princes, much less in

those between him and his rebellious vassal. He even proceeded so far

as to reproach him with partiality, and with receiving bribes from the

king of England; while Richard, still more outrageous, offered to draw

his sword against the legate, and was hindered by the interposition

alone of the company, from committing violence upon him.

The king of England was now obliged to defend his dominions by arms,

and to engage in a war with France and with his eldest son, a prince

of great valor, on such disadvantageous terms. Ferte-Bernard fell first

into the hands of the enemy; Mans was next taken by assault; and Henry,

who had thrown himself into that place, escaped with some difficulty;

Amboise, Chaumont, and Château de Loire, opened their gates on the

appearance of Philip and Richard: Tours was menaced; and the king,

who had retired to Saumur, and had daily instances of the cowardice or

infidelity of his governors, expected the most dismal issue to all his

enterprises. While he was in this state of despondency, the duke of

Burgundy, the earl of Flanders, and the archbishop of Rheims interposed

with their good offices; and the intelligence which he received of the

taking of Tours, and which made him fully sensible of the desperate

situation of his affairs, so subdued his spirit, that he submitted to

all the rigorous terms which, were imposed upon him. He agreed that

Richard should marry the princess Alice; that that prince should receive

the homage and oath of fealty of all his subjects both in England and

his transmarine dominions; that he himself should pay twenty thousand

marks to the king of France, as a compensation for the charges of the

war; that his own barons should engage to make him observe this treaty

by force, and in case of his violating it should promise to join Philip

and Richard against him; and that all his vassals, who had entered into

confederacy with Richard, should receive an indemnity for the offence.

But the mortification which Henry, who had been accustomed to give the

law in most treaties, received from these disadvantageous terms, was

the least that he met with on this occasion. When he demanded a list

of those barons to whom he was bound to grant a pardon for their

connections with Richard, he was astonished to find, at the head

of them, the name of his second son, John; who had always been his

favorite, whose interests he had ever anxiously at heart, and who had

even, on account of his ascendant over him, often excited the jealousy

of Richard. The unhappy father, already overloaded with cares and

sorrows, finding this last disappointment in his domestic tenderness,

broke out into expressions of the utmost despair, cursed the day in which

he received his miserable being, and bestowed on his ungrateful and

undutiful children a malediction which he never could be prevailed on

to retract. The more his heart was disposed to friendship and affection,

the more he resented the barbarous return which his four sons had

successively made to his parental care; and this finishing blow, by

depriving him of every comfort in life, quite broke his spirit, and

threw him into a lingering fever, of which he expired, at the castle of

Chinon, near Saumur. His natural son, Geoffrey, who alone had

behaved dutifully towards him, attended his corpse to the nunnery of

Fontervrault; where it lay in state in the abbey church. Next day,

Richard, who came to visit the dead body of his father, and who,

notwithstanding his criminal conduct, was not wholly destitute of

generosity, was struck with horror and remorse at the sight; and as the

attendants observed that, at that very instant, blood gushed from the

mouth and nostrils of the corpse, he exclaimed, agreeably to a vulgar

superstition, that he was his father’s murderer; and he expressed a deep

sense, though too late, of that undutiful behavior which had brought his

parent to an untimely grave.

Thus died, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and thirty-fifth of

his reign, the greatest prince of his time for wisdom, virtue, and

abilities, and the most powerful in the extent of dominion of all those

that had ever filled the throne of England. His character in private,

as well as in public life, is almost without a blemish; and he seems to

have possessed every accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes

a man either estimable or amiable. He was of a middle stature, strong

and well proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his

conversation affable and entertaining; his elocution easy, persuasive,

and ever at command. He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and

conduct in war; was provident without timidity; severe in the execution

of justice without rigor; and temperate without austerity. He preserved

health, and kept himself from corpulency, to which he was somewhat

inclined, by an abstemious diet, and by frequent exercise, particularly

hunting. When he could enjoy leisure, he recreated himself either

in learned conversation or in reading; and he cultivated his natural

talents by study above any prince of his time. His affections, as well

as his enmities, were warm and durable; and his long experience of

the ingratitude and infidelity of men never destroyed the natural

sensibility of his temper, which disposed him to friendship and society.

His character has been transmitted to us by several writers, who were

his contemporaries; and it extremely resembles, in its most remarkable

features, that of his maternal grandfather, Henry I.; excepting only,

that ambition, which was a ruling passion in both, found not in the

first Henry such unexceptionable means of exerting itself, and pushed

that prince into measures which were both criminal in themselves, and

were the cause of further crimes, from which his grandson’s conduct was

happily exempted.

This prince, like most of his predecessors of the Norman line, except

Stephen, passed more of his time on the continent than in this island:

he was surrounded with the English gentry and nobility when abroad: the

French gentry and nobility attended him when he resided in England: both

nations acted in the government as if they were the same people; and, on

many occasions, the legislatures seem not to have been distinguished.

As the king and all the English barons were of French extraction, the

manners of that people acquired the ascendant, and were regarded as the

models of imitation. All foreign improvements, therefore, such as they

were, in literature and politeness, in laws and arts, seem now to have

been, in a good measure, transplanted into England and that kingdom was

become little inferior, in all the fashionable accomplishments, to any

of its neighbors on the continent. The more homely but more sensible

manners and principles of the Saxons, were exchanged for the

affectations of chivalry, and the subtilties of school philosophy: the

feudal ideas of civil government, the Romish sentiments in religion,

had taken entire possession of the people: by the former, the sense of

submission towards princes was somewhat diminished in the barons; by

the latter, the devoted attachment to papal authority was much augmented

among the clergy. The Norman and other foreign families established in

England, had now struck deep root; and being entirely incorporated with

the people, whom at first they oppressed and despised, they no longer

thought that they needed the protection of the crown for the enjoyment

of their possessions, or considered their tenure as precarious. They

aspired to the same liberty and independence which they saw enjoyed

by their brethren on the continent, and desired to restrain those

exorbitant prerogatives and arbitrary practices, which the necessities

of war and the violence of conquest had at first obliged them to indulge

in their monarch. That memory also of a more equal government under the

Saxon princes, which remained with the English, diffused still further

the spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more

independence to themselves and willing to indulge it to the people.

And it was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of

men produced, first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident

alteration in the maxims of government.

The history of all the preceding kings of England since the conquest,

gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal institutions;

the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of rebellion against the

prince and laws, and of animosity against each other: the conduct of the

barons in the transmarine dominions of those monarchs, afforded perhaps

still more flagrant instances of these convulsions; and the history of

France, during several ages, consists almost entirely of narrations

of this nature. The cities, during the continuance of this violent

government, could neither be very numerous nor populous; and there occur

instances which seem to evince that, though these are always the

first seat of law and liberty, their police was in general loose and

irregular, and exposed to the same disorders with those by which the

country was generally infested. It was a custom in London for great

numbers, to the amount of a hundred or more, the sons and relations of

considerable citizens, to form themselves into a licentious confederacy,

to break into rich houses and plunder them, to rob and murder the

passengers, and to commit with impunity all sorts of disorder. By these

crimes it had become so dangerous to walk the streets by night, that

the citizens durst no more venture abroad after sunset, than if they

had been exposed to the incursions of a public enemy. The brother of the

earl of Ferrars had been murdered by some of those nocturnal rioters;

and the death of so eminent a person, which was much more regarded than

that of many thousands of an inferior station, so provoked the king,

that he swore vengeance against the criminals, and became thenceforth

more rigorous in the execution of the laws.

There is another instance given by historians, which proves to what a

height such riots had proceeded, and how open these criminals were in

committing their robberies. A band of them had attacked the house of a

rich citizen, with an intention of plundering it; had broken through a

stone wall with hammers and wedges; and had already entered the house

sword in hand, when the citizen, armed cap-á-pie, and supported by his

faithful servants, appeared in the passage to oppose them: he cut off

the right hand of the first robber that entered, and made such stout

resistance that his neighbors had leisure to assemble and come to his

relief. The man who lost his hand was taken; and was tempted by the

promise of pardon to reveal his confederates; among whom was one John

Senex, esteemed among the richest and best-born citizens in London. He

was convicted by the ordeal; and though he offered five hundred marks

for his life, the king refused the money, and ordered him to be hanged.

It appears, from a statute of Edward I., that these disorders were not

remedied even in that reign. It was then made penal to go out at night

after the hour of the curfew, to carry a weapon, or to walk without a

light or lantern. It is said in the preamble to this law, that both by

night and by day there were continual frays in the streets of London.

Henry’s care in administering justice had gained him so great a

reputation, that even foreign and distant princes made him arbiter, and

submitted their differences to his judgment. Sanchez, king of Navarre,

having some controversies with Alphonso, king of Castile, was contented,

though Alphonso had married the daughter of Henry, to choose this prince

for a referee; and they agreed each of them to consign three castles

into neutral hands, as a pledge of their not departing from his award.

Henry made the cause be examined before his great council, and gave

a sentence, which was submitted to by both parties. These two Spanish

kings sent each a stout champion to the court of England, in order to

defend his cause by arms, in case the way of duel had been chosen by

Henry.

Henry so far abolished the barbarous and absurd practice of confiscating

ships which had been wrecked on the coast, that he ordained if one man

or animal were alive in the ship that the vessel and goods should be

restored to the owners.

The reign of Henry was remarkable also for an innovation which was

afterwards carried further by his successors, and was attended with the

most important consequences. This prince was disgusted with the species

of military force which was established by the feudal institutions, and

which, though it was extremely burdensome to the subject, yet rendered

very little service to the sovereign. The barons, or military tenants,

came late into the field; they were obliged to serve only forty days;

they were unskilful and disorderly in all their operations; and they

were apt to carry into the camp the same refractory and independent

spirit to which they were accustomed in their civil government. Henry,

therefore, introduced the practice of making a commutation of their

military service for money; and he levied scutages from his baronies

and knights’ fees, instead of requiring the personal attendance of his

vassals. There is mention made, in the history of the exchequer, of

these scutages in his second, fifth, and eighteenth year; and other

writers give us an account of three more of them.[*] When the prince had

thus obtained money, he made a contract with some of those adventurers

in which Europe at that time abounded; they found him soldiers of the

same character with themselves, who were bound to serve for a stipulated

time: the armies were less numerous, but more useful, than when composed

of all the military vassals of the crown: the feudal institutions began

to relax: the kings became rapacious for money, on which all their power

depended: the barons, seeing no end of exactions, sought to defend their

property, and as the same causes had nearly the same effects in the

different countries of Europe, the several crowns either lost or

acquired authority, according to their different success in the contest.

This prince was also the first that levied a tax on the movables or

personal estates of his subjects, nobles as well as commons. Their zeal

for the holy wars made them submit to this innovation; and a precedent

being once obtained, this taxation became, in following reigns, the

usual method of supplying the necessities of the crown. The tax of

danegelt, so generally odious to the nation, was remitted in this reign.

[* Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 466, from the records. It

was a usual practice of the kings of England to repeat the

ceremony of their coronation thrice every year, on

assembling the states at the three great festivals. Henry,

after the first years of his reign, never renewed this

ceremony, which was found to be very expensive and very

useless. None of his successors revived it. It is considered

as a great act of grace in this prince, that he mitigated

the rigor of the forest laws, and punished any

transgressions of them, not capitally, but by fines,

imprisonments, and other moderate penalties.]

Since we are here collecting some detached incidents, which show the

genius of the age, and which could not so well enter into the body

of our history, it may not be improper to mention the quarrel between

Roger, archbishop of York, and Richard, archbishop of Canterbury. We

may judge of the violence of military men and laymen, when ecclesiastics

could proceed to such extremities. Cardinal Haguezun, being sent, in

1176, as legate into Britain, summoned an assembly of the clergy at

London; and, as both the archbishops pretended to sit on his right hand,

this question of precedency begat a controversy between them. The monks

and retainers of Archbishop Richard fell upon Roger, in the presence

of the cardinal and of the synod, threw him to the ground, trampled him

under foot, and so bruised him with blows, that he was taken up half

dead, and his life was with difficulty saved from their violence. The

archbishop of Canterbury was obliged to pay a large sum of money to

the legate, in order to suppress all complaints with regard to this

enormity.

We are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, that the monks and prior of St.

Swithun threw themselves one day prostrate on the ground and in the mire

before Henry, complaining, with many tears and much doleful lamentation,

that the bishop of Winchester, who was also their abbot, had cut off

three dishes from their table. “How many has he left you?” said the

king. “Ten only,” replied the disconsolate monks. “I myself,” exclaimed

the king, “never have more than three; and I enjoin your bishop to

reduce you to the same number.”

This king left only two legitimate sons, Richard, who succeeded him, and

John, who inherited no territory, though his father had often intended

to leave him a part of his extensive dominions. He was thence commonly

denominated Lackland. Henry left three legitimate daughters; Maud, born

in 1156, and married to Henry, duke of Saxony; Eleanor, born in 1162,

and married to Alphonso, king of Castile: Joan, born in 1165, and

married to William, king of Sicily.

Henry is said by ancient historians to have been of a very amorous

disposition; they mention two of his natural sons by Rosamond, daughter

of Lord Clifford; namely, Richard Longespée, or Longsword, (so called

from the sword he usually wore,) who was afterwards married to Ela, the

daughter and heir of the earl of Salisbury; and Geoffrey, first bishop

of Lincoln, then archbishop of York. All the other circumstances of the

story commonly told of that lady seem to be fabulous.