causes of the people’s misery are mentioned. Heavy taxes, famines,
floods, pestilence, false money, and purveyance. To attempt to
rectify such of these as were within the power of man, was one main
part of Henry’s duty. To that was added the work of suppressing, by
a centralized royal power, the excesses of the feudal barons. What
crying necessity there was that they should be suppressed is made
plain by the stories related of Robert of Belesme, their chief.
He is spoken of as guilty of the most unheard-of barbarities, as
having scorned the ransoms of his captives to torture them by
newfangled instruments; he found delight in seeing men and women
impaled and struggling in the agonies of death. “He was a man,”
says William of Malmesbury, “intolerable for the barbarity of
his manners, remarkable besides for cruelty;” and, among other
instances, he relates how, on account of some trifling fault of its
father, he blinded his godchild, who was his hostage, by tearing
out the poor little creature’s eyes with “his accursed nails.”
[Sidenote: Heavy taxation.]
[Sidenote: Henry cures what evils he can.]
One complaint of his people Henry systematically disregarded. He
could not afford to do without his taxes, and on all classes on
this point he leant with a heavy hand. But in other respects,
as far as in him lay, he rectified abuses of administration,
and established a vigorous and effectual police. The evils of
purveyance had become extreme; no property was safe from the hands
of the followers of the court, and when they found larger supplies
than they wanted, “if it was liquor they washed their horses’
feet in it, or food they wantonly destroyed it.” But Henry made
a regulation for the followers of his court, at whichever of his
residences he might be, stating what they should take without
payment from the country folk, and how much, and at what price
they should purchase, punishing the transgressors by heavy fine or
loss of life. So with regard to false coinage, immediately after
the complaint of high prices in the year 1124, it is mentioned
that Henry at once sent from Normandy to England, and commanded
that all the moneyers should have their right hands cut off, and
be otherwise mutilated. Bishop Roger of Salisbury sent all over
England, commanded them all to come before him, and then and there
punished upwards of fifty. Henry was careful, indeed, in other ways
with regard to the money, having the whole of the coinage broken
to prevent the refusal of broken silver pennies; for it seems to
have been the custom to break the coinage to see that the money was
good, and tradesmen not unfrequently refused the broken coins.
[Sidenote: His strict police.]
Against offences of violence Henry was equally vigorous. At one
single court held in Leicestershire by Basset the Justiciary,
during the King’s absence in 1124, no less than forty-four thieves
were condemned and hanged, besides others mutilated. “He sought
after robbers and counterfeiters with the greatest diligence,
and punished them when discovered,” says William of Malmesbury.
Rivalling his father also in other respects, he restrained by edict
the acts of his courtiers, thefts, rapine, and the violation of
women, commanding the delinquents to be deprived of sight. He also
displayed singular vigilance against the mint masters, suffering no
man who had been guilty of “deluding the innocent by the practice
of roguery” to escape without losing his hands. “A good man he
was,” says the Saxon Chronicle, “and all men stood in awe of him;
no man durst misdo against another in his time. He made peace for
man and beast. Whoso bare his burden of gold and silver, no man
thirst do him aught but good.”
[Sidenote: Administrative machinery.]
[Sidenote: Local courts.]
[Sidenote: Curia Regis.]
To carry out this strict police some apparatus was necessary,
which at the same time should serve the purpose of diminishing the
power of the great nobles, and that of beginning at all events,
by its centralizing influence, to re-form the conquered people
and their conquerors into one nation. The rudiments of such an
apparatus Henry found already existing in the arrangements which
the Conqueror had made. The system of frankpledge, increased and
adapted to the more general feudal form of society, supplied him
with an efficient system of police. There was no man in the kingdom
but some one was answerable for him. If he was a vassal, his lord.
If he was a freeman, the knot of freemen of which he was a member.
As courts to carry out this system, there were the old Hundred and
Shire gemots. These Henry strengthened and, it would seem from one
existing order, restored when in any way decayed to their original
purity. To these courts criminal cases belonged, and civil suits
between vassals of different lords. Questions between vassals of
the same lord seem to have fallen within the jurisdiction of the
lord. But these inferior courts, although they were excellent for
police purposes, and as a check upon the powers of the baronial
courts, would have done little towards the formation of nationality
had they not been brought into connection with a superior court
of which the king was chief. This central court consisted of the
King in his ordinary council, which, since the Conquest, was
known as the Curia Regis. Over it was the justiciary, who was the
King’s representative, his regent during his absence, the head of
his administration, both judicial and financial, at all times.
Under him was a selection of barons, the chief officers of the
royal household, and those best qualified for judicial purposes.
The clerks of this court were placed under a head, who was the
chancellor. The judges themselves sat for financial purposes in
the exchequer chamber, and were spoken of as the barons of the
exchequer. For general business they were called justices, and
their head the chief-justice. The organization of this court dates
from the reign of Henry I. The office of chief justiciary had been
founded by William the Conqueror, but the regular formation of the
Exchequer Court was the work of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, in the
hands of whose family the direction of the machinery remained for
nearly a century.[8] It was afterwards, as we shall see, brought
to its completion by Henry II., but all its essential parts are
to be found in the reign of his grandfather. It was as officers
of finance that the justices first began to traverse the country.
The sheriffs could not always be trusted in their own localities,
and change of property and other causes gave rise to difficult
questions, requiring to be settled by the immediate intervention
of the King’s officers. From financial questions their authority
naturally passed to questions of justice, and their connection
with the local courts was further strengthened when Henry united
several sheriffdoms under one of his justices. Following a natural
tendency, the men employed for these offices were not the great
barons, but new men, who rose by their talents, and were naturally
upholders of the royal power and of order in opposition to the
anarchical baronial party.
To sum up; after the year 1108, when the local courts were
re-established, both the Hundred and county courts were the same in
constitution and in arrangement as before the Conquest. But they
were connected with the central government; because matters in
which the King was interested were set aside for the consideration
of the Curia Regis, or travelling justiciary sent out from that
body; and because the Norman lawyers had introduced the practice of
issuing writs from the King’s court, whereby the King, in virtue
of what is called his “equitable power,” that is, his power of
securing justice where the law did not give it, prescribed the
method of action in certain difficult cases. The Hundred court
was sometimes a lower court for the arrangement of small debts;
the Bailiff of the Hundred then presided. Sometimes it was the
great court held only twice a year; the sheriff then presided, the
court exercised criminal jurisdiction, and was known as the “Court
Leet.” It also saw to the filling up of the divisions of ten men
required by the system of Frankpledge; this was called “the view of
frankpledge.” The court was then known as “the Sheriff’s Tourn.”
Below these local courts were the feudal manor courts, the old
motes of the township, now become the courts of the lord. But we
must not suppose that the authority of the sheriff and the local
courts (now virtually royal courts) was universal. Certain great
lords enjoyed franchises, that is, exercised jurisdiction over
several manors. If the lord had “sac and soc,” his court had the
authority of the Court Leet. If he had “the view of frankpledge,”
the suitors at his court were free from attendance at the Sheriff’s
Tourn. His court was then in all points like the Hundred court, but
independent of the sheriff. This double system Henry had apparently
to submit to, watching the baronial power as well as he could, by
means of the local courts and travelling justices.
[Sidenote: The National Assembly.]
It is to be carefully remembered that though the Curia Regis,
representing the King’s council, attested charters, and revised
and registered laws, it had no legislative authority. Both the
imposition of taxes and the making of laws still rested with the
King and his great council, the representative of the Witan, which
had become a feudal court, and consisted chiefly of the King’s
vassals. Their “counsel and consent” was a necessary condition of
all legislation.
STEPHEN.
1135-1154.
Born 1105 = Maud of Boulogne.
|
+-------------+------------------------+
| |
Eustace, Earl of Boulogne. William, Earl of Boulogne.
d. 1152. d. 1159.
CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.
_Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain._
| | |
David I., 1124. | Louis VI., 1108. | Lothaire II., | Alphonso VIII.,
Malcolm IV., 1153. | Louis VII., 1137. | 1125. | 1134.
Frederick I., 1152. | | Conrad III., |
| | 1138. |
POPES.--Innocent II., 1130. Celestine II., 1143. Lucius II., 1144
Eugenius III., 1145. Anastasius IV., 1153.
_Archbishops._ | _Chief-Justice._ | _Chancellors._
| |
William of Corbeuil, | Roger, Bishop of | Roger the Poor, 1135.
1123-1136. | Salisbury. | Philip, 1139.
Theobald, 1139-1161. | 1135-1139. |
[Sidenote: Stephen’s accession.]
On Henry’s death, according to the oath of the nobles, Matilda,
late Empress, now wife of Geoffrey of Anjou, should have become
Duchess of Normandy and Queen of England. But the principle of
hereditary succession was by no means firmly established; a female
sovereign was not desirable for a feudal country; her child
Henry was an infant; and the nobles held that the conditions of
their oath of fealty had been broken when Matilda had married a
foreigner. There was therefore almost a unanimous feeling that
one or other of the Princes of Blois, grandsons of the Conqueror,
Theobald the elder brother, or Stephen, Count of Mortain and
Boulogne, should ascend the throne. Steps were being taken in
Normandy to induce Theobald to come forward, when news was brought
to him that the superior quickness of his brother Stephen had
already secured the crown in England, where, though not without
some demur, the influence of the Church, headed by his brother
Henry of Winchester, had secured him success.
[Sidenote: Strange character of the reign.]
[Sidenote: Great power of the Church.]
There followed a period of twenty years without a parallel in the
history of England. It was the only time during which the feudal
baronage assumed that position of practical independence which
it was always aiming at, which it frequently enjoyed abroad, but
which the wise management and strong government of the Conqueror
and his two sons had rendered impossible in England. The weak
title of the King, and the constantly urged claim of the Empress,
joined with the personal character of Stephen, who seems to have
been unable to refuse a request, afforded an opportunity to the
barons of asserting virtual independence and fighting for their own
interests, while nominally upholding one or other of the claimants
to the throne. The same causes affected the Church, which was now
able to make good that commanding position which the legislation
of the Conqueror had given it, although up to this time the strong
hand of the King had rendered the position worthless. The only
organized power in the midst of anarchy, it was enabled to use its
influence to the full. It was the Church that set Stephen on the
throne; it was his quarrel with the bishops which lit up the civil
war in England; the success of the Empress was of no avail till she
was accepted by the Church; her attack upon Henry of Winchester was
the signal for her discomfiture; it was the mediation of the Church
which ultimately produced a cessation of the war.
[Sidenote: The interest of the reign.]
The facts of the reign are few and in themselves unimportant. To
the growth of the constitution it added nothing. It is nevertheless
interesting as exhibiting the effects of unbridled feudalism,
and as preparing the way for the great work of consolidation
perfected by Henry II.; on the one hand by the misery and disgust
excited by the lawless outrages of the barons; on the other by the
overwhelming power thrown into the hands of the Church, which could
not co-exist with any true national monarchy.
[Sidenote: Stephen’s charter.]
[Sidenote: Affairs in Wales.]
On his coronation, Stephen, in general terms, promised to uphold
the good laws of his predecessors. At the first great council
of his reign he issued a more explicit charter, securing to the
Church their property and privileges, and promising to suppress
illegalities on the part of the sheriffs. The character of the
reign rendered such a charter quite inoperative. The insurrection
in Wales, which had been bringing Henry to England when he died,
continued. Its conduct fell chiefly to Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and
Richard Fitz-Gilbert of Clare. Stephen’s presence on the borders
did not succeed in checking it. Richard Fitz-Gilbert was killed,
and he left the country as before to be conquered by the gradual
advance of the lords marchers.
[Sidenote: Early signs of disturbance.]
[Sidenote: War with Scotland. 1137.]
[Sidenote: Its connection with an English conspiracy.]
[Sidenote: Battle of the Standard. Aug. 22, 1138.]
Already, it would seem, the yielding character of Stephen had
been discovered. Already barons began to take advantage of it.
Roger Bigot seized the Castle of Norwich, and wrested from the
King the earldom of that county and of East Anglia. Robert of
Bathenton and Baldwin of Redvers, in Devonshire, began to rebel.
They were indeed both conquered, but such movements mark the
temper of the times. In 1137 Stephen found himself strong enough
to cross to Normandy, where Geoffrey of Anjou was making war upon
his provinces. His success there was not great. He purchased
from Geoffrey a cessation of hostilities. Meanwhile the Northern
frontier of England had become a scene of war. David of Scotland,
the nephew of Eadgar Ætheling, and uncle through his sister Matilda
of the Empress, had himself some claims to the English throne.
But these he declared that he waived, wishing to abide true to
the oath he had taken to support his niece. He, however, demanded
that his son Henry should be allowed to do homage to Stephen for
Cumberland, and that he himself should receive the counties of
Northumberland and Huntingdon, which he claimed in right of his
wife, the daughter of Earl Waltheof. Though he himself declared
that he had no desire for the English throne, there is mentioned
by one chronicler[9] a general conspiracy of the native English
with their exiled countrymen, of whom the south of Scotland was
full, for the purpose of taking advantage of the condition of
the country to put to death the Normans, and to place the crown
upon David’s head. The plot was discovered by the Bishop of Ely,
who was at once Bishop and Governor of that district, which had
been formed by the last king into a modified county palatine. He
told his discovery, and many of the conspirators were hanged, but
many others found a refuge in Scotland. At length, in 1138, David
entered England with a large army, and pushed forward as far as
Northallerton in Yorkshire. He was there met by the forces of the
Northern bishops and barons, gathered under the command of Walter
Espec, Thurstan, the aged Archbishop of York, William of Albemarle,
Roger of Mowbray, and other barons. They gathered round a tall
mast borne upon a carriage, on which, above the standards of the
three Northern Saints, St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley,
and St. Wilfred of Ripon, was displayed a silver pyx bearing the
consecrated wafer. The motley army of the Scots, some armed as the
English, some in the wild dress of the Picts of Galloway, after a
well-fought battle, broke against the full-clad Norman soldiers,
and were killed by the arrows, which had now become the national
weapon of the English; 11,000 are said to have fallen on the field.
But, in spite of the victory, Stephen, conscious of his general
weakness, accepted an unfavourable peace, by which Northumberland
was given to Prince Henry.
[Sidenote: Growth of anarchy in England.]
[Sidenote: Creation of earldoms and castles.]
All this time the spirit of lawlessness had been increasing. “Many
persons,” says the chronicler,[10] “emboldened to illegal acts,
either by nobility of descent or by ambition, were not ashamed,
some to demand castles, others estates, and indeed whatever came
into their fancy, from the King. When he delayed complying with
their request ... they, becoming enraged, immediately fortified
their castles against him, and drove away large booties from his
lands.” “He created likewise many earls where there had been none
before; appropriating to them rents which had before belonged to
the crown. They were the more greedy in asking, and he more profuse
in giving, because a rumour was pervading England that Robert of
Gloucester would shortly espouse the cause of his sister.” The
creation of earldoms had been rare under the three first Norman
kings, and as those offices died out their places had not been
filled. It is said, indeed, that in 1131 there were but three earls
in England, Robert of Gloucester, and the Earls of Chester and
Leicester.[11] As the earl received the third penny of the fines
of his earldom, the creation of earls manifestly impoverished
the crown. But Stephen appears to have gone beyond the filling
up of regular earldoms, and to have created titular earls,[12]
with grants of royal demesne lands to support their dignity. The
building of castles[13] was the great sign of the anarchical
condition of England, implying private war and all the other
horrors of the worst forms of continental feudalism.
[Sidenote: Robert of Gloucester renounces his fealty. 1138.]
[Sidenote: Stephen’s mercenaries.]
This anarchy began to assume a form when Robert of Gloucester,
alleging his previous oath to Matilda, and asserting that the
conditions on which he had accepted Stephen had not been kept,
renounced his fealty. His influence was in his earldom, and in the
West of England; the headquarters of his party was Bristol; and
his agent during his absence was Milo, Constable of Gloucester,
afterwards Earl of Hereford. Nearly all the West, and by no means
the West only, declared for Matilda. But in most cases the rival
claims to the throne were used as an excuse merely. Change of sides
was common, and there are instances of leaders excluding their own
nominal partisans from strongholds they had won.[14] At first the
insurrection was unsuccessful. Stephen, conscious of his weakness,
had collected mercenaries from Flanders and from Brittany. The
condition of the country made them eager to come. In Stephen’s
time numbers of freebooters from Flanders and Brittany flocked to
England in expectation of pillage.[15] The chief leader of the
Flemings was William of Ypres; the Bretons were commanded by Alan
the Black of Richmond, Hervé of Léon, and Alan of Dinan. With the
aid of these Stephen speedily regained the great castles he had
lost, such as Bath, Castlecary, Harptree, and Shrewsbury; and might
perhaps even yet have established his authority, when an act of
supreme folly set him at variance with the Church.
[Sidenote: Jealousy between the old and new administration.]
The new administrative class was represented by Roger of Salisbury,
who had succeeded in procuring for his nephew Alexander the
bishopric of Lincoln, for Nigel the bishopric of Ely, while
his illegitimate son Roger was Chancellor. The vast wealth and
influence of this family encouraged them to build castles, and
Devizes, Sherborne, Malmesbury, and Salisbury were strongly
fortified. The family of Beaumont, Earls of Mellent, had been
generally firm supporters of the crown and of authority. They
now seem to have seen with jealousy their position as the chief
advisers to the crown occupied by men of law, ecclesiastics, yet
without the sanctity which befits the ecclesiastical profession. At
their instigation, and at that of their friends, the King took the
ill-advised step of beginning his assault on his castle-building
barons by demanding the surrender of these bishops’ castles. The
Bishops of Lincoln and Salisbury were suddenly arrested at an
assembly held at Oxford (1139); the Bishop of Ely took refuge in
the castle of Devizes. Thither the King betook himself, with his
two prisoners, as some accounts assert, kept entirely without food,
one in a cow-stall and the other in a hovel. This treatment of the
bishops, and a threat of hanging Roger the Chancellor, produced the
surrender of Devizes as well as the other three castles.
[Sidenote: Stephen’s quarrel with the Church.]
[Sidenote: Consequent arrival of Matilda. Sept. 30, 1139.]
The success was dearly bought. The King’s brother, Henry of
Winchester, upheld the dignity of his order. He summoned a council,
produced a Papal letter declaring him legate, proceeded to lay
his charges against the King before the council, and advised him
to submit to canonical punishment. Stephen’s case was defended
by Aubrey de Vere, who, when the aggrieved bishops spoke of an
appeal to Rome, declared that the King advised them not to do so,
as whoever went might find it difficult to return; and himself
appealed to the jurisdiction of the Pope. This threat, and an
ominous appearance of drawn swords around the meeting, prevented
the bishops from proceeding to extremities; but none the less had
Stephen forfeited their support. The immediate effect was the
arrival of Gloucester and the Empress in the South of England.
[Sidenote: Civil war.]
After a short stay at Arundel, the Empress withdrew to join her
brother, who had preceded her, at Bristol. There had been a
friendly meeting with Henry of Winchester upon their arrival,
and it was the same Henry who escorted the Empress to join her
brother.[16] The scene of confusion became still more confused.
Brian Fitz-Count[17] held Wallingford for the Empress; Milo of
Gloucester regained many of the Western castles which Stephen had
won. In Cornwall, Reginald of Dunstanville, a brother of the Earl
of Gloucester, upheld, though without much success, the cause of
the Empress. In Wiltshire, Fitz-Hubert, a Fleming, and Fitz-Gilbert
fought nominally for the Empress, really for themselves, till
Fitz-Gilbert enticed Fitz-Hubert, who had refused admission to the
partisans of the Empress for whom he was nominally fighting, to the
Castle of Marlborough, and there hanged him.
[Sidenote: Continued quarrel with the Church.]
[Sidenote: Robert, to bring matters to a crisis, fights the battle
of Lincoln. Feb. 2, 1141.]