among petty chieftains, had from time to time been gathered under
the command of one chief king. When his authority was at all
strong, some little order existed; when he was weak, wild disorder
reigned. The present holder of that position was Roderic O’Connor
of Connaught. In 1153, Diarmid, or Dermot, King of Leinster, had
carried off the wife of O’Ruark, Prince of Breffni, or Leitrim.
When O’Connor gained the crown of Tara in 1166, he proceeded to
punish the offender who fled to England, and, collecting round
him some Welsh adventurers, returned home. Still unable to cope
with his enemies, he sought Henry in Guienne, did homage to him,
and received leave to collect an army in England. In 1169, the
half-brothers Robert Fitz-Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald crossed
over to Wexford. This advance-guard was followed by a stronger
party of Welshmen under Richard of Clare, Count of Strigul,
surnamed Strongbow, who, deeply in debt, had lost his possessions
in England, and was glad to seek some elsewhere. He took Waterford,
and married Eva, Dermot’s daughter; while Dublin, which belonged
to the Danes who had settled in Ireland, was captured by Milo of
Cogan. In 1171 Dermot died, and Strongbow succeeded to the crown
of Leitrim as his heir. Henry was not pleased with the rapid
success of his vassal, and proceeded to deprive him of his English
property. In vain were ambassadors sent to the King; he refused
them admittance. It was only when the Earl surrendered Waterford,
Dublin, and his other castles, to the King, that Henry secured
to him his other conquests. Matters were in this condition when
Henry determined himself to visit Ireland. After a month spent in
preparation, he reached Waterford with a fleet of 400 ships in
October. Here Strongbow did homage to him for Leinster, and several
Irish princes acknowledged him for their chief. From Roderic
O’Connor he had to be contented with such slight acknowledgment as
the acceptance of his envoys, De Lacey and William Fitz-Aldelm,
might imply. With the Church he was more successful. All the
archbishops and bishops took the oath of fealty. At a synod held
at Cashel the Roman discipline was introduced; and in 1174, bulls
from Rome, authorizing the collection of Peter’s Pence and the
conquest of the country, were received and accepted. In a wooden
palace, built outside the walls of Dublin, Henry exhibited the
splendours of the English crown, and granted out the conquered
lands to his vassals. Hugh de Lacey received the Earldom of Meath,
and was made Viceroy; Fitz-Bernard received Waterford, De Courcey
and others were instructed to carry on the work of conquest; and
English colonists were placed in Dublin and other devastated towns.
Having made these arrangements, Henry returned to Normandy, where
his presence was much required. But his conquest was by no means
completed; disturbances arose at once upon his departure; nor was
it till 1175 that Roderic was subdued. He then sent delegates to
make his submission to the King at a council held at Windsor. A
treaty was arranged, which acknowledged him as chief of all the
Irish princes, with the exception of Henry and his knights. He
consented to pay a yearly tribute. But except in the conquered
countries, Irish law (the Brehon law as it was termed) held good
throughout Ireland, and English law only within those provinces
which had been thoroughly subdued and were called the English Pale.
[Sidenote: Henry’s reconciliation with Rome. 1172.]
It was partly to meet the Papal legates that Henry returned from
Ireland. He met them at Avranches, and there swore that he had
nothing to do with the murder of the Archbishop, and promised
adhesion to Pope Alexander in opposition to the German anti-pope,
free intercourse with Rome, the abrogation of the Constitutions
of Clarendon, and personal attendance at a crusade, either in the
East or in Spain, within three years, meanwhile paying the Templars
to undertake this duty for him. Although this seemed a complete
submission, it in fact left the question of the supremacy of the
civil power open.
[Sidenote: Great insurrection of 1174.]
[Sidenote: Crisis of the danger. 1174.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s penance at Canterbury.]
[Sidenote: Capture of the Scotch King at Alnwick.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s complete success.]
All his dominions seemed now at peace, but a great danger was
brewing. His son Henry, since his coronation, had already, at the
instigation of the French King, his father-in-law, demanded the
actual possession of some portion at least of his kingdom, and
this combination caused him well-grounded apprehension. He took
the opportunity of the general peace of his kingdom to negotiate
a marriage for his son John with the daughter of Count Humbolt of
Savoy, and promised to give with him as her dowry Chinon, Loudon,
and Mirabeau. The young king Henry protested against this treaty,
and suddenly disappearing from court, took refuge with Louis VII.
at St. Denis. The old king understood only too well what this
meant. Shortly, there was a universal insurrection throughout all
his dominions. It is not difficult to understand. His domestic
relations were not happy, although he was very fond of his
children; his wife was constantly urging them to disobedience. His
dominions were widespread, and consisted of various races; his hand
was heavy upon the feudal nobility, when the English nobles had
not yet forgotten the charms of the late reign; while the defeat
which the King had sustained in his quarrel with Becket gave a
false impression of his weakness. The discontent was very general.
While Louis recognized the young Henry as the rightful king, and
entered into his quarrel in company with the Counts of Blois,
Boulogne, Flanders, and others, the nobles of Aquitaine rose in
insurrection, the princes Richard and Geoffrey made common cause
with the insurgents, William the Lion of Scotland was engaged to
take part with them, and the great Earls of the middle and north of
England, Leicester, Ferrars of Derby, Chester, and Bigod, joined in
the general alliance. Henry, though alarmed, did not despair. His
policy had led him to trust much to his auxiliaries, and with these
he determined to withstand the feudal malcontents. Leaving his
generals to resist the attack from Flanders and France, he won a
great battle before Dol in Brittany, took the great Earl of Chester
prisoner, and re-established his power in that province. Meanwhile,
Leicester had been besieged by Lucy, his justiciary in England;
the efforts of William the Lion, who demanded Northumberland and
refused homage for Huntingdon, were thwarted by the brave defence
of the border castles; and an invasion of Flemings from the East,
headed by the Earl of Leicester, was defeated at Farnham, near
Bury St. Edmunds. But the existing truce with France terminated
at Easter; the king of that country was able to enter actively
into the war; and Henry’s successes, and the large offers he made
his sons, seemed alike unavailing. Hostilities began again, and
Henry was obliged to take the command in person in his hereditary
provinces, Maine and Anjou, where he was received with enthusiasm.
The troops of his son Richard were conquered; while in England the
King’s natural son, Geoffrey Plantagenet, and Richard de Lucy,
made head against the nobles in the East and a fresh invasion from
Scotland; but were still so pressed, that messengers were sent in
haste to summon Henry across the Channel. It was indeed a moment
of great danger. Philip of Flanders and his allies, to whom Kent
had been promised, were assembling a fleet at Whitsand; the Scotch
invaders had reached Alnwick. Henry hastened home. But before he
proceeded to active measures, in deference to the popular feeling,
which attributed his difficulties to the Divine anger at Becket’s
death, he made a pilgrimage and did penance at the shrine of the
martyr. Immediately after this while still in anxious doubt as
to the fate of his kingdom, news was brought him that Ranulf de
Glanvill had surprised the Scotch at Alnwick, and that William
the Lion and many of his nobility were prisoners. A few days
afterwards the town of Huntingdon was taken, and Hugh, the Bishop
of Durham, who had joined the insurgents, conquered. By July all
the English nobles had returned to their allegiance, and Prince
David had withdrawn the Scotch troops. The same rapidity which
saved England saved Normandy also. The sudden arrival of the King
before Rouen raised the siege of that place, which had been hard
pressed, and before long a peace between Henry and Louis was made,
by which all the French conquests were restored, and the young King
Henry’s dependants had to abjure the fealty which they had taken
to him. The great insurrection which for a moment had threatened
the existence of Henry’s monarchy was thus over. To his sons Henry
was merciful. To Richard he granted two castles in Poitou, with
half its revenues; to Geoffrey, similar terms in Brittany. They
were required to renew their allegiance. William of Scotland was
forced to content himself with harder terms. He was only released
upon condition of appearing at York in the following year with
all his barons, and swearing fealty to Henry as his suzerain. He
and his brother did homage for Scotland, for Galloway, and for
their English possessions; while the Scotch clergy acknowledged
the supremacy of the Archbishop of York. In the following year
the young Henry left his French patron and reconciled himself
completely with his father.
[Sidenote: Small diminution of Henry’s power, either temporal or
ecclesiastical.]
This outbreak may be regarded as a consequence of Henry’s defeat in
his dispute with Becket. The King had shown how little that defeat
had weakened his real power in temporal matters. His appointments
to the vacant bishoprics, which were a necessary consequence of
the termination of that quarrel, prove how little he had really
lost even in influence. Of the six bishoprics which were filled
up, three were given to avowed partisans of the King. Winchester
fell to Richard of Ilchester; Ely, to Godfrey Ridel, Becket’s great
opponent; and Lincoln to Geoffrey Plantagenet; while, shortly
after, the Bishopric of Norwich was given to John of Oxford, who
had been Henry’s chief agent throughout the Becket difficulty. Such
disputes as still existed in the Church ceased to have political
meaning, and assumed the form of quarrels between the monks and
the secular clergy. It was thus that Richard, the Prior of Dover,
a man in the royal interests, was elected to succeed Becket after
a lengthened dispute between the monks of the Holy Trinity at
Canterbury, who claimed the right of election, and the other
bishops of the province. Henry’s influence was naturally employed
in favour of the episcopal candidate, but he contrived to confine
the dispute within the limits of the ecclesiastical body.
[Sidenote: Henry’s judicial and constitutional changes.]
[Sidenote: The Curia Regis.]
[Sidenote: Itinerant justices.]
The period which elapsed between the suppression of the great
rebellion and the outbreak of the quarrel between Henry and his
sons is the period of his greatest power. It is at this time that
we find the greatest marks of his activity as a lawgiver. The year
1176 is marked by the great Assize of Northampton, an expansion of
a similar Assize of Clarendon in the year 1166, the fruit perhaps
of his experience in the late rebellion, and the knowledge gained
by his inquiries into the conduct of the sheriffs in 1170. That
inquiry, which was called for by the complaints of the exactions
of the sheriffs, proved to him that their conduct had not been
free from peculation, and led him to believe that the employment
of local nobles as his chief officials was dangerous. He took
the opportunity of making a general examination of the judicial
system of the country, the fruit of which was the concentration and
organization of the Curia Regis, and the arrangements embodied in
the Assize of Northampton. The King’s court consisted originally,
as has been already mentioned, of all those tenants who held
their land direct from the crown (tenants _in capite_), and was
the ordinary feudal court, and the natural parent of our present
Parliament, and especially of the House of Lords. But for the
ordinary despatch of business, whether judicial or financial,
what may be regarded as a permanent committee of this body of
immediate holders was employed. This committee consisted of the
great officers of the household, such as the chancellor, treasurer,
marshal and others, and other selected barons closely connected
with the royal household. The head of this committee, or Curia
Regis, was the great justiciary, the King’s representative. The
royal chaplains or clerks were formed into a body of secretaries,
at the head of which was the chancellor. The Curia Regis at first
attended the King and had a twofold duty; when they sat as judges
its members were called justices, in financial questions they
sat in the exchequer[28] chamber, and were called barons. This
administrative system, which had been organized in Henry I.’s
reign, was entirely destroyed by the wild reign of Stephen. Its
reconstitution was the great work of Henry II. In the earlier part
of his reign the visitations were renewed upon the old system,
the itinerant justice being usually either the great justiciary,
chancellor, or some other great household officer. In the year
1168 four barons of the exchequer performed this duty; in 1176
the country was divided into six circuits. This number was not
permanent, several alterations were made in it. Nor was the number
of visitations thoroughly established. By Magna Charta in John’s
reign commissions are promised four times a year, but shortly
afterwards it would seem that the general journey of the itinerant
justices was every seven years, until the reign of Edward I. It
is to be remembered that these visitations were for all sorts
of objects; for hearing civil cases, for inspecting the working
of criminal jurisdiction, and, perhaps before all things, for
arranging the financial matters of the country, and superintending
the sheriffs in all matters connected with the exchequer. The
itinerant justices during their circuits superseded the sheriff’s
authority and presided in his courts. They were also allowed to
enter and preside in the baronial courts. It has been mentioned
that these courts were in most respects complete Hundreds. The two
parallel systems, now on certain occasions presided over by the
same official, were thus assimilated and brought into immediate
connection with the central authority. This administrative
organization gave rise to what is of much political importance, a
new class of barons, new men who had risen by their talents and by
the King’s favour, whose interests were therefore on the side of
order and of the crown. At one period, in 1178, Henry II. appears
to have found his new ministers untrustworthy, at all events in
that year he restricted the Curia Regis to five persons, keeping
the highest appellate jurisdiction in the hands of himself and the
old Curia Regis, which may henceforth be regarded as the King’s
_ordinary council_. The name Curia Regis has thus passed through
three phases; a feudal court, a permanent committee of the feudal
court, and a restricted committee of that committee. In these
various bodies we have the sources of all the judicial bodies in
England. The feudal court, with certain additions, became the
Parliament; without those additions the Great Council, retaining
its natural prerogative of final court of appeal, and represented
now by the House of Lords. The permanent committee, or ordinary
council, is represented by the privy council, still retaining
some of its judicial powers. From its body of clerks, headed by
the chancellor, arose the courts of Chancery. While the limited
committee was divided shortly after the Magna Charta into three
courts, the exchequer, the common pleas, and the king’s bench, at
first with the same judges for all, but by the end of Edward III.’s
reign with a separate staff.
[Sidenote: Origin of jury.]
Henry’s legal mind, which thus organized the administration,
introduced many improvements In judicial procedure. It is to
this reign that can be traced the origin of trial by jury. This
method was not employed first in criminal cases, but in carrying
out inquiries of various kinds. As soon as such inquiries came to
be made on oath, the beginning of the jury system had arrived.
As early as the great Domesday survey, the sheriff, barons,
freeholders, the priest, the reeve, and six villeins of each
township, had been all examined upon oath. Judicially this method
of inquiry was first applied in civil cases. By the ordinance of
the Grand Assize, a choice was given to any person whose right to
the possession of land was called in question. He might either
if he pleased defend his claims by the old-fashioned appeal to
battle, or he might have his right examined by twelve freeholders
on their oath, selected by four freeholders also on their oath,
nominated by the sheriff. These sworn freeholders were evidently
at first witnesses; twelve others were subsequently added to them,
who, from their neighbourhood or other reasons, might be supposed
to be better acquainted with the facts. This took place in Edward
I.’s reign. The double jury was then separated, the original twelve
playing their part as jurors of the present day, judging of the
facts asserted by the second twelve, who represent the witnesses.
In 1166, by the Assize of Clarendon, the same process was extended
to criminal cases; that is to say, twelve lawful men from each
hundred, and four from each township, were sworn to inquire whether
there were any criminal, or receiver of criminals, in their
district, and to present the same to the itinerant justices or to
the sheriffs. These criminals were then put to the ordeal without
further investigation. This was the origin of the grand jury.
The abolition of ordeal rendered some substitute necessary, and
ordinary trial by jury was the consequence.
[Sidenote: Scutage.]
[Sidenote: Assize of arms.]
The Assize of Northampton in 1176 was, as has been said, a
repetition in stronger terms of the Assize of Clarendon. It is
moreover interesting, as giving a notion of the duties of the
itinerant justices, who on this occasion were six in number. Not
only was the examination of crimes in their hands, but they had to
arrange the law with regard to tenure of land, reliefs of heirs,
dowers of widows, and other such matters, and to exact fealty
from all classes of the commonwealth, and to see to the complete
destruction of private castles, and the secure guardianship of
those of the crown. These latter points were probably rendered
necessary by the Rebellion of 1174. The same feeling of mistrust of
his feudal barons which dictated these precautions was the cause
of two other measures of this reign. The military service of the
tenants in chief was changed into a money payment called scutage.
This money enabled the King to hire men for his foreign wars, and
to dispense with the service of his barons; while, by the Assize of
Arms in 1181, the national militia of England, the old _fyrd_ of
the Saxons, to follow which was one of the duties of the _trinoda
necessitas_, was reorganized, and the arms required of each class
in the country carefully defined.
[Sidenote: Henry’s importance in Europe.]
[Sidenote: Closing troubles with his sons and France.]
At the same time that Henry was thus organizing his authority in
England, his position in Europe was a great one. Two of his sons
were married or betrothed to daughters of the King of France. Of
his three daughters, the eldest was the wife of Henry the Lion of
Saxony, the rival of Frederick Barbarossa; the second, Eleanor,
was Queen of Castile; the third, Joanna, though still a child, was
taken to Sicily as the bride of the Norman king of that country,
which at this time was the dominant power of the Mediterranean.
His importance indeed was such that he seemed of all the kings
in Europe most firmly seated on his throne, and was selected on
account of his power and character, as well as for family reasons,
as arbitrator between Alphonso of Castile and his uncle Sancho of
Navarre, and as the strongest ally to whom Henry the Lion could
have recourse when he was stripped of his German possessions. This
befell him in consequence of his desertion of Frederick Barbarossa
before his invasion of Lombardy, which terminated in the great
battle of Legnano. But in the midst of his greatness there were two
dangers constantly besetting Henry; on the one hand was the King of
France, on the other were his own children. Not only did the great
power of a feudatory naturally excite the French King’s jealousy,
Henry had pursued a crooked policy with regard to the marriage
of his sons; he had refused to surrender to Louis the Vexin and
Bourges as he had promised to do upon their marriages. There was
thus a constant opportunity for quarrel. On the other hand, with
regard to his sons, his measures had been still more unfortunate.
Anxious to secure his succession, and conscious probably that his
kingdom was too large to be held by one hand, he had caused his
eldest son to be crowned, thus exciting the envy of his brothers;
while, at the same time, he had given them large duchies, which
rendered them nearly independent of him. In addition to this, his
dislike for his wife had rendered her a constant enemy, while his
foolish affection for his youngest son John gave still further
cause of offence. When therefore, as was likely to happen, any of
his sons determined to oppose him, they were certain of assistance
from France, and of bad advice from their mother.
[Sidenote: First war; against young Henry. 1183.]
It is difficult to arrange the constant brief wars which
characterized the close of his reign, complicated as they are
by the rising interests in the affairs of the East, which were
gradually bringing on the third Crusade. They may perhaps be
divided into four; the first extending to the death of young
Henry; the second to the death of Geoffrey of Brittany; the third
from 1184 to a peace negotiated in the interests of the crusades
in 1188; and the last, the quarrel with Richard and John, which
terminated with the King’s death. The first of these broke out in
1183. Richard had entered with zest into the wild feudal life of
Poitou and Aquitaine, and had been very successful there. He had
even pushed his arms to Bayonne, in the territories of the Basques,
and to the borders of Navarre. This had aroused the envy of his
elder brother. This young prince, who regarded himself, and was
regarded by many, as the flower of knighthood, was capable of any
amount of hypocrisy and double dealing, and seems to have so far
cajoled his father as to persuade him to demand from his younger
brothers homage to the elder. This Richard positively refused to
give. But his arbitrary rule in Poitou and Aquitaine had made
him many enemies, at the head of whom was the wild intriguing
noble, at once warrior and troubadour, Bertram de Born. With these
young Henry allied himself, and, with the aid of his brother from
Brittany, pressed so heavily upon Richard, that the old king had
to come to his assistance. At this crisis the young king caught
a fever and died, forgiven but unvisited by his father. The King
took advantage of his son’s death to pursue his success, and
succeeded in subjugating the refractory barons, and re-establishing
peace. Conscious that the young King Philip II. of France, who had
succeeded to the throne in 1180, and over whom he had once had much
influence, had been mixed in his son’s rebellion, Henry tried to
make peace with him too. Philip met the request by a demand for
the restitution of Gisors and the dower of his sister Margaret,
young Henry’s widow, and it was with much difficulty that temporary
peace was patched up; but it was finally arranged that part of the
dowry should be restored, and Gisors transferred to Richard on his
marriage with the Princess Alice.
[Sidenote: Second war; against Richard. 1184.]
[Sidenote: Third war. 1187.]