REIGN OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1065.]
After the Battle of Hastings, the taking of Dover, the surrender of
London, and the submission of the principal nobility, William had
nothing left but to order in the best manner the kingdom he had so
happily acquired. Soon after his coronation, fearing the sudden and
ungoverned motions of so great a city, new to subjection, he left London
until a strong citadel could be raised to overawe the people. This was
built where the Tower of London now stands. Not content with this, he
built three other strong castles in situations as advantageously chosen,
at Norwich, at Winchester, and at Hereford, securing not only the heart
of affairs, but binding down the extreme parts of the kingdom. And as he
observed from his own experience the want of fortresses in England, he
resolved fully to supply that defect, and guard the kingdom both against
internal and foreign enemies. But he fortified his throne yet more
strongly by the policy of good government. To London he confirmed by
charter the liberties it had enjoyed under the Saxon kings, and
endeavored to fix the affections of the English in general by governing
them with equity according to their ancient laws, and by treating them
on all occasions with the most engaging deportment. He set up no
pretences which arose from absolute conquest. He confirmed their estates
to all those who had not appeared in arms against him, and seemed not to
aim at subjecting the English to the Normans, but to unite the two
nations under the wings of a common parental care. If the Normans
received estates and held lucrative offices and were raised by wealthy
matches in England, some of the English were enriched with lands and
dignities and taken into considerable families in Normandy. But the
king's principal regards were showed to those by whose bravery he had
attained his greatness. To some he bestowed the forfeited estates, which
were many and great, of Harold's adherents; others he satisfied from the
treasures his rival had amassed; and the rest, quartered upon wealthy
monasteries, relied patiently on the promises of one whose performances
had hitherto gone hand in hand with his power. There was another
circumstance which conduced much to the maintaining, as well as to the
making, his conquest. The posterity of the Danes, who had finally
reduced England under Canute the Great, were still very numerous in that
kingdom, and in general not well liked by nor well affected to the old
Anglo-Saxon inhabitants. William wisely took advantage of this enmity
between the two sorts of inhabitants, and the alliance of blood which
was between them and his subjects. In the body of laws which he
published he insists strongly on this kindred, and declares that the
Normans and Danes ought to be as sworn brothers against all men: a
policy which probably united these people to him, or at least so
confirmed the ancient jealousy which subsisted between them and the
original English as to hinder any cordial union against his interests.
When the king had thus settled his acquisitions by all the methods of
force and policy, he thought it expedient to visit his patrimonial
territory, which, with regard to its internal state, and the jealousies
which his additional greatness revived in many of the bordering princes,
was critically situated. He appointed to the regency in his absence his
brother Odo, an ecclesiastic, whom he had made Bishop of Bayeux, in
France, and Earl of Kent, with great power and preeminence, in
England,--a man bold, fierce, ambitious, full of craft, imperious, and
without faith, but well versed in all affairs, vigilant, and courageous.
To him he joined William Fitz-Osbern, his justiciary, a person of
consummate prudence and great integrity. But not depending on this
disposition, to secure his conquest, as well as to display its
importance abroad, under a pretence of honor, he carried with him all
the chiefs of the English nobility, the popular Earls Edwin and Morcar,
and, what was of most importance, Edgar Atheling, the last branch of the
royal stock of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and infinitely dear to all the
people.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1607.]
The king managed his affairs abroad with great address, and covered, all
his negotiations for the security of his Norman dominions under the
magnificence of continual feasting and unremitted diversion, which,
without an appearance of design, displayed his wealth and power, and by
that means facilitated his measures. But whilst he was thus employed,
his absence from England gave an opportunity to several humors to break
out, which the late change had bred, but which the amazement likewise
produced by that violent change, and the presence of their conqueror,
wise, vigilant, and severe, had hitherto repressed. The ancient line of
their kings displaced, the only thread on which it hung carried out of
the kingdom and ready to be cut off by the jealousy of a merciless
usurper, their liberties none by being precarious, and the daily
insolencies and rapine of the Normans intolerable,--these discontents
were increased by the tyranny and rapaciousness of the regent, and they
were fomented from abroad by Eustace, Count of Boulogne. But the people,
though ready to rise in all parts, were destitute of leaders, and the
insurrections actually made were not carried on in concert, nor directed
to any determinate object; so that the king, returning speedily, and
exerting himself everywhere with great vigor, in a short time dissipated
these ill-formed projects. However, so general a dislike to William's
government had appeared on this occasion, that he became in his turn
disgusted with his subjects, and began to change his maxims of rule to a
rigor which was more conformable to his advanced age and the sternness
of his natural temper. He resolved, since he could not gain the
affections of his subjects, to find such matter for their hatred as
might weaken them, and fortify his own authority against the enterprises
which that hatred might occasion. He revived the tribute of Danegelt, so
odious from its original cause and that of its revival, which he caused
to be strictly levied throughout the kingdom. He erected castles at
Nottingham, at Warwick, and at York, and filled them with Norman
garrisons. He entered into a stricter inquisition for the discovery of
the estates forfeited on his coming in; paying no regard to the
privileges of the ecclesiastics, he seized upon the treasures which, as
in an inviolable asylum, the unfortunate adherents to Harold had
deposited in monasteries. At the same time he entered into a resolution
of deposing all the English, bishops, on none of whom he could rely, and
filling their places with Normans. But he mitigated the rigor of these
proceedings by the wise choice he made in filling the places of those
whom he had deposed, and gave by that means these violent changes the
air rather of reformation than oppression. He began with Stigand,
Archbishop of Canterbury. A synod was called, in which, for the first
time in England, the Pope's legate _a latere_ is said to have presided.
In this council, Stigand, for simony and for other crimes, of which it
is easy to convict those who are out of favor, was solemnly degraded
from his dignity. The king filled his place with Lanfranc, an Italian.
By his whole conduct he appeared resolved to reduce his subjects of all
orders to the most perfect obedience.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1068.]
The people, loaded with new taxes, the nobility, degraded and
threatened, the clergy, deprived of their immunities and influence,
joined in one voice of discontent, and stimulated each other to the most
desperate resolutions. The king was not unapprised of these motions, nor
negligent of them. It is thought he meditated to free himself from much
of his uneasiness by seizing those men on whom the nation in its
distresses used to cast its eyes for relief. But whilst he digested
these measures, Edgar Atheling, Edwin and Morcar, Waltheof, the son of
Siward, and several others, eluded his vigilance, and escaped into Scot
land, where they were received with open arms by King Malcolm. The
Scottish monarch on this occasion married the sister of Edgar; and this
match engaged him more closely to the accomplishment of what his
gratitude to the Saxon kings and the rules of good policy had before
inclined him. He entered at last into the cause of his brother-in-law
and the distressed English. He persuaded the King of Denmark to enter
into the same measures, who agreed to invade England with a fleet of a
thousand ships. Drone, an Irish king, declared in their favor, and
supplied the sons of Earl Godwin with vessels and men, with which they
held the English coast in continual alarms.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1069.]
Whilst the forces of this powerful confederacy were collecting on all
sides, and prepared to enter England, equal dangers threatened from
within the kingdom. Edric the Forester, a very brave and popular Saxon,
took up arms in the counties of Hereford and Salop, the country of the
ancient Silures, and inhabited by the same warlike and untamable race of
men. The Welsh strengthened him with their forces, and Cheshire joined
in the revolt. Hereward le Wake, one of the most brave and indefatigable
soldiers of his time, rushed with a numerous band of fugitives and
outlaws from the fens of Lincoln and the Isle of Ely, from whence,
protected by the situation of the place, he had for some time carried on
an irregular war against the Normans. The sons of Godwin landed with a
strong body in the West; the fire of rebellion ran through the kingdom;
Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, at once threw off the yoke. Daily skirmishes
were fought in every part of the kingdom, with various success and with
great bloodshed. The Normans retreated to their castles, which the
English had rarely skill or patience to master; out of these they
sallied from time to time, and asserted their dominion. The conquered
English for a moment resumed their spirit; the forests and morasses,
with which this island then, abounded, served them for fortifications,
and their hatred to the Normans stood in the place of discipline; each
man, exasperated by his own wrongs, avenged them in his own manner.
Everything was full of blood and violence: murders, burnings, rapine,
and confusion overspread the whole kingdom. During these distractions,
several of the Normans quitted the country, and gave up their
possessions, which they thought not worth holding in continual horror
and danger.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1070.]
In the midst of this scene of disorder, the king alone was present to
himself and to his affairs. He first collected all the forces on whom he
could depend within the kingdom, and called powerful succors from
Normandy. Then he sent a strong body to repress the commotions in the
West; but he reserved the greatest force and his own presence against
the greatest danger, which menaced from the North. The Scots had
penetrated as far as Durham; they had taken the castle, and put the
garrison to the sword. A like fate attended York from the Danes, who had
entered the Humber with a formidable fleet. They put this city into the
hands of the English malcontents, and thereby influenced all the
northern counties in their favor. William, when he first perceived the
gathering of the storm, endeavored, and with some success, to break the
force of the principal blow by a correspondence at the court of
Denmark; and now he entirely blunted the weapon by corrupting, with a
considerable sum, the Danish general. It was agreed, to gratify that
piratical nation, that they should plunder some part of the coast, and
depart without further disturbance. By this negotiation the king was
enabled to march with an undissipated force against the Scots and the
principal body of the English. Everything yielded. The Scots retired
into their own country. Some of the most obnoxious of the English fled
along with them. One desperate party, under the brave Waltheof, threw
themselves into York, and ventured alone to resist his victorious army.
William pressed the siege with vigor, and, notwithstanding the prudent
dispositions of Waltheof, and the prodigies of valor he displayed in its
defence, standing alone in the breach, and maintaining his ground
gallantly and successfully, the place was at last reduced by famine. The
king left his enemies no time to recover this disaster; he followed his
blow, and drove all who adhered to Edgar Atheling out of all the
countries northward of the Humber. This tract he resolved entirely to
depopulate, influenced by revenge, and by distrust of the inhabitants,
and partly with a view of opposing an hideous desert of sixty miles in
extent as an impregnable barrier against all attempts of the Scots in
favor of his disaffected subjects. The execution of this barbarous
project was attended with all the havoc and desolation that it seemed to
threaten. One hundred thousand are said to have perished by cold,
penury, and disease. The ground lay untilled throughout that whole space
for upwards of nine years. Many of the inhabitants both of this and all
other parts of England fled into Scotland; but they were so received by
King Malcolm as to forget that they had lost their country. This wise
monarch gladly seized so fair an opportunity, by the exertion of a
benevolent policy, to people his dominions, and to improve his native
subjects. He received the English nobility according to their rank, he
promoted them to offices according to their merit, and enriched them by
considerable estates from his own demesne. From these noble refugees
several considerable families in Scotland are descended.
William, on the other hand, amidst all the excesses which the insolence
of victory and the cruel precautions of usurped authority could make him
commit, gave many striking examples of moderation and greatness of mind.
He pardoned Waltheof, whose bravery he did not the less admire because
it was exerted against himself. He restored him to his ancient honors
and estates; and thinking his family strengthened by the acquisition of
a gallant man, he bestowed upon him his niece Judith in marriage. On
Edric the Forester, who lay under his sword, in the same generous manner
he not only bestowed his life, but honored it with an addition of
dignity.
The king, having thus, by the most politic and the most courageous
measures, by art, by force, by severity, and by clemency, dispelled
those clouds which had gathered from every quarter to overwhelm him,
returned triumphant to Winchester, where, as if he had newly acquired
the kingdom, he was crowned with great solemnity. After this he
proceeded to execute the plan he had long proposed of modelling the
state according to his own pleasure, and of fixing his authority upon an
immovable foundation.
There were few of the English who in the late disturbances had not
either been active against the Normans or shown great disinclination to
them. Upon some right, or some pretence, the greatest part of their
lands were adjudged to be forfeited. William gave these lands to
Normans, to be held by the tenure of knight-service, according to the
law which modified that service in all parts of Europe. These people he
chose because he judged they must be faithful to the interest on which
they depended; and this tenure he chose because it raised an army
without expense, called it forth at the least warning, and seemed to
secure the fidelity of the vassal by the multiplied ties of those
services which were inseparably annexed to it. In the establishment of
these tenures, William only copied the practice which was now become
very general. One fault, however, he seems to have committed in this
distribution: the immediate vassals of the crown were too few; the
tenants _in capite_ at the end of this reign did not exceed seven
hundred; the eyes of the subject met too many great objects in the state
besides the state itself; and the dependence of the inferior people was
weakened by the interposal of another authority between them and the
crown, and this without being at all serviceable to liberty. The ill
consequence of this was not so obvious whilst the dread of the English
made a good correspondence between the sovereign and the great vassals
absolutely necessary; but it afterwards appeared, and in a light very
offensive to the power of our kings.
As there is nothing of more consequence in a state than the
ecclesiastical establishment, there was nothing to which this vigilant
prince gave more of his attention. If he owed his own power to the
influence of the clergy, it convinced him how necessary it was to
prevent that engine from being employed in its turn against himself. He
observed, that, besides the influence they derived from their character,
they had a vast portion of that power which always attends property. Of
about sixty thousand knights' fees, which England was then judged to
contain, twenty-eight thousand were in the hands of the clergy; and
these they held discharged of all taxes, and free from every burden of
civil or military service: a constitution undoubtedly no less
prejudicial to the authority of the state than detrimental to the
strength of the nation, deprived of so much revenue, so many soldiers,
and of numberless exertions of art and industry, which were stifled by
holding a third of the soil in dead hands out of all possibility of
circulation. William in a good measure remedied these evils, but with
the great offence of all the ecclesiastic orders. At the same time that
he subjected the Church lands to military service, he obliged each
monastery and bishopric to the support of soldiers, in proportion to the
number of knights' fees that they possessed. No less jealous was he of
the Papal pretensions, which, having favored so long as they served him
as the instruments of his ambition, he afterwards kept within very
narrow bounds. He suffered no communication with Rome but by his
knowledge and approbation. He had a bold and ambitious Pope to deal
with, who yet never proceeded to extremities with nor gained one
advantage over William during his whole reign,--although he had by an
express law reserved to himself a sort of right in approving the Pope
chosen, by forbidding his subjects to yield obedience to any whose right
the king had not acknowledged.
To form a just idea of the power and greatness of this king, it will be
convenient to take a view of his revenue. And I the rather choose to
dwell a little upon this article, as nothing extends to so many objects
as the public finances, and consequently nothing puts in a clearer or
more decisive light the manners of the people, and the form, as well as
the powers, of government at any period.
The first part of this consisted of the demesne. The lands of the crown
were, even before the Conquest, very extensive. The forfeitures
consequent to that great change had considerably increased them. It
appears from the record of Domesday, that the king retained in his own
hands no fewer than fourteen hundred manors. This alone was a royal
revenue. However, great as it really was, it has been exaggerated beyond
all reason. Ordericus Vitalis, a writer almost contemporary, asserts
that this branch alone produced a thousand pounds a day,[72]--which,
valuing the pound, as it was then estimated, at a real pound of silver,
and then allowing for the difference in value since that time, will make
near twelve millions of our money. This account, coming from such an
authority, has been copied without examination by all the succeeding
historians. If we were to admit the truth of it, we must entirely change
our ideas concerning the quantity of money which then circulated in
Europe. And it is a matter altogether monstrous and incredible in an age
when there was little traffic in this nation, and the traffic of all
nations circulated but little real coin, when the tenants paid the
greatest part of their rents in kind, and when it may be greatly
doubted whether there was so much current money in the nation as is said
to have come into the king's coffers from this one branch, of his
revenue only. For it amounts to a twelfth part of all the circulating
species which a trade infinitely more extensive has derived from sources
infinitely more exuberant, to this wealthy nation, in this improved age.
Neither must we think that the whole revenue of this prince ever rose to
such a sum. The great fountain which fed his treasury must have been
Danegelt, which, upon any reasonable calculation, could not possibly
exceed 120,000_l._ of our money, if it ever reached that sum. William
was observed to be a great hoarder, and very avaricious; his army was
maintained without any expense to him, his demesne supported his
household; neither his necessary nor his voluntary expenses were
considerable. Yet the effects of many years' scraping and hoarding left
at his death but 60,000_l._,--not the sixth part of one year's income,
according to this account, of one branch of his revenue; and this was
then esteemed a vast treasure. Edgar Atheling, on being reconciled to
the king, was allowed a mark a day for his expenses, and he was thought
to be allowed sufficiently, though he received it in some sort as an
equivalent for his right to the crown. I venture on this digression,
because writers in an ignorant age, making guesses at random, impose on
more enlightened times, and affect by their mistakes many of our
reasonings on affairs of consequence; and it is the error of all
ignorant people to rate unknown times, distances, and sums very far
beyond their real extent. There is even something childish and whimsical
in computing this revenue, as the original author has done, at so much
a day. For my part, I do not imagine it so difficult to come at a pretty
accurate decision of the truth or falsehood of this story.
The above-mentioned manors are charged with rents from five to an
hundred pounds each. The greatest number of those I have seen in print
are under fifty; so that we may safely take that number as a just
medium; and then the whole amount of the demesne rents will be
70,000_l._, or 210,000_l._ of our money. This, though almost a fourth
less than the sum stated by Vitalis, still seems a great deal too high,
if we should suppose the whole sum, as that author does, to be paid in
money, and that money to be reckoned by real pounds of silver. But we
must observe, that, when sums of money are set down in old laws and
records, the interpretation of those words, pounds and shillings, is for
the most part oxen, sheep, corn, and provision. When real coin money was
to be paid, it was called white money, or _argentum album_, and was only
in a certain stipulated proportion to what was rendered in kind, and
that proportion generally very low. This method of paying rent, though
it entirely overturns the prodigious idea of that monarch's pecuniary
wealth, was far from being less conducive to his greatness. It enabled
him to feed a multitude of people,--one of the surest and largest
sources of influence, and which always outbuys money in the traffic of
affections. This revenue, which was the chief support of the dignity of
our Saxon kings, was considerably increased by the revival of Danegelt,
of the imposition of which we have already spoken, and which is supposed
to have produced an annual income of 40,000_l._ of money, as then
valued.
The nest branch of the king's revenue were the feudal duties, by him
first introduced into England,--namely, ward, marriage, relief, and
aids. By the first, the heir of every tenant who held immediately from
the crown, during his minority, was in ward for his body and his land to
the king; so that he had the formation of his mind at that early and
ductile age to mould to his own purposes, and the entire profits of his
estate either to augment his demesne or to gratify his dependants: and
as we have already seen how many and how vast estates, or rather,
princely possessions, were then held immediately of the crown, we may
comprehend how important an article this must have been.
Though the heir had attained his age before the death of his ancestor,
yet the king intruded between him and his inheritance, and obliged him
to redeem, or, as the term then was, to relieve it. The quantity of this
relief was generally pretty much at the king's discretion, and often
amounted to a very great sum.
But the king's demands on his rents in chief were not yet satisfied. He
had a right and interest in the marriage of heirs, both males and
females, virgins and widows,--and either bestowed them at pleasure on
his favorites, or sold them to the best bidder. The king received for
the sale of one heiress the sum of 20,000_l._, or 60,000_l._ of our
present money,--and this at a period when the chief estates were much
reduced. And from hence was derived a great source of revenue, if this
right were sold,--of influence and attachment, if bestowed.
Under the same head of feudal duties were the casual aids to knight his
eldest son and marry his eldest daughter. These duties could be paid but
once, and, though not considerable, eased him in these articles of
expenses.
After the feudal duties, rather in the order than in point of value, was
the profit which arose from the sale of justice. No man could then sue
in the king's court by a common or public right, or without paying
largely for it,--sometimes the third, and sometimes even half, the value
of the estate or debt sued for. These presents were called oblations;
and the records preceding Magna Charta, and for some time after, are
full of them. And, as the king thought fit, this must have added greatly
to his power or wealth, or indeed to both.
The fines and amercements were another branch, and this, at a time when
disorders abounded, and almost every disorder was punished by a fine,
was a much greater article than at first could readily be imagined,---
especially when we consider that there were no limitations in this point
but the king's mercy, particularly in all offences relating to the
forest, which were of various kinds, and very strictly inquired into.
The sale of offices was not less considerable. It appears that all
offices at that time were, or might be, legally and publicly sold,--that
the king had many and very rich employments in his gift, and, though it
may appear strange, not inferior to, if they did not exceed, in number
and consequence, those of our present establishment. At one time the
great seal was sold for three thousand marks. The office of sheriff was
then very lucrative: this charge was almost always sold. Sometimes a
county paid a sum to the king, that he might appoint a sheriff whom they
liked; sometimes they paid as largely to prevent him from appointing a
person disagreeable to them; and thus the king had often from the same
office a double profit in refusing one candidate and approving the
other. If some offices were advantageous, others were burdensome; and
the king had the right, or was at least in the unquestioned practice, of
forcing his subjects to accept these employments, or to pay for there
immunity; by which means he could either punish his enemies or augment
his wealth, as his avarice or his resentments prevailed.
The greatest part of the cities and trading towns were under his
particular jurisdiction, and indeed in a state not far removed from
slavery. On these he laid a sort of imposition, at such a time and in
such a proportion as he thought fit. This was called a _tallage_. If the
towns did not forthwith pay the sum at which they were rated, it was not
unusual, for their punishment, to double the exaction, and to proceed in
levying it by nearly the same methods and in the same manner now used to
raise a contribution in an enemy's country.
But the Jews were a fund almost inexhaustible. They were slaves to the
king in the strictest sense; insomuch that, besides the various tallages
and fines extorted from them, none succeeded to the inheritance of his
father without the king's license and an heavy composition. He sometimes
even made over a wealthy Jew as a provision to some of his favorites for
life. They were almost the only persons who exercised usury, and thus
drew to themselves the odium and wealth of the whole kingdom; but they
were only a canal, through which it passed to the royal treasury. And
nothing could be more pleasing and popular than such exactions: the
people rejoiced, when they saw the Jews plundered,--not considering
that they were a sort of agents for the crown, who, in proportion to the
heavy taxes they paid, were obliged to advance the terms and enforce
with greater severity the execution of their usurious contracts. Through
them almost the whole body of the nobility were in 'debt to the king;
and when he thought proper to confiscate the effects of the Jews, the
securities passed into his hands; and by this means he must have
possessed one of the strongest and most terrible instruments of
authority that could possibly be devised, and the best calculated to
keep the people in an abject and slavish dependence.
The last general head of his revenue were the customs, prisages, and
other impositions upon trade. Though the revenue arising from traffic in
this rude period was much limited by the then smallness of its object,
this was compensated by the weight and variety of the exactions levied
by an occasional exertion of arbitrary power, or the more uniform system
of hereditary tyranny. Trade was restrained, or the privilege granted,
on the payment of tolls, passages, paages, pontages, and innumerable
other vexatious imposts, of which, only the barbarous and almost
unintelligible names subsist at this day.
These were the most constant and regular branches of the revenue. But
there were other ways innumerable by which money, or an equivalent in
cattle, poultry, horses, hawks, and dogs, accrued to the exchequer. The
king's interposition in marriages, even where there was no pretence from
tenure, was frequently bought, as well as in other negotiations of less
moment, for composing of quarrels, and the like; and, indeed, some
appear on the records, of so strange and even ludicrous a nature, that
it would not be excusable to mention them, if they did not help to show
from how many minute sources this revenue was fed, and how the king's
power descended to the most inconsiderable actions of private life.[73]
It is not easy to penetrate into the true meaning of all these
particulars, but they equally suffice to show the character of
government in those times. A prince furnished with so many means of
distressing enemies and gratifying friends, and possessed of so ample a
revenue entirely independent of the affections of his subjects, must
have been very absolute in substance and effect, whatever might have
been the external forms of government.
For the regulation of all these revenues, and for determining all
questions which concerned them, a court was appointed, upon the model of
a court of the same nature, said to be of ancient use in Normandy, and
called the Exchequer.
There was nothing in the government of William conceived in a greater
manner, or more to be commended, than the general survey he took of his
conquest. An inquisition was made throughout the kingdom concerning the
quantity of land which was contained in each county,--the name of the
deprived and the present proprietor,--the stock of slaves, and cattle of
every kind, which it contained. All these were registered in a book,
each article beginning with the king's property, and proceeding
downward, according to the rank of the proprietors, in an excellent
order, by which might be known at one glance the true state of the royal
revenues, the wealth, consequence, and natural connections of every
person in the kingdom,--in order to ascertain the taxes that might be
imposed, and, to serve purposes in the state as well as in civil causes,
to be general and uncontrollable evidence of property. This book is
called Domesday or the Judgment Book, and still remains a grand monument
of the wisdom of the Conqueror,--a work in all respects useful and
worthy of a better age.
The Conqueror knew very well how much discontent must have arisen from
the great revolutions which his conquest produced in all men's property,
and in the general tenor of the government. He, therefore, as much as
possible to guard against every sudden attempt, forbade any light or
fire to continue in any house after a certain bell, called curfew, had
sounded. This bell rung at about eight in the evening. There was policy
in this; and it served to prevent the numberless disorders which arose
from the late civil commotions.
For the same purpose of strengthening his authority, he introduced the
Norman law, not only in its substance, but in all its forms, and ordered
that all proceedings should be had according to that law in the French
language.[74] The change wrought by the former part of this regulation
could not have been very grievous; and it was partly the necessary
consequence of the establishment of the new tenures, and which wanted a
new law to regulate them: in other respects the Norman institutions were
not very different from the English. But to force, against nature, a new
language upon a conquered people, to make them, strangers in those
courts of justice in which they were still to retain a considerable
share, to be reminded, every time they had recourse to government for
protection, of the slavery in which it held them,--this is one of those
acts of superfluous tyranny from which very few conquering nations or
parties have forborne, though no way necessary, but often prejudicial to
their safety.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1071.]
These severities, and affronts more galling than severities, drove the
English to another desperate attempt, which was the last convulsive
effort of their expiring freedom. Several nobles, prelates, and others,
whose estates had been confiscated, or who were in daily apprehension of
their confiscation, fled into the fens of Lincoln and Ely, where
Hereward still maintained his ground. This unadvised step completed the
ruin of the little English interest that remained. William hastened to
fill up the sees of the bishops and the estates of the nobles with his
Norman favorites. He pressed the fugitives with equal vivacity; and at
once to cut off all the advantage they derived from their situation, he
penetrated into the Isle of Ely by a wooden bridge two miles in length;
and by the greatness of the design, and rapidity of the execution, as
much as by the vigor of his charge, compelled them to surrender at
discretion. Hereward alone escaped, who disdained to surrender, and had
cut his way through his enemies, carrying his virtue and his sword, as
his passports, wheresoever fortune should conduct him. He escaped
happily into Scotland, where, as usual, the king was making some slow
movements for the relief of the English. William lost no time to oppose
him, and had passed with infinite difficulty through a desert of his own
making to the frontiers of Scotland. Here he found the enemy strongly
intrenched. The causes of the war being in a good measure spent by
William's late successes, and neither of the princes choosing to risk a
battle in a country where the consequences of a defeat must be so
dreadful, they agreed to an accommodation, which included a pardon for
Edgar Atheling on a renunciation of his title to the crown. William on
this occasion showed, as he did on all occasions, an honorable and
disinterested sense of merit, by receiving Hereward to his friendship,
and distinguishing him by particular favors and bounties. Malcolm, by
his whole conduct, never seemed intent upon coming to extremities with
William: he was satisfied with keeping this great warrior in some awe,
without bringing things to a decision, that might involve his kingdom in
the same calamitous fate that had oppressed England; whilst his wisdom
enabled him to reap advantages from the fortunes of the conquered, in
drawing so many useful people into his dominions, and from the policy of
the Conqueror, in imitating those feudal regulations which he saw his
neighbor force upon the English, and which appeared so well calculated
for the defence of the kingdom. He compassed this the more easily,
because the feudal policy, being the discipline of all the considerable
states in Europe, appeared the masterpiece of government.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1073.]
If men who have engaged in vast designs could ever promise themselves
repose, William, after so many victories, and so many political
regulations to secure the fruit of them, might now flatter himself with
some hope of quiet. But disturbances were preparing for his old age from
a new quarter, from whence they were less expected and less
tolerable,--from the Normans, his companions in victory, and from his
family, which he found not less difficulty in governing than his
kingdom. Nothing but his absence from England was wanting to make the
flame blaze out. The numberless petty pretensions which the petty lords
his neighbors on the continent had on each other and on William,
together with their restless disposition and the intrigues of the French
court, kept alive a constant dissension, which made the king's presence
on the continent frequently necessary. The Duke of Anjou had at this
time actually invaded his dominions. He was obliged to pass over into
Normandy with an army of fifty thousand men. William, who had conquered
England by the assistance of the princes on the continent, now turned
against them the arms of the English, who served him with bravery and
fidelity; and by their means he soon silenced all opposition, and
concluded the terms of an advantageous peace. In the mean time his
Norman subjects in England, inconstant, warlike, independent, fierce by
nature, fiercer by their conquest, could scarcely brook that
subordination in which their safety consisted. Upon some frivolous
pretences, chiefly personal disgusts,[75] a most dangerous conspiracy
was formed: the principal men among the Normans were engaged in it; and
foreign correspondence was not wanting. Though this conspiracy was
chiefly formed and carried on by the Normans, they knew so well the use
which William on this occasion would not fail to make of his English
subjects, that they endeavored, as far as was consistent with secrecy,
to engage several of that nation, and above all, the Earl Waltheof, as
the first in rank and reputation among his countrymen. Waltheof,
thinking it base to engage in any cause but that of his country against
his benefactor, unveils the whole design to Lanfranc, who immediately
took measures for securing the chief conspirators. He dispatched
messengers to inform the king of his danger, who returned without delay
at the head of his forces, and by his presence, and his usual bold
activity, dispersed at once the vapors of this conspiracy. The heads
were punished. The rest, left under the shade of a dubious mercy, were
awed into obedience. His glory was, however, sullied by his putting to
death Waltheof, who had discovered the conspiracy; but he thought the
desire the rebels had shown of engaging him in their designs
demonstrated sufficiently that Waltheof still retained a dangerous
power. For as the years, so the suspicions, of this politic prince
increased,--at whose time of life generosity begins to appear no more
than a splendid weakness.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1079]
These troubles were hardly appeased, when others began to break forth in
his own family, which neither his glory, nor the terror which held a
great nation in chains, could preserve in obedience to him. To remove in
some measure the jealousy of the court of France with regard to his
invasion of England, he had promised upon his acquisition of that
kingdom to invest his eldest son, Robert, with the Duchy of Normandy.
But as his new acquisition did not seem so secure as it was great and
magnificent, he was far from any thoughts of resigning his hereditary
dominions, which he justly considered as a great instrument in
maintaining his conquests, and a necessary retreat, if he should be
deprived of them by the fortune of war. So long as the state of his
affairs in England appeared unsettled, Robert acquiesced in the
reasonableness of this conduct; but when he saw his father established
on his throne, and found himself growing old in an inglorious
subjection, he began first to murmur at the injustice of the king, soon
after to cabal with the Norman barons and at the court of France, and at
last openly rose in rebellion, and compelled the vassals of the Duchy to
do him homage. The king was not inclined to give up to force what he had
refused to reason. Unbroken with age, unwearied with so many
expeditions, he passed again into Normandy, and pressed his son with the
vigor of a young warrior.
This war, which was carried on without anything decisive for some time,
ended by a very extraordinary and affecting incident. In one of those
skirmishes which were frequent according to the irregular mode of
warfare in those days, William and his son Robert, alike in a forward
and adventurous courage, plunged into the thickest of the fight, and
unknowingly encountered each other. But Robert, superior by fortune, or
by the vigor of his youth, wounded and unhorsed the old monarch, and was
just on the point of pursuing his unhappy advantage to the fatal
extremity, when the well-known voice of his father at once struck his
ears and suspended his arm. Blushing for his victory, and overwhelmed
with the united emotions of grief, shame, and returning piety, he fell
on his knees, poured out a flood of tears, and, embracing his father,
besought him for pardon. The tide of nature returning strongly on both,
the father in his turn embraced his son, and bathed him with his tears;
whilst the combatants on either side, astonished at so unusual a
spectacle, suspended the fight, applauded this striking act of filial
piety and paternal tenderness, and pressed that it might become the
prelude to a lasting peace. Peace was made, but entirely to the
advantage of the father, who carried his son into England, to secure
Normandy from the dangers to which his ambition and popularity might
expose that dukedom.
That William might have peace upon no part, the Welsh and Scots took
advantage of these troubles in his family to break into England: but
their expeditions were rather incursions than invasions: they wasted the
country, and then retired to secure their plunder. But William, always
troubled, always in action, and always victorious, pursued them and
compelled them to a peace, which was not concluded but by compelling the
King of Scotland and all the princes of Wales to do him homage. How far
this homage extended with regard to Scotland I find it difficult to
determine.
Robert, who had no pleasure but in action, as soon as this war was
concluded, finding that he could not regain his father's confidence, and
that he had no credit at the court of England, retired to that of
France. Edgar Atheling saw likewise that the innocence of his conduct
could not make amends for the guilt of an undoubted title to the crown,
and that the Conqueror, soured by continual opposition, and suspicious
through age and the experience of mankind, regarded him with an evil
eye. He therefore desired leave to accompany Robert out of the kingdom,
and then to make a voyage to the Holy Land. This leave was readily
granted. Edgar, having displayed great valor in useless acts of chivalry
abroad, after the Conqueror's death returned to England, where he long
lived in great tranquillity, happy in himself, beloved by all the
people, and unfeared by those who held his sceptre, from his mild and
inactive virtue.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1084.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1087.]
William had been so much a stranger to repose that it became no longer
an object desirable to him. He revived his claim, to the Vexin Français,
and some other territories on the confines of Normandy. This quarrel,
which began, between him and the King of France on political motives,
was increased into rancor and bitterness, first, by a boyish contest at
chess between their children, which was resented, more than became wise
men, by the fathers; it was further exasperated by taunts and mockeries
yet less becoming their age and dignity, but which infused a mortal
venom into the war. William entered first into the French territories,
wantonly wasting the country, and setting fire to the towns and
villages. He entered Mantes, and as usual set it on fire; but whilst he
urged his horse over the smoking ruins, and pressed forward to further
havoc, the beast, impatient of the hot embers which burned his hoofs,
plunged and threw his rider violently on the saddle-bow. The rim of his
belly was wounded; and this wound, as William was corpulent and in the
decline of life, proved fatal. A rupture ensued, and he died at Rouen,
after showing a desire of making amends for his cruelty by restitutions
to the towns he had destroyed, by alms and endowments, the usual fruits
of a late penitence, and the acknowledgments which expiring ambition
pays to virtue.
There is nothing more memorable in history than the actions, fortunes,
and character of this great man,--whether we consider the grandeur of
the plans he formed, the courage and wisdom with which they were
executed, or the splendor of that success which, adorning his youth,
continued without the smallest reverse to support his age, even to the
last moments of his life. He lived above seventy years, and reigned
within ten years as long as he lived, sixty over his dukedom, above
twenty over England,--both of which he acquired or kept by his own
magnanimity, with hardly any other title than he derived from his arms:
so that he might be reputed, in all respects, as happy as the highest
ambition, the most fully gratified, can make a man. The silent inward
satisfactions of domestic happiness he neither had nor sought. He had a
body suited to the character of his mind, erect, firm, large, and
active, whilst to be active was a praise,--a countenance stern, and
which became command. Magnificent in his living, reserved in his
conversation, grave in his common deportment, but relaxing with a wise
facetiousness, he knew how to relieve his mind and preserve his dignity:
for he never forfeited by a personal acquaintance that esteem he had
acquired by his great actions. Unlearned in books, he formed his
understanding by the rigid discipline of a large and complicated
experience. He knew men much, and therefore generally trusted them but
little; but when he knew any man to be good, he reposed in him an entire
confidence, which prevented his prudence from degenerating into a vice.
He had vices in his composition, and great ones; but they were the vices
of a great mind: ambition, the malady of every extensive genius,--and
avarice, the madness of the wise: one chiefly actuated his youth,--the
other governed his age. The vices of young and light minds, the joys of
wine and the pleasures of love, never reached his aspiring nature. The
general run of men he looked on with contempt, and treated with cruelty
when they opposed him. Nor was the rigor of his mind to be softened but
with the appearance of extraordinary fortitude in his enemies, which, by
a sympathy congenial to his own virtues, always excited his admiration
and insured his mercy. So that there were often seen in this one man, at
the same time, the extremes of a savage cruelty, and a generosity that
does honor to human nature. Religion, too, seemed to have a great
influence on his mind, from policy, or from better motives; but his
religion was displayed in the regularity with which he performed its
duties, not in the submission he showed to its ministers, which was
never more than what good government required. Yet his choice of a
counsellor and favorite was, not according to the mode of the time, out
of that order, and a choice that does honor to his memory. This was
Lanfranc, a man of great learning for the times, and extraordinary
piety. He owed his elevation to William; but though always inviolably
faithful, he never was the tool or flatterer of the power which raised
him; and the greater freedom he showed, the higher he rose in the
confidence of his master. By mixing with the concerns of state he did
not lose his religion and conscience, or make them the covers or
instruments of ambition; but tempering the fierce policy of a new power
by the mild lights of religion, he became a blessing to the country in
which he was promoted. The English owed to the virtue of this stranger,
and the influence he had on the king, the little remains of liberty they
continued to enjoy, and at last such a degree of his confidence as in
some sort counterbalanced the severities of the former part of his
reign.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] I have known, myself, great mistakes in calculation by computing,
as the produce of every day in the year, that of one extraordinary day.
[73] The Bishop of Winchester fined for not putting the king in mind to
give a girdle to the Countess of Albemarle.--Robertus de Vallibus debet
quinque optimos palafredos, ut rex taceret de uxore Henrici Pinel.--The
wife of Hugh do Nevil fined in two hundred hens, that she might lie
with, her husband for one night; another, that he might rise from, his
infirmity; a third, that he might eat.
[74] For some particulars of the condition of the English of this time,
vide Eadmer, p. 110.
[75] Upon occasion of a ward refused in marriage. Wright thinks the
feudal right of marriage not then introduced.