REIGN OF WILLIAM THE SECOND, SURNAMED RUFUS.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1087.]
William had by his queen Matilda three sons, who survived him,--Robert,
William, and Henry. Robert, though in an advanced age at his father's
death, was even then more remarkable for those virtues which make us
entertain hopes of a young man than for that steady prudence which is
necessary when the short career we are to run will not allow us to make
many mistakes. He had, indeed, a temper suitable to the genius of the
time he lived in, and which therefore enabled him to make a considerable
figure in the transactions which distinguished that period. He was of a
sincere, open, candid nature; passionately fond of glory; ambitious,
without having any determinate object in view; vehement in his pursuits,
but inconstant; much in war, which he understood and loved. But guiding
himself, both in war and peace, solely by the impulses of an unbounded
and irregular spirit, he filled the world with an equal admiration and
pity of his splendid qualities and great misfortunes. William was of a
character very different. His views were short, his designs few, his
genius narrow, and his manners brutal; full of craft, rapacious, without
faith, without religion; but circumspect, steady, and courageous for his
ends, not for glory. These qualities secured to him that fortune which
the virtues of Robert deserved. Of Henry we shall speak hereafter.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1088.]
We have seen the quarrels, together with the causes of them, which
embroiled the Conqueror with his eldest son, Robert. Although the wound
was skinned over by several temporary and palliative accommodations, it
still left a soreness in the father's mind, which influenced him by his
last will to cut off Robert from the inheritance of his English
dominions. Those he declared he derived from his sword, and therefore he
would dispose of them, to that son whose dutiful behavior had made him
the most worthy. To William, therefore, he left his crown; to Henry he
devised his treasures: Robert possessed nothing but the Duchy, which was
his birthright. William had some advantages to enforce the execution of
a bequest which was not included even in any of the modes of succession
which then were admitted. He was at the time of his father's death in
England, and had an opportunity of seizing the vacant government, a
thing of great moment in all disputed rights. He had also, by his
presence, an opportunity of engaging some of the most considerable
leading men in his interests. But his greatest strength was derived from
the adherence to his cause of Lanfranc, a prelate of the greatest
authority amongst the English as well as the Normans, both from the
place he had held in the Conqueror's esteem, whose memory all men
respected, and from his own great and excellent qualities. By the
advice of this prelate the new monarch professed to be entirely
governed. And as an earnest of his future reign, he renounced all the
rigid maxims of conquest, and swore to protect the Church and the
people, and to govern by St. Edward's Laws,--a promise extremely
grateful and popular to all parties: for the Normans, finding the
English passionately desirous of these laws, and only knowing that they
were in general favorable to liberty and conducive to peace and order,
became equally clamorous for their reëstablishment. By these measures,
and the weakness of those which were adopted by Robert, William
established himself on his throne, and suppressed a dangerous conspiracy
formed by some Norman noblemen in the interests of his brother, although
it was fomented by all the art and intrigue which his uncle Odo could
put in practice, the most bold and politic man of that age.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1089.]
The security he began to enjoy from this success, and the strength which
government receives by merely continuing, gave room to his natural
dispositions to break out in several acts of tyranny and injustice. The
forest laws were executed with rigor, the old impositions revived, and
new laid on. Lanfranc made representations to the king on this conduct,
but they produced no other effect than the abatement of his credit,
which from that moment to his death, which happened soon after, was very
little in the government. The revenue of the vacant see was seized into
the king's hands. When the Church lands were made subject to military
service, they seemed to partake all the qualities of the military
tenure, and to be subject to the same burdens; and as on the death of a
military vassal his land was in wardship of the lord until the heir had
attained his age, so there arose a pretence, on the vacancy of a
bishopric, to suppose the land in ward with the king until the seat
should be filled. This principle, once established, opened a large field
for various lucrative abuses; nor could it be supposed, whilst the
vacancy turned to such good account, that a necessitous or avaricious
king would show any extraordinary haste to put the bishoprics and
abbacies out of his power. In effect, William always kept them a long
time vacant, and in the vacancy granted away much of their possessions,
particularly several manors belonging to the see of Canterbury; and when
he filled this see, it was only to prostitute that dignity by disposing
of it to the highest bidder.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1093.]
To support him in these courses he chose for his minister Ralph
Flambard, a fit instrument in his designs, and possessed of such art and
eloquence as to color them in a specious manner. This man inflamed all
the king's passions, and encouraged him in his unjust enterprises. It is
hard to say which was most unpopular, the king or his minister. But
Flambard, having escaped a conspiracy against his life, and having
punished the conspirators severely, struck such a general terror into
the nation, that none dared to oppose him. Robert's title alone stood in
the king's way, and he knew that this must be a perpetual source of
disturbance to him. He resolved, therefore, to put him in peril for his
own dominions. He collected a large army, and entering into Normandy, he
began a war, at first with great success, on account of a difference
between the Duke and his brother Henry. But their common dread of
William reconciled them; and this reconciliation put them in a condition
of procuring an equal peace, the chief conditions of which were, that
Robert should be put in possession of certain seigniories in England,
and that each, in case of survival, should succeed to the other's
dominions. William concluded this peace the more readily, because
Malcolm, King of Scotland, who hung over him, was ready upon every
advantage to invade his territories, and had now actually entered
England with a powerful army. Robert, who courted action, without
regarding what interest might have dictated, immediately on concluding
the treaty entered into his brother's service in this war against the
Scots; which, on the king's return, being in appearance laid asleep by
an accommodation, broke out with redoubled fury the following year. The
King of Scotland, provoked to this rupture by the haughtiness of
William, was circumvented by the artifice and fraud of one of his
ministers: under an appearance of negotiation, he was attacked and
killed, together with his only son. This was a grievous wound to
Scotland, in the loss of one of the wisest and bravest of her kings, and
in the domestic distractions which afterwards tore that kingdom to
pieces.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1094.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1096.]
No sooner was this war ended, than William, freed from an enemy which
had given himself and his father so many alarms, renewed his ill
treatment of his brother, and refused to abide by the terms of the late
treaty. Robert, incensed at these repeated perfidies, returned to
Normandy with thoughts full of revenge and war. But he found that the
artifices and bribes of the King of England had corrupted the greatest
part of his barons, and filled the country with faction and disloyalty.
His own facility of temper had relaxed all the bands of government, and
contributed greatly to these disorders. In this distress he was obliged
to have recourse to the King of France for succor. Philip, who was then
on the throne, entered into his quarrel. Nor was William, on his side,
backward; though prodigal to the highest degree, the resources of his
tyranny and extortion were inexhaustible. He was enabled to enter
Normandy once more with a considerable army. But the opposition, too,
was considerable; and the war had probably been spun out to a great
length, and had drawn on very bloody consequences, if one of the most
extraordinary events which are contained in the history of mankind had
not suspended their arms, and drawn, all inferior views, sentiments, and
designs into the vortex of one grand project. This was the Crusade,
which, with astonishing success, now began to be preached through all
Europe. This design was then, and it continued long after, the principle
which influenced the transactions of that period both at home and
abroad; it will, therefore, not be foreign to our subject to trace it to
its source.
As the power of the Papacy spread, the see of Rome began to be more and
more an object of ambition; the most refined intrigues were put in
practice to attain it; and all the princes of Europe interested
themselves in the contest. The election of Pope was not regulated by
those prudent dispositions which have since taken place; there were
frequent pretences to controvert the validity of the election, and of
course several persons at the same time laid claim to that dignity.
Popes and Antipopes arose. Europe was rent asunder by these disputes,
whilst some princes maintained the rights of one party, and some
defended the pretensions of the other: sometimes the prince acknowledged
one Pope, whilst his subjects adhered to his rival. The scandals
occasioned by these schisms were infinite; and they threatened a deadly
wound to that authority whose greatness had occasioned them. Princes
were taught to know their own power. That Pope who this day was a
suppliant to a monarch to be recognized by him could with an ill grace
pretend to govern him with an high hand the next. The lustre of the Holy
See began to be tarnished, when Urban the Second, after a long contest
of this nature, was universally acknowledged. That Pope, sensible by his
own experience of the ill consequence of such disputes, sought to turn
the minds of the people into another channel, and by exerting it
vigorously to give a new strength to the Papal power. In an age so
ignorant, it was very natural that men should think a great deal in
religion depended upon the very scene where the work of our Redemption
was accomplished. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were therefore judged highly
meritorious, and became very frequent. But the country which was the
object of them, as well as several of those through which the journey
lay, were in the hands of Mahometans, who, against all the rules of
humanity and good policy, treated the Christian pilgrims with great
indignity. These, on their return, filled the minds of their neighbors
with hatred and resentment against those infidels. Pope Urban laid hold
on this disposition, and encouraged Peter the Hermit, a man visionary,
zealous, enthusiastic, and possessed of a warm irregular eloquence
adapted to the pitch of his hearers, to preach an expedition for the
delivery of the Holy Land.
Great designs may be started and the spirit of them inspired by
enthusiasts, but cool heads are required to bring them into form. The
Pope, not relying solely on Peter, called a council at Clermont, where
an infinite number of people of all sorts were assembled. Here he
dispensed with a full hand benedictions and indulgences to all persons
who should engage in the expedition; and preaching with great vehemence
in a large plain, towards the end of his discourse, somebody, by design
or by accident, cried out, "It is the will of God!" This voice was
repeated by the next, and in a moment it circulated through this
innumerable people, which rang with the acclamation of "It is the will
of God! It is the will of God!"[76] The neighboring villages caught up
those oracular words, and it is incredible with what celerity they
spread everywhere around into places the most distant. This
circumstance, then considered as miraculous, contributed greatly to the
success of the Hermit's mission. No less did the disposition of the
nobility throughout Europe, wholly actuated with devotion and chivalry,
contribute to forward an enterprise so suited to the gratification of
both these passions. Everything was now in motion; both sexes, and every
station and age and condition of life, engaged with transport in this
holy warfare.[77] There was even a danger that Europe would be entirely
exhausted by the torrents that were rushing out to deluge Asia. These
vast bodies, collected without choice, were conducted without skill or
order; and they succeeded accordingly. Women and children composed no
small part of those armies, which were headed by priests; and it is
hard to say which is most lamentable, the destruction of such multitudes
of men, or the frenzy which drew it upon them. But this design, after
innumerable calamities, began at last to be conducted in a manner worthy
of so grand and bold a project. Raimond, Count of Toulouse, Godfrey of
Bouillon, and several other princes, who were great captains as well as
devotees, engaged in the expedition, and with suitable effects. But none
burned more to signalize his zeal and courage on this occasion than
Robert, Duke of Normandy, who was fired with the thoughts of an
enterprise which seemed to be made for his genius. He immediately
suspended his interesting quarrel with his brother, and, instead of
contesting with him the crown to which he had such fair pretensions, or
the duchy of which he was in possession, he proposed to mortgage to him
the latter during five years for a sum of thirteen thousand marks of
gold. William, who had neither sense of religion nor thirst of glory,
intrenched in his secure and narrow policy, laughed at a design that had
deceived all the great minds in Europe. He extorted, as usual, this sum
from his subjects, and immediately took possession of Normandy; whilst
Robert, at the head of a gallant army, leaving his hereditary dominions,
is gone to cut out unknown kingdoms in Asia.
Some conspiracies disturbed the course of the reign, or rather tyranny,
of this prince: as plots usually do, they ended in the ruin of those who
contrived them, but proved no check to the ill government of William.
Some disturbances, too, he had from the incursions of the Welsh, from
revolts in Normandy, and from a war, that began and ended without
anything memorable either in the cause or consequence, with France.
He had a dispute at home which at another time had raised great
disturbances; but nothing was now considered but the expedition to the
Holy Land. After the death of Lanfranc, William omitted for a long time
to fill up that see, and had even alienated a considerable portion of
the revenue. A fit of sickness, however, softened his mind; and the
clergy, taking advantage of those happy moments, among other parts of
misgovernment which they advised him to correct, particularly urged him
to fill the vacant sees. He filled that of Canterbury with Anselm,
Bishop of Bec, a man of great piety and learning, but inflexible and
rigid in whatever related to the rights, real or supposed, of the
Church. This prelate refused to accept the see of Canterbury, foreseeing
the troubles that must arise from his own dispositions and those of the
king; nor was he prevailed upon to accept it, but on a promise of
indemnification for what the temporalities of the see had suffered. But
William's sickness and pious resolutions ending together, little care
was taken about the execution of this agreement. Thus began a quarrel
between this rapacious king and inflexible archbishop. Soon after,
Anselm declared in favor of Pope Urban, before the king had recognized
him, and thus subjected himself to the law which William the Conqueror
had made against accepting a Pope without his consent. The quarrel was
inflamed to the highest pitch; and Anselm desiring to depart the
kingdom, the king consented.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1100.]
The eyes of all men being now turned towards the great transactions in
the East, William, Duke of Guienne, fired by the success and glory that
attended the holy adventurers, resolved to take the cross; but his
revenues were not sufficient to support the figure his rank required in
this expedition. He applied to the King of England, who, being master of
the purses of his subjects, never wanted money; and he was politician
enough to avail himself of the prodigal, inconsiderate zeal of the times
to lay out this money to great advantage. He acted the part of usurer to
the Croises; and as he had taken Normandy in mortgage from his brother
Robert, having advanced the Duke of Guienne a sum on the same
conditions, he was ready to confirm his bargain by taking possession,
when he was killed in hunting by an accidental stroke of an arrow which
pierced his heart. This accident happened in the New Forest, which his
father with such infinite oppression of the people had made, and in
which they both delighted extremely. In the same forest the Conqueror's
eldest son, a youth of great hopes, had several years before met his
death from the horns of a stag; and these so memorable fates to the same
family and in the same place easily inclined men to think this a
judgment from Heaven: the people consoling themselves under their
sufferings with these equivocal marks of the vengeance of Providence
upon their oppressors.
We have painted this prince in the colors in which he is drawn by all
the writers who lived the nearest to his time. Although the monkish
historians, affected with the partiality of their character, and with
the sense of recent injuries, expressed themselves with passion
concerning him, we have no other guides to follow. Nothing, indeed, in
his life appears to vindicate his character; and it makes strongly for
his disadvantage, that, without any great end of government, he
contradicted the prejudices of the age in which he lived, the general
and common foundation of honor, and thereby made himself obnoxious to
that body of men who had the sole custody of fame, and could alone
transmit his name with glory or disgrace to posterity.
FOOTNOTES:
[76] Maimbourg.
[77] Chron. Sax. 204.