conquest, had, during the course of a whole century, risen to any
considerable station, was born of reputable parents in the city of
London; and being endowed both with industry and capacity, he early
insinuated himself into the favor of Archbishop Theobald, and obtained
from that prelate some preferments and offices. By their means he was
enabled to travel for improvement to Italy, where he studied the civil
and canon law at Bologna; and on his return, he appeared to have made
such proficiency in knowledge that he was promoted by his patron to the
Archdeaconry of Canterbury, an office of considerable trust and profit.
He was afterward employed with success by Theobald in transacting
business at Rome; and, on Henry’s accession, he was recommended to that
monarch as worthy of further preferment. Henry, who knew that Becket had
been instrumental in supporting that resolution of the archbishop which
had tended so much to facilitate his own advancement to the throne, was
already prepossessed in his favor; and finding, on further acquaintance,
that his spirit and abilities entitled him to any trust, he soon
promoted him to the dignity of chancellor, one of the first civil
offices in the kingdom. The chancellor, in that age, beside the custody
of the great seal, had possession of all vacant prelacies and abbeys; he
was the guardian of all such minors and pupils as were the king’s
tenants; all baronies which escheated to the crown were under his
administration; he was entitled to a place in council, even though he
were not particularly summoned; and as he exercised also the office of
secretary of state, and it belonged to him to countersign all
commissions, writs, and letters patent, he was a kind of prime minister,
and was concerned in the dispatch of every business of importance.
Besides exercising this high office, Becket, by the favor of the king or
archbishop, was made Provost of Beverley, Dean of Hastings, and
Constable of the Tower; he was put in possession of the honors of Eye
and Berkham, large baronies that had escheated to the crown; and, to
complete his grandeur, he was intrusted with the education of Prince
Henry, the king’s eldest son and heir of the monarchy.
The pomp of his retinue, the sumptuousness of his furniture, the luxury
of his table, the munificence of his presents, corresponded to these
great preferments; or rather exceeded anything that England had ever
before seen in any subject. His historian and secretary, Fitz-Stephens,
mentions, among other particulars, that his apartments were every day in
winter covered with clean straw or hay, and in summer with green rushes
or boughs, lest the gentlemen who paid court to him, and who could not,
by reason of their great number, find a place at table, should soil
their fine clothes by sitting on a dirty floor. A great number of
knights were retained in his service; the greatest barons were proud of
being received at his table; his house was a place of education for the
sons of the chief nobility; and the king himself frequently vouchsafed
to partake of his entertainments. As his way of life was splendid and
opulent, his amusements and occupations were gay, and partook of the
cavalier spirit, which, as he had only taken deacon’s orders, he did not
think unbefitting his character. He employed himself at leisure hours in
hunting, hawking, gaming, and horsemanship; he exposed his person in
several military actions; he carried over, at his own charge, seven
hundred knights to attend the king in his wars at Toulouse; in the
subsequent wars on the frontiers of Normandy he maintained, during forty
days, twelve hundred knights, and four thousand of their train; and in
an embassy to France with which he was intrusted he astonished that
court with the number and magnificence of his retinue.
Becket, who, by his complaisance and good humor, had rendered himself
agreeable, and by his industry and abilities useful, to his master,
appeared to him the fittest person for supplying the vacancy made by the
death of Theobald. As he was well acquainted with the king’s intentions
of retrenching, or rather confining within the ancient bounds, all
ecclesiastical privileges, and always showed a ready disposition to
comply with them, Henry, who never expected any resistance from that
quarter, immediately issued orders for electing him Archbishop of
Canterbury. But this resolution, which was taken contrary to the opinion
of Matilda and many of the ministers, drew after it very unhappy
consequences; and never prince of so great penetration appeared, in the
issue, to have so little understood the genius and character of his
minister.
No sooner was Becket installed in this high dignity, which rendered him
for life the second person in the kingdom, with some pretentions of
aspiring to be the first, than he totally altered his demeanor and
conduct, and endeavored to acquire the character of sanctity, of which
his former busy and ostentatious course of life might, in the eyes of
the people, have naturally bereaved him. Without consulting the king, he
immediately returned into his hands the commission of chancellor,
pretending that he must thenceforth detach himself from secular affairs
and be solely employed in the exercise of his spiritual function, but in
reality, that he might break off all connections with Henry, and apprise
him that Becket, as Primate of England, was now become entirely a new
personage. He maintained in his retinue and attendants alone his ancient
pomp and luster, which was useful to strike the vulgar; in his own
person he affected the greatest austerity and most rigid mortification,
which, he was sensible, would have an equal or a greater tendency to the
same end. He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care
to conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all the world; he
changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin; his usual
diet was bread, his drink water, which he even rendered further
unpalatable by the mixture of unsavory herbs; he tore his back with the
frequent discipline which he inflicted on it; he daily on his knees
washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen beggars, whom he
afterward dismissed with presents; he gained the affection of the monks
by his frequent charities to the convents and hospitals; every one who
made profession of sanctity was admitted to his conversation, and
returned full of panegyrics on the humility as well as on the piety and
mortification of the holy primate; he seemed to be perpetually employed
in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or in perusing religious
discourses; his aspect wore the appearance of seriousness and mental
recollection and secret devotion; and all men of penetration plainly saw
that he was meditating some great design, and that the ambition and
ostentation of his character had turned itself toward a new and more
dangerous object.
Four gentlemen of the king’s household, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de
Traci, Hugh de Moreville, and Richard Brito, taking certain passionate
expressions to be a hint for Becket’s death, immediately communicated
their thoughts to each other, and, swearing to avenge their prince’s
quarrel, secretly withdrew from court. Some menacing expressions which
they had dropped gave a suspicion of their design, and the king
dispatched a messenger after them, charging them to attempt nothing
against the person of the primate; but these orders arrived too late to
prevent their fatal purpose. The four assassins, though they took
different roads to England, arrived nearly about the same time at
Saltwoode, near Canterbury, and being there joined by some assistants
they proceeded in great haste to the archiepiscopal palace. They found
the primate, who trusted entirely to the sacredness of his character,
very slenderly attended; and, though they threw out many menaces and
reproaches against him, he was so incapable of fear that, without using
any precautions against their violence, he immediately went to St.
Benedict’s Church to hear vespers. They followed him thither, attacked
him before the altar, and having cloven his head with many blows retired
without meeting any opposition. This was the tragical end of Thomas à
Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible spirit,
who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself, the
enterprises of pride and ambition under the disguise of sanctity and of
zeal for the interests of religion: an extraordinary personage, surely,
had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had directed the
vehemence of his character to the support of law and justice, instead of
being engaged, by the prejudices of the times, to sacrifice all private
duties and public connections to ties which he imagined or represented
as superior to every civil and political consideration. But no man who
enters into the genius of that age can reasonably doubt of this
prelate’s sincerity.
SALADIN.
BY EDWARD GIBBON.
[MALEK AL-NASIR SALAH ED-DIN ABU MODHAFER YUSUF, Sultan of Egypt
and Syria, born 1137, died 1193. Of Kurdish descent he finally rose
from a subordinate rank to royal power. His name stands embalmed in
history and tradition as the most noble and chivalrous of those
Saracen rulers whom the Christian powers fought against during the
Crusades.]
The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral tribes
of the Kurds, a people hardy, strong, savage, impatient of the yoke,
addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national
chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems to
identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; and they still defend
against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they asserted
against the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to
embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers; the service of his father
and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin, and the son of Job or
Ayub, a simple Kurd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which
flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. So unconscious was Noureddin
of the impending ruin of his house that he constrained the reluctant
youth to follow his Uncle Shiracouh into Egypt; his military character
was established by the defense of Alexandria, and, if we may believe the
Latins, he solicited and obtained from the Christian general the
_profane_ honors of knighthood. On the death of Shiracouh, the office of
grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest and least powerful
of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom he invited to
Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals, and attached
the army to his person and interest. While Noureddin lived, these
ambitious Kurds were the most humble of his slaves; and the indiscreet
murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who loudly
protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead his
son in chains to the foot of the throne. “Such language,” he added in
private, “was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; but we
are now above fear and obedience, and the threats of Noureddin shall not
extort the tribute of a sugar-cane.” His seasonable death relieved them
from the odious and doubtful conflict; his son, a minor of eleven years
of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus, and the new lord
of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title that could
sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people.
Nor was Saladin long content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled
the Christians of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and
Diarbekir; Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal
protector; his brother subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the
happy Arabia; and at the hour of his death, his empire was spread from
the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the
mountains of Armenia. In the judgment of his character, the reproaches
of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on _our_ minds, impressed, as
they are, with the principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his
ambition may in some measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia,
which had erased every notion of legitimate succession; by the recent
example of the Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his
benefactor, his humane and generous behavior to the collateral branches;
by _their_ incapacity and _his_ merit; by the approbation of the caliph,
the sole source of all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes
and interest of the people, whose happiness is the first object of
government. In _his_ virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired
the singular union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin and
Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant
meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and sober
color over their lives and actions.
The youth of the latter was addicted to wine and women, but his aspiring
spirit soon renounced the temptations of pleasure for the graver follies
of fame and dominion. The garment of Saladin was of coarse woolen, water
was his only drink, and while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed
the chastity of his Arabian prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a
rigid Mussulman; he ever deplored that the defense of religion had not
allowed him to accomplish the pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated
hours, five times each day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his
brethren; the involuntary omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid,
and his perusal of the Koran on horseback between the approaching armies
may be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious, of piety and courage.
The superstitious doctrine of the sect of Shafei was the only study that
he deigned to encourage. The poets were safe in his contempt, but all
profane science was the object of his aversion, and a philosopher who
had vented some speculative novelties was seized and strangled by the
command of the royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to
the meanest suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was only
for a kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity. While
the descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed his
garments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants.
So boundless was his liberality that he distributed twelve thousand
horses at the siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than
forty-seven drachms of silver and one piece of gold coin were found in
the treasury; yet in a martial reign, the tributes were diminished, and
the wealthy citizens enjoyed without fear or danger the fruits of their
industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were adorned by the royal
foundations of hospitals, colleges, and mosques, and Cairo was fortified
with a wall and citadel; but his works were consecrated to public use,
nor did the sultan indulge himself in a garden or palace of private
luxury. In a fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of
Saladin commanded the esteem of the Christians: the Emperor of Germany
gloried in his friendship, the Greek emperor solicited his alliance, and
the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps magnified, his fame both
in the East and West.
HENRY II, KING OF ENGLAND.
BY DAVID HUME.
[Born 1113, died 1189. Henry was the grandson of Henry I, the
great-grandson of William the Conqueror by the distaff side, and
son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Anjou. He was first of the
Plantagenet dynasty of English kings. His reign was brilliantly
distinguished by the further establishment of legal institutions
and a rigid regard for justice to all classes of his subjects.]
Thus died, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and thirty-fifth of his
reign, the greatest prince of his time, for wisdom, virtue, and
abilities, and the most powerful in extent of dominion of all those that
had ever filled the throne of England. His character, in private as well
as in public life, is almost without a blemish, and he seems to have
possessed every accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes a
man either estimable or amiable. He was of a middle stature, strong and
well proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his
conversation affable and entertaining; his elocution easy, persuasive,
and ever at command. He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and
conduct in war, was provident without timidity, severe in the execution
of justice without rigor, and temperate without austerity. He preserved
health, and kept himself from corpulency, to which he was somewhat
inclined, by an abstemious diet and by frequent exercise, particularly
hunting. When he could enjoy leisure, he recreated himself either in
learned conversation or in reading, and he cultivated his natural
talents by study above any prince of his time. His affections, as well
as his enmities, were warm and durable, and his long experience of the
ingratitude and infidelity of men never destroyed the natural
sensibility of his temper, which disposed him to friendship and society.
His character has been transmitted to us by several writers who were his
contemporaries, and it extremely resembles, in its most remarkable
features, that of his maternal grandfather, Henry I, excepting only that
ambition, which was a ruling passion in both, found not in the first
Henry such unexceptionable means of exerting itself, and pushed that
prince into measures which were both criminal in themselves and were the
cause of further crimes, from which his grandson’s conduct was happily
exempted.
This prince, like most of his predecessors of the Norman line, except
Stephen, passed more of his time on the Continent than in this island;
he was surrounded with the English gentry and nobility when abroad; the
French gentry and nobility attended him when he resided in England; both
nations acted in the government as if they were the same people; and, on
many occasions, the legislatures seem not to have been distinguished. As
the king and all the English barons were of French extraction, the
manners of that people acquired the ascendant, and were regarded as the
models of imitation. All foreign improvements, therefore, such as they
were, in literature and politeness, in laws and arts, seem now to have
been, in a good measure, transplanted into England, and that kingdom was
become little inferior, in all the fashionable accomplishments, to any
of its neighbors on the Continent. The more homely but more sensible
manners and principles of the Saxons were exchanged for the affectations
of chivalry and the subtleties of school philosophy; the feudal ideas of
civil government, the Romish sentiments in religion, had taken entire
possession of the people; by the former, the sense of submission toward
princes was somewhat diminished in the barons; by the latter, the
devoted attachment to papal authority was much augmented among the
clergy. The Norman and other foreign families established in England had
now struck deep root, and being entirely incorporated with the people,
whom at first they oppressed and despised, they no longer thought that
they needed the protection of the crown for the enjoyment of their
possessions, or considered their tenure as precarious. They aspired to
the same liberty and independence which they saw enjoyed by their
brethren on the Continent, and desired to restrain those exorbitant
prerogatives and arbitrary practices which the necessities of war and
the violence of conquest had at first obliged them to indulge in their
monarch. That memory also of a more equal government under the Saxon
princes, which remained with the English, diffused still further the
spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more
independence to themselves, and willing to indulge it to the people. And
it was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of men
produced, first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident
alteration in the maxims of government.
The history of all the preceding kings of England since the Conquest
gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal
institutions--the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of
rebellion against the prince and laws, and of animosity against each
other; the conduct of the barons in the transmarine dominions of those
monarchs afforded, perhaps, still more flagrant instances of these
convulsions, and the history of France during several ages consists
almost entirely of narrations of this nature. The cities, during the
continuance of this violent government, could neither be very numerous
nor populous, and there occur instances which seem to evince that,
though these are always the first seat of law and liberty, their police
was in general loose and irregular, and exposed to the same disorders
with those by which the country was generally infested. It was a custom
in London for great numbers, to the amount of a hundred or more, the
sons and relations of considerable citizens, to form themselves into a
licentious confederacy, to break into rich houses and plunder them, to
rob and murder the passengers, and to commit with impunity all sorts of
disorder. By these crimes it had become so dangerous to walk the streets
by night that the citizens durst no more venture abroad after sunset
than if they had been exposed to the incursions of a public enemy. The
brother of the Earl of Ferrars had been murdered by some of those
nocturnal rioters, and the death of so eminent a person, which was much
more regarded than that of many thousands of an inferior station, so
provoked the king that he swore vengeance against the criminals, and
became thenceforth more rigorous in the execution of the laws.
Henry’s care in administering justice had gained him so great a
reputation that even foreign and distant princes made him arbiter, and
submitted their differences to his judgment. Sanchez, King of Navarre,
having some controversies with Alphonso, King of Castile, was contented,
though Alphonso had married the daughter of Henry, to choose this prince
for a referee; and they agreed, each of them to consign three castles
into neutral hands as a pledge of their not departing from his award.
Henry made the cause be examined before his great council, and gave a
sentence which was submitted to by both parties. These two Spanish kings
sent each a stout champion to the court of England, in order to defend
his cause by arms in case the way of duel had been chosen by Henry.
GENGHIS OR ZINGIS KHAN.
BY EDWARD GIBBON.
[An Asiatic conqueror, born about 1160, died 1227. His conquests
extended over the greater part of Asia, and touched Eastern Europe.
He belonged to that type exemplified by Alexander the Great,
Attila, Timour, and Napoleon, who made war for the mere passion and
glory of conquest, although he seems to have been by no means
destitute of generous and magnanimous qualities.]