William, surnamed _The Conqueror_, reigned from 1066 to 1087, being
chiefly engaged all that time in completing the subjugation of the
Saxons. He is allowed to have been a man of much sagacity, and a firm
ruler; but his temper was violent, and his disposition brutal. At the
time of his death, which took place in Normandy, his eldest son Robert
happening to be at a greater distance from London than William, who
was the second son, the latter individual seized upon the crown, of
which he could not afterwards be dispossessed, till he was shot
accidentally by an arrow in the New Forest, in the year 1100. Towards
the close of this king’s reign, the whole of Christian Europe was
agitated by the first Crusade――an expedition for the recovery of the
Holy Land from the Saracens. Robert of Normandy had a high command in
this enterprise, and gained much fame as a warrior; but while he was
in Italy, on his return, his youngest brother Henry usurped the throne
left vacant by William, so that he was again disappointed of his
birthright. HENRY I――surnamed _Beauclerc_, from his being a fine
scholar――was a prince of some ability; but he disgraced himself by
putting out the eyes of his eldest brother, and keeping him nearly
thirty years in confinement. Such barbarous conduct shows that in this
age might was the only right, and that men hesitated at no actions
which might promise to advance their own interests.
Cotemporary with William the Conqueror in England, was MALCOLM III in
Scotland, surnamed _Canmore_, from his having a large head. This
prince, after overthrowing the celebrated usurper Macbeth, married
Margaret, a fugitive Saxon princess, through whom his posterity became
the heirs of that race of English sovereigns. He was a good prince,
and by settling Saxon refugees upon his lowland territory, did much to
improve the character of the Scottish nation, who are described as
having been before this time a nation in which there was no admixture
of civilization. At Malcolm’s death, in 1093, the crown was contested
for a while by a usurper called Donald Bane, and the elder sons of the
late monarch, but finally fell to the peaceable possession of his
youngest son DAVID I, who was a prince of much superior character,
apparently, to the Norman sovereigns who lived in the same age. The
church of Rome having now gained an ascendancy in Scotland, David
founded a considerable number of monasteries and churches for the
reception of the ministers of that religion. All the most celebrated
abbacies in Scotland took their rise in his time.
Henry Beauclerc of England, in order to strengthen his claim by a
Saxon alliance, married Maud, the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and of
Princess Margaret. By her he had an only daughter of the same name,
whom he married first to the Emperor of Germany, and then to Geoffrey
Plantagenet, eldest son of the Earl of Anjou, in France. This lady and
her children by Plantagenet were properly the heirs of the English
crown; but on the death of Henry, in 1135, it was seized by a usurper
named STEPHEN, a distant member of the Conqueror’s family, who reigned
for nineteen years, during which the country was rendered almost
desolate by civil contests, in which David of Scotland occasionally
joined.
On the death of Stephen, in 1154, the crown fell peacefully to HENRY
II, who was the eldest son of Maud, and the first of the Plantagenet
race of sovereigns. Henry was an acute and politic prince, though not
in any respect more amiable than his predecessors. His reign was
principally marked by a series of measures for reducing the power of
the Romish clergy, in the course of which some of his courtiers, in
1171 thought they could not do him a better service than to murder
Thomas-à-Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been the chief
obstacle to his views, and was one of the ablest and most ambitious
men ever produced in England. For his concern in this foul
transaction, Henry had to perform a humiliating penance, receiving
eighty lashes on his bare back from the monks of Canterbury. We are
the less inclined to wonder at this circumstance, when we consider
that about this time the Pope had power to cause two kings to perform
the menial service of leading his horse.
Henry was the most powerful king that had yet reigned in Britain.
Besides the great hereditary domains which he possessed in France, and
for which he did homage to the king of that country, he exacted a
temporary homage from William of Scotland, the grand-son of David, a
monarch of great valor, who took the surname of the _Lion_, and who
reigned from 1166 to 1214. Henry also added Ireland to his
domininions. This island had previously been divided into five
kingdoms――Munster, Leinster, Meath, Ulster, and Connaught. The people,
being quite uncivilized, were perpetually quarreling among themselves;
and this, with their heathen religion, furnished a flimsy pretext for
invading them from England. Dermot Macmorrough, king of Leinster,
having been dethroned by his subjects, introduced an English warrior,
Richard, Earl of Strigul, generally called _Strongbow_, for the
purpose of regaining his possessions. A body composed of 50 knights,
90 esquires, and 460 archers, in all 600 men, was enabled by its
superior discipline to overthrow the whole warlike force that could be
brought against them; and the conquest was easily completed by Henry
in person, who went thither in 1172. The military leaders were left to
rule over the country; but they managed their trust so ill, that the
Irish never became peaceable and improving subjects of the Norman
king, as the English had gradually done.