higher order of the Clergy, who joined the king out of
cowardice, having more at stake than they could make up their
minds to lose; and the higher order of the Laity, who in this
instance sided with the king against the Church, that when
they had removed this obstacle they might afterwards fight him
single-handed.” (R. H. Froude, _Remains_, vol. iv. p. 30).
Which is just what Arnulf of Lisieux saw from the first (Ep.
clxii., Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. pp. 309, 310), and what
Henry learned to his cost in 1173.
As yet, however, there was no token of the strife to come. In
February 1166, two years after the publication of the Constitutions
of Clarendon, Henry assembled another council at the same place and
thence issued an ordinance[584] for carrying out a reform in the
method of bringing to justice criminals in general, similar to that
which he had in the Constitutions sought to apply to criminals of one
particular class. By the Assize of Clarendon it was enacted that the
king’s justices and the sheriffs should in every shire throughout the
kingdom make inquiry concerning all crimes therein committed “since
our lord the king was king.”[585] The method of their investigations
was that of inquest by sworn recognitors chosen from among the “lawful
men” of each hundred and township, and bound by oath to speak the truth
according to their knowledge of the fact in question. This mode of
legal inquiry had been introduced into England by William the Conqueror
for fiscal purposes, such as the taking of the Domesday survey, and its
employment for similar objects was continued by his successors. Henry
II. had in the early years of his reign applied the same principle
to the uses of civil litigation by an ordinance known as the “Great
Assize,” whereby disputes concerning the possession of land might, if
the litigants chose, be settled before the justices of the king’s court
by the unanimous oath of twelve lawful knights chosen according to a
prescribed form from among those dwelling in the district where the
land lay, and therefore competent to swear to the truth or falsehood of
the claim.[586] This proceeding seems to be assumed as already in use
by the ninth Constitution of Clarendon, which ordains its application
to disputes concerning Church lands.[587] The Assize of Clarendon aimed
at bringing criminals to justice by the help of the same machinery. It
decreed that in every hundred of every shire inquest should be made by
means of twelve lawful men of the hundred and four from each township,
who should be sworn to denounce every man known in their district
as a robber, thief or murderer, or a harbourer of such; on their
presentment the accused persons were to be arrested by the sheriff,
and kept by him in safe custody till they could be brought before the
itinerant justices, to undergo the ordeal of water and receive legal
punishment according to its results.[588] The inquest was to be taken
and the session of the justices held in full shire-court; no personal
privileges of any kind were to exempt any qualified member of the court
from his duty of attendance and of service on the jury of recognitors
if required;[589] and no territorial franchise or private jurisdiction,
whether of chartered town or feudal “honour,” was to shelter a criminal
thus accused from the pursuit of the sheriffs on the authority of the
justices.[590]
[584] On the date see Bishop Stubbs’ preface to _Gesta Hen._,
vol. ii. pp. lix.–lxi. The Assize is printed in an appendix to
same preface, pp. cxlix–cliv, and in _Select Charters_, pp.
143–146.
[585] Assize of Clarendon, c. 1 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p.
143).
[586] Glanville, _De legibus Angliæ_, l. ii. c. 7 (_ib._ p.
161). Cf. Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 616.
[587] Constit. Clar. c. 9 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 139).
See above, pp. 26, 27.
[588] Assize Clar. cc. 1, 2, 4, 6 (as above, pp. 143, 144).
[589] _Ib._ c. 8 (p. 144).
[590] _Ib._ cc. 9–11 (as above).
As was the case with most of Henry’s reforms, none of the methods of
procedure adopted in this Assize were new inventions. Not only had
the inquest by sworn recognitors been in use for civil purposes ever
since the Norman conquest; it may even be that the germ of a jury of
presentment in criminal cases, which in its modern shape appears for
the first time in the Assize of Clarendon, is to be traced yet further
back, to an ordinance of Æthelred II., whereby the twelve senior thegns
in every wapentake were made to swear that they would “accuse no
innocent man nor conceal any guilty one.”[591] The mission of itinerant
justices--derived in principle from the early days of English kingship,
when the sovereign himself perambulated his whole realm, hearing and
deciding whatever cause came before him as he passed along--had been
employed by Henry I., and revived by Henry II. immediately after his
accession. A visitation of the greater part of England had been made by
two of the chief officers of the Curia Regis in the first year of his
reign, and again in the second; another circuit seems to have been made
in 1159 by William Fitz-John; and in 1163 Alan de Neville held pleas
of the forest in Oxfordshire, while the justiciar himself, Richard de
Lucy, made a journey into Cumberland to hold the pleas of the Crown
there, for the first time since the district had passed into the hands
of the king of Scots.[592] From the date of the Assize of Clarendon,
however, these journeys became regular and general,[593] and the work
of the judges employed on them became far more extensive and important.
[591] Laws of Æthelred II., l. iii. c. 3 (Stubbs, _Select
Charters_, p. 72). See Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. pp.
103, 115, 396, 611, 614.
[592] Stubbs, _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii., pref. p. lxiv.
[593] _Ib._ pp. lxiii, lxiv.
The first visitation under the assize was at once begun by Richard de
Lucy and Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex;[594] and the Pipe Roll
of the year furnishes some indications of its immediate results. The
sums credited to the treasury for the pleas of the Crown reach a far
greater amount than in the earlier rolls, and its receipts are further
swelled by the goods and chattels of criminals condemned under the
assize,[595] which were explicitly declared forfeit to the king.[596]
The clause binding all qualified persons to be ready to serve on the
juries was strictly enforced; one attempt to evade it was punished with
a fine of five marks.[597] Another clause, enjoining upon the sheriffs
the construction and repair of gaols for the detention of criminals,
was carried into effect with equal vigour.[598] The work of the two
justiciars was apparently not completed till the summer of 1167.[599]
In that year pleas of the forest were held throughout the country
by Alan de Neville; and in 1168 seven barons of the Exchequer made a
general visitation of the shires for the collection of an aid on the
marriage of the king’s eldest daughter.[600] This last was primarily a
fiscal journey; the aid itself was a strictly feudal impost, assessed
at one mark on every knight’s fee.[601] It was however levied in a
remarkable manner. The Domesday survey, which by a few modifications in
practice had been made to serve as the rate-book of the whole kingdom
for eighty years, was at last found inadequate for the present purpose.
A royal writ was therefore addressed to all the tenants-in-chief,
requiring from them an account of the knights’ fees which they held
and the services due upon them, whether under the “old infeoffment”
of the time of Henry I., or under the “new infeoffment” since the
resettlement of the country by his grandson.[602] The answers were
enrolled in what is known as the _Black Book of the Exchequer_[603]
and the aid was levied in accordance with their contents. The whole
process occupied a considerable time; the preparations seem to have
begun shortly after Matilda’s betrothal, for we hear of the purchase of
“a hutch for keeping the barons’ letters concerning their knights” as
early as 1166,[604] yet the collection of the money was not finished
till the summer of 1169,[605] a year and a half after her marriage. The
labours of the barons employed in it were however not confined to this
one end; as usual, their travels were turned to account for judicial
purposes,[606] and the system begun by the assize of Clarendon was by
no means suffered to fall into disuse.
[594] Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 470. _Gesta Hen._,
vol. ii., pref. pp. lxiv, lxv.
[595] See Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 471.
[596] Ass. Clar., c. 5 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 143,
144).
[597] “Homines de Tichesoura debent v marcas quia noluerunt
jurare assisam regis.” Pipe Roll a. 1166, quoted in Stubbs,
_Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 470, note 1.
[598] “The expenses of gaols at Canterbury, Rochester,
Huntingdon, Cambridge, Sarum, Malmesbury, Aylesbury and Oxford
are accounted for in the Roll of 1166.” _Ib._ p. 471, note 5.
[599] Stubbs, _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii., pref. pp. lxiv, lxv and
note 1.
[600] Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 471 and note 6.
[601] _Ib._ p. 472. Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. p. 572.
[602] The tenour of the king’s writ is shewn by a typical
answer, printed by Bishop Stubbs in his _Select Charters_, p.
146, from Hearne’s _Liber Niger Scaccarii_ (2d ed.), vol. i.
pp. 148, 149.
[603] _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, edited by Hearne. A roll of the
Norman tenants-in-chivalry was compiled in the same manner in
1172; see Stapleton, _Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ_, vol.
i., _Observations_, p. xxxiv.
[604] Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. p. 576, and Stubbs,
_Constit. Hist._, p. 471, note 7, from Pipe Roll a. 1166.
[605] Stubbs, as above, p. 472, and _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii.
pref. p. lxv and note 2. Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 117.
[606] Stubbs, _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii., pref. p. lxv, note 2.
It was too soon as yet for the beneficial results of these measures to
become evident to the people at large; but it was not too soon for them
to excite the resentment of the barons. The stringency with which in
the assize of Clarendon every claim of personal exemption or special
jurisdiction was made to give way before the all-embracing authority
of the king’s supreme justice shewed plainly that Henry still clave
to the policy which had led him to insist upon the restoration of
alienated lands and the surrender of unlicensed castles in England, to
lose no opportunity of exercising his ducal right to seize and garrison
the castles of his vassals in Normandy[607]--in a word, to check and
thwart in every possible way the developement of the feudal principle.
The assessment of the aid for his daughter’s marriage seems indeed at
first glance to have been based on a principle wholly favourable to the
barons, for it apparently left the determination of each landowner’s
liabilities wholly in his own hands. But the commissioners who spent
nearly two years in collecting the aid had ample power and ample
opportunity to check any irregularities which might have occurred in
the returns; and the impost undoubtedly pressed very heavily upon the
feudal tenants as a body. Its proceeds seem, however, not to have
come up to Henry’s expectations, and the unsatisfactory reports which
reached him from England of the general results of his legal measures
led him to suspect some failure in duty on the part of those who were
charged with their execution.
[607] Stubbs, _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii. pref. p. xlvii, note.
A large share of responsibility rested with the sheriffs; and the
sheriffs were still for the most part, as they had been in his
grandfather’s days, the chief landowners in their respective shires,
men of great local importance, and only too likely to have at once
the will and the power to defeat the ends of the very measures which
by their official position they were called upon to administer. Henry
therefore on his return to England at Easter 1170 summarily deposed
all sheriffs of counties and bailiffs of royal demesnes, pending an
inquisition into all the details of their official conduct since his
own departure over sea four years ago. The inquiry was intrusted not
to any of the usual members of the King’s Court and Exchequer, but to a
large body of commissioners specially chosen for the purpose from the
higher ranks of both clergy and laity.[608] These were to take pledges
of all the sheriffs and bailiffs that they would be ready to appear
before the king and make redress on an appointed day; an oath was also
to be exacted from all barons, knights and freemen in every shire that
they would answer truthfully and without respect of persons to all
questions put to them by the commissioners in the king’s name.[609]
[608] The list of commissioners for seven of the southern
shires is in Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216. See also
Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 473 and note 2.
[609] Inquest of sheriffs, Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 148.
Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 217.
The subject-matter of these inquiries, as laid down in the king’s
instructions, embraced far more than the conduct of the sheriffs. Not
only were the commissioners to examine into all particulars of the
sums received by the sheriffs and bailiffs in the discharge of their
functions, and the manner and grounds of their acquisition,[610] and
into the disposal of all chattels and goods forfeited under the assize
of Clarendon; they were also to ascertain whether the collection of the
aid _pour fille marier_ had been honestly conducted; they were at the
same time to investigate the administration of the forests[611] and
the condition of the royal demesnes;[612] to find out and report any
persons who had failed to do homage to the king or his son;[613] and
they were moreover to make inquisition into the proceedings of all the
special courts of the various franchises, whether held by archbishop
or bishop, abbot, earl or baron, as fully and minutely as into those
of the ordinary hundreds.[614] Only two months were allowed to the
commissioners for their work, which nothing but their great number
can have enabled them to execute in the time. Unhappily, the report
which they brought up to the king on S. Barnabas’s day is lost, and we
have no record of its results save in relation to one point: out of
twenty-seven sheriffs, only seven were allowed to retain their offices.
The rest, who were mostly local magnates owing their importance rather
to their territorial and family influence than to their connexion with
the court, were replaced by men of inferior rank, and of whom all but
four were officials of the Exchequer.[615]
[610] Inquest of sheriffs, cc. 1, 4, 9, 10 (as above, pp.
148–150).
[611] _Ib._ cc. 5, 6, 7 (p. 149).
[612] _Ib._ c. 12 (p. 150).
[613] _Ib._ c. 11 (p. 150).
[614] _Ib._ cc. 2, 3 (pp. 148, 149).
[615] See the list, and Bishop Stubbs’s analysis of it, in his
preface to _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii. p. lxvii, note 3.
This significant proof of Henry’s determination to pursue his
anti-feudal policy was followed up next year by the last step in that
resumption of alienated demesnes which in England had been virtually
completed thirteen years ago, but which had been enforced only by
slower degrees on the other side of the channel. In 1171 Henry ordered
a general inquisition into the extent and condition of the demesne
lands and forests held by his grandfather in Normandy, and into the
encroachments since made upon them by the barons; and we are told
that the restitution which resulted from the inquiry almost doubled
his ducal revenue.[616] The endurance of the barons was now almost at
an end; and moreover, their opportunity had now come. From that same
council at Westminster whence the decree had gone forth for the inquest
of sheriffs, there had gone forth also the summons for the crowning
of the young king; that other assembly which on S. Barnabas’s day saw
the deposition of the delinquent officers saw also, three days later,
the new and dangerously suggestive spectacle of two kings at once in
the land. When, six months later still, the first consequences of that
coronation appeared in the murder of S. Thomas, the barons could not
but feel that their hour was at hand. His regal dignity no longer all
his own, but voluntarily shared with another--his regal unction washed
out in that stream of martyr’s blood which cut him off from the support
of the Church--Henry seemed to be left alone and defenceless in the
face of his foes. The year which he spent in conquering Ireland was a
breathing-space for them as well as for him. They used it to adapt to
their purposes the weapon which he had so lately forged for his own
defence; they found a rallying-point and a pretext for their designs
against him in the very son whom he had left to cover his retreat and
supply his place at home.
[616] Rob. Torigni, a. 1171.
The younger Henry had passed over to Normandy just before his father
quitted it, in July 1171.[617] There he apparently stayed with his
mother and her younger children till the opening of the next year, when
he and his wife went to England, and there remained as titular king
and queen until his father’s return from Ireland.[618] The youth’s
kingship, however, was scarcely more than nominal; in his presence no
less than in his absence, the real work of government in England was
done by the justiciars; and his own personal interests lay chiefly
beyond the sea. The influences which surrounded him there were those of
his father’s open or secret foes:--of his wife’s father, King Louis of
France, of his own mother, Queen Eleanor, her kindred and her people;
and Eleanor had ceased to be a loyal vice-gerent for the husband who
had by this time forfeited his claims to wifely affection from her.
She seems to have taken for her political confidant her uncle, Ralf
of Faye[619]--one of the many faithless barons of Poitou; and it is
said to have been at her instigation that Ralf and an Angevin baron,
Hugh of Ste.-Maure, profited by Henry’s absence in Ireland to whisper
to her eldest son that a crown was worthless without the reality of
kingly power, and that it was time for him to assert his claim to the
substance of which his father had given him only the shadow.[620]
Young Henry, now seventeen years old, listened but too readily to such
suggestions; and it was a rumour of his undutiful temper, coupled
significantly with a rumour of growing discontent among the barons,
that called Henry back from Ireland[621] and made him carry his son
with him to Normandy[622] in the spring of 1172. After the elder king’s
reconciliation with the Church, however, and the second coronation of
the younger one, the danger seemed to have subsided; and in November
Henry, to complete the pacification, allowed his son to accompany his
girl-wife on a visit to her father, the king of France.[623] When they
returned,[624] the young king at once confronted his father with a
demand to be put in possession of his heritage, or at least of some
portion of it--England, Normandy, or Anjou--where he might dwell as an
independent sovereign with his queen.[625] The father refused.[626]
He had never intended to make his sons independent rulers of the
territories allotted to them; Richard and Geoffrey indeed were too
young for such an arrangement to be possible in their cases; and the
object of the eldest son’s crowning had been simply to give him such
an inchoate royalty as would enable his father to employ him as a
colleague and representative in case of need, and to feel assured
of his ultimate succession to the English throne. The king’s plans
for the distribution of his territories and for the establishment of
his children had succeeded well thus far. He had secured Britanny in
Geoffrey’s name before he quitted Gaul in 1171; and a month after his
return, on Trinity Sunday (June 10) 1172, Richard was enthroned as duke
of Aquitaine according to ancient custom in the abbot’s chair in the
church of S. Hilary at Poitiers.[627] One child, indeed, the youngest
of all, was still what his father had called him at his birth--“John
Lackland.”[628] Even for John, however, though he was scarcely five
years old,[629] a politic marriage was already in view.
[617] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 24, note 2.
[618] Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 162, 166. He kept Christmas
at Bures; Rob. Torigni, a. 1172 (_i.e._ 1171).
[619] Ep. ciii., Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p. 197. Cf. Ep.
cclxxvii., _ib._ vol. vi. p. 131.
[620] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 350.
[621] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 37 (Dimock, vol.
v. p. 285). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 128, 129.
[622] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 30.
[623] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 34. This writer says
they went over--young Henry much against his will--about All
Saints’ day, and were sent to the king of France both together.
Rob. Torigni, a. 1172, says they crossed at Martinmas, and paid
their visits to Louis separately, Henry at Gisors, Margaret at
Chaumont.
[624] Summoned, it seems, by Henry, “timens fraudem et malitiam
regis Franciæ, quas sæpe expertus fuerat.” _Gesta Hen._ (as
above), p. 35.
[625] _Ib._ p. 41. Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 242.
The _Gesta_ say the demand was made “per consilium regis
Francorum, et per consilium comitum et baronum Angliæ et
Normanniæ, qui patrem suum odio habebant.”
[626] _Gesta Hen._ and Gerv. Cant. as above.
[627] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 67 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. p. 318).
[628] “Quartum natu minimum Johannem Sine Terrâ agnominans.”
Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 18 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 146).
[629] There is some doubt as to the date of John’s birth. Rob.
Torigni (_ad ann._) places it in 1167; R. Diceto (Stubbs,
vol. i. p. 325) in 1166. The prose addition to Robert of
Gloucester’s Chronicle (Hearne, vol. ii. p. 484) says that he
was born at Oxford on Christmas Eve. As Eleanor seems to have
been in England at Christmas-tide in both years, this gives us
no help. Bishop Stubbs (Introd. to _W. Coventry_, vol. ii.
p. xvii, note 3) adopts the later date.
One of the many branches of Henry’s continental policy was the
cultivation of an alliance with those small but important states
which lay on the border-land between Italy, Germany, and that old
Aquitanic Gaul over which he claimed dominion in his wife’s name. The
most important of these was the county of Maurienne, a name which in
strictness represents only a small mountainous region encircled to
east and south by the Graian and Cottian Alps, and to west and north
by another chain of mountains bordering the outermost edges of two
river-valleys, those of the Isère and the Arc, which again are severed
from each other by a line of lesser heights running through the heart
of the district. In the southern valley, that of the Arc, stood the
capital of the county, S. Jean-de-Maurienne, the seat of a bishopric
from the dedication of whose cathedral church the town itself took its
name. In the northern valley, at the foot of the Little S. Bernard,
some few miles above the source of the Isère, the counts of Maurienne
were advocates of the abbey of S. Maurice, which long treasured the
sacred symbol of the old Burgundian royalty, the spear of its patron
saint. The power of the counts of Maurienne, however, was not bounded
by the narrow circle of hills which stood like an impregnable rampart
round about their native land. On the shore of the lake of Bourget
they held Chambéry, guarding the pass of Les Echelles, through which
southern Gaul communicated with the German lands around the lake of
Geneva; the county of Geneva itself was almost surrounded by their
territories, for on its western side their sway extended from Chambéry
across the valley of the Rhône northward as far as Belley, while
eastward they held the whole southern shore of the lake. To north-east
of Maurienne, again, the great highway which led from Geneva and from
the German lands beyond it into Italy, through the vale of Aosta by
the passes of the Pennine Alps or up the valley of the Isère by S.
Maurice under the foot of the Little S. Bernard, was in their hands;
for Aosta itself and the whole land as far as Castiglione on the Dora
Baltea belonged to them. Across the Graian Alps, their possession of
the extreme outposts of the Italian border, Susa and Turin, gave them
the title of “Marquises of Italy,”[630] and the command of the great
highway between Italy and southern Gaul by the valley of the Durance
and through the gap which parts the Cottian from the Maritime Alps
beneath the foot of the Mont Genèvre; while yet further south, on
either side of the Maritime Alps where they curve eastward towards the
Gulf of Genoa, Chiusa, Rochetta and Aspromonte all formed part of their
territories.[631] In one word, they held the keys of every pass between
Italy and north-western Europe, from the Great S. Bernard to the Col
di Tenda. Nominally subject to the Emperor in his character of king of
Burgundy, they really possessed the control over his most direct lines
of communication with his Imperial capital; while the intercourse of
western Europe with Rome lay almost wholly at their mercy;[632] and far
away at the opposite extremity of Aquitania the present count Humbert
of Maurienne seems to have claimed, though he did not actually hold,
one of the keys of another great mountain-barrier, in the Pyrenean
county of Roussillon on the Spanish March.[633]
[630] “Comes Maurianensis et Marchio Italiæ” is Count Humbert’s
style in the marriage-contract of his daughter with John:
_Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 36.
[631] All these places are named in the marriage-contract of
John and Alice of Maurienne; _Gesta Hen._ (as above), pp. 36–40.
[632] As says Rob. Torigni, a. 1171: “Nec aliquis potest adire
Italiam, nisi per terram ipsius” [sc. comitis].
[633] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 37. Humbert “concedit eis”
[_i.e._ to John and Alice, in case he himself should have a son
who must oust them from Maurienne] “in perpetuum et hæredibus
eorum Russillun cum toto mandato suo sive pertinentiis suis
omnibus,” as if he actually had it in his own hands. I have
however failed to discover any connexion between Roussillon and
Maurienne.
In 1171[634] Henry’s diplomatic relations with the Alpine princes
bore fruit in a proposal from Humbert of Maurienne for the marriage
of his eldest daughter with the king’s youngest son. Humbert himself
had no son, and by the terms of the marriage-contract his territories,
Alpine and Pyrenean, were to be settled upon his daughter and her
future husband,[635] in return for five thousand marks of English
silver.[636] The contract was signed and ratified before Christmas
1172,[637] and soon afterwards Henry summoned his eldest son to join
him in a journey into Auvergne for a personal meeting with Humbert.
They reached Montferrand before Candlemas, and were there met not only
by Humbert and his daughter but also by the count of Vienne,[638] the
count of Toulouse and the king of Aragon.[639] How high the English
king’s influence had now risen in these southern lands may be judged by
the fact that not only King Alfonso of Aragon, a son of his old ally
Raymond-Berengar, but also his former enemy Raymond of Toulouse, could
agree to choose him as arbiter in a quarrel between themselves.[640]
Raymond in truth saw in Henry’s alliances with Aragon and Maurienne
a death-blow to his own hopes of maintaining the independence of
Toulouse. Hemmed in alike to south and east by close allies of the
English king whose own duchy of Aquitaine surrounded almost the whole
of its north-western border, the house of St.-Gilles felt that it
was no longer possible to resist his claim to overlordship over its
territories. Henry carried his guests back with him to Limoges; there
he settled the dispute between Raymond and Alfonso; and there Raymond
did homage to the two Henrys for Toulouse,[641] promising to do the
like at Whitsuntide to Richard as duke of Aquitaine, and pledging
himself to military service and yearly tribute.[642]
[634] Rob. Torigni _ad ann._
[635] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 36–40.
[636] _Ib._ p. 36.
[637] Rog. Howden (Stubbs, vol. ii. p. 44), in copying from the
_Gesta Hen._ (as above, p. 40) an account of the ratification
of the contract, heads the paragraph “De adventu nunciorum
comitis Mauriensis _in Angliam_.” If he is right, it must have
taken place in April; but he may mean only “to the king of
England.”
[638] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 353.
[639] _Ibid._ _Gesta Hen._ (as above), pp. 35, 36.
[640] This seems to be the meaning of _Gesta Hen._ (as above),
p. 36: “Venerunt etiam illuc ad regem rex Arragoniæ et comes de
S. Ægidio, qui inimici erant ad invicem, et rex duxit eos secum
usque Limoges, et ibi pacem fecit inter eos.”
[641] _Ibid._ Rog. Howden (as above), p. 45. R. Diceto, as
above, says only “fecit homagium regi Anglorum Henrico patri
regis Henrici.” Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 67 (Labbe, _Nova
Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 319), gives the date, the first Sunday
in Lent, February 25.
[642] _Gesta Hen._ as above. “Sed quia Ricardus dux Aquitaniæ,
cui facturus esset homagium comes S. Egidii, præsens non erat,
usque ad octavas Pentecostes negotii complementum dilationem
accepit,” says R. Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. pp. 353, 354). The
_Gesta_ and Rog. Howden make Raymond do homage to the two
Henrys and to Richard all at once. They alone give full details
of the services promised.
The infant heiress of Maurienne was now placed under the care of
her intended father-in-law;[643] Henry’s political schemes seemed
to have all but reached their fulfilment, when suddenly Count
Humbert asked what provision Henry intended to make for the little
landless bridegroom to whom he himself was giving such a well-dowered
bride.[644] That question stirred up a trouble which was never again to
be laid wholly to rest till the child who was its as yet innocent cause
had broken his father’s heart. Henry proposed to endow John with the
castles and territories of Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau.[645] But the
Angevin lands, with which the younger Henry had been formally invested,
could not be dismembered without his consent; and this he angrily
refused.[646] The mere request, however, kindled his smouldering
discontent into a flame[647] which seems to have been fanned rather
than quenched by the suggestions of Eleanor; yet so blind was the
indulgent father that, if we may venture to believe the tale, nothing
but a warning from Raymond of Toulouse opened his eyes to the danger
which threatened him from the plots of his own wife and children. Then,
by Raymond’s advice, he started off at once with a small escort, under
pretence of a hunting-party,[648] and carried his son back towards
Normandy with the utmost possible speed. They reached Chinon about
Mid-Lent; thence young Henry slipped away secretly by night to Alençon;
his father flew after him, but when he reached Alençon on the next
evening the son was already at Argentan; and thence before cock-crow he
fled again over the French border, to the court of his father-in-law
King Louis.[649] Henry in vain sent messengers to recall him: “Your
master is king no longer--here stands the king of the English!” was the
reply of Louis to the envoys.[650]
[643] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 36.
[644] _Ib._ p. 41.
[645] _Ibid._ Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 242, turns these
into “tria castella in Normanniâ.”
[646] _Ibid._
[647] According to Rob. Torigni, a. 1173, the young king was
further offended because his father removed from him some of
his favourite counsellors and friends, Hasculf of St. Hilaire
and some other young knights.
[648] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 67 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. p. 319).
[649] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), pp. 41, 42. R. Diceto (as
above), p. 355. The chronology is here in great confusion. The
_Gesta_ tell us that the two kings reached Chinon just before
Mid-Lent (which in 1173 was on March 16), that young Henry was
next day at Alençon, the day after that at Argentan, and that
on the third night, “circa gallicantum,” he went off again,
“octavâ Idus Martii, feriâ quintâ ante mediam Quadragesimam.”
(In the printed edition by Bishop Stubbs--vol. i. p. 42--the
word _mediam_ has been accidentally omitted; see note to his
edition of R. Diceto, vol. ii. pref. p. xxxvi, note 6). It is
of course impossible to make anything of such a contradiction
as this. On the other hand, R. Diceto gives only one date, that
of the young king’s flight from Argentan, which he places on
March 23. Now in 1173 March 23 was the Friday after Mid-Lent
Sunday. Reckoning backwards from this--_i.e._ from the night of
Thursday-Friday, March 22–23, for it is plain that the flight
took place before daybreak--we should find the young king at
Alençon on Wednesday, March 21, and at Chinon on Tuesday, March
20; that is, four days after Mid-Lent. It looks very much as
if the author or the scribe of the _Gesta_ had written “ante”
instead of “post” twice over.
[650] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 27 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 170).
Henry at once made a circuit of his Norman fortresses, especially those
which lay along the French border, put them in a state of defence, and
issued orders to all his castellans in Anjou, Britanny, Aquitaine and
England, to do the like.[651] Before Lent had closed the old prophecy
which Henry’s enemies were never weary of casting in his teeth was
fulfilled: his own “lion-cubs” were all openly seeking to make him
their prey.[652] Whether sent by their mother, with whom they had
been left behind in Aquitaine, or secretly fetched by their eldest
brother in person,[653] both Richard and Geoffrey now joined him at the
French court.[654] Eleanor herself was caught trying to follow them
disguised as a man, and was by her husband’s order placed in strict
confinement.[655] Louis meanwhile openly espoused the cause of the
rebels; in a great council at Paris he and his nobles publicly swore
to help the young king and his brothers against their father to the
utmost of their power, while the three brothers on their part pledged
themselves to be faithful to Louis, and to make no terms with their
father save through his mediation and with his consent.[656] Young
Henry at once began to purchase allies among the French feudataries
and supporters among the English and Norman barons, by making grants
of pensions and territories on both sides of the sea: grants for which
the recipients did him homage and fealty,[657] and which he caused to
be put in writing and sealed with a new seal made for him by order of
Louis[658]--his own chancellor, Richard Barre, having loyally carried
back the original one to the elder king who had first intrusted it to
his keeping.[659]
[651] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 42.
[652] See the quotation from Merlin’s prophecy, and the comment
on it, _ib._ pp. 42, 43.
[653] The first is the version of the _Gesta Hen._ (as above);
the second that of Will. Newb. (as above, pp. 170, 171).
[654] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 42. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol.
i. p. 355. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 242.
[655] Gerv. Cant. as above. He adds a comment: “Erat enim
prudens femina valde, nobilibus orta natalibus, sed instabilis.”
[656] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 44.
[657] See the list, _ib._ pp. 44, 45; and cf. Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 243.
[658] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), pp. 43 and 45.
[659] _Ib._ p. 43.
Nearly three months passed away before war actually broke out; but
when the outburst came, the list of those who were engaged in it shews
that the whole Angevin empire had become a vast hotbed of treason;
though, on the other hand, it shews also that the treason was almost
entirely confined to one especial class. Its local distribution, too,
is significant. The restless barons of Aquitaine, still smarting
under their defeat of 1169, were but too eager, at the instigation of
their duchess and their newly-crowned duke, to renew their struggle
against the king. Foremost among them were, as before, the count of
Angoulême,[660] the nobles of Saintonge, and Geoffrey of Lusignan,
beside whom there stood this time his young brother Guy, now to begin
in this ignoble strife a career destined to strange vicissitudes in
far-off Palestine.[661] The heart of the old Angevin lands, Anjou
itself, was in the main loyal; we find there the names of only five
traitors; and three of these, Hugh, William and Jocelyn of Ste.-Maure,
came of a rebellious house, and were only doing over again what their
predecessors had done in the days of Geoffrey Plantagenet’s youth.[662]
The same may be said of Henry’s native land, Maine; this too furnished
only seven barons to the traitor’s cause; and five of these again
are easily accounted for. It was almost matter of course that in
any rising against an Angevin count the lord of Sablé should stand
side by side with the lord of Ste.-Maure. Brachard of Lavardin had a
fellow-feeling with undutiful sons, for he was himself at strife with
his own father, Count John of Vendôme, a faithful ally of Henry II.;
the same was probably the case of Brachard’s brother Guy.[663] Bernard
of La Ferté represented a family whose position in their great castle
on the Huisne, close to the Norman border, was almost as independent
as that of their neighbours the lords of Bellême, just across the
frontier. Hugh of Sillé bore a name which in an earlier stage of
Cenomannian history--in the days of the “commune,” just a hundred years
before--had been almost a by-word for feudal arrogance; and whether or
not he inherited anything of his ancestor’s spirit, he had a personal
cause for enmity to the king if, as is probable, he was akin to a
certain Robert of Sillé, whose share in the southern revolt of 1169 was
punished by Henry, in defiance of treaties, with an imprisonment so
strict and cruel that it was speedily ended by death.[664]
[660] _Ib._ p. 47.
[661] _Ib._ p. 46. The other Aquitanian rebels, besides the
count of Angoulême and the two Lusignans, were Geoffrey of
Rancogne, the lords of Coulonges and Rochefort in Saintonge,
of Blaye (“Robertus de Ble”--this might possibly be Blet in
Berry) and Mauléon in Gascony, and of Chauvigny in Poitou, with
Archbishop William of Bordeaux and Abbot Richard of Tournay
(_ib._ pp. 46, 47); to whom we may add Ralf of Faye.
[662] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 46, 47. The other
Angevin rebels are Vivian and Peter of Montrévault: to whom may
be added John of Lignières and Geoffrey of La Haye in Touraine.
_Ibid._ p. 46.
[663] _Ib._ pp. 47, 63.
[664] “Robertum de Selit quâdam occasione captum rex Henricus
crudeliter ferro indutum, pane arcto atque aquâ breve cibavit
donec defecit.” Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 66 (Labbe, _Nova
Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 318). “Robertus de Silliaco redeat in
mentem ... quem nec pacis osculum publice datum, nec fides
corporaliter regi Francorum præstita, fecit esse securum.” Ep.
dcx., Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. p. 178. Cf. Epp. dcvi.,
dcxliv., _ib._ pp. 165, 247. The other Cenomannian rebels are
Gwenis of Palluau and Geoffrey of Brulon; _Gesta Hen._ (as
above), p. 46.
Across the western border of Maine, in Geoffrey’s duchy, Ralf of
Fougères was once more at the head of a band of discontented Breton
nobles, chiefly, it seems, belonging to that old seed-plot of
disturbance, the county of Nantes.[665] The true centre and focus
of revolt, however, was as of old the duchy of Normandy. Almost all
the great names which have been conspicuous in the earlier risings of
the feudal baronage against the repressive policy of William and of
Henry I. re-appear among the partizans of the young king. The house of
Montfort on the Rille was represented by that Robert of Montfort[666]
whose challenge to Henry of Essex ten years before had deprived the
king of one of his most trusty servants. The other and more famous
house of Montfort--the house of Almeric and of Bertrada--was also,
now as ever, in opposition in the person of its head, Count Simon of
Evreux.[667] He, like his fellow-traitor the count of Eu,[668] to whom,
as after-events shewed, may be added the count of Aumale, represented
one of those junior branches of the Norman ducal house which always
resented most bitterly the determination of the dukes to concentrate
all political power in their own hands. The counts of Ponthieu[669]
and of Alençon[670] inherited the spirit as well as the territories of
Robert of Bellême. Count Robert of Meulan[671] was the son of Waleran
who in 1123 had rebelled against Henry I., and the head of the Norman
branch of the great house of Beaumont, which for more than half a
century had stood in the foremost rank of the baronage on both sides of
the sea. The chief of the English Beaumonts was his cousin and namesake
of Leicester, soon to prove himself an unworthy son of the faithful
justiciar who had died in 1168; while the countess of Leicester, a
woman of a spirit quite as determined and masculine as her husband’s,
was the heiress of the proud old Norman house of Grandmesnil[672]--a
granddaughter of that Ivo of Grandmesnil who had been banished by Henry
I. for trying to bring into England the Norman practice of private
warfare. Of the other English rebels, Hugh of Chester[673] was a son
of the fickle Ralf, and had at stake besides his palatine earldom in
England his hereditary viscounties of Bayeux and Avranches on the other
side of the Channel. Hugh Bigod, the aged earl of Norfolk, untaught
by his experiences of feudal anarchy in Stephen’s day and undeterred
by his humiliation in 1157, was ready to break his faith again for
a paltry bribe offered him by the young king.[674] Earl Robert of
Ferrers, Hamo de Massey, Richard de Morville, and the whole remnant
of the great race of Mowbray--Geoffrey of Coutances, Roger de Mowbray
and his two sons--were all men whose grandfathers had “come over with
the Conqueror,” and determined to fight to the uttermost for their
share in the spoils of the conquest. All these men were, by training
and sympathy, if not actually by their own personal and territorial
interests, more Norman than English; and the same may probably be said
of the rebels of the second rank, among whom, beside the purely Norman
lords of Anneville and Lessay in the Cotentin, of St.-Hilaire on the
Breton frontier, of Falaise, Dives, La Haye and Orbec in Calvados, of
Tillières, Ivry and Gaillon along the French border, we find the names
of Ralf of Chesney, Gerald Talbot, Jordan Ridel, Thomas de Muschamp,
Saher de Quincy the younger, Simon of Marsh, Geoffrey Fitz-Hamon, and
Jocelyn Crispin, besides one which in after-days was to gain far other
renown--William the Marshal.[675]
[665] Hardwin of Fougerai, Robert of Tréguier, Gwiounon of
Ancenis, Joibert of La Guerche; _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i.
pp. 46, 47. To these we afterwards find added several others;
_ib._ pp. 57, 58.
[666] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 45.
[667] _Ib._ p. 47.
[668] _Ib._ p. 45.
[669] _Ibid._
[670] Called simply “William Talvas” in the _Gesta Hen._
(as above), p. 46, and “John count of Sonnois” by R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 371. John was his real name.
[671] _Gesta Hen._ and R. Diceto, as above.
[672] Rob. Torigni, a. 1168.
[673] R. Diceto, as above.
[674] Young Henry promised him, and received his homage for,
the hereditary constableship of Norwich castle; _Gesta Hen._
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 45. This writer adds the honour of Eye;
Rog. Howden, however (Stubbs, vol. ii. p. 46), says this was
granted to Matthew of Boulogne.
[675] All these names are given in the list of the young
king’s partizans in _Gesta Hen._ (as above), pp. 45–48. The
remaining names are: William de Tancarville the chamberlain
of Normandy, of whom more presently; Eudo, William, Robert,
Oliver and Roland Fitz-Erneis (see _Liber Niger_, Hearne,
pp. 142, 295, and Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 186 and 251);
Robert of Angerville (he seems to have been the young king’s
steward or seneschal--see quotations from Pipe Roll a. 1172
in Eyton, as above, pp. 166, 167, 168); Solomon Hostiarius
(probably also an attendant of young Henry); Gilbert and Ralf
of Aumale: “Willelmus Patricius senior” (he appears in Pipe
Rolls 3 Hen. II., Hunter, p. 81, 4 Hen. II., p. 118--Berks
and Wilts); William Fitz-Roger (Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II., p.
172, Hants); Robert “de Lundres” (is this some mighty London
citizen?); Peter of St.-Julien (may be either St.-Julien in
Gascony, in eastern Touraine, or in the county of Nantes); Hugh
“de Mota” (La Mothe on the lower Garonne, La Motte Archard in
the county of Nantes, or La Motte de Ger in Normandy); Robert
of Mortagne (possibly the Norman Mortagne, possibly a place of
the same name in Anjou close to the Poitevin border); William
of “Tibovilla” (probably Thiberville in the county and diocese
of Lisieux); John and Osbert “de Praellis” (possibly Pradelles
in Auvergne, more likely Préaux in Normandy); Almeric Turel,
Robert Bussun, Guy of Curtiran, Fulk Ribule, Adam de Ikobo,
Robert Gerebert, William Hagullun, Baldric of Baudemont,
Geoffrey Chouet, “Bucherius,” and William de Oveneia, whom I
cannot identify.
One other rebel there was who stood indeed on a different footing from
all the rest, and whose defection had a wider political significance.
The king of Scots--William the Lion, brother and successor of Malcolm
IV.--had long been suspected of a secret alliance with France against
his English cousin and overlord. The younger Henry now offered him
the cession of all Northumberland as far as the Tyne for himself, and
for his brother David confirmation in the earldom of Huntingdon,[676]
with a grant of the earldom of Cambridge in addition, in return for
the homage and services of both brothers:--offers which the king of
Scots accepted.[677] Only three prelates, on either side of the sea,
shewed any disposition to countenance the rebellion; in the south,
William, the new-made archbishop of Bordeaux;[678] in the north, Arnulf
of Lisieux[679] and Hugh of Durham. Arnulf’s influence at court had
long been on the wane; all his diplomacy had failed, as far as his
personal interest with King Henry was concerned; but he possessed the
temporal as well as the spiritual lordship of his see; and the man’s
true character now shewed itself at last, justifying all Henry’s
suspicions, in an attempt to play the part of a great baron rather
than of a bishop--to use his diplomatic gifts in temporizing between
the two parties, instead of seeking to make peace between them or
to keep his straying flock in the path of loyalty as a true pastor
should. He did but imitate on a smaller scale and under less favourable
conditions the example set by Hugh of Puiset in his palatine bishopric
of Durham, where he had been throughout his career simply a great
temporal ruler, whose ecclesiastical character only served to render
almost unassailable the independence of his political position. It
was the pride of the feudal noble, not the personal sympathies of the
churchman, that stirred up both Hugh and Arnulf to their intrigues
against Henry. Personal sympathies indeed had as yet little share
in drawing any of the barons to the side of the boy-king. What they
saw in his claims was simply a pretext and a watchword which might
serve them to unite against his father. Young Henry himself evidently
relied chiefly on his foreign allies--his father-in-law, the counts
of Flanders and Boulogne, and the count of Blois, the last of whom
was bribed by a promise of an annual pension and the restitution of
Château-Renaud and Amboise; while to Philip of Flanders was promised
the earldom of Kent with a pension in English gold, and to Matthew
of Boulogne the soke of Kirton-in-Lindsey and the Norman county of
Mortain.[680]
[676] To which, as will be seen later, there was a rival
claimant who adhered to Henry II.
[677] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 45. Jordan Fantosme,
vv. 268, 269 (Michel, p. 14) adds Carlisle and Westmoreland
to the young king’s offers, and relates at great length how
William hesitated before accepting them, how he sent envoys
to the elder king begging for a new cession of Northumberland
from him, and only upon Henry’s defiant refusal, and after long
debate with his own barons, entered upon the war. _Ib._ vv.
372–426 (pp. 14–22).
[678] “Willelmus archiepiscopus.” _Gesta Hen._ (as above),
p. 47. This can be no one else than William, formerly abbot
of Reading, appointed to Bordeaux in February 1173; Geoff.
Vigeois, l. i. c. 67 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p.
319); but I find no further account of his political doings.
[679] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 51, note 4.
[680] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 44, 45. Roger of
Howden, as has been said above (p. 139, note 1), adds the
honour of Eye to Matthew’s intended possessions.
The first hostile movement was made directly after Easter by a body of
Flemings who crossed the Seine at Pacy; but they had no sooner touched
Norman soil than they were driven back by the people of the town, and
were nearly all drowned in attempting to recross the river.[681] Henry
meanwhile, after spending Easter at Alençon,[682] had established
his head-quarters at Rouen, where he remained till the end of June,
apparently indifferent to the plots that were hatching around him,
and entirely absorbed in the pleasures of the chase.[683] In reality
however he was transacting a good deal of quiet business, filling
up vacant sees in England;[684] appointing a new chancellor, Ralf
of Varneville, to the office which had been in commission--that is,
virtually, in the hands of Geoffrey Ridel--ever since S. Thomas had
resigned it ten years before;[685] and writing to all his continental
allies to enlist their sympathies and if possible their support in
the coming struggle.[686] One of them at least, his future son-in-law
William of Sicily, returned an answer full of hearty sympathy;[687]
neither he nor his fellow-kings, however, had anything more substantial
to give. The only support upon which Henry could really depend was that
of a troop of twenty thousand Brabantine mercenaries, who served him
indeed bravely and loyally, but by no means for nothing;[688] and if
we may trust a writer who, although remote from the present scene of
action, seems to have had a more intimate acquaintance than most of
his fellow-historians with all matters connected with the Brabantines,
Henry’s finances were already so exhausted that he was obliged to give
the sword of state used at his coronation in pledge to these men as
security for the wages which he was unable to pay them.[689] Yet he
could trust no one else in Normandy; and as yet he scarcely knew his
own resources in England.
[681] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 367. He says they were
drowned because the bridge was “a quâdam mulierculâ effractus.”
[682] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 45.
[683] “Rex pater eo tempore morabatur Rothomagi, ut populo
videbatur æquo animo ferens quæ fiebant in terrâ; frequentius
solito venatui totus indulgens” [see extracts from Pipe Roll
1173 illustrating this, in Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 173];
“venientibus ad se vultum hylaritatis prætendens, aliquid
extorquere volentibus patienter respondens.” R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 373, 374. Cf. Jordan Fantosme, vv. 118,
119 (Michel, p. 6).
[684] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 366–368. Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 243, 245.
[685] R. Diceto (as above), p. 367.
[686] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 47. He says Henry wrote
“_imperatoribus_ et regibus,” which we must take to include the
Eastern Emperor.
[687] Letter in _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 55, note 2;
Rog. Howden (as above), p. 48.
[688] Rog. Howden (as above), p. 47. Cf. Will. Newb., l. ii. c.
27 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 172). The latter does not mention their
number; Jordan Fantosme, v. 67 (Michel, p. 4) makes it only ten
thousand; the _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 51, says “plus quam
decem millia.”
[689] I suppose this to be the meaning of Geoff. Vigeois, l.
i. c. 67 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 319): “Adeo Rex
multis thesauris exhaustis nauseatus est, ut Brabantionibus
qui ei parebant pro mercede Spatham regiæ coronæ in gagium
mitteret.”
Early in June Robert of Leicester and William of Tancarville, the
high-chamberlain of Normandy, sought license from the justiciars in
London to join the king at Rouen. Immediately on landing, however,
they hastened not to Henry II., but to his son.[690] The justiciar
himself, Richard de Lucy, was in such anxiety that he seems to have
had some thoughts of going in person to consult with the king.[691]
The consultation however was to be held not in Normandy but in
England. In the last days of June or the first days of July, while
the counts of Flanders and Boulogne were easily overcoming the mock
resistance of Aumale and Driencourt, and Louis of France was laying
siege to Verneuil,[692] Henry suddenly crossed the sea, made his way
as far inland as Northampton, where he stayed four days, collected his
treasure and his adherents, issued his instructions for action against
the rebels, and was back again at Rouen so quickly that neither friends
nor foes seem ever to have discovered his absence.[693]
[690] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 370. He gives no date; but
it must have been quite in the beginning of June, for Mr. Eyton
says (_Itin. Hen. II._, p. 172, note 5): “The Dorset Pipe Roll
of Michaelmas 1173 shews that the Earl of Leicester’s manor of
Kingston (now Kingston Lacy) had been confiscated four months
previously (Hutchins, iii. 233).”
[691] “Et in liberacione ix navium quæ debuerunt transfretare
cum Ricardo de Luci, et Ricardo Pictaviæ archidiacono, et
Gaufrido Cantuariensi archidiacono et aliis baronibus, precepto
Regis £13: 15s. per breve Ricardi de Luci.” Pipe Roll a. 1173
(Southampton), quoted by Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 174.
See Mr. Eyton’s comment, _ib._ note 4, which points to the
conclusion that the ships made the voyage--doubtless with the
other passengers--but that Richard “probably thought it wise to
adhere to his post of viceroy.”
[692] R. Diceto (as above), pp. 373, 374. _Gesta Hen._
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 49. Rob. Torigni, a. 1173.
[693] “Et item in liberacione Esnaccæ quando transfretavit
in Normanniam contra Regem £7: 10s. per breve Regis. Et in
liberacione xx. hominum qui fuerunt missi de cremento in
Esnacchâ 40s. per breve Regis. Et in liberacione iv. navium
quæ transfretaverunt cum Esnacchiâ £7: 10s. per idem breve.
Et pro locandis carretis ad reportandum thesaurum de Hantoniâ
ad Wintoniam duabus vicibus 9s. Et pro unâ carretâ locandâ
ad portandas Bulgas Regis ad Winton. 9d.” Pipe Roll a. 1173
(Southampton), quoted in Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 173. “Et
in corredio Regis apud Norhanton per iv dies £32: 6: 5 per
breve Regis.” Northampton, _ibid._ “Et in soltis per breve
Regis ipsi vicecomiti [of Northamptonshire] £72: 11: 9, pro
robbâ quam invenit Regi.” _Ibid._ On the Southampton entries
Mr. Eyton remarks: “The above charges, from their position on
the roll, would seem to have been incurred after July 15.”
But surely if Henry had been in England during the siege of
Leicester, which lasted from July 3 to July 28, we must have
had some mention of his presence; and there is scarcely time
for it later, between the capture of Leicester and his own
expedition to Conches on August 7. Is it not much more natural
to conclude that the visit took place earlier--at the end of
June--and that the orders for the Leicester expedition, which
Rog. Wend. (Coxe, vol. ii. p. 372) expressly says were given
by the king, were issued to Richard de Lucy in a personal
interview?
Hurried, however, as was the king’s visit to England, it did its work
in bracing up the energies and determining the action of the vassals
who were faithful to him there. In personal and territorial importance
indeed these were very unequally matched with the rebels. The fidelity
of the Welsh princes, David Ap-Owen and Rees Ap-Griffith,[694] could
not balance the hostility of the King of Scots. Among the loyal English
barons, the most conspicuous were a group of the king’s immediate
kinsmen, none of whom however ranked high among the descendants of the
ducal house of Normandy:--his half-brother Earl Hameline of Warren,
his uncle Reginald of Cornwall, his cousin William of Gloucester;[695]
besides Earl William of Arundel the husband of his grandfather’s widow
Queen Adeliza, his son William, and his kinsman Richard of Aubigny. The
earl of Essex, William de Mandeville, was a son of that Geoffrey de
Mandeville who had accepted the earldom of Essex from both Stephen and
Matilda, and who had been one of the worst evil-doers in the civil war;
but the son was as loyal as the father was faithless; he seems indeed
to have been a close personal friend of the king, and to have well
deserved his friendship.[696] The loyalty of Earl Simon of Northampton
may have been quickened by his rivalry with David of Scotland for the
earldom of Huntingdon. That of William of Salisbury was an inheritance
from his father, Earl Patrick, who had earned his title by his services
to the Empress, and had fallen honourably at his post of governor of
Aquitaine in the rising of 1168. The loyal barons of lesser degree are
chiefly representatives of the class which half a century before had
been known as the “new men”--men who had risen by virtue of their
services in the work of the administration, either under Henry himself
or under his grandfather. Such were the justiciar Richard de Lucy
and the constable Humfrey de Bohun; William de Vesci, son of Eustace
Fitz-John, and like his father a mighty man in the north; his nephew
John, constable of Chester;--the whole house of Stuteville, with Robert
de Stuteville the sheriff of Yorkshire at its head;[697]--and Ralf
de Glanville,[698] sheriff of Lancashire, custodian of the honour of
Richmond,[699] and destined in a few years to wider fame as the worthy
successor of Richard de Lucy. The Glanvilles, the Stutevilles and the
de Vescis now wielded in Yorkshire as the king’s representatives the
influence which had been usurped there by William of Aumale before his
expulsion from Holderness; while in Northumberland a considerable share
of the power formerly exercised by the rebellious house of Mowbray had
passed to servants of the Crown such as Odelin de Umfraville[700] and
Bernard de Bailleul,[701] whose name in its English form of Balliol
became in after-times closely associated with that borne by two other
loyal northern barons--Robert and Adam de Bruce.[702] To the same class
of “new men” belonged Geoffrey Trussebut, Everard de Ros, Guy de Vere,
Bertram de Verdon, Philip de Kime and his brother Simon.[703]
[694] In _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 51, note 4, the
names are given as “David et Evayn reges Walliæ”--a blunder
probably caused by the writer’s greater familiarity with David,
owing to his later family alliance with the English king. In
the present war, however, Rees proved the more active ally of
the two, as we shall see later.
[695] It will however appear later that Gloucester’s fidelity
was somewhat doubtful.
[696] William de Mandeville is constantly found, throughout his
life, in the king’s immediate company. See Eyton, _Itin. Hen.
II. passim._
[697] All these names are in the list in the _Gesta Hen._
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 51, note 4.
[698] _Ib._ p. 65. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 60. Will.
Newb., l. ii. c. 33 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 184).
[699] Escheated on the death of Duke Conan of Britanny.
[700] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 51, note 4, 66.
[701] _Ib._ pp. 65, 66. Will. Newb. as above.
[702] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 51, note 4.
[703] _Ibid._ The Trussebuts, de Roses and de Veres appear
under Henry I. Bertram de Verdon and Philip de Kime were
employed in the Curia Regis and Exchequer under Henry II.; see
Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 185, 76, 130, etc. Another name
among the loyalists in the _Gesta Hen._ (as above)--that of
Richard Louvetot--seems to have got in by mistake; cf. _ib._ p.
57, where he appears among the rebels at Dol.
Some half-dozen of the king’s English adherents--William of Essex,
William of Arundel, Robert de Stuteville and the elder Saher de Quincy,
besides two who had lately come over from Ireland, Richard of Striguil
and Hugh de Lacy--either returned with him to Rouen or had joined him
there already,[704] thus helping to swell the little group of loyalists
who surrounded him in Normandy. That group contained no Norman baron
of the first rank, and consisted only of a few personal friends and
ministers:--Richard of Hommet the constable of the duchy, with all his
sons and brothers;[705] William de Courcy the seneschal;[706] Richard
Fitz-Count, the king’s cousin;[707] Hugh de Beauchamp[708] and Henry of
Neubourg,[709] sons of the loyal house of Beauchamp which in England
looked to the earl of Warwick as its head; Richard de Vernon and Jordan
Tesson;[710]--while two faithful members of the older Norman nobility,
Hugh of Gournay and his son, had already fallen prisoners into the
hands of the young king.[711] It was in truth Henry’s continental
dominions which most needed his presence and that of all the forces
which he could muster; for the two chief English rebels, the earls of
Leicester and Chester, were both beyond the Channel, and their absence
enabled the king’s representatives to strike the first blow before the
revolt had time to break forth in England at all. On July 3 the town of
Leicester was besieged by Richard de Lucy and Earl Reginald of Cornwall
at the head of “the host of England.”[712] After a three weeks’ siege
and a vast expenditure of money and labour,[713] the town was fired,
and on July 28 it surrendered.[714] The castle still held out, its
garrison accepting a truce until Michaelmas; the gates and walls of the
city were at once thrown down; the citizens were suffered to go out
free on payment of a fine of three hundred marks;[715] but it was only
by taking sanctuary in the great abbeys of S. Alban or S. Edmund that
their leaders could feel secure against the vengeance of the king.[716]
[704] Essex and Arundel had both been with him since the very
beginning of the year, for they witnessed the marriage-contract
of John and Alice of Maurienne; _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i.
p. 39. Robert de Stuteville and Saher de Quincy seem to have
been with him in the summer of 1173 (Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._,
p. 174). Hugh de Lacy was at Verneuil, defending it for the
king in July (_Gesta Hen._, vol. i. p. 49); and Richard of
Striguil was of the party which went to its relief in August
(R. Diceto, Stubbs, vol. i. p. 375).
[705] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 51, note 4.
[706] _Ib._ p. 39. Cf. Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 170, 177.
[707] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 51.
[708] _Ib._ p. 49.
[709] _Ib._ p. 52.
[710] _Ib._ pp. 51, 52.
[711] Hugh of Gournay and his son, with eighty knights, fell
into the young king’s hands, “non tam inimicorum virtuti quam
insidiis intercepti,” quite early in the war; R. Diceto (as
above), p. 369.
[712] “Cum exercitu Angliæ,” _i.e._ the national not the feudal
host. _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 58. The date comes from R.
Diceto (as above), p. 376.
[713] See some illustrations in the Pipe Roll of 1173, as
quoted by Eyton (as above), p. 175.
[714] R. Diceto (as above), p. 376. He seems to make the fire
accidental, and the surrender a consequence of it. In the
_Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 58, the victors seem to fire
the town after they have captured it.
[715] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 376.
[716] Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 289.
Three days before the capture of Leicester, an arrow shot by one
of Henry’s Brabantine cross-bowmen gave Matthew of Boulogne his
death-wound, and thereby caused the break-up of the Flemish expedition
against Normandy.[717] A fortnight later Henry set out at the head of
all his available forces to the relief of Verneuil, which Hugh de Lacy
and Hugh de Beauchamp were defending against the king of France. By a
double treachery Louis, under cover of a truce, gained possession of
the town, set it on fire, and retreated into his own domains before
Henry could overtake him.[718] Henry marched back to Rouen, taking
Gilbert of Tillières’s castle of Damville on the way,[719] and thence
despatched his Brabantines to check the plundering operations which
Hugh of Chester and Ralf of Fougères were carrying on unhindered
throughout the border district which lay between Fougères and
Avranches. The interception of an important convoy and the slaughter of
its escort by the Brabantines drove the rebel leaders to retire into
the fortress of Dol. Here they were blockaded by the Brabantines,
backed by the populace of the district of Avranches,[720] who clearly
had no sympathy with the treason of their viscount. The siege began
on August 20; on the morrow Henry received tidings of it at Rouen; on
the 23d he appeared in the midst of his soldiers; and on the 26th Dol
and its garrison, with Ralf of Fougères and Hugh of Chester at their
head, surrendered into his hands.[721] This blow crushed the Breton
revolt; the rest of the duchy submitted at once.[722] Louis of France
was so impressed by Henry’s success that he began to make overtures
for negotiation, while Henry was holding his court in triumph at Le
Mans. Shortly before Michaelmas a meeting took place near Gisors; Henry
shewed the utmost anxiety to be reconciled with his sons, offering
them literally the half of his realms in wealth and honours, and
declaring his willingness virtually to strip himself of everything
except his regal powers of government and justice.[723] That, however,
was precisely the reservation against which the French king and the
disaffected barons were both alike determined to fight as Henry himself
had fought against S. Thomas’s reservation of the rights of his order.
The terms were therefore refused, and the earl of Leicester in his
baffled rage not only loaded his sovereign with abuse, but actually
drew his sword to strike him. This outrage of course broke up the
meeting.[724] Leicester hurried through Flanders, collecting troops
as he went, to Wissant, whence he sailed for England on Michaelmas
day.[725] Landing at Walton in Suffolk, he made his way to Hugh
Bigod’s castle of Framlingham; here the two earls joined their forces;
and they presently took and burned the castle of Haughley, which Ralf
de Broc held against them for the king.[726]
[717] R. Diceto as above, p. 373. He alone gives the date,
attributes the wound to a shot “a quodam marchione,” and places
the scene on the invaders’ march from Driencourt to Arques. The
_Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 49, Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
246, and Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 28 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 173)
make it occur during the siege of Driencourt (William calls it
by its more modern name, “Neufchâtel”), but as the former has
told us that this siege began about July 6 and was ended within
a fortnight, this is irreconcileable with the date given by R.
Diceto. Gervase says Matthew was shot “a quodam arcubalistâ.”
[718] See the details of the story, and the disgraceful conduct
of Louis, in _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 51–54; Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 50; R. Diceto as above, p. 375; and
another version in Will. Newb. as above (pp. 174, 175).
[719] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 56.
[720] Rob. Torigni, a. 1173. “Itaque obsessa est turris Doli a
Brebenzonibus et militibus regis et plebe Abrincatinâ.”
[721] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 378; _Gesta Hen._
(Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 57, 58; Rob. Torigni, a. 1173; Will.
Newb. l. ii. c. 29 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 176). The _Gesta Hen._
gives the date, and a list of the captured. According to Rob.
Torigni, Ralf of Fougères escaped to the woods, and his two
sons were taken as hostages. The Chron. S. Albin. a. 1173
(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 42), says he was taken, together
with Hugh (whom the Angevin monk transforms into “comitem
Sceptrensem”) and a hundred knights.
[722] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 52.
[723] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 59. Rog. Howden as above, p. 53.
[724] Rog. Howden as above, p. 54.
[725] R. Diceto as above, p. 377. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol.
i. p. 246, and _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 60, say he came
over about S. Luke’s day; but this is irreconcileable with
R. Diceto’s careful and minute chronology of the subsequent
campaign. R. Niger (Anstruther), p. 175, says “in vigiliâ S.
Mauricii,” _i.e._ September 20.
[726] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 60, 61, with an
impossible date; see _ib._ p. 60, note 12. Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 246. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 377,
gives the correct date of the capture of Haughley, October 13.
[Illustration: Map IV.
Map to Illustrate the REBELLION of 1173–1174.
_Royal Strongholds underlined thus: Alnwick._
Rebel Stronholds:
(S) _Scottish_.
(H D) _Hugh of Durham_.
(M) _Mowbrays_.
(H B) _Hugh Bigod_.
(H C) _Hugh of Chester_.
(H M) _Hamo de Massey_.
(R M) _Richard de Morville_.
(R L) _Robert of Leicester_.
(R F) _Robert of Ferrers_.
Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co.
]
At the moment of Leicester’s arrival the representatives of the king
were far away on the Scottish border. At the close of the summer
William of Scotland had gathered his motley host of Lowland knights and
wild Galloway Highlanders, marched unhindered through the territories
of the see of Durham, and was just beginning to ravage Yorkshire
after the manner of his forefathers when Richard de Lucy and Humfrey
de Bohun hastily reassembled their forces and marched against him
with such promptitude and vigour that he was compelled to retreat not
merely into Lothian but into the safer shelter of the Celtic Scotland
beyond it. The English host overran Lothian,[727] and had just given
Berwick to the flames when tidings reached them of Earl Robert’s
doings in Suffolk. The king of Scots was begging for a truce; the
English leaders readily consented, that they might hurry back to their
duties in the south.[728] Richard de Lucy returned to his post of
viceroy, and the supreme military command was left to the constable
Humfrey de Bohun, assisted by the earls of Cornwall and Gloucester
and by Earl William of Arundel,[729] who had now come to give the
help of his sword in England as he had already given it in Normandy.
The constable and the three earls, with three hundred paid soldiers
of the king, posted themselves at S. Edmund’s, ready to intercept
Earl Robert on his way from Framlingham to join the garrison of
Leicester.[730] He made a circuit to the northward to avoid them, but
in vain. They marched forth from S. Edmund’s beneath the banner of its
patron saint, the famous East-Anglian king and martyr, overtook the
earl in a marsh near the church of S. Geneviève at Fornham,[731] and
in spite of overwhelming odds defeated him completely. His Flemish
mercenaries, who had gone forth in their insolent pride singing “Hop,
hop, Wilekin! England is mine and thine,”[732] were cut to pieces not
so much by the royal troops as by the peasantry of the district, who
flocked to the battle-field armed with forks and flails, with which
they either despatched them at once or drove them to suffocation
in the ditches.[733] His French and Norman knights were all made
prisoners;[734] he himself took to flight, but was overtaken and
captured;[735] and his wife, who had accompanied him throughout his
enterprise, was made captive with him.[736] The victors followed up
their success by posting bodies of troops at S. Edmund’s, Ipswich
and Colchester, hoping that Hugh Bigod, thus confined within his own
earldom, would be unable to provide for the large force of Flemish
mercenaries still quartered in his various castles, and that these
would be starved into surrender. The approach of winter however
disposed both parties for a compromise; a truce was arranged to last
till the octave of Pentecost, Hugh consenting to dismiss his Flemings,
who were furnished with a safe-conduct through Essex and Kent and with
ships to transport them from Dover back to their own land.[737]
[727] R. Diceto as above, p. 376. Cf. _Gesta Hen._ as above, p.
61.
[728] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 61. R. Diceto as above, p.
376. Jordan Fantosme, vv. 478–838 (Michel, pp. 22–38), has a
long account of this first Scottish invasion, but it is far
from clear, and some parts of it, _e.g._ the statement that
Warkworth was taken by the Scots, seem incompatible with
after-events.
[729] _Gesta Hen._ as above.
[730] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 377. _Gesta Hen._
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 61. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 54.
[731] _Gesta Hen._ as above. Rog. Howden (as above), p. 55. The
date, according to R. Diceto (as above, p. 378) is October 17;
the _Gesta_ (as above, p. 62) make it October 16.
[732] Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. i. p. 381.
“Hoppe, hoppe, Wilekin, hoppe, Wilekin, Engelond is min ant
tin.”
[733] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1086–1091 (Michel, p. 50).
[734] R. Diceto as above, pp. 377, 378. _Gesta Hen._ as above,
pp. 61, 62. Rog. Howden as above, p. 55. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 246. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 30 (Howlett, vol. i.
p. 179). The number of Robert’s Flemish troops is surely
exaggerated by all these writers; still, even at the lowest
computation, the odds seem to have been, as R. Diceto says, at
least four to one.
[735] Gerv. Cant. as above.
[736] Will. Newb. as above. R. Diceto as above, p. 378. She
had been with her husband in France, and returned with him
to England; _ib._ p. 377. According to Jordan Fantosme, vv.
980–992 (Michel, p. 46), it was she who urged him to the march
which led to his ruin, in defiance of his own dread of the
royal forces. See also in Jordan, vv. 1070–1077 (Michel, p.
50) the story of her trying to drown herself in a ditch to
avoid being captured; and that in Mat. Paris, as above, of her
throwing away her ring. This latter seems to be only another
version of Jordan’s; cf. his v. 1072.
[737] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 378. He gives the number
of these Flemings as fourteen hundred.
The earl and countess of Leicester were sent over to Normandy by the
king’s orders, there to be shut up in company with Hugh of Chester in
prison at Falaise.[738] Their capture filled the French king and the
rebel princes with dismay, and none of them dared to venture upon any
opposition against Henry when at Martinmas he led his Brabantines into
Touraine, forced some of its rebellious barons into submission,[739]
reinstated his ally Count John of Vendôme in his capital from which
he had been expelled by his own son,[740] and returned to keep the
Christmas feast at Caen.[741] An attack upon Séez, made at the opening
of the new year by the young king and the counts of Blois, Perche and
Alençon, was repulsed by the townsfolk,[742] and led only to a truce
which lasted till the end of March.[743] The truce made by Richard de
Lucy with the king of Scots was prolonged to the same date--the octave
of Easter--by the diplomacy of Bishop Hugh of Durham, who took upon
himself to purchase this delay, apparently without authority and for
his own private ends, by a promise of three hundred marks of silver
to be paid to the Scot king out of the lands of the Northumbrian
barons.[744]
[738] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 62. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 55. See also quotations from Pipe Roll a.
1173 on this matter, in Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 177.
[739] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 62, 63. The chief rebels were
Geoffrey of La Haye--apparently that same La Haye which had
formed part of the dower-lands of the first countess of Anjou,
and is known now as La Haye Descartes--and Robert of “Ble” (see
above, p. 136, note 6{661}) who held Preuilly and Champigny. A
list of the garrisons of these castles is given; two names are
worth noting--“Hugo le Danais” and “Rodbertus Anglicus.”
[740] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 63.
[741] _Ibid._ Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 246. According
to Rob. Torigni, however (a. 1174--i.e. 1173 in our reckoning)
he kept it at Bures.
[742] R. Diceto as above, p. 379.
[743] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 63, 64.
[744] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 64. King and bishop met
in person at “Revedale”--or, as Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii.
pp. 56, 57, says, “in confinio regnorum Angliæ et Scotiæ apud
Revedene.”
The issue proved that Hugh’s real object was simply to gain time for
the organization of a general rising in the north; and in this object
he succeeded. The old isolation of Yorkshire was not yet a thing of
the past; and its few lines of communication with southern England
were now all blocked, at some point or other, by some stronghold of
rebellion. Earl Hugh’s Chester, Hamo de Massey’s Dunham[745] and
Geoffrey of Coutances’ Stockport commanded the waters of the Dee and
the Mersey. South of the Peak, in the upper valley of the Trent, the
earl of Ferrers held Tutbury and Duffield; further to south-east, on
the opposite border of Charnwood Forest, lay the earl of Leicester’s
capital and his castles of Groby and Mount Sorrel.[746] By the time
that the truce expired Roger de Mowbray had renewed the fortifications
of Kinardferry in the Isle of Axholm,[747] thus linking this southern
chain of castles with those which he already possessed at Kirkby
Malzeard, or Malessart, and Thirsk;[748] and Bishop Hugh had done the
like at Northallerton.[749] Further north stood the great stronghold of
Durham; while all these again were backed, far to the north-westward, by
a double belt of fortresses stretching from the mouths of the Forth and
the Tweed to that of the Solway:--Lauder, held by Richard de Morville;
Stirling, Edinburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, Roxburgh, Annan and Lochmaben,
all in the hands of the king of Scots.[750]
[745] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 48. Hamo de Massey had another
castle called Ullerwood; where was this?
[746] _Ibid._
[747] _Ib._ p. 64. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 379.
[748] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 48.
[749] Rog. Howden as above, p. 57.
[750] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 48. Annan and Lochmaben
belonged to Robert de Bruce; _ibid._ No doubt William had
seized them when Bruce joined Henry.
Between this northern belt of rebel strongholds, however, and the
southern one which stretched from Chester to Axholm, there lay along
the river-valleys of Cumberland and Northumberland a cluster of royal
castles. Nicolas de Stuteville held Liddell, on the river of the same
name. Burgh[751] stood on the Solway Firth, nearly opposite Annan; the
whole valley of the Eden was guarded by Carlisle, whose castellan was
Richard de Vaux,[752] and Appleby, which like Burgh was held by Robert
de Stuteville for the king.[753] The course of the Tyne was commanded
by Wark, under Roger de Stuteville,[754] Prudhoe, under Odelin de
Umfraville,[755] and by the great royal fortress of Newcastle, in
charge of Roger Fitz-Richard;[756] further north, between the valleys
of the Wansbeck and the Coquet, stood Harbottle, also held by Odelin,
with Roger Fitz-Richard’s Warkworth[757] and William de Vesci’s
Alnwick[758] at the mouths of the Coquet and the Alne. This chain of
defences William of Scotland, when at the expiration of the truce he
again marched into England, at once set himself to break. While his
brother David went to join the rebel garrison of Leicester,[759] he
himself began by laying siege to Wark. This fortress, held in the
king’s name by Roger de Stuteville--apparently a brother of the sheriff
of Yorkshire--occupied a strong position in the upper valley of the
Tyne, on the site of an earlier fortress which under the name of Carham
had played a considerable part in the Scottish wars of Stephen’s
time, and had been finally taken and razed by William’s grandfather
King David in 1138.[760] William himself had already in the preceding
autumn besieged Wark without success;[761] he prospered no better this
time, and presently removed his forces to Carlisle,[762] where he had
also sustained a like repulse six months before.[763] Carlisle, as
well as Wark, was in truth almost impregnable except by starvation;
and William, while blockading it closely, detached a part of his host
for a series of expeditions against the lesser fortresses, Liddell,
Burgh, Appleby, Harbottle and Warkworth, all of which fell into his
hands.[764] His brother’s arrival at Leicester, meanwhile, seemed to
have revived the energies of its garrison; under the command of Earl
Robert of Ferrers they sallied forth very early one morning, surprised
and burned the town of Nottingham, made a great slaughter of its
citizens, and went home laden with plunder and prisoners.[765]
[751] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 65.
[752] _Ib._ p. 64.
[753] _Ib._ p. 65. Jordan Fantosme, v. 1467 (Michel, p. 66),
gives us the name--a very interesting one--of the acting
commandant--“Cospatric le fiz Horm, un viel Engleis fluri.”
[754] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 478–483 (Michel, pp. 22–24).
[755] _Ib._ vv. 594–603 (p. 28), _Gesta Hen._ as above.
[756] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 566, 567 (Michel, p. 26).
[757] _Ib._ vv. 562–565 (p. 26). _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 65.
See above, p. 149, note 3{728}.
[758] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 538, 539 (as above).
[759] _Gesta Hen._ as above. Cf. Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1113–1136
(Michel, p. 52).
[760] See above, vol. i. pp. 287, 292.
[761] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 478–530 (Michel, pp. 22, 26).
[762] _Ib._ vv. 1191–1351 (pp. 54–62).
[763] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 610–760 (pp. 28–36).
[764] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 64, 65. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 60. Will. Newb., l. ii. cc. 30, 31
(Hewlett, vol. i. pp. 177, 180), seems to have confused this
campaign with that of the preceding autumn; and so has,
apparently, Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1145–1511 (Michel, pp.
52–68). “Banesburc” in v. 1158 (p. 54), though it looks like
Bamborough, surely ought to be _Burgh_.
[765] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 69. Nottingham was commanded by
Reginald de Lucy; what relation to the justiciar?
Meanwhile the king’s representatives in the south were not idle.
Knowing however that he was powerless to rescue the north, Richard de
Lucy made an attempt to draw off in another direction the forces both
of the Scot king and of his brother by laying siege to David’s castle
of Huntingdon.[766] Huntingdon had been held ever since 1136 either
by the reigning king of Scots or by one of his nearest kinsmen, in
virtue of their descent from Waltheof, the last Old-English earl of
Huntingdon and Northampton, through his daughter Matilda, the wife
of King David. In each case, however, the fief seems to have been
held not as an hereditary possession but by a special grant made to
the individual holder for his life. The house of Northampton, sprung
from an earlier marriage of the same Matilda, were thus enabled to
maintain a claim upon it which had never been entirely barred, and
which Earl Simon of Northampton now seized his opportunity to urge upon
the king.[767] Henry answered that Simon might keep Huntingdon if he
could win it;[768] thus securing for Richard de Lucy his support and
co-operation in the siege, which began on May 8.[769] Three days before
this, however, a severe blow had been dealt at the northern rebels.
The king’s eldest son Geoffrey, who a year before had been appointed
to the bishopric of Lincoln, gathered up the forces of Lincolnshire,
led them into Axholm and laid siege to Kinardferry. Robert of Mowbray,
who was commanding there, seeing his garrison threatened with the want
of water, slipped out to seek aid of his friends at Leicester, but
was surrounded and made prisoner by the country-folk at Clay.[770]
On May 5 Kinardferry surrendered; after razing it, Geoffrey marched
northward to York; here he was joined by the forces of the archbishop
and of the shire; with this united host he took Mowbray’s castle
of Malessart,[771] closely menaced that of Thirsk by erecting a
rival fortification at Topcliff, and having intrusted the former to
Archbishop Roger and the latter to William de Stuteville, marched
back to Lincoln in triumph.[772] His victory was scarcely won when a
new peril arose in East-Anglia. Three days after Pentecost some three
hundred Flemish soldiers, forerunners of a great host with which Count
Philip of Flanders had sworn to invade England at Midsummer on behalf
of the young king, landed at the mouth of the Orwell.[773] Hugh Bigod,
whose truce with the king’s officers, made when he dismissed his other
Flemish troops in the preceding autumn, expired four days later, at
once received them into his castles.[774] For a whole month, however,
no further movement was made save by the garrison of Leicester, who
after the close of Whitsun-week made a successful plundering raid upon
the town of Northampton.[775] On June 18 Hugh Bigod and his Flemings
marched upon Norwich, took it by assault, committed a vast slaughter
of men and women, and finally sacked and fired the city.[776] They seem
to have returned to Framlingham by way of Dunwich, which was still a
flourishing seaport, of sufficient wealth to tempt their greed; but its
stout fisher-folk met them with such a determined front that they were
compelled to retire.[777]
[766] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 384.
[767] See the story in the tract “De Judithâ uxore Waldevi
comitis,” in M. F. Michel’s _Chroniques Anglo-Normandes_, vol.
ii. pp. 128, 129.
[768] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 71. The case seems to have been
tried in the Curia Regis; _ibid._, and _Chron. Anglo-Norm._, as
above.
[769] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 384.
[770] “A rusticis del Clay.” _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
68. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 58, alters “rusticis”
into “hominibus.” The place is perhaps Clay Cross in Derbyshire.
[771] Kirkby or Kirby Malzeard, near Ripon.
[772] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 68, 69. Cf. R. Diceto as
above, and Gir. Cambr., _Vita Galfr. Archiep._, l. i. cc. 2, 3
(Dimock, vol. iv. pp. 364–367).
[773] “Apud Airewellam.” R. Diceto (as above), p. 381.
[774] _Ibid._ Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 247.
[775] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 68.
[776] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 68. R. Diceto (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 381 (to whom we owe the date). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 248.
[777] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 30 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 178).
“Insignum vicum maritimum, variis opibus refertum, qui dicitur
Donewich,” he calls it. He gives an account of the entire
East-Anglian campaign, but he has mixed up the doings of this
summer of 1174 with those of the preceding autumn. Jordan
Fantosme, vv. 845–897 (Michel, pp. 40–42), has done the same.
He explains, however, the otherwise unaccountable facility
with which Norwich was taken, by telling us that “Uns traïtres
Lohereng la trahi, pur ço si fud surprise.”
Richard de Lucy was all this while busy with the siege of Huntingdon.
Provoked apparently by a vigorous assault which he made upon it at
midsummer,[778] the garrison set fire to the town; Richard then built
a tower to block their egress from the castle, and left the completion
of the siege to the earl of Northampton.[779] For himself it was time
once more to lay down the knightly sword and resume that of justice.
While the justiciar’s energies were absorbed in warfare with the
barons, the burgher-nobles of the capital had caught from their feudal
brethren the spirit of lawlessness and misrule, and London had become
a vast den of thieves and murderers. Young men, sons and kinsmen of
the noblest citizens, habitually went forth by night in parties of a
hundred or more, broke into rich men’s houses and robbed them by force,
and if they met any man walking in the streets alone, slew him at once.
Peaceable citizens were driven in self-defence to meet violence with
violence. One man, expecting an attack, gathered his armed servants
around him in a concealed corner, surprised his assailants in the
act of breaking into his house with crowbars, struck off with a blow
of his sword the right hand of their leader Andrew Bucquinte, and
raised an alarm which put the rest to flight. Bucquinte was captured
and delivered next morning to the justiciar; on a promise of safety
for life and limb he gave up the names of his accomplices; some fled,
some were caught, and among the latter was one of the noblest and
richest citizens of London, John Oldman,[780] who vainly offered five
hundred marks of silver to the Crown to purchase his escape from
the gallows.[781] The revelation of such a state of things in the
capital apparently drove Richard de Lucy and his colleagues almost to
desperation. They had already sent messenger after messenger to intreat
that the king would return; getting however no certain answer, they now
determined that one of their number should go to Normandy in person to
lay before him an authentic account of the desperate condition of his
realm.[782]
[778] “Appropinquante autem nativitate S. Johannis Baptistæ,
Ricardus de Luci magnum congregavit exercitum et obsedit
castellum de Huntendoniâ.” _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 70. Rog.
Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 60, substitutes for the first
words “in festo Nativitatis S. Johannis.” This is the first
time that either writer mentions the siege, but see R. Diceto
as above, p. 376.
[779] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 71.
[780] “Johannes Senex.”
[781] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 155, 156. The story is
there told in connexion with that of the murder of a brother of
the earl of Ferrers in 1177, and said to have happened “three
years before.” The wording of the latter part, where it is said
that John “obtulit quingentas marcas argenti _domino regi_ ...
sed ... noluit denarios illos accipere, et præcepit ut judicium
de eo fieret,” seems to imply that the king himself came to
England between the capture of Bucquinte and the execution of
John. In that case the date of the affair would be about June
or July 1174. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 131, mentions
the hanging of John Oldman, but puts it after the murder of De
Ferrers in 1177 and omits the whole story which in the _Gesta_
intervenes, thereby also omitting to shew the true sequence of
events and chronology.
[782] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 381.
Henry had spent the spring in a successful progress through Maine and
Anjou to Poitiers, where he kept the Whitsun feast. He had just rescued
Saintes from a band of rebels who had seized it in Richard’s name[783]
when he was called northward again by a rumour of the Flemish count’s
scheme for the invasion of England. By S. Barnabas’s day he was back
again on the borders of Britanny and Anjou; he took and fortified
Ancenis, and then, leaving Anjou to the charge of a faithful baron,
Maurice of Craon,[784] went to meet the castellans of the Norman border
in a council at Bonneville on Midsummer-day. Their deliberations were
interrupted by the appearance of Richard of Ilchester--now bishop-elect
of Winchester--on his errand from England to recall the king.[785]
Richard’s pleadings however were scarcely needed. Henry knew that
his eldest son was at that very moment with the count of Flanders
at Gravelines, only awaiting a favourable wind to set sail for the
invasion of England,[786] and that, whatever might be the risk to his
continental realms, he must hasten to save the island.[787] He at
once took measures for the security of the Norman castles and for the
transport of those prisoners and suspected persons whom he dared not
venture to leave behind him--his queen,[788] the earl and countess of
Leicester, the earl of Chester,[789] the young queen Margaret,[790]
and the affianced brides of his three younger sons; besides the two
children who were still with him, Jane and John.[791] The wind which
thwarted the designs of his foes was equally unfavourable to him; it
was not till July 7 that he himself embarked at Barfleur, and even then
the peril of crossing seemed so great that the sailors were inclined
to put back. Henry raised his eyes to heaven: “If I seek the peace of
my realm--if the heavenly King wills that my return should restore
its peace--He will bring me safe into port. If He has turned away His
Face from me and determined to scourge my realm, may I never reach its
shores!” By nightfall he was safe[792] at Southampton.[793]
[783] _Ib._ p. 380. Cf. _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 71, and
Chron. S. Albin. a. 1174 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 43).
[784] R. Diceto and _Gesta Hen._ as above.
[785] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 381, 382. Cf. Jordan
Fantosme, vv. 1530–1633 (Michel, pp. 70–74).
[786] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 72. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 61.
[787] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 248. Cf. Will. Newb., l.
ii. c. 32 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 181).
[788] R. Diceto as above, p. 382. _Gesta Hen._ as above.
[789] R. Diceto (as above) has “comitem Cestrensem,
Legecestrensem comitissam”; Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard),
vol. ii. p. 292, turns this into “comitem Legecestrensem et
comitissam.” We may surely combine the two versions.
[790] R. Diceto and _Gesta Hen._ as above.
[791] R. Diceto as above, p. 382. “Uxores filiorum suorum”
must mean Adela of France, Constance of Britanny and Alice
of Maurienne, all of whom are known to have been in Henry’s
custody.
[792] R. Diceto as above, pp. 382, 383.
[793] _Ib._ p. 383. _Gesta Hen._ as above. Cf. Pipe Roll
a. 1173, quoted by _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 180. R. Niger
(Anstruther), p. 176, puts the voyage two days later.
His first care was to bestow his prisoners and hostages in safe
custody.[794] That done, he set off at once on a pilgrimage to the
grave of his former friend and victim at Canterbury. Travelling with
the utmost speed, and feeding only on bread and water, he reached
Canterbury on July 12; before the church of S. Dunstan, outside the
west gate, he dismounted, exchanged his kingly robes for the woollen
gown of a pilgrim, and made his way with bare and bleeding feet along
the rough-paved streets to the cathedral church. Here, surrounded by
a group of bishops and abbots who seem to have come with him, as well
as by the monks of the cathedral chapter and a crowd of wondering
lay-folk, he threw himself in an agony of penitence and prayer on the
martyr’s tomb, which still stood in the crypt where his body had been
hastily buried by the terrified monks immediately after the murder.
The bishop of London now came forward and spoke in the king’s name,
solemnly protesting that he had never sought the primate’s death, and
beseeching absolution from the assembled prelates for the rash words
which had occasioned it. The absolution was given; the king then
underwent a public scourging at the hands of the bishops and monks;
he spent the whole night in prayer before the shrine; early on the
morrow he heard mass and departed, leaving rich gifts in money and
endowments, and rode back still fasting to London, which he reached on
the following morning.[795] The next few days were spent in collecting
forces, in addition to a large troop of Brabantines whom he had brought
over with him,[796] and in despatching a part of these into Suffolk
against Hugh Bigod; Henry himself lingering another day or two to
recover from his excitement and fatigue.[797]
[794] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 72. Eleanor was placed
at Salisbury (Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 67; Labbe, _Nova Bibl._,
vol. ii. p. 319) in charge of Robert Mauduit; the younger queen
“and the hostages” were sent to Devizes under the care of
Eustace Fitz-Stephen. (Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 180, from
Pipe Roll a. 1173.)
[795] For accounts of the penance see R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol.
i. p. 383; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 248, 249; _Gesta
Hen._ as above; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 61, 62;
Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 35 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 18); E. Grim
(Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), pp. 445–447; Herb. Bosh.
(_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 545–547.
[796] R. Diceto as above, p. 382. _Gesta Hen._ as above. Rob.
Torigni, a. 1174.
[797] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 35 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 189), says
he stayed in London in order to be bled.
In the middle of the night of July 17 a courier from the north came
knocking wildly for admittance at the palace-gate. The porters
remonstrated with him in vain; he bore, he said, good news which the
king must hear that very night. He hurried to the door of the king’s
chamber, and, despite the expostulations of the chamberlains, made
his way to the bedside and woke the king from his sleep. “Who art
thou?” demanded Henry. “A servant of your faithful Ralf de Glanville,
and the bearer of good tidings from him to you.” “Is he well?” “He
is well; and lo! he holds your enemy the king of Scots in chains at
Richmond castle.” Not till he had seen Ralf’s own letters could Henry
believe the tidings; then he burst into thanksgivings for the crowning
triumph which had come to him, as he now learned, almost at the moment
when his voluntary humiliation at Canterbury was completed.[798]
The garrison of Carlisle had pledged themselves to surrender to the
Scot king at Michaelmas if not previously relieved. In the interval
William laid siege to Odelin de Umfraville’s castle of Prudhoe on
the Tyne.[799] Here he was rejoined by Roger de Mowbray, who came to
intreat the Scot king’s aid in the recovery of his lost castles.[800]
Meanwhile, however, the king’s return had apparently brought with it
the return of the sheriff of Yorkshire, Robert de Stuteville. Under his
leadership and that of his son William the whole military forces of the
shire, with those of William de Vesci, Ralf de Glanville, Bernard de
Balliol and Odelin de Umfraville, and Archbishop Roger’s men under his
constable Ralf de Tilly, gathered and marched northward to oppose the
Scots.[801] They reached Newcastle on July 12[802]--the day of Henry’s
penitential entry into Canterbury--but only to find that on the rumour
of their approach William the Lion had retired from Prudhoe, and was
gone to besiege Alnwick with his own picked followers, while the bulk
of his host, under the earls of Fife and Angus and the English traitor
Richard de Morville, dispersed over all Northumberland to burn, plunder
and slay in the old barbarous Scottish fashion which seems hardly to
have softened since the days of Malcolm Canmore.[803] The English
leaders now held a council of war. Their forces consisted only of a
few hundred knights, all wearied and spent with their long and hurried
march, in which the foot had been unable to keep up with them at all.
The more cautious argued that enough had been done in driving back the
Scots thus far, and that it would be madness for a band of four hundred
men to advance against a host of eighty thousand. Bolder spirits,
however, urged that the justice of their cause must suffice to prevail
against any odds; and it was decided to continue the march to Alnwick.
They set out next morning before sunrise; the further they rode, the
thicker grew the mist; some proposed to turn back. “Turn back who
will,” cried Bernard de Balliol, “if no man will follow me, I will go
on alone, rather than bear the stain of cowardice for ever!” Every one
of them followed him; and when at last the mist cleared away, the first
sight that met their eyes was the friendly castle of Alnwick. Close
beside it lay the king of Scots, carelessly playing with a little band
of some sixty knights. Never dreaming that the English host would dare
to pursue him thus far, he had sent out all the rest of his troops on
a plundering expedition, and at the first appearance of the enemy he
took them for his own followers returning with their spoils. When they
unfurled their banners he saw at once that his fate was sealed. The
Scottish Lion, however, proved worthy of his name, and his followers
proved worthy of their leader. Seizing his arms and shouting, “Now it
shall be seen who are true knights!” he rushed upon the English; his
horse was killed, he himself was surrounded and made prisoner, and so
were all his men.[804] Roger de Mowbray and Adam de Port, an English
baron who had been outlawed two years before for an attempt on King
Henry’s life, alone fled away into Scotland;[805] not one Scot tried
to escape, and some even who were not on the spot, when they heard the
noise of the fray, rode hastily up and almost forced themselves into
the hands of their captors, deeming it a knightly duty to share their
sovereign’s fate.[806]
[798] _Ib._ (pp. 189, 190). On the coincidence of time see Mr.
Howlett’s note 3, p. 188. Cf. the more detailed, but far less
vivid version of the story in Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1956–2029
(Michel, pp. 88–92). In the _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
72, Henry is said to have received the news on July 18. Taken
in conjunction with the story given above, this must mean the
night of July 17–18.
[799] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 65. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol.
ii. p. 60. Cf. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 32 (as above, p. 182);
and Jordan Fantosme, vv., 1640–1650 (Michel, p. 74).
[800] Will. Newb. as above.
[801] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 65, 66. Cf. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 60.
[802] “Sexta Sabbati.” Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 33 (Howlett, vol.
i. p. 183).
[803] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 66. Cf. Rog. Howden as above;
Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 32 (as above, pp. 182, 183), and Jordan
Fantosme, vv. 1671–1729 (Michel, pp. 76–78). On the Scottish
misdoings see also R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 376; Gerv.
Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 247; and _Gesta Hen._ as above, p.
64; this latter writer can find no better way of describing
them than by copying Henry of Huntingdon’s account of the
Scottish invaders of 1138 (Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 6, Arnold,
p. 261).
[804] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 33 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 183–185).
Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1731–1839 (Michel, pp. 78–84). Cf. _Gesta
Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 67; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii.
p. 63; and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 249.
[805] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1841–1849 (Michel, p. 84). Will.
Newb. as above (p. 185). On Adam de Port (whose presence on
this occasion is mentioned by Jordan only) see _Gesta Hen._
as above, p. 35 and note 2, and Stapleton, _Magn. Rot. Sacc.
Norm._ (Soc. Antiq.), vol. i., _Observ._, p. clxi.
[806] Will. Newb. as above.
The capture of William the Lion almost put an end to the rebellion.
A body of Flemings summoned by Bishop Hugh of Durham landed the same
day at Hartlepool; but at the tidings of the Scottish disaster, Hugh
thought it safest to pay them their forty days’ wages and send them
home again at once.[807] On the same day, too, the young king, weary
of waiting for a wind at Gravelines, left the count of Flanders there
alone and proceeded to Wissant with a body of troops whom he succeeded
in despatching from thence into England, under the command of Ralf of
La Haye, to the assistance of Hugh Bigod.[808] In London, meanwhile,
the news brought by Ralf de Glanville’s courier raised to the highest
pitch the spirits both of Henry and of his troops. On that very day he
set out for Huntingdon,[809] whose titular earl had already fled back
to Scotland;[810] at Huntingdon Geoffrey of Lincoln came to meet him
with a force of seven hundred knights;[811] and three days later the
garrison surrendered at discretion.[812] The king then marched to S.
Edmund’s; here he divided his host, sending half against Hugh Bigod’s
castle of Bungay, while he himself led the other half to Framlingham,
where Hugh was entrenched with five hundred knights and his Flemish
men-at-arms. The number of these, however, had dwindled greatly; when
the royal host encamped on July 24 at Sileham, close to Framlingham,
Hugh felt himself unable to cope with it; and next morning he
surrendered.[813] By the end of the month the whole struggle was over.
One by one the king’s foes came to his feet as he held his court at
Northampton. The king of Scots was brought, with his feet tied together
under his horse’s body, from his prison[814] at Richmond.[815] On the
last day of July Bishop Hugh of Durham came to give up his castles
of Durham, Norham and Northallerton. On the same day the earl of
Leicester’s three fortresses were surrendered by his constables;[816]
and Thirsk was given up by Roger of Mowbray.[817] Earl Robert de
Ferrers yielded up Tutbury and Duffield;[818] the earl of Gloucester
and his son-in-law Richard de Clare, who were suspected of intriguing
with the rebels, came to offer their services and their obedience to
the king;[819] and a like offer came from far-off Galloway, whose
native princes, Uhtred and Gilbert, long unwilling vassals of the
king of Scots, had seized their opportunity to call home their men,
drive out William’s bailiffs, destroy his castles and slaughter his
garrisons, and now besought his victorious English cousin to become
their protector and overlord.[820] In three weeks from Henry’s landing
in England all the royal fortresses were again in his hands, and the
country was once more at peace.[821]
[807] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 67.
[808] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 381. Cf. _ib._ p. 385.
[809] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 72.
[810] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 37 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 195).
[811] See Henry’s remark at their meeting in Gir. Cambr. _Vita
Galfr._, l. i. c. 3 (Dimock, vol. iv. p. 368).
[812] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 73. Cf. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 384.
[813] _Gesta Hen._ as above. R. Diceto as above, pp. 384, 385.
[814] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 64.
[815] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 33 (as above, p. 185).
[816] _Gesta Hen._ as above. R. Diceto as above, p. 384, dates
the surrender of these three castles July 22--_i.e._ just as
Henry was leaving Huntingdon for Suffolk. The chronology of
the _Gesta_ seems much more probable. See in Will. Newb., l.
ii. c. 37 (as above, pp. 194, 195), how Henry frightened the
constables into submission. Jordan Fantosme, vv. 2039–2046
(Michel, p. 92), has a different story about Leicester. He
makes David of Huntingdon its commandant, and says that as
soon as Henry received the news of the Scot king’s capture, he
forwarded it to David with a summons to surrender; whereupon
David gave up Leicester castle and himself both at once.
[817] _Gesta Hen._ as above. R. Diceto (as above), p. 385.
[818] _Gesta Hen._ as above. Tutbury was being besieged by a
host of Welshmen under Rees Ap-Griffith; R. Diceto (as above),
p. 384.
[819] R. Diceto as above, p. 385.
[820] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 63.
[821] _Ib._ p. 65. Rob. Torigni, a. 1174.
When England was secured, it was comparatively a light matter to secure
the rest. Louis of France was so dismayed at the sudden collapse of
the rebellion in England--a collapse which necessarily entailed a like
fate upon the rebellion in Normandy, since the leaders were the same
men in both cases--that he at once recalled the young king and the
count of Flanders from their project of invasion. As a last resource,
all three concentrated their forces upon the siege of Rouen.[822] Its
garrison held out gallantly until Henry had time to recross the sea
with his Brabantines and a thousand Welshmen[823] who had already done
good service under Rees Ap-Griffith at the siege of Tutbury.[824]
On August 11, three days after landing, he entered Rouen;[825] a
successful raid of his Welshmen upon some French convoys, followed by
an equally successful sally of Henry himself against the besieging
forces, sufficed to make Louis ask for a truce, under cover of which he
fled with his whole host back into his own dominions.[826] Some three
weeks later[827] he and Henry met in conference at Gisors and arranged
a suspension of hostilities until Michaelmas on all sides, except
between Henry and his son Richard, who was fighting independently
against his father’s loyal subjects in Poitou.[828] Henry marched
southward at once; Richard fled before him from place to place, leaving
his conquests to fall back one by one into the hands of their rightful
owner; at last he suddenly returned to throw himself at his father’s
feet, and a few days before Michaelmas Henry concluded his war in
Poitou[829] by entering Poitiers in triumph with Richard, penitent and
forgiven, at his side.[830]
[822] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 73. Rog. Howden as
above, p. 64. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 36 (Howlett, vol. i. p.
190). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 249. R. Diceto (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 386.
[823] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 74.
[824] See R. Diceto as above, p. 384. It seems most likely that
these were the same. The Pipe Roll of 1174 (Eyton, _Itin. Hen.
II._, p. 183) has a charge of £4: 18: 11 “in corredio Reis et
aliorum Walensium qui venerunt ad regem in expedicionem.”
[825] R. Diceto as above, p. 385. _Gesta Hen._ as above. Rog.
Howden as above, p. 65.
[826] See the details of Louis’s disgraceful conduct in _Gesta
Hen._ as above, pp. 74–76, Rog. Howden as above, pp. 65, 66, R.
Diceto as above, pp. 386, 387, Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 250,
and Will. Newb., l. ii. cc. 36 and 37 (as above, pp. 192–196).
[827] On September 8. _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 76.
[828] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 76. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 66. Rob. Torigni, a. 1174.
[829] “Et sic finivit rex gwerram suam in Pictaviâ,” comments
the writer of the _Gesta Hen._ (as above) on the reconciliation.
[830] Rog. Howden as above, p. 67.
On the last day of September the two kings and all the princes met in
conference between Tours and Amboise.[831] Henry’s three elder sons
accepted the endowments which he offered them; in return, the young
king gave his assent to a provision for John. A general amnesty was
agreed upon; all prisoners on both sides, except the king of Scots,
the earls of Leicester and Chester and Ralf of Fougères, were released
at once; all the rebels returned to their allegiance, and were fully
forgiven; Henry claimed nothing from any of them save the restoration
of their castles to the condition in which they had been before the
war, and the right of taking such hostages and other security as he
might choose.[832] These terms of course did not apply to England;
while, on the other hand, the king of Scots and his fellow-captives,
whom Henry had brought back with him to Normandy and replaced in
confinement at Falaise,[833] were excluded from them as prisoners of
war. It was at Falaise, on October 11, that Henry and his sons embodied
their agreement in a written document.[834] A few weeks later William
of Scotland, with the formal assent of the bishops and barons of his
realm, who had been allowed free access to him during his captivity,
submitted to pay the price which Henry demanded for his ransom. The
legal relations between the crowns of England and Scotland had been
doubtful ever since the days of William the Conqueror and Malcolm
Canmore, if not since the days of Eadward the Elder and Constantine;
henceforth they were to be doubtful no longer. William the Lion became
the liegeman of the English king and of his son for Scotland and for
all his other lands, and agreed that their heirs should be entitled to
a like homage and fealty from all future kings of Scots. The castles
of Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Berwick, Edinburgh and Stirling were required
by Henry as security; and as soon as the treaty had been ratified at
Valognes[835] William was sent over sea in a sort of honourable custody
to enforce their surrender and thereby complete his own release.[836]
[831] _Ibid._ _Gesta Hen._ as above. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol.
i. p. 250. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 394. On the date
given by this last see below, note 7{834}.
[832] Treaty given at length in _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp.
77–79, and Rog. Howden as above, pp. 67–69; abridged in R.
Diceto as above, pp. 394, 395.
[833] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 74.
[834] The treaty, as given in _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden (see
above, note 5{832}), is printed also in Rymer’s _Fœdera_,
vol. i. p. 30, with the addition of a date--Falaise--and the
signatures of twenty-eight witnesses. Among the latter is
Geoffrey, bishop elect of Lincoln. Now we know from R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 393, that Geoffrey came over from England
to Normandy on October 8. R. Diceto (_ib._ p. 394) gives the
date of the meeting at which the treaty was made as October 11.
Is it not probable that he has substituted for the date of the
making of the treaty that of its formal ratification at Falaise?
[835] This treaty, as given in _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i.
pp. 96–99, and Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 80–82 (and
from them in Rymer’s _Fœdera_, vol. i. pp. 30, 31), is dated at
Falaise. R. Diceto, however (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 396), who gives
an abridgement of it, says it was made at Valognes, on December
8. Now there is in Hearne’s _Liber Niger_, vol. i. pp. 36–40,
a copy of the treaty, differing from the former ones in having
eighteen more witnesses (one cannot help noting the name of
the last--“Roger Bacun”) and in its date, which is “Valognes.”
No doubt the Falaise copy was made first, and this is the
ratification of it.
[836] R. Diceto as above, p. 398.
By the terms of Henry’s treaty with France, all the English barons who
held lands on both sides of the sea were to be at once re-instated in
their continental possessions, except the castles over which the king
resumed his ancient rights of garrison or of demolition. Their English
estates however were wholly at his mercy; but he made a very gentle use
of his power over them. He took in fact no personal vengeance at all;
he exacted simply what was necessary for securing his own authority
and the peace of the realm--the instant departure of the Flemish
mercenaries[837] and the demolition of unlicensed fortifications--and
for defraying the expenses of the war. This was done by a tax levied
partly on the royal demesnes, partly on the estates of the rebels
throughout the country, on the basis of an assessment made for that
purpose during the past summer by the sheriffs of the several counties,
assisted by some officers of the Exchequer.[838] No ruinous sums were
demanded; even Hugh Bigod escaped with a fine of a thousand marks, and
lost none of the revenues of his earldom save for the time that he was
actually in open rebellion; the third penny of Norfolk was reckoned as
due to him again from the third day after his surrender, and its amount
for two months was paid to him accordingly at Michaelmas.[839] Even the
earls of Leicester and Chester seem to have been at once set free;[840]
and in little more than two years they were restored to all their lands
and honours, except their castles, which were either razed or retained
in the king’s hands.[841]
[837] Hugh Bigod’s Flemings and the knights sent over by the
young king were all sent out of the country immediately after
Hugh’s surrender, and the former were made to swear that they
would never set a hostile foot in England again. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 385.
[838] This is the “Assiza super dominica regis et super terras
eorum qui recesserunt.” Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 184, 185.
[839] See extract from Pipe Roll 20 Hen. II. [a. 1174], and Mr.
Eyton’s comment upon it, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 181, note 2.
[840] Hugh of Chester was probably released at the same time
with the king of Scots, for he signs among the witnesses to the
treaty of Falaise. _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 99. Rog.
Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 82.
[841] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 134, 135. Rog. Howden as
above, p. 118.
This very clemency was in itself at once the strongest proof of the
completeness of Henry’s victory and the surest means of retaining
the hold which he had now gained over the barons. The struggle whose
course we have been trying to follow has a special significance: it
was the last struggle in English history in which the barons were
arrayed against the united interests of the Crown and the people. That
feudal pride which had revolted so often and so fiercely against the
determination of William the Conqueror and Henry I. to enforce justice
and order throughout their realm stooped at last to acknowledge its
master in Henry II. In the unbroken tranquillity, the uninterrupted
developement of reform in law and administration, the unchecked
growth of the material and social prosperity of England during the
remaining fifteen years of his reign, Henry and his people reaped the
first-fruits of the anti-feudal policy which he and his predecessors
had so long and so steadily maintained. Its full harvest was to be
reaped after he was gone, not by the sovereign, but by the barons
themselves, to whom his strong hand had at last taught their true
mission as leaders and champions of the English people against a king
who had fallen away from the traditions alike of the Norman and of the
Angevin Henry.
CHAPTER V.
THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE.
1175–1183.
In the seven years which followed the suppression of the barons’ revolt
Henry’s prosperity reached its height. The rising in which all his
enemies had united for his destruction had ended in leaving him seated
more firmly than ever upon the most securely-established throne in
Europe. Within the four seas of Britain he was master as no king had
ever been master before him. The English people had been with him from
the first, and was learning year by year to identify its interests
more closely with his; the Church, alienated for nearly ten years, was
reconciled by his penance; feudalism was beaten at last, and for ever.
The Welsh princes were his obedient and serviceable vassals; the Scot
king had been humbled to accept a like position; a new subject-realm
was growing up on the coast of Ireland. The great external peril which
had dogged Henry’s footsteps through life, the hostility of France, was
for a while paralyzed by his success. Other external foes he had none;
the kings of Spain and of Sicily, the princes of the Western and even
of the Eastern Empire, vied with each other in seeking the friendship,
one might almost say the patronage, of the one sovereign in Europe who,
safe on his sea-girt throne, could afford to be independent of them
all. Within and without, on either side of the sea, all hindrances to
the full and free developement of Henry’s policy for the government of
his whole dominions were thus completely removed.
In England itself the succeeding period was one of unbroken
tranquillity and steady prosperous growth, social, intellectual,
political, constitutional. Henry used his opportunity to make a longer
stay in the island than he had ever made there before, save at the
very beginning of his reign. He was there from May 1175 to August
1177; in the following July he returned, and stayed till April 1180;
he came back again in July 1181, and remained till March 1182. Each of
these visits was marked by some further step towards the completion
of his judicial and administrative reforms. Almost as soon as he
set foot in the country, indeed, he took up his work as if it had
never been interrupted. The king and his eldest son went to England
together on May 9, 1175;[842] on Rogation Sunday they publicly sealed
their reconciliation with each other and with the Church in a great
council which met at Westminster[843] under the presidence of a new
archbishop of Canterbury, Richard, formerly prior of Dover, who
after countless troubles and delays had been chosen just before the
outbreak of the rebellion to fill S. Thomas’s place,[844] and had
come back from Rome in triumph, with his pallium and a commission as
legate for all England, just as Henry was returning to Normandy from
his success against Hugh Bigod.[845] From the council the two kings
and the primate went all together on a pilgrimage to the martyr’s
tomb at Canterbury;[846] at Whitsuntide the kings held a court at
Reading,[847] and on S. Peter’s day they met the Welsh princes in a
great council at Gloucester.[848] Two days later the process, begun
two years before, of filling up the vacant bishoprics and abbacies
which had been accumulating during Thomas’s exile was completed in
another council at Woodstock.[849] Thence, too, was issued an edict for
the better securing of order throughout the realm, and particularly
around the person of the king; all his opponents in the late war were
forbidden, on pain of arrest as traitors, to come to the court without
special summons, and, under any circumstances, to come before sunrise
or stay over night; and all wearing of arms, knife, bow and arrows,
was forbidden on the English side of the Severn. These prohibitions
however were only temporary;[850] and they were, with one exception,
the only measure of general severity taken by Henry in consequence of
the rebellion. That exception was a great forest-visitation, begun by
Henry in person during the summer of 1175 and not completed by his
ministers, it seems, till Michaelmas 1177, and from which scarcely
a man throughout the kingdom, baron or villein, layman or priest,
was altogether exempt. In vain did Richard de Lucy, as loyal to the
people as to the king, shew Henry his own royal writ authorizing the
justiciars to throw open the forests and give up the royal fish-ponds
to public use during the war, and protest against the injustice of
punishing the people at large for a trespass to which he had himself
invited them in the king’s name and in accordance, as he had understood
it, with the king’s expressed will. The license had probably been
used to a far wider extent than Henry had intended; the general
excitement had perhaps vented itself in some such outburst of wanton
destructiveness as had occurred after the death of Henry I.; at any
rate, the Norman and the Angevin blood in Henry II. was all alike
stirred into wrath at sight of damage done to vert and venison; the
transgressors were placed, in technical phrase, “at the king’s mercy,”
and their fines constituted an important item in the Pipe Roll of
1176.[851]
[842] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 83, 84. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 399.
[843] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 84. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol.
i. p. 250. R. Diceto as above, pp. 399–401.
[844] On the Canterbury troubles and Richard’s election see
Gerv. Cant. as above, pp. 239–242, 243–245, 247.
[845] _Ib._ p. 249. R. Diceto as above, p. 391. _Gesta Hen._ as
above, p. 74.
[846] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 91. Gerv. Cant. as above, p.
256. R. Diceto as above, p. 399.
[847] _Gesta Hen._ as above.
[848] _Ib._ p. 92.
[849] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 93. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 78, 79.
[850] _Gesta Hen._ as above. “Sed hæc præcepta parvo tempore
custodita sunt.”
[851] On the “misericordia regis pro forestâ,” as it is called
in the Pipe Rolls, see _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 92, 94; Rog.
Howden as above, p. 79; R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 402;
Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 483; and the extracts from
the Pipe Rolls 22 and 23 Hen. II. (_i.e._ 1176 and 1177) in
Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. pp. 541, 542.
In the beginning of that year the king assembled a great council at
Northampton,[852] and thence issued an Assize which forms another
link in the series of legal enactments begun at Clarendon just ten
years before. The first three clauses and the twelfth clause of the
Assize of Northampton are substantially a re-issue of those articles
of the Assize of Clarendon which regulated the presentment, detention
and punishment of criminals and the treatment of strangers and
vagabonds.[853] The experience of the past ten years had however led to
some modifications in the details of the procedure. The recognition by
twelve lawful men of every hundred and four of every township, to be
followed by ordeal of water, was re-enacted; but the presentment was
now to be made not to the sheriff, but direct to the king’s justices.
The punishments, too, were more severe than before; the forger, robber,
murderer or incendiary who under the former system would have suffered
the loss of a foot was now to lose a hand as well, and to quit the
realm within forty days.[854] The remaining articles dealt with quite
other matters. The fourth declared the legal order of proceeding with
regard to the estate of a deceased freeholder, in such a manner as to
secure the rights of his heir and of his widow before the usual relief
could be exacted by the lord; and it referred all disputes between the
lord and the heir touching the latter’s right of inheritance to the
decision of the king’s justices, on the recognition of twelve lawful
men[855]--a process which, under the name of the assize of _mort
d’ancester_, soon became a regular part of the business transacted
before the justices-in-eyre. Some of the other clauses had a more
political significance. They directed the justices to take an oath
of homage and fealty to the king from every man in the realm, earl,
baron, knight, freeholder or villein, before the octave of Whit-Sunday
at latest, and to arrest as traitors all who refused it:[856]--to
investigate and strictly enforce the demolition of the condemned
castles;[857] to ascertain and report by whom, how and where the duty
of castle-guard was owed to the king;[858] to inquire what persons had
fled from justice and incurred the penalty of outlawry by failing to
give themselves up at the appointed time, and to send in a list of all
such persons to the Exchequer at Easter and Michaelmas for transmission
to the king.[859] The tenth article was aimed at the bailiffs of the
royal demesnes, requiring them to give an account of their stewardship
before the Exchequer;[860] and two others defined the justices’
authority, as extending, in judicial matters, over all pleas of the
Crown, both in criminal causes and in civil actions concerning half a
knight’s fee or less; and in fiscal matters, over escheats, wardships,
and lands and churches in royal demesne.[861]
[852] On January 26. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 404.
Cf. _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 107, and Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 87. The _Gesta_ date it merely “circa
festum Conversionis S. Pauli”; Roger turns this into “in
festo,” etc., and adopts the reading “Nottingham” instead of
“Northampton.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 257, 258,
confounds the Assize of Clarendon with the Constitutions.
[853] Cf. articles 1–3, 12 of Ass. Northampton (Stubbs, _Select
Charters_, pp. 150, 151, 152), with Ass. Clarendon, cc. 1–4,
13, 15, 16 (_ib._ pp. 143, 144, 145). The Assize of Northampton
is given in the _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 108–110, and by Rog.
Howden as above, pp. 89–91.
[854] Ass. North., c. 1 (Stubbs, as above, p. 151).
[855] _Ib._ c. 4 (pp. 151, 152).
[856] Ass. North., c. 6 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 152).
[857] _Ib._ c. 8 (as above).
[858] _Ib._ c. 11 (_ibid._)
[859] _Ib._ c. 13 (pp. 152, 153).
[860] _Ib._ c. 10 (p. 152).
[861] _Ib._ cc. 7 and 9 (_ibid._).