THE REIGN OF HENRY II.
Accession of Henry Plantagenet--Royal Entry into
Winchester--Expulsion of the Flemings--Henry's Dealings with
the Baron--Siege of Bridgenorth Castle--The King's Quarrel
with Geoffrey--Henry's Magnificence--War with, and Submission
of, the Welsh--The King in Brittany--Alarm of the King of
France at Henry's Schemes of Aggrandisement--Henry's Designs
on Toulouse--Origin of _Scutage_--Peace with Louis--The People
of Languedoc--Louis' Third Marriage--Fresh Rupture between the
Two Kings--Marriage of Henry's Son and Louis' Daughter--The Two
Popes--Renewed Reconciliation.
At the time of the death of Stephen, Henry was engaged in a desultory
warfare against some of his rebellious vassals in Guienne. Secure in
the strength of his party in England, and in the certainty that his
succession would not be disputed, he remained in France to bring the
affairs in which he was engaged to a successful termination, and then
proceeded to take possession of the vacant throne. The news of his
arrival, which took place six weeks after the death of Stephen, was
received with general gratification by the people, who were induced to
hope, from the lineage as well as from the character of the new king,
that his rule would be just and impartial.
The English race, faithful to their old traditions, dwelt with
satisfaction upon the English blood which had been transmitted to
Henry by his mother, Matilda. They forgot the haughty character of the
empress-queen, and remembered only that she and, through her, their new
sovereign were descended from Alfred the Great. Writers of the time, who
either believed sincerely what they wrote, or were paid to influence the
people in favour of their monarch, affirmed that England now once more
possessed a king of English race; that already there were many bishops
and abbots of the same race, while of chiefs and nobles not a few had
sprung from the admixture of Norman and English blood. They therefore
held that the hatred hitherto existing between the two races would
henceforth rapidly disappear. The opinions thus hopefully expressed were
not justified by the actual circumstances, nor were they realised for a
considerable time afterwards.
[Illustration: _Noble Churchman Yeoman Peasants Soldiers_
ENGLISH COSTUMES IN THE TIME OF HENRY II.]
Henry II., however, was fully aware of the support which the Norman
dynasty would receive from the intermixture of the two races. He
encouraged the popular feeling with regard to his English birth, and
evinced no displeasure when the English monks, in describing his
genealogy, avoided all allusion to his descent on the father's side.
"Thou art a son," they said, "of the most glorious Empress Matilda,
whose mother was Matilda, daughter of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, whose
father was Edward, son of King Edmund Ironside, who was great grandson of
the noble King Alfred." Predictions also were discovered, or invented,
tending to raise still further the hopes of the people in the prosperity
which would attend the new reign--hopes not destined to be realised.
One of these prophecies, couched in the allegorical form in which such
dark sayings were usually put forth, was attributed to King Edward the
Confessor on his death-bed. That such stories produced their effect upon
the minds of men may serve to show the superstitious tendencies of the
age. It is related that one of the old chroniclers, in his attempt to
reconcile the two races, reproduced a statement copied from a writer
still more ancient, to the effect that William the Conqueror was himself
descended from Edmund Ironside. "Edmund," said the chronicle, "had,
in addition to his two sons, an only daughter, who was banished the
country for her licentious conduct, and whose beauty having attracted the
attention of Duke Robert of Normandy, she became his mistress, and gave
birth to William, surnamed the Bastard."
It was evident that the people had every desire to separate Henry from
that hatred which they still cherished towards the Norman race; and they
designated him as the corner-stone which was to unite the two walls of
the state. On the other hand, the Norman nobles saw their king in his
true character as the descendant of the Conqueror, and they knew that
their own position was secure in the possession of wealth, power, and
civil privileges.
When Henry landed in England, attended by a splendid escort, the people
flocked to meet him, and tendered their congratulations. The cavalcade
entered the royal city of Winchester, amidst the acclamations of the
crowd, Queen Eleanor riding at the king's side. Having received the
homage of the barons, the royal party proceeded to London, and on the
19th of December the coronation took place at Westminster.
The first act of the new king was to assemble a council, at which a
royal decree was issued promising to the people of London those rights
which they had enjoyed under the reign of Henry I., and the laws which
that king had restored. Stephen was declared to have been a usurper, and
all the institutions originated by him were at once abolished. Measures
were taken to suppress the practice of false coining, which had become
very common during the late reign, and the general currency having
deteriorated, a new coinage was issued of standard weight and purity.
The Brabançons and other foreign mercenaries, who had become established
in England during the civil war, had in many cases obtained possession of
the castles and domains of the Norman adherents of Matilda, and had been
confirmed in their titles by Stephen. The Norman nobles found themselves
driven out, and their mansions fortified against them in the same manner
that they themselves had seized the dwellings of the Saxons. When,
therefore, the Brabançons and the Flemings were expelled by Henry, the
whole of the Anglo-Normans experienced great exultation.
"We saw them," says Ralph de Diceto, a contemporary writer, "re-cross the
sea, called back from the camp to the field, and from the sword to the
plough; and those who had been lords were compelled to return to their
old condition of serfs." The Normans who thus made a jest of the humble
origin of the Flemings, conveniently enough forgot that their own fathers
had quitted occupations of a similar kind to follow the fortunes of the
Conqueror not a hundred years before. The men of the dominant race, who
had acquired titles and estates in England, had driven from their minds
all recollection of their former condition, and of the means by which
their present eminence was obtained, although few of them could bear a
favourable comparison in these respects with the later usurpers whom they
delighted to revile. The English, however, did not forget the humble
origin of their oppressors, and, according to Roger of Hoveden, they were
accustomed to say of an arrogant earl or bishop of Norman origin, "He
torments and goads us in the same manner that his grandfather used to
beat the oxen at the plough."
The grants of land which had been made during the reign of Stephen
had impoverished the state to such an extent that the revenues were
inadequate to the support of the crown. Various gifts also had been made
during the brief reign of Matilda, who found it necessary to reward her
followers in the same manner as had been done by Stephen. Soon after
the truce between Henry and the late king, a treaty had been signed at
Winchester, according to which Stephen agreed to resume possession of
the royal domains, which had been given to the nobles or taken by them
forcibly; the only exceptions being grants of land to the Church and to
Prince William, the surviving son of the king.
The provisions of this treaty had, however, not been carried out; and
Henry, who had pressing need of money, and, at the same time, was
determined to curb the growing power of the barons, called a council,
and demanded the right to resume the domains of the crown. The council,
on receiving the representations made to them of the king's necessities,
gave their consent to the measure, and Henry placed himself at the head
of a considerable force, for the purpose of expelling those barons who
might refuse obedience to the order of the council. In this manner he
passed through the country, reducing the fortresses one by one and, as
fast as they came into his hands, causing them to be levelled with the
ground. The castle of Bridgenorth, which was in the possession of Hugh
de Mortimer, was stoutly defended by that chieftain; and during the
siege, which lasted for some weeks, the king's life was saved by the
self-devotion of one of his vassals. Henry was directing the attack in
person, and had incautiously ventured under the castle walls, when an
archer was observed taking aim at him. Hubert de St. Clair, one of his
followers, immediately threw himself before the king, and received the
arrow in his own breast. Henry supported him in his arms, and St. Clair
expired in a few moments, entreating the king's protection for his only
daughter, a child of tender years. The charge was accepted, and in after
years was honourably fulfilled.
After considerable labour and many delays, Henry fully accomplished his
designs. He destroyed the castles of Henry of Winchester, the brother of
Stephen, who was compelled to quit the country. Other powerful chiefs,
including the Earls of Albemarle and Nottingham, were also deprived of
their estates; and the King of Scotland resigned his territories in the
north of England in return for the earldom of Huntingdon, which was
conferred upon him by Henry. It is related that more than 110 castles
and strongholds, many of which were in the hands of men who grievously
oppressed the people, or of licentious soldiers who lived by plunder,
were destroyed in the course of this expedition. This act alone must
have been of incalculable benefit to the country, and justified, to some
extent, the expectations which had been formed from the character of the
new monarch.
[Illustration: SILVER PENNY OF HENRY II.]
In 1156 Geoffrey Plantagenet, the brother of Henry, having called upon
him to relinquish the county of Anjou, received a refusal. Henry crossed
the Channel with a considerable force, and having done homage to the
French king, persuaded him to resign the cause of Geoffrey. The English
army, composed of men of English descent, rejoiced at the opportunity of
indulging in their long-desired vengeance against the Normans; and they
engaged in the war with so much vigour and success that the cause of
Geoffrey rapidly lost ground, and he was compelled to sue for terms of
peace. A treaty was concluded, by which the younger brother resigned all
claim to his lands and the title of the Count of Anjou, in return for a
pension of 1,000 English or 2,000 Angevin pounds. In the following year
(1157) he was elected to the government of Nantes.
Having reduced his brother to submission, Henry made a progress through
his Continental provinces, attended by a splendid retinue, and was
received everywhere with acclamations. He surrounded himself with the
pomp and magnificence of royalty, in a manner which had never before been
witnessed in his dominions, and which was equalled by no other monarch of
his time.
Having returned to England in 1157, the king marched an army into
Flintshire for the purpose of reducing the Welsh, who still fought
bravely for independence, to permanent submission. No opposition was made
to his advance until he reached the mountainous district about Coleshill
Forest. Here the English troops were suddenly attacked by a large force,
while passing through a narrow defile, where it was impossible to form in
order of defence. The slaughter was very great. Several wealthy Norman
nobles and knights of fame were dragged from their horses, and put to
the sword; the Earl of Essex, the royal standard-bearer, threw down the
standard and took to flight. Had the king not displayed those military
talents which were hereditary in the family of the Conqueror, he would
probably have shared the fate of his nobles, and the whole army would
have been lost. Henry, however, drew his sword, and rushing into the
midst of his flying troops, forced them to turn upon their assailants.
Ultimately he fought his way through the pass, and collected his forces
together in the open country. Owen Gwynned, a chief of the mountaineers,
attempted to decoy him once more among the mountains; but Henry took
his way to the sea-coast, and passed along the shore, building castles
wherever an opportunity presented itself, and clearing portions of the
country from the dense forests with which it was covered.
After a campaign of a few months, the Welsh gave in their submission to
the king, and did homage for their territory. On the departure of the
invaders, however, the mountaineers resumed their attitude of hostility,
and made incursions into the surrounding country, at intervals, for
many years afterwards. In consequence of his flight at the battle
of Coleshill, the Earl of Essex was publicly accused of treason and
cowardice by Robert de Montfort. The question was referred to a trial by
arms, or a duel, between the accuser and the accused, in the presence of
the king and his court. The Earl of Essex was defeated in the combat;
but the king, instead of sentencing him to death, as was customary in
such cases, contented himself with seizing the estates of Essex, and
condemning him to pass the rest of his life as a monk in Reading Abbey.
On the death of Geoffrey (1158) the city of Nantes fell under the
authority of Conan, the hereditary Count of Brittany, who also possessed
estates in Yorkshire, with the title of Earl of Richmond. Henry then set
up a claim to the free city of Nantes, as a portion of the inheritance
to which, as the heir of his brother, he was entitled. Actuated by the
prospect of getting possession of the whole of Brittany, and affecting
to regard Conan as a usurper, Henry confiscated his estate and title of
Richmond. Then crossing the Channel with a large army, the king appeared
before the walls of Nantes, and compelled the citizens to expel Conan,
and to pay allegiance to himself. Henry then garrisoned the town with
a body of his troops, and took possession of the rest of the country
between the Loire and the Vilaine.
[Illustration: HEROISM OF ST. CLAIR AT THE SIEGE OF BRIDGENORTH CASTLE.
(_See p._ 182.)]
Anticipating the alarm this great increase of his territory would cause
in the French court, Henry sent there as ambassador Thomas Becket, and
afterwards followed in person, and a treaty was concluded, by which
the French king undertook to maintain his neutrality. Louis, after his
divorce from Eleanor, had married Constance of Castile, who had borne to
him a daughter. Henry affianced his eldest son to the young princess, who
was delivered up to one of the Anglo-Norman barons, and her dower was
confided to the custody of the knights of the Temple, to be restored on
the celebration of the marriage.
Henry then proceeded to secure the possession of the whole of Brittany by
an alliance with Conan, to whose daughter, then but five years old, he
affianced his youngest son, Geoffrey, who was only eight years of age.
By this treaty Conan was to keep Brittany for his life, on condition
that at his death the future husband of his daughter was made heir to
his power. The fears of the French king were aroused once more by this
alliance, which it was evident would one day place the whole of western
France under the power of the Anglo-Normans. Louis attempted to procure
the Pope's interdict of the marriage, on the ground that Conan was the
descendant of a bastard daughter of the grandfather of Henry II. The Pope
Alexander III., however, refused to recognise such consanguinity, and the
marriage was celebrated in the year 1166.
[Illustration: BECKET BEFORE HIS ENEMIES IN THE COUNCIL HALL AT
NORTHAMPTON.]
Not satisfied with the success which had hitherto attended his schemes
of aggrandisement, Henry took proceedings to obtain Toulouse, preferring
a claim in right of his wife, which certainly was without any just
foundation. William, Duke of Aquitaine, the grandfather of Eleanor, had
married Philippa, the only daughter of William, Count of Toulouse. That
portion of the Salic law which precluded a female succession being in
operation in the country, the father of Philippa sold the province to
his brother, Raymond of St. Gilles, whose posterity subsequently held
possession of it. At the time of Eleanor's marriage with Louis, she had
insisted upon her right to the county of Toulouse, and her husband had
marched an army to defend the claim. The count, however, concluded an
alliance with Constance, sister of the King of France, and by this means
retained possession of his power.
Henry now proclaimed his right to the county on the same ground that
Louis had previously preferred. Raymond of St. Gilles, grandson of the
contemporary of the Conqueror, prepared to defend his patrimony, and
applied for assistance to his brother-in-law, the King of France. While
Louis was making ready to take the field, Henry adopted a measure, to
which may probably be traced the decline of the feudal system in England.
According to the laws, the service of a vassal to his sovereign in the
field was limited to forty days--a period which would have been nearly
consumed in transporting the English troops to the scene of action.
Henry, therefore, determined to levy a sum of money in lieu of the
services of his vassals, both in England and Normandy, and to apply the
sum so raised to organising a body of troops, which would be free from
all authority but his own, and would be ready to follow him without any
limit of time. This tax was called the _scutage_, and amounted to three
pounds English, or forty Angevin shillings, for each knight's fee. There
are stated to have been 60,000 of these fees in England, which would,
therefore, yield £180,000, an immense sum in those days.
The army thus raised by Henry was composed, for the most part, of the
infantry of the Low Countries, who were already distinguished for their
stubborn resolution and gallantry in combat. The king was accompanied by
Thomas Becket, who had lately been made Chancellor of England, and also
by Malcolm, King of Scotland, and Raymond, King of Aragon, with whom
Henry had formed an alliance. The town of Cahors was quickly reduced,
and the English army marched upon Toulouse, which was defended by the
citizens under Raymond, in conjunction with a small body of troops which
the King of France had marched to their assistance.
Becket, who, although in holy orders, marched in warlike equipments at
the head of 700 knights and men-at-arms, displayed great energy in the
field. He advised the king to take advantage of the weakness of the
garrison, to make an immediate attack upon the place; but Henry, whose
audacity was tempered by profound calculation, hesitated to commit an act
in direct defiance of those feudal laws in whose support he had himself
the strongest interest. As Count of Anjou, Henry was the hereditary
Seneschal of France, and he asserted that he could not make an attack
upon the troops of his feudal suzerain.
A second French army advancing to the defence of Toulouse, Henry raised
the siege, and committing the command of his forces to Becket, returned
with a small body of troops into Normandy. Thither the chancellor soon
afterwards followed him, having taken possession of a few castles on the
banks of the river Garonne. A campaign ensued, which lasted for a few
months, on the frontiers of Normandy; and was brought to a conclusion in
1160 by a treaty, according to the terms of which the eldest son of Henry
did homage to Louis for the dukedom of Normandy.
The condition of the people of Languedoc and the surrounding country,
from this time, began rapidly to decline. Placed between two great powers
whose rivalry resulted in frequent acts of hostility, the inhabitants
attached themselves first to the cause of one and then to that of
another, according to circumstances, and were by each alternately
protected and deserted, betrayed and sold. From the time of the twelfth
century, the people of the south enjoyed no tranquillity, except when
the kings of France and England were at war. "We rejoice," said the
troubadours in their songs, "when peace is broken between the Easterlings
and Tornes," under which names they described the French and English.
They possessed an early civilisation; but they appear to have been too
much devoted to the pursuits of pleasure and the dreams of romance to be
fitted for self-government. In addition to the disturbances which they
suffered from without, they were engaged in perpetual quarrels amongst
themselves. They were fond of war, but rather for the excitements it
afforded than for the purposes of ambition. They loved the pomp and
splendour of the tented field--the armour flashing in the sun--the
turmoil and the struggle, the honour and reward. At a word from a fair
lady, they were ready to fly off to Palestine, to engage in a quarrel
about which they cared little, or were equally willing to risk their
lives in hazardous and foolhardy achievements at home. They were a
people in whom the gifts of imagination, and a taste for the beautiful in
art and nature, were not restrained by prudence. Actuated by no spirit of
union or foresight, they were content to bask carelessly in the passing
sunshine, regardless of the future.
The peace between Henry and the King of France lasted only one month.
The queen, Constance, died without leaving a son, and Louis, anxious
to obtain an inheritor of his throne, contracted a union within three
weeks afterwards with Adelais, niece of King Stephen and sister of the
Count of Blois. By this alliance with his enemies, Henry perceived that
his own connection with the French king was endangered, and having
secretly obtained the authority of the Pope, he caused the marriage of
his son Henry, who was seven years old, and the daughter of Louis, to
be immediately solemnised. Henry, then, according to the terms of the
treaty, obtained the dowry of the princess from the knights Templars, who
were not prepared to resist at once the authority of the Pope and the
power of the English king. Louis immediately declared war, and banished
the Templars from his kingdom. Henry contented himself with defending his
territories from the attacks made upon them until peace was once more
concluded, through the intervention of the Pope.
At this period (1162), as had already been the case on a previous
occasion, there were two Popes. One of these, Victor IV., occupied the
papal chair at Rome, under the protection of the Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa of Germany; and the other, Alexander III., was living in exile
in France. The latter was generally regarded in that country and in
England as the legitimate pontiff, and Henry and Louis alike acknowledged
his authority, vying with each other in offers of protection and in
reverence. It is related by the Norman chronicler that when the two kings
met Pope Alexander at the town of Courcy-sur-Loire, they dismounted from
their horses, and each taking hold of one of the bridle reins of his
mule, walked at his side on foot, and so conducted him to the castle.
The reconciliation thus effected was followed by a brief period of
tranquillity, both in England and Normandy, and when the flame of war
again broke out, its origin was to be referred to no foreign enemy, but
to a man whom Henry had raised to the height of power and dignity.