The case of William had thus to be brought to bear on the minds of his
own people, on the minds of the neighboring countries whence he
invited and looked for volunteers, on the minds of the foreign princes
whose help or at least whose neutrality he asked for, and above all,
on the minds of the Roman Pontiff and his advisers. The order of these
various negotiations is not very clear, and in all probability all
were being carried on at once. But there is little doubt that
William's first step, on receiving the refusal of Harold to surrender
his crown,--or whatever else was the exact purport of the English
King's answer,--was to lay the matter before a select body of his most
trusted counselors. The names of most of the men whom William thus
honored with his special confidence are already familiar to us. They
were the men of his own blood, the friends of his youth, the faithful
vassals who had fought at his side against French invaders and Norman
rebels. There was his brother, Robert, Count of Mortain, the lord of
the castle by the waterfalls, the spoil of the banished Warling. And
there was one closer than a brother,--the proud William the son of
Osborn, the son of the faithful guardian of his childhood. There,
perhaps the only priest in that gathering of warriors, was his other
brother, Odo of Bayeux, soon to prove himself a warrior as stout of
heart and as strong of arm as any of his race. There too, not
otherwise renowned, was Iwun-al-Chapel, the husband of the sister of
William, Robert, and Odo. There was a kinsman, nearer in legitimate
succession to the stock of Rolf than William himself,--Richard of
Evreux, the son of Robert the Archbishop, the grandson of Richard the
Fearless. There was the true kinsman and vassal who guarded the
frontier fortress of Eu, the brother of the traitor Busac and of the
holy prelate of Lisieux. There was Roger of Beaumont, who rid the
world of Roger of Toesny, and Ralph, the worthier grandson of that old
foe of Normandy and mankind. There was Ralph's companion in
banishment, Hugh of Grantmesnil, and Roger of Montgomery, the loyal
son-in-law of him who cursed the Bastard in his cradle. There too were
the other worthies of the day of Mortemar, Walter Giffard and Hugh of
Montfort, and William of Warren, the valiant youth who had received
the chiefest guerdon of that memorable ambush. These men, chiefs of
the great houses of Normandy, founders, some of them, of greater
houses in England, were gathered together at their sovereign's
bidding. They were to be the first to share his counsels in the
enterprise which he was planning, an enterprise planned against the
land which with so many in that assembly was to become a second home,
a home perhaps all the more cherished that it was won by the might of
their own right hands.
To this select Council the duke made his first appeal. He told them,
what some of them at least knew well already, of the wrongs which he
had suffered from Harold of England. It was his purpose to cross the
sea, in order to assert his rights and to chastise the wrong-doer.
With the help of God and with the loyal service of his faithful
Normans, he doubted not his power to do what he purposed. He had
gathered them together to know their minds upon the matter. Did they
approve of his purpose? Did they deem the enterprise within his power?
Were they ready themselves to help him to the uttermost to recover his
right? The answer of the Norman leaders, the personal kinsmen and
friends of their sovereign, was wise and constitutional. They approved
his purpose; they deemed that the enterprise was not beyond the power
of Normandy to accomplish. The valor of the Norman knighthood, the
wealth of the Norman Church, was fully enough to put their duke in
possession of all that he claimed. Their own personal service they
pledged at once; they would follow him to the war; they would pledge,
they would sell, their lands to cover the costs of the expedition. But
they would not answer for others. Where all were to share in the work,
all ought to share in the counsel. Those whom the duke had gathered
together were not the whole baronage of Normandy. There were other
wise and brave men in the duchy, whose arms were as strong, and whose
counsel would be as sage, as those of the chosen party to whom he
spoke. Let the duke call a larger meeting of all the barons of his
duchy, and lay his designs before them.
The duke hearkened to this advice, and he at once sent forth a summons
for the gathering of a larger Assembly. This is the only time when we
come across any details of the proceedings of a Norman Parliament. And
we at once see how widely the political condition of Normandy differed
from that of England. We see how much further England had advanced, or
more truly, how much further Normandy had gone back, in the path of
political freedom. The Norman Assembly which assembled to discuss the
war against England was a widely different body from the Great Cemor
which had voted for the restoration of Godwine. Godwine had made his
speech before the King and all the people of the land. That people had
met under the canopy of heaven, beneath the walls of the greatest city
of the realm. But in William's Assembly we hear of none but barons.
The old Teutonic constitution had wholly died away from the memories
of the descendants of the men who followed Rolf and Harold Blaatand.
The immemorial democracy had passed away, and the later constitution
of the mediaeval States had not yet arisen. There was no Third Estate,
because the personal right of every freeman to attend had altogether
vanished, while the idea of the representation of particular
privileged towns had not yet been heard of. And if the Third Order was
wanting, the First Order was at least less prominent than it was in
other lands. The wealth of the Church had been already pointed out as
an important element in the duke's ways and means, and both the wealth
and the personal prowess of the Norman clergy were, when the day came,
freely placed at William's disposal. The peculiar tradition of Norman
Assemblies, which shut out the clergy from all share in the national
deliberations, seems now to have been relaxed. It is implied rather
than asserted that the bishops of Normandy were present in the
Assembly which now met; but it is clear that the main stress of the
debates fell on the lay barons, and that the spirit of the Assembly
was a spirit which was especially theirs.
Narrow as was the constitution of the Assembly, it showed, when it
met, no lack either of political foresight or of parliamentary
boldness. In a society so aristocratically constituted as that of
Normandy was, the nobles are in truth, in a political sense, the
people, and we must expect to find in any gathering of nobles both the
virtues and the vices of a real Popular Assembly. William had already
consulted his Senate; he had now to bring his resolution, fortified by
their approval, before the body which came as near as any body in
Normandy could come to the character of an Assembly of the Norman
people. The valiant gentlemen of Normandy, as wary as they were
valiant, proved good guardians of the public purse, trusty keepers of
what one knows not whether to call the rights of the nation or the
privileges of their order. The duke laid his case before them. He told
once more the tale of his own rights and of the wrong which Harold had
done him. He said that his own mind was to assert his rights by force
of arms. He would fain enter England in the course of the year on
which they had entered. But without their help he could do nothing. Of
his own he had neither ships enough nor men enough for such an
enterprise. He would not ask whether they would help him in such a
cause. He took their zeal and loyalty for granted; he asked only how
many ships, how many men, each of his hearers would bring as a
free-will offering.
A Norman Assembly was not a body to be surprised into a hasty assent,
even when the craft and the eloquence of William was brought to bear
upon it. The barons asked for time to consider of their answer. They
would debate among themselves, and they would let him know the
conclusion to which they came. William was obliged to consent to this
delay, and the Assembly broke up into knots, greater or smaller, each
eagerly discussing the great question. Parties of fifteen, twenty,
thirty, forty, sixty, a hundred, gathered round this or that energetic
speaker. Some professed their readiness to follow the duke; others
were in debt, and were too poor to venture on such hazards. Other
speakers set forth the dangers and difficulties of the enterprise.
Normandy could not conquer England; their fair and flourishing land
would be ruined by the attempt. The conquest of England was an
undertaking beyond the power of a Roman emperor. Harold and his land
were rich; they had wealth to take foreign kings and dukes into their
service; their own forces were in mere numbers such as Normandy could
not hope to strive against. They had abundance of tried soldiers, and
above all, they had a mighty fleet, with crews skilled beyond other
men in all that pertained to the warfare of the sea. How could a fleet
be raised, how could the sailors be gathered together, how could they
be taught, within a year's space, to cope with such an enemy? The
feeling of the Assembly was distinctly against so desperate an
enterprise as the invasion of England. It seemed as if the hopes and
schemes of William were about to be shattered in their beginning
through the opposition of his own subjects.
A daring though cunning attempt was now made by William Fitz-Osbern,
the duke's nearest personal friend, to cajole the Assembly into an
assent to his master's will. He appealed to their sense of feudal
honor; they owed the duke service for their fiefs: let them come
forward and do with a good heart all, and more than all, that their
tenure of their fiefs bound them to. Let not their sovereign be driven
to implore the services of his subjects. Let them rather forestall his
will; let them win his favor by ready offerings even beyond their
power to fulfill. He enlarged on the character of the lord with whom
they had to deal. William's jealous temper would not brook
disappointment at their hands. It would be the worse for them in the
end, if the duke should ever have to say that he had failed in his
enterprise because they had failed in readiness to support him.
The language of William Fitz-Osbern seems to have startled and
perplexed even the stout hearts with whom he had to deal. The barons
prayed him to be their spokesman with the duke. He knew their minds
and could speak for them all, and they would be bound by what he said.
But they gave him no direct commission to bind them to any consent to
the duke's demand. Their words indeed tended ominously the other way;
they feared the sea,--so changed was the race which had once manned
the ships of Rolf and Harold Blaatand,--and they were not bound to
serve beyond it.
A point seemed to have been gained, by the seeming license given by
the Assembly to the duke's most intimate friend to speak as he would
in the name of the whole baronage. William Fitz-Osbern now spoke to
the duke. He began with an exordium of almost cringing loyalty,
setting forth how great was the zeal and affection of the Normans for
their prince, and how there was no danger which they would not
willingly undergo in his service. But the orator soon overshot his
mark. He promised, in the name of the whole Assembly, that every man
would not only cross the sea with the duke, but would bring with him
double the contingent to which his holding bound him. The lord of
twenty knights' fees would serve with forty knights, and the lord of a
hundred with two hundred. He himself, of his love and zeal, would
furnish sixty ships, well equipped, and filled with fighting men.
The barons now felt themselves taken in a snare. They were in nearly
the same case as the king against whom they were called on to march.
They had indeed promised; they had commissioned William Fitz-Osbern to
speak in their names. But their commission had been stretched beyond
all reasonable construction; their spokesman had pledged them to
engagements which had never entered into their minds. Loud shouts of
dissent rose through the hall. The mention of serving with double the
regular contingent awakened special indignation. With a true
parliamentary instinct, the Norman barons feared lest a consent to
this demand should be drawn into a precedent, and lest their fiefs
should be forever burthened with this double service. The shouts grew
louder; the whole hall was in confusion; no speaker could be heard; no
man would hearken to reason or render a reason for himself.
The rash speech of William Fitz-Osbern had thus destroyed all hope of
a regular parliamentary consent on the part of the Assembly. But it is
possible that the duke gained in the end by the hazardous experiment
of his seneschal. It is even possible that the manoeuvre may have been
concerted beforehand between him and his master. It was not likely
that any persuasion could have brought the Assembly as a body to agree
to the lavish offer of volunteer service which was put into its mouth
by William Fitz-Osbern. There was no hope of carrying any such vote on
a formal division. But the confusion which followed the speech of the
seneschal hindered any formal division from being taken. The Assembly,
in short, as an assembly, was broken up. The fagot was unloosed, and
the sticks could now be broken one by one. The baronage of Normandy
had lost all the strength of union; they were brought, one by one,
within the reach of the personal fascinations of their sovereign.
William conferred with each man apart; he employed all his arts on
minds which, when no longer strengthened by the sympathy of a crowd,
could not refuse anything that he asked. He pledged himself that the
doubling of their services should not become a precedent; no man's
fief should be burthened with any charge beyond what it had borne from
time immemorial. Men thus personally appealed to, brought in this way
within the magic sphere of princely influence, were no longer slack to
promise; and having once promised, they were not slack to fulfill.
William had more than gained his point. If he had not gained the
formal sanction of the Norman baronage to his expedition, he had won
over each individual Norman baron to serve him as a volunteer. And
wary as ever, William took heed that no man who had promised should
draw back from his promise. His scribes and clerks were at hand, and
the number of ships and soldiers promised by each baron was at once
set down in a book. A Domesday of the conquerors was in short drawn up
in the ducal hall at Lillebonne, a forerunner of the greater Domesday
of the conquered, which twenty years later was brought to King William
of England in his royal palace at Winchester.