=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _Historia Novella_, ed. Stubbs, vol.
ii., pp. 547-555. (Rolls Series.)
In the year 1139 after the Incarnation of our Lord, the venom of
malice, which king Stephen’s heart had long been fostering, at length
burst forth openly. Rumours were spreading about England that earl
Robert was on the eve of coming from Normandy with his sister;[37] and
in expectation thereof many were disaffected towards the king, not
only in will but in deed, whereupon he repaired his losses by wronging
others. Many were seized at court against the king’s honour, on mere
suspicion of supporting the opposite party, and forced to surrender
their castles and submit to whatsoever conditions he chose. There
were at that time in England two exceeding powerful bishops, Roger
of Salisbury, and his brother’s son, Alexander of Lincoln. Alexander
had built the castle of Newark, for the defence and honour of the
bishopric, as he said. Roger, who wished to display magnificence in
the building of castles, had erected more imposing fortifications
at Sherborne and Devizes, covering a large area of ground with his
buildings. He had begun a castle at Malmesbury in the churchyard
itself, hardly a stone’s throw from the principal church. The castle
of Salisbury, though it was the king’s own property, had passed into
his keeping by grant of king Henry, and had been surrounded with a
wall. Some of the powerful laity, stirred to envy that they should be
surpassed by clerks in their wealth of heaped-up treasure and the size
of their towns, cherished in their hearts a sullen jealousy. So they
poured their discontents into the king’s ear, urging that it would
all unquestionably turn to the king’s destruction, since, as soon as
the empress came, they would welcome their lady by surrendering their
castles, drawn to her by the memory of her father’s favours; they
must therefore be at once forestalled and constrained to yield up
their fortresses.... The king, though too favourably inclined to these
advisers, for some time pretended not to listen to their attractive
proposals, easing the bitterness of postponement either by his regard
for the holy office of the bishops, or, as I incline to think, by his
fear of the odium involved. In the end he only put off the execution of
the policy thus urged upon him until the first favourable opportunity.
That arose in the following manner.
A council of the nobility was held at Oxford on 24 June, which the
prelates aforesaid attended. The bishop of Salisbury was most unwilling
to go. I heard him say: “By my Lady St. Mary, I know not why, but
I have no liking for this journey. This I know, that I shall be of
as much use in the court as a foal in a battle.” For so his heart
foreboded ills to come. Fortune, as it turned out, seemed to favour
the king’s desires; a riot arose between the men of the bishops and
the men of Alan, count of Brittany, over a claim to quarters; the end
was melancholy, for the men of the bishop of Salisbury, who were then
sitting at table, left their meal unfinished and jumped up to fight.
The affair was settled with curses first and swords afterwards. The
retainers of Alan were driven off, his nephew barely escaping alive,
while the bishops’ party did not secure a bloodless victory, many being
wounded and one knight killed. The king seized the opportunity and
ordered the original instigators to summon the bishops to satisfy his
court for their retainers’ breach of the king’s peace; the satisfaction
demanded was the delivery of the keys of their castles as pledges of
their good faith. They were ready to give satisfaction, but hesitated
to surrender the castles, whereupon he commanded that they should
be closely confined, to prevent their departure. So he took them to
Devizes, bishop Roger unbound, but the chancellor, his nephew (or more
than his nephew), in fetters; his object was to take the castle, which
had been built at a great and almost incalculable cost, not for the
glory of the church, as the prelate himself alleged, but, in sober
truth, to its detriment. Upon investment, the castles of Salisbury,
Sherborne and Malmesbury were surrendered to the king; Devizes itself
was given up after three days, bishop Roger voluntarily imposing
abstinence upon himself, that by his personal suffering he might induce
the bishop of Ely, who held the castle, to yield.[38] Alexander, the
bishop of Lincoln, gave way also without more ado, purchasing his
delivery by the surrender of the castles of Newark and Sleaford.
This action of the king was widely discussed from opposite standpoints.
Some said that the bishops were rightly dispossessed of their castles,
because they had defied the canons in erecting them; they ought to be
preachers of the gospel of peace, not builders of houses that might
harbour the authors of evil. This view was urged and further amplified
by the arguments of Hugh, archbishop of Rouen, who stoutly championed
the king with all his eloquence. Others said the contrary, and this
party had the support of Henry, bishop of Winchester, legate in England
of the apostolic see, brother of king Stephen.... “If bishops,” he
said, “in any wise forsake the way of justice, the canons, not the
king, must be their judge; they ought to have been deprived of no
possession without a public ecclesiastical council; the king had acted
not from zeal for righteousness, but for his own private benefit, since
he had not given the castles back to the churches, at whose charges
and on whose lands they had been built, but had delivered them to
laymen, and those by no means favourable to religion.” He urged these
considerations in the king’s presence both privately and publicly,
pressing him to deliver and make restitution to the prelates, but his
labour was wasted, his plea ignored. Wherefore, determined to exert the
force of the canons, he summoned his brother instantly to appear before
the council which was to be holden on 29 August at Winchester.
On the appointed day almost all the bishops of England, with Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury ... came to Winchester.... The bull of Pope
Innocent was first read in the council, whereby from March 1, if I
remember rightly, he had delegated part of his charge to the lord
bishop of Winchester as his legate in England.... Next followed in
the council the legate’s address in Latin, prepared for the learned,
touching the disgraceful seizure of the bishops, of whom the bishop of
Salisbury had been taken in the chamber of the court, and the bishop of
Lincoln in his lodging, while the bishop of Ely, fearing a like fate,
had escaped disaster by a hasty flight to Devizes; it was a scandalous
crime that the king should have been so led astray, at the instigation
of others, as to order violent hands to be laid on his men, especially
bishops, in the peace of his court. To the king’s dishonour was added
an offence against Heaven, to wit, that under the cloak of the
bishops’ guilt, churches were robbed of their possessions. He was so
indignant at the king’s outrage against God’s law, that he would rather
himself suffer great inconvenience to his person and his possessions
than that the episcopal dignity should be so basely humiliated. He had
many times warned the king to make amends for his sin; and at last the
king had consented to the summoning of a council. The archbishop and
the rest should take counsel together as to necessary action; he would
not fail in the execution of their advice either out of love for the
king, his own brother, or out of fear of losing his possessions, or
even of risking his life.
While he was gradually enlarging upon this theme, the king, confident
in his own cause, sent earls to the council to ask why he had been
summoned.... They were accompanied by one Aubrey de Vere, a man well
versed in all kinds of legal causes.... The sum of his charges was as
follows: bishop Roger had committed many offences against king Stephen;
he had scarcely ever been to the court without riots being stirred up
by his men, presuming on his power; as often at other times, so lately
at Oxford they had assaulted the men and even the nephew of count
Alan.... The bishop of Lincoln had instigated his men to riot, out of
his old hatred against count Alan. The bishop of Salisbury secretly
supported the king’s enemies and only disguised his treachery for
the moment; the king had many unquestionable proofs of it, the chief
being that he refused a single night’s lodging to Roger de Mortemer
and the king’s knights led by him, when they were in mortal terror of
the Bristol rebels. Everybody was saying that as soon as the Empress
should have come, he would attach himself to her with his nephews and
his castles. Therefore Roger was seized not as a bishop, but as the
king’s servant, who had at once administered his affairs and received
his wages. The king had not taken the castles by force, but both the
bishops had voluntarily surrendered them to escape the accusation of
the rioting which they had incited in the court. The king had found in
the castles a small sum of money which was lawfully his, for bishop
Roger had collected it in the time of king Henry, the king’s uncle and
predecessor, from the rents due at the royal Exchequer. The bishop had
willingly yielded up both money and castles, for fear of his offences
against the king, and the king had no lack of witnesses thereto. For
his part, the king was willing that his agreement with the bishops
should remain unimpaired.
Bishop Roger exclaimed in reply that he had never been king Stephen’s
minister, and had never received his wages. He threatened, moreover, in
his anger, thinking shame to give way to his misfortunes, that if he
could not obtain justice in that council for the property wrested from
him, he would seek it in the hearing of a higher court....
So much was said on both sides, and at the king’s request the cause
was adjourned to the next day, and then on the morrow postponed to the
following day until the coming of the archbishop of Rouen. When he came
and all were in suspense to hear his opinion, he said that he allowed
that the bishops might have castles, if they could prove by the canons
that they might rightfully hold them; but since they could not, it was
the height of wickedness for them to fight against the canons. “Grant,”
he said, “that they may lawfully have them; surely, in troubled times,
it is the duty of the nobles, as among other nations, to hand over all
the keys of their fortresses to the will of the king, who must make war
for the peace of all. Therefore the whole argument of the bishops falls
to the ground; either it is wrong according to the canons for them
to have castles, or, if this be permitted by the king’s indulgence,
they ought to hand over the keys, yielding to the necessity of the
situation.”
To this the aforesaid pleader, Aubrey, added, that the king had been
informed of the bishops’ intention, expressed among themselves, to send
some of their number to Rome against the king. “And the king,” he said,
“recommends that none of you venture to do it, for if anyone should
leave England against his will and the dignity of the realm, he will
perhaps find it less easy to return. Furthermore he himself, seeing
himself aggrieved, appeals you at the court of Rome.”
The king’s despatch of this message, part warning, part threat, made
his purpose obvious, and in consequence the council broke up, the
king refusing to suffer canonical censure, and the bishops failing
to execute their plans against him, and that for two reasons, first,
because it would have been overbold to excommunicate a prince without
the Pope’s knowledge, and second, because they heard, and some saw,
swords unsheathed about them. The struggle was no mere word-play, but a
matter of life and death. None the less, the legate and the archbishop
did not refrain from pursuing their duty; they humbly knelt before the
king in his chamber and prayed him to take pity on the church and on
his own soul and reputation, and not to allow a schism to arise between
state and church. He courteously rose, but, although he moderated his
disapproval of their action, he made no effort to fulfil his good
promises, following rather his evil advisers.