the country, where the Christian religion had almost perished; but the
King only said he would do what he would with his own, and that his
father had never met with such language from Lanfranc. Anselm was
advised to offer him treasure to make his peace, but this he would not
do; and William, on hearing of his refusal, broke out thus: “Tell him
that as I hated him yesterday, I hate him more to day, and will hate him
daily more and more. Let him keep his blessings to himself; I will have
none of them.”
The next collision was respecting the Pallium, the scarf of black wool
with white crosses; woven from the wool of the lambs blessed by the Pope
on St. Agnes’ day, which, since the time of St. Augustine, had always
been given by the Pope to the English Primate. Anselm, who had now been
Archbishop for two years, asked permission to go and receive it; but as
it was in the midst of the dispute between Emperor and Pope, there was
an Antipope, as pretenders to that dignity were called--one Guibert,
appointed by Henry IV. of Germany, besides Urban II., who had been
chosen by the Cardinals, and whose original Christian name was really
Odo. William went into a great fury on hearing that Anselm regarded
Urban as the true Pope, without having referred to himself, convoked
the clergy and laity at Rockingham, and called on them to depose the
Archbishop. The bishops, all but Gundulf of Rochester, were in favor of
the King, and renounced their obedience to the Primate; but the nobles
showed themselves resolved to protect him, whereupon William adjourned
the council, and sent privately to ask what might be gained by
acknowledging Urban as Pope.
Urban sent a legate to England with the Pallium. The King first tried
to make him depose Anselm, and then to give him the Pallium instead of
investing the Archbishop with it; but the legate, by way of compromise,
laid it on the altar at Canterbury, whence Anselm took it up.
Two years more passed, and Anselm came to beg permission to go to Rome
to consult with the Pope on the miserable state of the Church. William
said he might go, but if he did, he himself should take all the manors
of Canterbury again, and the bishops warned him they should be on the
king’s side.
“You have answered well,” said Anselm; “go to your lord; I will hold to
my God.”
William banished him for life; but just before he departed, he came to
the King, saying, “I know not when I shall see you again, and if you
will take it, I would fain give you my blessing--the blessing of a
father to his son.”
For one moment the Red King was touched; he bowed his head, and the old
man made the sign of the cross on his brow; but no sooner was Anselm
gone forth from his presence, than his heart was again hardened, and he
so interfered with his departure, that he was forced to leave England in
the dress of a pilgrim, with only his staff and wallet.
In Italy, Anselm was able to live in quiet study, write and pray in
peace. He longed to resign his archbishopric, but the Pope would
not consent; and when Urban was about to excommunicate the King, he
prevailed to prevent the sentence from being pronounced.
William was left to his own courses, and to his chosen friend Ralph, a
low-born Norman priest, beloved by the King partly for his qualities as
a boon companion, partly for his ingenuity as an extortioner. He was
universally known by the nickname of Flambard, or the Torch, and was
bitterly hated by men of every class. He was once very nearly murdered
by some sailors, who kidnapped him, and carried him on board a large
ship. Some of them quarrelled about the division of his robes, a storm
arose, and he so worked on their fears that they at length set him on
shore, where William was so delighted to see him that he gave him the
bishopric of Durham, the richest of all, because the bishop was also an
earl, and was charged to defend the frontier against the Scots.
He had promised to relax the forest laws, but this was only one of his
promises made to be broken; and he became so much more strict in his
enforcement of them than even the Conqueror, that he acquired the
nickname of Ranger of the Woods and Keeper of the Deer. Dogs in the
neighborhood of his forests were deprived of their claws, and there was
a scale of punishments for poachers of any rank, extending from the loss
of a hand, or eye, to that of life itself. In 1099, another Richard,
an illegitimate son of Duke Robert of Normandy, was killed in the New
Forest by striking his head against the branch of a tree; and a belief
in a family fate began to prevail, so much so that Bishop Gundulf warned
the King against hunting there; but William, as usual, laughed him to
scorn, and in the summer of 1100 took up his residence in his lodge of
Malwood, attended by his brother Henry, and many other nobles.
On the last night of July a strange sound was heard--the King calling
aloud on St. Mary; and when his attendants came into his chamber, they
found him crossing himself, in terror from a frightful dream. He bade
them bring lights, and make merry, that he might not fall asleep again;
but there were other dreamers. With morning a monk arrived to tell that
he had had a vision presaging the King’s death; but William brayed his
own misgivings, and laughed, saying the man dreamt like a monk. “Give
him a hundred pence, and bid him dream better luck next time.”
Yet his spirits were subdued all the morning, and it was not till wine
had excited him that he returned to his vein of coarse, reckless mirth.
He called his hunters round him, ordered the horses, and asked for his
new arrows--long, firm, ashen shafts. Three he stuck in his belt, the
other three he held out to a favorite comrade, Walter Tyrrel, Lord de
Poix, saying, “Take them, Wat, for a good marskman should have good
arrows.”
Some one ventured to remind him of his dream, but his laugh was ready.
“Do they take me for a Saxon, to be frighted because an old woman dreams
or sneezes?”
The hunters rode off, Walter Tyrrel alone with the King. By-and-by a
cry rang through the forest that the King was slain. There was an eager
gathering into the beech-shaded dell round the knoll of Stoney Cross,
where, beneath an oak tree, lay the bleeding corpse of the Red
William, an arrow in his heart. Terror fell on some, the hope of
self-aggrandizement actuated others. Walter Tyrrel never drew rein till
he came to the coast, and there took ship for France, whence he went
to the holy wars. Prince Henry rode as fast in the opposite direction.
William de Breteuil (eldest son of Fitz-Osborn) galloped off to secure
his charge, the treasury at Winchester, and; when he arrived, found the
prince before him, trying to force the keepers to give him the keys,
which they refused to do except at their master’s bidding.
Breteuil, who, as well as Henry, had sworn that Robert should reign if
William died childless, tried to defend his rights, but was overpowered
by some friends of Henry, who now came up to the forest; and the next
morning the prince set off to London, taking with him the crown, and
caused the Bishop of London to anoint and crown him four days after his
brother’s death.
No one cared for the corpse beneath the oak, and there it lay till
evening, when one Purkiss, a charcoal-burner of the forest hamlet of
Minestead, came by, lifted it up, and carried it on his rude cart, which
dripped with the blood flowing from the wound, to Winchester.
There the cathedral clergy buried it in a black stone coffin, ridged
like the roof of a house, beneath the tower of the cathedral, many
people looking on, but few grieving, and some deeming it shame that so
wicked a man should be allowed to lie within a church. These thought it
a judgment, when, next year, the tower fell down over the grave, and it
was rebuilt a little further westward with some of the treasure Bishop
Walkelyn had left. Never did any man’s history more awfully show a
hardened, impenitent heart, going back again to sin after a great
warning, then cut off by an instantaneous death, in the full tide of
prosperity, in the very height of health and strength--for he was but in
his fortieth year.
A spur of William Rufus is still preserved at the forest town of
Lyndhurst; Purkiss’s descendant still dwells at Minestead; part of the
way by which he travelled is called the King’s Lane, and the oak long
remained at Stoney Cross to mark the spot where the King fell; and when,
in 1745, the remains of the wood mouldered away, a stone was set up in
its place; but the last of the posterity of William the Conqueror’s
“high deer” were condemned in the course of the year 1831.
A Minestead churl, whose wonted trade
Was burning charcoal in the glade,
Outstretched amid the gorse
The monarch found: and in his wain
He raised, and to St. Swithin’s fane
Conveyed the bleeding corse.
And still--so runs our forest creed--
Flourish the pious woodman’s seed,
Even in the self-same spot:
One horse and cart, their little store,
Like their forefather’s, neither more
Nor less, their children’s lot.
And still in merry Tyndhurst hall
Red William’s stirrup decks the wall;
Who lists, the sight may see.
And a fair stone in green Mai wood,
Informs the traveller where stood
The memorable tree.
Thus in those fields the Red King died,
His father wasted in his pride,
For it is God’s command
Who doth another’s birthright rive,
The curse unto his blood shall cleave,
And God’s own word shall stand.
Who killed William Rufus? is a question to which the answer becomes more
doubtful in proportion to our knowledge of history. Suspicion attached
of course to Tyrrel, but he never owned that the shaft, either by design
or accident, came from his bow, and no one was there to bear witness.
Some think Henry Beauclerc might be guilty of the murder, and he was
both unscrupulous enough and prompt enough in taking advantage of the
circumstance, to give rise to the belief. Anselm was in Auvergne when he
heard of the King’s death, and he is said to have wept at the tidings.
He soon received a message from Henry inviting him to return to England,
where he was received with due respect, and found that, outwardly at
least, order and regularity were restored in Church matters, and the
clergy possessed their proper influence. Great promises were made
to them and to the Saxons; and the hated favorite of William, Ralph
Flambard, was in prison in the Tower. However, he contrived to make his
escape by the help of two barrels, one containing wine, with which he
intoxicated his keepers, the other a rope, by which he let himself down
from the window. He went to Robert of Normandy, remained with him some
time, but at last made his peace with Henry, and in his old age was a
tolerably respectable Bishop of Durham.
Anselm was in favor at court, owing to the influence of the “good Queen
Maude,” and he tried to bring about a reformation of the luxuries then
prevalent especially long curls, which had come into fashion with the
Normans of late. Like St. Wulstan, he carried a knife to clip them,
but without making much impression on the gay youths, till one of them
happened to dream that the devil was strangling him with his own long
hair, waked in a fright, cut it all off, and made all his friends do so
too.
As long as Henry was afraid of having his crown disputed by Robert,
he took care to remain on excellent terms with the Church, and Anselm
supported him with all his influence when Robert actually asserted his
rights; but when the danger was over, the strife between Church and
State began again. In 1103, Henry appointed four bishops, and required
Anselm to consecrate them, but as they all had received the staff and
ring from the King, and paid homage for their lands, he considered that
he could not do so, conformably with the decree of the Lateran Council
against lay investiture. Henry was much displeased, and ordered the
Archbishop of York to consecrate them; but two of them, convinced by
Anselm, returned the staff and ring, and would not be consecrated by any
one but their true primate.
Henry said that one archbishop must consecrate all or none, and the
whole Church was in confusion. Anselm, though now very old, offered to
go and consult the Pope, Paschal II., and the King consented; but when
Paschal decided that lay investiture was unlawful, Henry was so much
displeased that he forbade the archbishop to return to England.
The old man returned to his former Abbey of Bec, and thus remained in
exile till 1107, when a general adjustment of the whole question took
place. The bishops were to take from the altar the ring and staff,
emblems of spiritual power, and to pay homage to the king for their
temporal possessions. The election was to belong to the cathedral
clergy, subject to the King’s approval. The usual course became that the
King should send to the chapter a _congé d’élire_, that is, permission
to elect, but accompanied by a recommendation of some particular person;
and this nominee of the crown was so constantly chosen, that the custom
of sending a _congé d’élire_ has become only a form, which, however, is
an assertion of the rights of the Church.
A similar arrangement with regard to the presentation of bishops was
accepted in 1122 by Henry V. of Germany, who married Matilda, the
daughter of Henry I.
After the arrangement in 1107, Anselm returned to England, and good
Queen Maude came to meet him and show him every honor. His last year was
spent at Canterbury, in a state of weakness and infirmity, terminated by
his death on the 21st of April, 1109.
A gentle, studious man was the pious Anselm, our second Italian
archbishop, thrust into the rude combat of the world against his will,
and maintaining his cause and the cause of the Church with untiring
meekness and quiet resolution.
CAMEO XIII. THE FIRST CRUSADE. (1095-1100.)
_King of England_.
William II.
_King of France_.
Philippe II.
_Emperor of Germany_.
Heinrich IV.
_Pope_.
Urban II.
In the November of 1095 was seen such a sight as the world never
afforded before nor since. The great plain of La Limagne, in Auvergne,
shut in by lofty volcanic mountains of every fantastic and rugged form,
with the mighty Puy de Dome rising royally above them, was scattered
from one boundary to the other with white tents, and each little village
was crowded with visitants. The town of Clermont, standing on an
elevation commanding the whole extent of the plain, was filled
to overflowing, and contained a guest before whom all bowed in
reverence--the Pope himself--Urban II., whom the nations of the West
were taught to call the Father of Christendom. Four hundred Bishops
and Abbots had met him there, other clergy to the amount of 4,000, and
princes, nobles, knights, and peasants, in numbers estimated at 30,000.
Every one’s eye was, however, chiefly turned on a spare and sunburnt
man, of small stature, and rude, mean appearance, wearing a plain, dark
serge garment, girt by a cord round his waist, his head and feet bare,
and a crucifix in his hand. All looked on his austere face with the
veneration they would have shown to a saint, and with the curiosity with
which those are regarded who have dared many strange perils. He was
Peter the Hermit, of Picardy, who had travelled on pilgrimage to
Jerusalem; had there witnessed the dreadful profanities of the infidels,
and the sufferings they inflicted on the faithful; had conversed with
the venerable Patriarch Simeon; nay, it was said, while worshipping
at the Holy Sepulchre, had heard a voice calling on him to summon the
nations to the rescue of these holy spots. It was the tenth day of
the council at Clermont, and in spite of the severe cold, the clergy
assembled in the open air on the wide space in front of the dark stone
cathedral, then, as now, unfinished. There was need that all should
hear, and no building could contain the multitudes gathered at their
summons. A lofty seat had been raised for the Pope, and Peter the Hermit
stood by his side.
All was silence as the Hermit stood forth, and, crucifix in hand, poured
forth his description of the blasphemy of the infidels, the desolation
of the sacred places, and the misery of the Christians. He had seen the
very ministers of God insulted, beaten, even put to, death: he had seen
sacrilege, profanation, cruelty; and as he described them, his voice
became stifle, and his eyes streamed with tears.
When he ceased, Urban arose, and strengthened each word he had spoken,
till the whole assembly were weeping bitterly. “Yes, brethren,” said
the Pope, “let us weep for our sins, which have provoked the anger of
heaven; let us weep for the captivity of Zion. But woe to us if our
barren pity leaves the inheritance of the Lord any longer in the hands
of his foes.”
Then he called on them to take up arms for the deliverance of the Holy
Land. “If you live,” said he, “you will possess the kingdoms of the
East; if you die, you will be owned in heaven as the soldiers of
the Lord; Let no love of home detain you; behold only the shame and
sufferings of the Christians, hear only the groans of Jerusalem, and
remember that the Lord has said, ‘He that loveth his father or mother
more than Me is not worthy of Me. Whoso shall leave house, or father, or
mother, or wife, or children, and all that he has, for My sake, shall
receive an hundredfold, and in the world to come eternal life.’”
“_Deus vult; Deus vult;_”--It is God’s will--broke as with one voice
from the assembly, echoing from the hills around, and pealing with a
voice like thunder.
“Yes, it is God’s will,” again spoke Urban, “Let these words be your
war-cry, and keep you ever in mind that the Lord of Hosts is with you.”
Then holding on high the Cross--“Our Lord himself presents you His own
Cross, the sign raised aloft to gather the dispersed of Israel. Bear it
on your shoulders and your breast; let it shine on your weapons and your
standards. It will be the pledge of victory or the palm of martyrdom,
and remind you, that, as your Saviour died for you, so you ought to die
for Him.” Outcries of different kinds broke out, but all were for the
holy war. Adhemar de Monteil, Bishop of Puy, a neighboring See, first
asked for the Cross, and thousands pressed after him, till the numbers
of Crosses failed that had been provided, and the cardinals and other
principal persons tore up their robes to furnish more.
The crusading spirit spread like circles from a stone thrown into the
water, as the clergy of the council carried their own excitement to
their homes, and the hosts who took the Cross were beyond all reckoning.
On the right or wrong of the Crusades, it is useless as well as
impossible to attempt to decide. It was doubtless a spirit of religion,
and not of self-interest, that prompted them; they were positively the
best way of checking the progress of Mahometanism and the incursions of
its professors, and they were undertaken with far purer intentions than
those with which they were carried on. That they afterward turned to
great wickedness, is not to be denied; some of the degenerate Crusaders
of the latter days were among the wickedest of mankind, and the misuse
of the influence they gave the Popes became a source of some of the
worst practices of the Papacy. Already Pope Urban was taking on him to
declare that a man who perished in the Crusade was sure of salvation,
and his doctrine was still further perverted and falsified till it
occasioned endless evils.
Yet, in these early days, joined with many a germ of evil, was a
grandeur of thought, a self-devotion, and truly religious spirit, which
will hardly allow us to call the first Crusade other than a glorious and
a Holy War.
It was time, politically speaking, to carry the war into the enemy’s
quarters, and repress the second wave of Mahometan conquest. Islam
[Footnote: Islam, meaning “the faith;” it is a barbarism to speak of
the faith of Islam.] has often been called the religion of the sword,
and Mahomet and his Arabic successors, under the first impulse,
conquered Syria, Persia, Northern Africa, and Spain, and met their first
check at Tours from Charles Martel. These, the Saracen Arabs, were a
generous race, no persecutors, and almost friendly to the Christians,
contenting themselves with placing them under restrictions, and exacting
from them a small tribute. After the first great overflow, the tide had
somewhat ebbed, and though a brave and cultivated people, they were
everywhere somewhat giving way on their orders before the steady
resistance of the Christians. Probably, if they had continued in
Palestine, there would have been no Crusades.
But some little time before the eleventh century, a second flood began
to rush from the East. A tribe of Tartars, called Turcomans, or Turks,
embraced Mahometanism, and its precepts of aggression, joining with the
warrior-spirit of the Tartar, impelled them forward.
They subdued and slaughtered the Saracens of Syria, made wide conquests
in Asia Minor, winning towns of the Greek Empire beyond where the
Saracens had ever penetrated, and began to threaten the borders of
Christendom. They were very different masters from the Arabs. Active
in body, but sluggish in mind, ignorant and cruel, they destroyed
and overthrew what the Saracens had spared, disregarded law, and
capriciously ill-treated and slaughtered their Christian subjects and
the pilgrims who fell into their hands. It was against these savage
Turks that the first Crusade was directed.
Peter the Hermit soon gathered together a confused multitude of
peasants, women, and children, with whom he set out, together with
a German knight named Walter, and called by his countrymen by the
expressive name _Habe Nichts_, translated into French, _Sans avoir_, and
less happily rendered in English, _The Penniless_. They were a poor,
ignorant, half-armed set, who so little knew what they were undertaking,
that at every town they came to they would ask if that was Jerusalem.
Peter must either have been beyond measure thoughtless, or have expected
a miracle to help him, for he set out to lead these poor creatures
the whole length of Europe without provisions. They marauded on the
inhabitants of the countries through which they passed; the inhabitants
revenged themselves and killed them, and the whole wretched host were
cut off, chiefly in Hungary and Bulgaria, and Peter himself seems to
have been the only man who escaped.
A better-appointed army, consisting of the very flower of chivalry of
Europe, had in the meantime assembled to follow the same path, though in
a different manner.
First in name and honor was Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, one
of the most noble characters whom history records. He was pure in life,
devotedly pious, merciful, gentle, and a perfect observer of his word,
at the same time that his talents and wisdom were very considerable;
he was a finished warrior, expert in every exercise of chivalry, of
gigantic strength, and highly renowned as a leader. He had been loyal
to the Emperor Henry IV. through the war which had taken place in
consequence of his excommunication by Gregory VII. He had killed in
battle the rebellious competitor for the imperial crown, who, when dying
from a wound by which he had lost his right hand, exclaimed, “With this
hand I swore fealty to Henry; cursed be they who led me to break my
oath.” Godfrey had likewise been the first to scale the walls of Rome,
when Henry IV. besieged Gregory there; but he, in common with many
others of the besieging force, soon after suffered severely from malaria
fever--the surest way in which modern Rome chastises her invaders; and
thinking his illness a judgment for having taken part against the Pope,
he vowed to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Soon after, the Crusade was
preached, and Godfrey was glad to fulfil his vow with his good sword in
his hand, while Pope and princes wisely agreed that such a chieftain was
the best they could choose for their expedition.
Many another great name was there: Raymond, the wise Count of Toulouse;
the crafty Boemond, one of the Normans of Sicily; his gallant cousin,
Tancred, a mirror of chivalry, the Achilles of the Crusade; but our
limits will only allow us to dwell on those through whom the Crusade is
connected with English history.