HENRY AND ENGLAND.
1154–1157.
The Christmas-tide of the year 1154 was an epoch in English history
almost as marked as that of 1066. The crowning of Henry Fitz-Empress
was, scarcely less than that of William the Conqueror, the beginning of
a new era; and--unlike many historical events whose importance is only
realized long after they are past--it was distinctly recognized as such
by the men of the period. For the first time since the Norman conquest,
the new king succeeded to his throne without a competitor, and with the
unanimous goodwill of all ranks and all races throughout his kingdom.
Normans and English, high and low, cleric and lay, welcomed the young
Angevin king as the herald of a bright new day which was to dispel
the darkness that had settled down upon the land during the nineteen
winters of anarchy, and to bring back all, or more than all, the peace
and prosperity of England’s happiest ages. But if Henry’s subjects
looked forward to the year which was just beginning with a hope such
as no new year had brought them since his grandfather’s death, Henry
himself may well have contemplated with an anxiety little short of
despair the task which lay before him. It was nothing less than the
resuscitation of the body politic from a state of utter decay. The
legal, constitutional and administrative machinery of the state was at
a deadlock; the national resources, material and moral, were exhausted.
To bring under subjection, once for all, the remnant of the disturbing
forces which had caused the catastrophe, and render them powerless for
future harm:--to disinter from the mass of ruin the fragments of the
old foundations of social and political organization, and build up on
them a secure and lasting fabric of administration and law;--to bring
order out of chaos, life out of decay:--this was the work which a youth
who had not yet completed his twenty-second year now found himself
called to undertake, and to undertake almost single-handed.
The call did not indeed take him by surprise. The last year which he
had spent in England must have given him some knowledge of the state of
things with which as king he would have to deal; and the prospect of
having so to deal with it sooner or later had been constantly before
his eyes from his very infancy. His qualifications for the work must
however have been chiefly innate. The first nine years of his life
spent under the care of mother and father alternately in Anjou; the
next four, under his uncle Earl Robert at Bristol; then two years in
Anjou again, followed by a year with King David of Scotland, three more
spent in securing his continental heritage and that of his bride, a
year occupied in securing England, and another busied with self-defence
in Normandy:--such a training was too desultory to have furnished
Henry with the knowledge or the experience necessary for the formation
of anything like a matured theory of government; and he could have
had no time to think out one for himself in a life so busy and so
short. Yet in his very youth and inexperience there was an element of
strength. He came trammelled by no preconceived political theories, no
party-pledges, no local and personal ties; he came simply with his own
young intellect unwarped by prejudice, unruffled by passion, unclouded
by care; fresh with the untried vigour and elasticity of youth, and
ready, whatever his hand should find to do, fearlessly to do it with
his might.
Thus much, at least, those who crowded to welcome the new sovereign
might read in his very face and figure. Henry of Anjou had no claim
to the personal epithet universally bestowed upon his father; and yet,
as one of his courtiers expressively said, his was a form which a
soldier, having once seen, would hasten to look upon again.[1229] He
was of moderate height,[1230] appearing neither gigantic among small
men nor insignificant among tall ones;[1231] in later days it was
remarked that he had hit the golden mean of stature which his sons had
all either overshot or failed to attain.[1232] His frame was made for
strength, endurance and activity;[1233] thick-set, square-shouldered,
broad-chested:--with arms muscular as those of a gladiator;[1234]
highly-arched feet which looked made for the stirrup;[1235]--a large,
but not disproportionate head, round and well-shaped, and covered
with close-cropped hair of the tawny hue which Fulk the Red seems to
have transmitted to so many of his descendants:[1236] a face which
one of his courtiers describes as “lion-like”[1237] and another as
“a countenance of fire”[1238]--a face, as we can see even in its
sculptured effigy on his tomb, full of animation, energy and vigour;--a
freckled skin;[1239] somewhat prominent grey eyes, clear and soft
when he was in a peaceable mood, but bloodshot and flashing like
balls of fire when the demon-spirit of his race was aroused within
him:--[1240] Henry, his people might guess almost at a glance, was
no mirror of courtly chivalry and elegance, but a man of practical,
vigorous and rapid action. He inherited as little of Geoffrey’s
personal refinement as of his physical grace. When the young duke of
the Normans had first appeared in England, his shoulders covered
with a little short cape such as was then usually worn in Anjou, the
English knights, who since his grandfather’s time had been accustomed
to wear long cloaks hanging down to the ground, were struck by the
novelty of his attire and nicknamed him “Henry Curtmantel.”[1241]
When once the Angevin fashion was transferred to the English court,
however, there was nothing in Henry’s dress to distinguish him from
his servants, unless it were its very lack of display and elegance;
his clothing and headgear were of the plainest kind; and how little
care he took of his person was shewn by his rough coarse hands, never
gloved except when he went hawking.[1242] In his later years he was
accused of extreme parsimony;[1243] even as a young man, he clearly
had no pleasure in pomp or luxury of any kind. He was very temperate
in meat and drink;[1244] over-indulgence in that respect seems indeed
never to have been one of the habitual sins of the house of Anjou;
and whatever complex elements may have had a part in his innermost
moral constitution, in temper and tastes Henry was an Angevin of the
Angevins. His restlessness seems to have outdone that of Fulk Nerra
himself. He was always up and doing; if a dream of ease crossed him
even in sleep, he spurned it angrily from him;[1245] he gave himself no
peace, and as a natural consequence, he gave none to those around him.
When not at war, he was constantly practising its mimicry with hawk
and hound; his passion for the chase--a double inheritance, from his
father and from his mother’s Norman ancestors--was so great as to be
an acknowledged scandal in all eyes.[1246] He would mount his horse at
the first streak of dawn, come back in the evening after a day’s hard
riding across hill, moor and forest, and then tire out his companions
by keeping them on their feet until nightfall.[1247] His own feet were
always swollen and bruised from his violent riding; yet except at meals
and on horseback, he was never known to be seated.[1248] In public or
in private, in council or in church, he stood or walked from morning
till night.[1249] At church, indeed, he was especially restless;
unmindful of the sacred unction which had made him king, he evidently
grudged the time taken from secular occupations for attendance upon
religious duties, and would either discuss affairs of state in a
whisper[1250] or relieve his impatience by drawing little pictures all
through the most solemn of holy rites.[1251] His English or Norman
courtiers, unaccustomed to deal with the demon-blood of Anjou, vainly
endeavoured to account for an activity which remained undiminished when
they were all half dead with exhaustion, and attributed it to his dread
of becoming disabled by corpulence, to which he had a strong natural
tendency.[1252] A good deal of it, however, was probably due to sheer
physical restlessness and superabundant physical energy; and a good
deal more to the irrepressible outward working of an extraordinarily
active mind.
[1229] “Vir ... quem miles diligenter inspectum accurrebant
[_accurrebat_?] inspicere.” W. Map, _De Nugis Curialium_,
dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).
[1230] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29
(Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 71). Peter of Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles,
vol. i. p. 193).
[1231] Pet. Blois as above.
[1232] Gir. Cambr. as above.
[1233] W. Map as above.
[1234] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 70). Pet. Blois as above.
[1235] Pet. Blois as above.
[1236] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. as above.
[1237] Pet. Blois as above.
[1238] Gir. Cambr. as above.
[1239] See how Merlin’s prophecy about “fortem lentiginosum”
was applied to him, Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l. i. c. 6
(Dimock, vol. vi. p. 62).
[1240] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl.
Christ. Soc., p. 70). Pet. Blois as above.
[1241] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. iii. c. 28 (Angl.
Christ. Soc., p. 157).
[1242] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 193, 194).
[1243] See Ralf Niger (Anstruther), p. 169. Ralf, however,
was a bitter enemy. Gerald on the other hand seems to draw,
and to imply that Henry drew, a distinction between official
and personal expenditure: “Parcimoniæ, quoad principi licuit,
per omnia datus.” _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl.
Christ. Soc., p. 70). “Largus in publico, parcus in privato”
(_ib._ p. 71).
[1244] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 70). Pet. Blois as above (p.
195). W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 231).
[1245] W. Map as above (p. 227).
[1246] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 71). Pet. Blois as
above (p. 194).
[1247] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl.
Christ. Soc., p. 71).
[1248] _Ibid._ Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).
[1249] Pet. Blois as above.
[1250] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 72).
[1251] “Oratorium ingressus, picturæ et susurro vacabat.” R.
Niger (Anstruther), p. 169. It is only fair to add that some of
the highest clergy of the day were just as unscrupulous as the
king about talking business during mass. See, _e.g._, Chron. de
Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), pp. 73, 74; and there are plenty of
other examples.
[1252] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).
It was no light matter to be in attendance upon such a king. His
clerks, some playfully, some in all seriousness, compared his court
to the infernal regions.[1253] His habit of constantly moving about
from one place to another--a habit which he retained to the very end
of his life--was in itself sufficiently trying to those who had to
transact business with him, and was made positively exasperating by
his frequent and sudden changes of plan. “He shunned regular hours
like poison.”[1254] “Solomon saith,” wrote his secretary Peter of
Blois to him once, after vainly striving to track him across land and
sea, “Solomon saith there be three things difficult to be found out,
and a fourth which may hardly be discovered: the way of an eagle in
the air; the way of a ship in the sea; the way of a serpent on the
ground; and the way of a man in his youth. I can add a fifth: the way
of a king in England.”[1255] In a letter to his old comrades of the
court Peter gives a detailed account of the discomforts brought upon
them by Henry’s erratic movements. “If the king has promised to spend
the day in a place--more especially, if his intention so to do has
been publicly proclaimed by a herald--you may be quite sure he will
upset everybody’s arrangements by starting off early in the morning.
Then you may see men rushing about as if they were mad, beating their
packhorses, driving their chariots one into another--in short, such a
turmoil as to present you with a lively image of the infernal regions.
If, on the other hand, the king announces that he will set out early
in the morning for a certain place, he is sure to change his mind; you
may take it for granted that he will sleep till noon. Then you shall
see the packhorses waiting with their burthens, the chariots standing
ready, the couriers dozing, the purveyors worrying, and all grumbling
one at another. Folk run to the women and the tent-keepers to inquire
of them whither the king is really going; for this sort of courtiers
often know the secrets of the palace. Many a time when the king was
asleep and all was silent around, there has come a message from his
lodging, not authoritative, but rousing us all up, and naming the city
or town whither he was about to proceed. After waiting so long in
dreary uncertainty, we were comforted by a prospect of being quartered
in a place where there was a fair chance of accommodation. Thereupon
arose such a clatter of horse and foot that hell seemed to have broken
loose. But when our couriers had gone the whole day’s ride, or nearly
so, the king would turn aside to some other place where he had perhaps
one single house, and just enough provision for himself and none else.
I hardly dare say it,” adds the sorely-tried secretary, “but I verily
believe he took a delight in seeing the straits to which he put us!
After wandering a distance of three or four miles in an unknown wood,
and often in the dark, we thought ourselves lucky if we stumbled upon
some dirty little hovel; there was often grievous and bitter strife
about a mere hut; and swords were drawn for the possession of a lodging
which pigs would not have deemed worth fighting for. I used to get
separated from my people, and could hardly collect them again in three
days. O Lord God Almighty! wilt Thou not turn the heart of this king,
that he may know himself to be but man, and may learn to shew some
grace of regal consideration, some human fellow-feeling, for those whom
not ambition, but necessity, compels to run after him thus?”[1256]
[1253] _Ibid._, dist. i. c. 2 (pp. 5, 6); dist. v. c. 7 (p.
238). Pet. Blois, Ep. xiv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 50).
[1254] R. Niger (Anstruther), p. 169.
[1255] Pet. Blois, Ep. xli. (Giles, vol. i. p. 125). Arnulf of
Lisieux makes a like complaint in a more serious tone: Arn.
Lis., Ep. 92 (Giles, p. 247). See also the remark of Louis of
France on Henry’s expedition to Ireland in 1172: R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351.
[1256] Pet. Blois, Ep. xiv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 50, 51).
This bustling, scrambling, roving Pandemonium was very unlike the
orderly, well-disciplined court of the first King Henry, where
everything was done according to rule;--where the royal itinerary was
planned out every month, and its stages duly announced and strictly
adhered to, so that every man knew exactly when and where to find his
sovereign, and his coming brought people together as to a fair:--where
all the earls and barons of the realm were set down in a written list,
according to which every one on his arrival at court was furnished with
a certain allowance of bread, wine and candles for the term of his
sojourn;[1257]--where the king’s own daily life was passed in a steady
routine, holding council with his wise men and giving audiences until
dinner-time, devoting the rest of the day to the society of the young
gallants whom he drew from every country on this side of the Alps to
increase the splendour of his household:--a court which was “a school
of virtue and wisdom all the morning, of courtesy and decorous mirth
all the afternoon.”[1258] Yet this hasty, impetuous young sovereign, in
whose rough aspect and reckless ways one can at first glance discern
so little either of regal dignity or of steady application to regal
duty, was in truth, no less than his grandfather, an indefatigable
worker and a born ruler of men. His way of doing business, apparently
by fits and starts, bewildered men of less versatile intellect and
less rapid decision; but they saw that the business was done, and done
thoroughly, though they hardly understood when or how. They resigned
themselves to be swept along in the whirl of Henry’s unaccountable
movements, for they learned to perceive that those movements did not
spring from mere caprice and perversity, but had always a motive and
an object, inscrutable perhaps to all eyes save his own, but none the
less definite and practical. When he dragged them in one day over a
distance which should have occupied four or five, they knew that it
was to forestall the machinations of some threatening foe. When he ran
over the country from end to end without a word of notice, it was to
overtake his officials at unawares and ascertain for himself how they
were or were not attending to their duty.[1259] If he was never still,
he was also never idle. He seemed to be specially haunted by that dread
of the mischief attendant upon idle hands which an Angevin writer
quaintly puts forth as an apology for the ceaseless warfare in which
his race passed their lives.[1260] Henry’s hands were never idle; in
the intervals of state business, when not laden with bow and arrows,
they almost invariably held a book; for Henry was, to the very close
of his life, the most learned crowned head in Christendom.[1261] He
was a match for the best among his subjects in all knightly exercises
and accomplishments; he was no less a match for the best, among laymen
at least, in scholarship and mental culture. If we may believe one of
his chaplains, Walter Map, he knew something of every language “from
the bay of Biscay to the Jordan,” though he only spoke two, Latin and
his native French;[1262] he evidently never learned to speak, and it
is doubtful how far he understood, the natural tongue of the people of
his island realm. He loved reading; he enjoyed the society of learned
men; his delight was to stand amid a little group of clerks, arguing
out some knotty point with them; not a day passed in his court without
some interesting literary discussion.[1263] His habit of shutting
himself up in his own apartments with a few chosen companions was a
grievance to those who remembered his grandfather’s practice of coming
forth in public at stated hours every day;[1264] yet Henry II. was
never difficult of access; once, when the prior of Witham made a witty
retort to the marshals who refused him admittance to the royal chamber,
the king himself, overhearing the jest, opened the door with a peal
of laughter;[1265] and a courier charged with important news from the
north made his way to the sovereign’s bedside and woke him in the
middle of the night without hesitation.[1266] When he did shew himself
to the people, they thronged him without ceremony; they caught hold of
him right and left, they pulled him this way and that, yet he never
rebuked them, never gave them an angry look, but listened patiently to
what each man had to say, and when their importunity became intolerable
he simply made his escape without a word.[1267] Though not gifted with
a good voice,[1268] he was a ready and pleasant speaker;[1269] and
he had two other natural qualifications specially useful for a king.
Unlike his grandfather Fulk V., who never could remember a face and
constantly had to ask the names of his own familiar attendants,[1270]
Henry never failed to recognize a man whom he had once looked at;
and a thing once heard, if worth remembering, never slipped from his
memory, which was consequently stored with a fund of historical and
experimental knowledge ready for use at any moment.[1271]
[1257] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, pp. 224,
225).
[1258] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 5 (Wright, p. 210).
[1259] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).
[1260] See above, p. 343, note 6{1002}.
[1261] Pet. Blois as above.
[1262] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).
[1263] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).
[1264] W. Map as above (p. 230).
[1265] _Ib._ dist. i. c. 6 (p. 7).
[1266] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 25 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 189).
[1267] W. Map, as above, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 231).
[1268] “Voce quassâ.” Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii.
c. 29 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 70). This however refers to his
later years.
[1269] _Ib._ p. 71. Pet. Blois as above (p. 195).
[1270] Will. Tyr., l. xiv. c. i.
[1271] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl.
Christ. Soc., p. 73).
His worst private vices only reached their full developement in later
years; it is plain, however, that he was much less careful than his
grandfather had been of the outward decorum of his household; and
unluckily his consort was not a woman to control it by her influence
or improve it by her example like the “good Queen Maude.” His wrath
was even more terrific than the wrath of kings is proverbially wont to
be.[1272] His passions were strong, and they were lasting; when once
he had taken a dislike to a man, he could rarely be induced to grant
him his favour; on the other hand, when his friendship and confidence
were once given, he withdrew them with the utmost difficulty and
reluctance;[1273] and he had the gift of inspiring in all who came
in contact with him a love or a hatred as intense and abiding as his
own. His temper was a mystery to those who had not the key to it; it
was the temper of Fulk Nerra. He had the Black Count’s strange power
of fascination, his unaccountable variations of mood, and his cool,
clear head. Like Fulk, he was at one moment mocking and blaspheming
all that is holiest in earth and heaven, and at another grovelling in
an agony of remorse as wild as the blasphemy itself. Like Fulk, he
was an indefatigable builder, constantly superintending the erection
of a wall, the fortification of a castle, the making of a dyke,
the enclosing of a deer-park or a fish-pond, or the planning of a
palace;[1274] and all the while his material buildings were but types
of a great edifice of statecraft which, all unseen, was rising day
by day beneath the hands of the royal architect;--his ever-varying
pursuits, each of which seemed to absorb him for the moment, were but
parts of an all-absorbing whole;--and his seeming self-contradictions
were unaccountable only because the most useful of all his Angevin
characteristics, his capacity for instinctively and unerringly adapting
means to ends, enabled him to detect opportunities and recognize
combinations invisible to less penetrating eyes. This was the moral
constitution which in Fulk III. and Fulk V. had made the greatness of
the house of Anjou; its workings were now to be displayed on a grander
scale and in a more important sphere.
[1272] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 223).
[1273] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (_ib._ p. 194). Gir. Cambr. as
above (p. 71).
[1274] Pet. Blois as above (p. 195).
The young king saw at once that for his work of reconstruction and
reform in England the counsellors who surrounded him in Normandy were
of no avail; that he must trust solely to English help, and select his
chief ministers partly from among those who had been in office under
his predecessor, partly from such of his own English partizans as were
best fitted for the task. First among the former class stood Richard
de Lucy, who held the post of justiciar at the close of Stephen’s
reign,[1275] who retained it under Henry for five-and-twenty years, and
whose character is summed up in the epithet said to have been bestowed
on him by his grateful sovereign--“Richard de Lucy the Loyal.”[1276]
For thirteen years he shared the dignity and the duties of chief
justiciar with Earl Robert of Leicester,[1277] who, after having been
a faithful supporter of Stephen in his earlier and better days, had
transferred his allegiance to Henry, and continued through life one of
his most trusty servants and friends. The weight of Robert’s character
was increased by that of his rank and descent; as head of the great
house of Leicester, he was the most influential baron of the midland
shires; while as son of Count Robert of Meulan, the friend of Henry
I., he was a living link with that hallowed past which Henry II. was
expected to restore, and a natural representative of its traditions of
honour and of peace. Of the great ministers who had actually served
under the first King Henry only one survived: the old treasurer, Nigel,
bishop of Ely. We know not who took his place on his fall in 1139; but
the treasurer in Stephen’s latter years can have had little more than
an empty title; and when Nigel reappears in office, immediately after
Henry’s accession, it is not as treasurer, but as chancellor.[1278]
This, however, was a merely provisional arrangement; in a few weeks
the bishop of Ely was reinstated in his most appropriate place, on the
right side of the chequered table, gathering up the broken threads
of the financial system which he had learned under his uncle of
Salisbury;[1279] while the more miscellaneous work of the chancellor
was undertaken by younger hands.
[1275] At the peace he held the Tower of London and the
castle of Windsor; Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 18: these were
peculiarly in the custody of the justiciar; Stubbs, _Const.
Hist._, vol. i. p. 449, note 1.
[1276] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1540–1541 (Michel, p. 70).
[1277] Robert appears as _capitalis justicia_ in a charter
of, apparently, 1155 (Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 3). In
1159–1160, John of Salisbury describes him as “illustris comes
Legrecestriæ Robertus, modeste proconsulatum gerens apud
Britannias” (Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 25; Giles,
vol. iv. p. 65), and at his death in 1168 he is named in the
Chron. Mailros (_ad ann._) as “comes justus Leicestrie, et qui
summa justitia vocatur.”
[1278] A charter issued at Westminster, evidently soon after
the coronation, is witnessed by “N. Epọ de Ely et Canc.” Eyton,
_Itin. Hen. II._, p. 2, note 2.
[1279] _Dial. de Scacc._, l. i. c. 8 (Stubbs, _Select
Charters_, p. 199).
Under the old English constitutional system, alike in its native purity
and in the modified form which it assumed under the Conqueror and his
sons, the archbishop of Canterbury was the official keeper of the
royal conscience and the first adviser of the sovereign. Theobald had
contributed more than any other one man to secure Henry’s succession;
he saw in it the crowning of his own life’s work for England; while
Henry saw in Theobald his most weighty and valuable supporter. It
was therefore a matter of course that the primate should resume the
constitutional position which he had inherited from Anselm and Lanfranc
and their old-English predecessors. Theobald, however, was now in
advanced age and feeble health; and when he fully perceived what manner
of man it was to whom he was bound to act as spiritual father and
political guide, he felt that to regulate these strong passions, to
direct these youthful impulses, to follow these restless movements, was
a task too hard for his failing strength. He feared the evil influences
of the courtiers upon the young king, who seemed so willing to be led
aright, and might for that very reason be so easily led astray;[1280]
he feared for the English Church, through which there was already
running a whisper of ill-omen concerning the Angevins’ known hostility
to the rights of religion;[1281] he feared for his own soul, lest Henry
should wander out of the right path for lack of guidance, and the sin
should lie at the door of the incompetent guide.[1282] There was one
man who, if he could but be placed at the young king’s side, might be
trusted to manage the arduous and delicate task. So to place him could
be no very difficult matter; for his own past services to Henry’s cause
were far too great to be left unrewarded. Neither the recommendations
of the bishops of Winchester,[1283] Bayeux and Lisieux,[1284] nor
even those of the primate, could have as much weight as the known
qualifications of the candidate himself in obtaining the office of
chancellor for Thomas Becket.[1285]
[1280] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 160.
[1281] _Vita S. Thomæ_, Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol.
iv.), p. 11.
[1282] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 160.
[1283] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
18.
[1284] “Quorum consiliis rex in primordiis suis innitebatur.”
Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 12.
[1285] “Facile regi inspiratum est commendatum habere quem
propria satis merita commendabant.” E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.),
p. 363. I cannot attach any importance to the version of
_Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 45–47.
The chancellor’s duties were still much the same as they had been when
first organized by Roger of Salisbury. He was charged with the keeping
of the royal seal, the drawing-up of royal writs and charters, the
conduct of the royal correspondence, the preservation of legal records,
the custody of vacant fiefs and benefices, and the superintendence of
the king’s chaplains and clerks;[1286]--in a word, the management of
the whole clerical and secretarial work of the royal household and of
the government. Officially, he seems to have been ranked below the
chief ministers of state--the justiciar, or even the treasurer;[1287]
personally, however, he was brought more than either of them into
close and constant relations with his sovereign. The actual importance
and dignity of the chancellorship depended in fact upon the capacity of
individual chancellors for magnifying their office. Thomas magnified it
as no man ever did before or since. In a very few months he became what
the justiciar had formerly been, the second man in the kingdom;[1288]
and not in the kingdom alone, but in all the lands, on both sides of
the sea, which owned Henry Fitz-Empress for their sovereign.[1289]
Theobald’s scheme far more than succeeded; his favourite became not
so much the king’s chief minister as his friend, his director, his
master.[1290] The two young men, drawn together by a strong personal
attraction, seemed to have but one heart and one soul.[1291] Thomas
was the elder by fifteen years; but the disparity of age was lost
in the perfect community of their feelings, interests and pursuits.
Thomas was now in deacon’s orders, having been ordained by Archbishop
Theobald at the close of the previous year on his appointment to the
archdeaconry of Canterbury,[1292] an office which was accounted the
highest ecclesiastical dignity in England after those of the bishops
and abbots.[1293] He felt, however, no vocation and no taste for the
duties of sacred ministry, and was only too glad to “put off the
deacon” and fling all his energies into the more congenial sphere
of court life.[1294] Alike in its business and in its pleasures
he was thoroughly at home. His refined sensibilities, his romantic
imagination, revelled in the elegance and splendour which to Henry’s
matter-of-fact disposition were simply irksome; he gladly took all the
burthen of state ceremonial as well as of state business upon his own
shoulders; and he bore it with an easy grace which men never wearied
of admiring. One day he would be riding in coat of mail at the head of
the royal troops, the next he would be dispensing justice in the king’s
name;[1295] and his will was law throughout the land, for all men knew
that his will and Henry’s were one.[1296]
[1286] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above. On the chancellor’s office
see Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, vol. i. pp. 352, 353.
[1287] Will. Fitz-Steph., as above, does indeed say
“Cancellarii Angliæ dignitas est ut secundus a rege in regno
habeatur”; but he had in his mind one particular chancellor.
He also says “Cancellaria emenda non est”; but it seems that
Thomas himself paid for his appointment (Gilb. Foliot, Ep.
cxciv., Giles, vol. i. p. 268; Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep.
ccxxv. pp. 523, 524), like the chancellors before and after
him, and like the other great ministers of state.
[1288] “In regno secundus,” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i.
p. 169. “Secundus a rege,” Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson,
_Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 18. “Nullus par ei erat in regno,
excepto solo rege,” Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216. E.
Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 363, and the _Thomas
Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 49, liken his position to that of
Joseph.
[1289] “Secundum post regem in quatuor regnis quis te ignorat?”
writes Peter of Celle to Thomas (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.
Ep. ii. p. 4).
[1290] “Regis amicus,” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 169.
“Regis rector et quasi magister,” _ib._ pp. 160 and 169.
[1291] Joh. Salisb., Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 109;
Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ix. p. 13).
[1292] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 159, 160. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 213. Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_,
vol. i.), p. 4. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 17.
Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 168. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 11.
[1293] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above. He says it was worth a
hundred pounds of silver.
[1294] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 173.
[1295] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 12.
[1296] _Ibid._ E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 364.
In outward aspect Thomas must have been far more regal than the king
himself. He was very tall and elegantly formed,[1297] with an oval
face,[1298] handsome aquiline features,[1299] a lofty brow,[1300]
large, lustrous and penetrating eyes;[1301] there was an habitual
look of placid dignity in his countenance,[1302] a natural grace in
his every gesture, an ingrained refinement in his every word and
action;[1303] the slender, tapering, white fingers[1304] and dainty
attire of the burgher’s son contrasted curiously with the rough brown
hands and careless appearance of Henry Fitz-Empress; the order,
elegance and liberality of the chancellor’s household contrasted no
less with the confusion and discomfort of the king’s. The riches that
passed through Thomas’s hands were enormous; revenues and honours were
heaped on him by the king; costly gifts poured in upon him daily from
clergy and laity, high and low. But what he received with one hand he
gave away with the other; his splendour and his wealth were shared
with all who chose to come and take a share of them. His door was
always open, his table always spread, for all men, of whatever race or
rank, who stood in need of hospitality.[1305] Besides fifty-two clerks
regularly attached to his household--some to act as his secretaries,
some to take charge of the vacant benefices in his custody, some to
serve his own numerous livings and prebends[1306]--he had almost
every day a company of invited guests to dinner; every day the hall
was freshly strewn with green leaves or rushes in summer and clean
hay or straw in winter, amid which those for whom there was no room
on the benches sat and dined on the floor. The tables shone with gold
and silver vessels, and were laden with costly viands; Thomas stuck
at no expense in such matters; but it was less for his own enjoyment
than for that of his guests;[1307] and these always included a crowd
of poor folk, who were as sumptuously and carefully served as the
rich;[1308] the meanest in his house never had to complain of a dinner
such as the noblest were often obliged to endure in King Henry’s court,
where half-baked bread, sour wine, stale fish and bad meat were the
ordinary fare.[1309] The chancellor’s hospitality was as gracious as it
was lavish. He was the most perfect of hosts; he saw to the smallest
details of domestic service; he noted the position of each guest,
missed and inquired for the absent, perceived and righted in a moment
the least mistake in precedence; if any man out of modesty tried to
take a lower place than was his due, it was in vain; no matter in
what obscure corner he might hide, Thomas was sure to find him out;
he seemed to pierce through curtains and walls with those wonderful
eyes whose glance brightened and cheered the whole table.[1310] No
wonder that barons and knights sent their sons to be educated under his
roof,[1311] and that his personal followers were far more numerous than
those of the king.[1312]
[1297] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 17. Herb. Bosh.
(_ibid._), p. 327. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), p. 3. _Thomas
Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 29.
[1298] Herb. Bosh. as above.
[1299] Will. Fitz-Steph., Herb. Bosh., and _Thomas Saga_, as
above.
[1300] Herb. Bosh. as above.
[1301] _Ib._ p. 229.
[1302] Will. Cant., Will. Fitz-Steph., and _Thomas Saga_, as
above.
[1303] Anon. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 84.
[1304] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 327.
[1305] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp.
20, 21. Joh. Salisb., _Entheticus in Polycraticum_ (Giles, vol.
iii.) p. 3.
[1306] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above, p. 29.
[1307] _Ib._ pp. 20, 21.
[1308] Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 13.
[1309] Pet. Blois, Ep. xiv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 49).
[1310] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 229.
[1311] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._), p. 22.
[1312] E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 363. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol.
iv.), p. 13.
Henry might have been jealous of his minister; but there was no
thought of jealousy in his mind. He was constantly in and out at the
chancellor’s house; half in sheer fun, half to see for himself the
truth of the wonderful stories which he heard about it, he would come
uninvited to dinner, riding up suddenly--often bow in hand, on his way
to or from the chase--when Thomas was seated at table; sometimes he
would take a stirrup-cup, nod to his friend and ride away; sometimes he
would leap over the table, sit down and eat. When their work was over,
king and chancellor played together like a couple of schoolboys, and
whether it was in their private apartments, in the public streets, in
the palace, or in church, made no difference at all. It was a favourite
tale among their associates how as they rode together through the
streets of London one winter’s day, the king, seeing a ragged shivering
beggar, snatched at the chancellor’s handsome new mantle of scarlet
cloth lined with vair, crying--“You shall have the merit of clothing
the naked this time!” and after a struggle in which both combatants
nearly fell off their horses, sent the poor man away rejoicing in his
new and strangely acquired garment, while with shouts of applause and
laughter the bystanders crowded round Thomas, playfully offering him
their cloaks and capes in compensation for his loss.[1313]
[1313] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp.
24, 25.
It is hardly possible to deny that such enormous wealth as passed
through Thomas’s hands during his tenure of the chancellorship must
have been acquired, in part at least, by means which in the case of a
minister of the Crown in our own day would be accounted little less
than scandalous. But in the twelfth century there was no scandal about
the matter. Costly gifts of all kinds were showered at the feet of
kings and great men openly and as matter of course, and kings and
great men received them as openly, often without any idea of bribery
on either side. Moreover it is to be remembered that Thomas’s position
as chancellor gave him command over a considerable portion of the
royal revenues, and that he was left free to draw upon them at his
own discretion to meet an expenditure of which part was incurred
directly in the king’s behalf, while the whole of it might be regarded
as indirectly tending to the king’s glorification and benefit. The
two friends in fact seem to have had but one purse as well as “one
mind and one heart,” and not till many years later was there any
thought of disentangling their accounts. Amid all the chancellor’s
wild magnificence, there is no evidence of corruption; and there was
certainly no arrogance. Thomas had nothing of the upstart in him; he
never ignored his burgher-origin, he never dropped the friends of his
boyhood; his filial submission to the primate remained unchanged;[1314]
his gratitude to his early teachers at Merton was proved by his choice
of a confessor from among them,[1315] and by his successful efforts to
bring their house under the special patronage of the king.[1316] His
tastes were those of the most refined aristocrat, but his sympathies
were with the people from whose ranks he had sprung; his boundless
almsgiving was doubled in value by the gracious considerateness with
which it was bestowed; his tenderness for the poor was as genuine and
as delicate as that of his mother the good dame Rohese, and he was
quick alike to supply their needs and to vindicate their cause.[1317]
[1314] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Beckett_, vol. iv.) p. 11.
[1315] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 21. This
confessor, Robert by name, was with him all through his exile;
see Garnier (Hippeau), p. 137.
[1316] Will. Fitz-Steph. (as above), p. 23.
[1317] Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 13. Cf. _Thomas Saga_
(Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 49, 55–57.
Like the king himself, Thomas was a standing marvel to his
contemporaries; the strict stood aghast at his unclerical mode of life;
the simple were half inclined to take him for a wizard.[1318] But his
witchery was universal and irresistible; and after all it was only the
magic of a winning personality, a vivid imagination, a dauntless spirit
and a guileless heart. For the chancellor’s frivolity was all on the
surface of his life; its inner depths were pure. Amid the countless
temptations of a corrupt court, no stain ever rested upon his personal
honour. He shared in all the king’s pursuits, except the evil ones;
into them Henry tried to entrap him night and day, but in vain.[1319]
The one thing he would not do, the one thing he would not tolerate, was
evil; the one species of human being to whom his doors were inexorably
closed was a man of known bad character.[1320] Coarseness, immorality,
dishonesty, in word or deed, met with summary and condign punishment at
his hands.[1321] Above all things, “lying lips and a deceitful tongue
were an abomination unto him.”[1322] When in after-days a biographer of
the martyred archbishop copied from the Epistle to the Ephesians the
description of the spiritual armour in which his hero was supposed to
have clothed himself at his consecration, he significantly omitted the
first piece of the panoply;[1323] Thomas had no need then to put on the
girdle of truth, for he had worn it all his life.
[1318] Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. i.), p. 5.
[1319] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
21. Cf. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._) p. 166; Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol.
ii.), p. 303; Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 5, 6; Garnier
(Hippeau), pp. 12, 13; _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp.
53–55.
[1320] “Nota domus cunctis, vitio non cognita soli.”
“Huic, quæ sola placet, solâ virtute placebis.”
Joh. Salisb., _Enthet. in Polycrat._
(Giles, vol. iii.) pp. 2, 3.
[1321] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 8. Will.
Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 21.
[1322] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 166.
[1323] _Ib._ p. 198.
His position at court was no easy one; for a while envy, hatred and
malice assailed him from all sides, and their attacks, added to an
immense load of work, so overwhelmed him that he more than once
declared to his friends and to the primate that he was weary of his
life and would be thankful to end it, or at any rate to break away from
the bondage of the court, if only he could do so with honour. But he
was not the man to forsake a task which he had once undertaken;[1324]
his nature was rather to do it, like the king himself, with all his
might. In the after-years, when friends and foes alike could hardly
look back upon any period of Thomas’s career save in the light of the
martyr’s aureole, more than half the credit of Henry’s early reforms
was bestowed upon the chancellor.[1325] Even at the time, he was
described by no mean authority as the champion of all liberty,[1326]
the defender of all rights, the redresser of all wrongs, the restorer
of peace,[1327] the mediator who stood between king and people to
soften the inflexibility of law and prevent justice from degenerating
into legal wrong.[1328] It is certain that the brightest and happiest
years of Henry’s reign were those during which Thomas held the foremost
rank and took the foremost part in the administration of government.
For the successful execution of Henry’s policy, therefore, Thomas is
entitled to a large share of credit. But that he in any serious degree
influenced and moulded the general scope of that policy is a theory
opposed both to the evidence of actual events and to the inferences
which must be drawn from the characters of the two men, as developed in
their after-careers. Thomas may have suggested individual measures--we
shall see that he did suggest one of very great importance;--he may
have contrived modifications in detail; but Henry’s policy, as a
whole, bears the clear stamp of one mind--his own. The chancellor’s
true merit lies in this, that he was Henry’s best and most thorough
fellow-worker--not so much his counsellor or minister as his second
self. It is not hard to see why they were friends; nor to see, too,
why they were to quarrel so fatally. The same characteristics which
drew them together were fated to part them in the end. The king found
in the burgher’s son a temper as energetic, a spirit as versatile
and impetuous, a tongue as quick and sharp,[1329] a determination as
resolute, dauntless and thorough as his own, with a much less subtle
brain, a much more excitable imagination, and much more sensitive
feelings. While they moved side by side in the same sphere, they had
“but one heart and one soul”; when once their spheres became opposed,
the friends could only change into bitter antagonists.
[1324] Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 305. Cf. Anon. I.
(_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 12; and _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i.
p. 59.
[1325] See Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.),
p. 19.
[1326] Joh. Salisb., _Entheticus_, v. 1357 (Giles, vol. v. p.
282).
[1327] Joh. Salisb. _Enthet. in Polycrat._ (Giles, vol. iii.)
p. 3.
[1328] “Hic est qui regni leges cancellat iniquas,
Et mandata pii principis æqua facit.”
Joh. Salisb., _Enthet. in Polycrat._ (Giles, vol. iii.) p. 2.
This seems to be the earliest version of the jest about law
and equity, and sums up, in a playful shape, the chancellor’s
relation to both.
[1329] Although Thomas was “slightly stuttering in his talk.”
_Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 29. The statement
occurs in none of the extant Latin lives, but from its very
strangeness can hardly be anything but a touch of genuine
tradition. The impediment however can only have been a very
slight one, and was most likely nothing more than the effect
of his extreme impetuosity. It certainly did not hinder him
speaking his mind fully and forcibly upon any important
occasion when his feelings were deeply stirred.
Henry’s first manifesto was published before Thomas entered his
service. Immediately after his coronation he issued a charter setting
forth the broad principles of his intended policy:--the restoration
and confirmation of all liberties and customs in Church and state as
settled by his grandfather.[1330] The actual wording of the charter was
hardly more explicit than that of Stephen’s; but the marked omission
of all reference to Stephen was in itself a significant indication
that the return to an earlier and better order of things was intended
to be something more than a phrase. On Christmas-day the king held his
court at Bermondsey, and with the counsel of the assembled barons set
himself to enforce at once the provisions of the treaty of Wallingford
which Stephen had proved incapable of executing. Peremptory orders
were issued for the expulsion of the Flemish mercenaries and the
demolition of the unlicensed castles.[1331] The effect was magical.
The Flemings saw at once that their day was over, and vanished like
an army of spectres, so suddenly that folk marvelled whither they
could have gone.[1332] The razing of the castles was necessarily a
less rapid process, but it was accomplished without delay and without
disturbance.[1333] These preliminary obstacles being cleared out of
the way, the next step was to re-assert the rights of the Crown by
abolishing the fiscal earldoms[1334] and reclaiming the demesne lands
and fortresses which had passed into private hands during the anarchy.
Henry proclaimed his determination clearly and firmly; all alienations
of royal revenue and royal property made during the late reign were
declared null and void; all occupiers of crown lands and castles were
summoned to surrender them at once, and the charters of donation from
Stephen whereby they attempted to justify their occupation were treated
simply as waste paper.[1335] There was one at least of the usurping
barons to whom Henry knew that he must carry his summons in person if
he meant it to be obeyed: William of Aumale, the lord of Holderness,
whose father had once aspired to the crown, whom Stephen had made
earl of York, and who ruled like an almost independent chieftain in
Yorkshire, where he held the royal castle of Scarborough and was in no
mind to give it up. As soon as the festival season was over Henry began
to move northward; by the end of January he was at York, and William of
Aumale was at his feet, making complete surrender of Scarborough and
of all his other castles.[1336] Another great northern baron, William
Peverel of the Peak, had been scared into a monastery by the mere
rumour of the king’s approach;[1337] he had been concerned two years
before in an attempt to poison Henry’s earliest English ally, Earl Ralf
of Chester; he knew that he was a doomed man,[1338] and when the king
turned southward again after receiving the surrender of Scarborough,
he dared not trust even his monastic tonsure to save him from his
doom, but fled the country and left all his fiefs to his sovereign’s
mercy.[1339]
[1330] Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 135.
[1331] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 160.
[1332] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 1 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 101, 102).
[1333] _Ib._ p. 102. Gerv. Cant. as above.
[1334] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155.
[1335] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 2 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 103).
[1336] _Ib._ cc. 2 and 3 (pp. 103, 104).
[1337] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 161.
[1338] See a charter of Henry, duke of the Normans, promising
Peverel’s fief to Ralf on proof of the former’s guilt; Rymer,
_Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 16. Ralf of Chester died in 1153; Joh.
Hexh. (Raine), p. 171. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 155. See
above, p. 399.
[1339] Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 161.
After such an exhibition of Henry’s powers of coercion on the two
chief nobles of the north, lesser men were not likely to venture upon
defiance; the occupiers of crown lands passed from rage to terror and
dismay, and began sullenly to make restitution.[1340] The grantees of
Stephen, however, soon proved to be the least part of the difficulty.
Several of the royal fortresses were held by partizans of the Empress,
who had won them either while warring against Stephen in her behalf,
or by a grant from their imperial mistress in her brief day of power;
and they not unnaturally resented the king’s attempt to deprive them
of what they looked upon as the well-earned rewards of their service to
his mother and himself. Henry, however, had made up his mind that there
must be no distinction of parties or of persons; all irregularities,
no matter whence they proceeded, must be suppressed; every root of
rebellion must be cut off, and every ground of suspicion removed.[1341]
Early in March he called another council in London,[1342] confirmed
the peace and renewed the old customs of the realm,[1343] and again
summoned all holders of royal castles to give an account of their
usurpations.[1344] The two mightiest barons of the west revolted at
once; Roger of Hereford, the son of Matilda’s faithful Miles, hurried
away from court to fortify his castles of Hereford and Gloucester
against the king, and made common cause with Hugh of Mortemer, the lord
of Cleobury and Wigmore, who held the royal fortress of Bridgenorth.
Roger was brought to reason in little more than a week by the
persuasions of his kinsman Bishop Gilbert of Hereford;[1345] Hugh was
suffered to complete his preparations for defiance while Henry kept
the Easter feast and held a great council at Wallingford to settle the
succession to the throne, first upon his eldest child William, and,
in case of William’s death, upon the infant Henry, who was scarcely
six weeks old.[1346] That done, the king marched with all his forces
against Hugh of Mortemer. He divided his host into three parts; one
division laid siege to Cleobury, another to Wigmore,[1347] and the
third, commanded by Henry himself, sat down before Bridgenorth.[1348]
On the spot where the spirit of feudal insubordination, incarnate in
Robert of Bellême, had fought its last fight against Henry I., the
same spirit, represented by Hugh of Mortemer, now fought against Henry
II. The fight had been useless fifty years ago; it was equally useless
now. One after another the three castles were taken, and on July 7 a
great council met beneath the walls of Bridgenorth to witness Hugh’s
surrender.[1349]
[1340] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 2 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 103).
[1341] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 161.
[1342] _Ibid._ Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), p. 72.
[1343] Chron. de Bello as above.
[1344] Gerv. Cant. as above.
[1345] _Ib._ p. 162.
[1346] _Ibid._ Rob. Torigni, a. 1155, giving the date--Sunday
after Easter, _i.e._ April 10.
[1347] Gerv. Cant. as above.
[1348] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 105).
[1349] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155. Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ.
Soc.), p. 75.
At the opposite side of the kingdom two great barons still remained to
be dealt with. One was Hugh Bigod, the veteran turncoat who had been
seneschal to Henry I., and who had (as the Angevin party believed)
perjured himself to oust Matilda from her rights, yet whose hereditary
and territorial influence had, it seems, been great enough to win from
the young king a confirmation of his earldom of Norfolk,[1350] as well
as to procure him a long day of grace before he was called upon to
give up his many unlawfully-acquired castles. The other was William
of Blois, Stephen’s eldest surviving son, by marriage earl of Warren
and Surrey, to whom the treaty of Wallingford had assigned two royal
castles, Pevensey and Norwich. The danger of leaving these important
fortresses in William’s hands was increased by the position of Norwich,
in the very midst of Hugh Bigod’s earldom; and after a year’s delay
Henry determined to put an end to this state of things in East Anglia.
Contrary to all precedent, he summoned the Whitsuntide council of
1157 to meet at Bury S. Edmund’s.[1351] This peaceful invasion of
their territories sufficed to bring both earls to submission. William
contentedly gave up his castles in exchange for the private estates
which his father had held before he became king; Hugh surrendered in
like manner,[1352] and was likewise taken back into favour, to have
another opportunity of proving his ingratitude sixteen years later.
This settlement of East Anglia completed the pacification of the realm.
Even before this, however, as early as the autumn of 1155, peace
and order were so far secured that Henry could venture to think of
leaving the country. At Michaelmas in that year he laid before his
barons a scheme for conquering Ireland as a provision for his brother
William.[1353] The Pope, who was traditionally held to be the natural
owner of all islands which had no other sovereign, had granted a bull
authorizing the expedition;[1354] but the Empress, whose counsel was
always deferentially sought by her royal son, disapproved of his
project;[1355] and when he went over sea in January 1156 it was not to
win a kingdom for his youngest brother in Ireland, but to put down a
rebellion of the second in Anjou.[1356]
[1350] Granted by Stephen before 1153; Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i.
p. 18. In the Pipe Roll of 1157 there is a charge “in tercio
denario comitatûs comiti Hugoni l. libras de anno et dimidio,”
among the accounts “de veteri firmâ” of Norfolk, rendered by
Hugh himself as ex-sheriff (Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II., Hunter, p.
75). As his successor in the sheriffdom renders an account “de
firmâ dimidii anni” (_ib._ p. 76), the year and half above
mentioned takes us back to the autumn of 1155. In the Pipe Roll
of 1156, however, Hugh does not appear at all.
[1351] Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), p. 85. In the
Winchester accounts for the year (Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II., Hunter,
p. 107) is a charge of 22s. “pro portandis coronis regis ad S.
Ædmundum.” “Coronis” looks as if Eleanor wore her crown also.
[1352] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157.
[1353] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155.
[1354] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v.
pp. 205, 206).
[1355] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155.
[1356] _Ib._ a. 1156.
In England the year of his absence was a year without a history. Not a
single event of any consequence is recorded by the chroniclers save the
death of Henry’s eldest son, shortly before Christmas;[1357] and even
this was a matter of no political moment; for, as we have seen, there
was another infant to take his place as heir-apparent. The blank in
the chronicles has to be filled up from the Pipe Roll which once again
makes its appearance at Michaelmas 1156, and which has a special value
and interest as being the most authoritative witness to the character
of the young king’s efforts for the reorganization of the government,
and to the results which they had already produced. The record itself
is a mere skeleton, and a very imperfect one; the carefulness of
arrangement, the fulness of detail, the innumerable touches of local
and personal colour which make the one surviving Pipe Roll of Henry
I. so precious and so interesting, are sadly wanting in this roll of
the second year of Henry II.; yet between its meagre lines may be read
a suggestive, almost a pathetic story. Its very imperfections, its
lack of order and symmetry, its scantiness of information, its brief,
irregular, confused entries, help us to realize as perhaps nothing else
could how disastrous had been the break-down of the administrative
machinery which we saw working so methodically five-and-twenty years
ago, and how laborious must have been the task of restoration. Three
whole shires, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland, send in no
account at all, for they were still in the hands of the king of Scots;
in almost every shire there are significant notices of “waste,” and a
scarcely less significant charge for repair of the royal manors. The
old items reappear--the Danegeld, the aids from the towns, the proceeds
of justice, the feudal incidents; but the total product amounts to
little more than a third part of the sum raised in 1130; and even this
diminished revenue was only made up with the help of sundry “aids”
and “gifts” (as they were technically called), and of a new impost
specially levied upon some of the ecclesiastical estates under the name
of _scutage_.
[1357] Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. i. p. 307.
The origin of this tax is implied in its title; it was derived from the
“service of the shield” (_scutum_)--one of the distinguishing marks of
feudal tenure--whereby the holder of a certain quantity of land was
bound to furnish to his lord the services of a fully-armed horseman for
forty days in the year. The portion of land charged with this service
constituted a “knight’s fee,” and was usually reckoned at the extent
of five hides, or the value of twenty pounds annually. The gradual
establishment of this military tenure throughout the kingdom was a
process which had been going on ever since the Norman conquest; the use
of the word “scutage,” implying an assessment of taxation based on the
knight’s fee instead of the old rating division of the hide, indicates
that it was now very generally completed. The scutage of 1156 was
levied, as we learn from another source,[1358] specially to meet the
expenses of a war which Henry was carrying on with his rebel brother
in Anjou. For such a purpose the feudal host itself was obviously not
a desirable instrument. Ralf Flambard’s famous device of 1093, when
he took a money compensation from the English levies and sent it over
sea to pay the wages of the Red King’s foreign mercenaries, suggested
a precedent which might be applied to the feudal knighthood as well
as to the national host. Its universal application might be hindered
at present by a clause in the charter of Henry I., which exempted the
tenants by knight-service from all pecuniary charges on their demesne
lands. It was, however, possible to make a beginning with the Church
lands. These habitually claimed, with more or less success, immunity
from military service except in the actual defence of the country; on
the other hand, now that the bishops and abbots had been made to accept
their temporalities on the same tenure as the lay baronies, there was a
fair shew of reason for compelling them to compromise their claim by a
money contribution assessed on the same basis as the personal service
for which it was a substitute.[1359]
[1358] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 178).
[1359] On scutage and knight’s fees see Stubbs, _Const. Hist._,
vol. i. pp. 431–433, 581, 582, 590.
Such, it seems, was the origin of the great institution of scutage.
Its full developement, which it only attained three years later, was
avowedly the work of Thomas the chancellor; whether or not its first
suggestion came from him is not so clear. At the moment no resentment
seems to have been provoked by the measure; its ultimate tendency
was not foreseen, the sum actually demanded was not great, and the
innovation was condoned on the ground of the king’s lawful need and
in the belief that it was only an isolated demand.[1360] A greater
matter might well have been condoned in consideration of Henry’s loyal
redemption of his coronation-pledges, to which the Pipe Roll bears
testimony. If the king had been prompt in resuming his kingly rights,
he had been no less prompt in striving to fulfil his kingly duties. The
work of necessary destruction was no sooner accomplished than the work
of reconstruction began in all departments of state administration.
The machinery of justice was set in motion once again; the provincial
visitations of the judges of the king’s court were revived; thirteen
shires were visited by some one or more of them between Michaelmas
1155 and Michaelmas 1156. The person most extensively employed in
this capacity was the constable, Henry of Essex:[1361] the chancellor
also appears in the like character, twice in Henry’s company[1362] and
once in that of the earl of Leicester.[1363] Nay, the supreme “fount
of justice” itself was always open to any suitor who could be at the
trouble and expense of tracking its ever-shifting whereabouts; not only
was the chancellor, as the king’s special representative, constantly
employed in hearing causes, but Henry himself was always ready to
fulfil the duty in person; at the most inconvenient moments--in the
middle of the siege of Bridgenorth, at the crisis of his struggle
with the Angevin rebels--he found time and patience to give attentive
hearing to a wearisome suit which had been going on at intervals for
nearly six years between Bishop Hilary of Chichester and Walter de
Lucy the abbot of Battle.[1364] Hand in hand with the revival of order
and law went the revival of material prosperity. In the dry, laconic
prose of the financial record we can find enough to bear out, almost
to the letter, the historians’ poetical version of the work of Henry’s
first two years. The wolves had fled or become changed into peaceable
sheep; the swords had been beaten into ploughshares and the spears into
pruning-hooks;[1365] and the merchants again went forth to pursue their
business, the Jews to seek their creditors, in peace and safety as of
old.[1366]
[1360] Such was apparently the state of mind of John of
Salisbury: “Interim scutagium remittere non potest [rex], et a
quibusdam exactionibus abstinere, quoniam fratris gratia male
sarta nequicquam coiit.” Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxxviii. (Giles, vol.
i. p. 178).
[1361] Pipe Roll 2 Hen. II. (Hunter), pp. 17, 31, 32, 47, 54,
57, 60, 65.
[1362] _Ibid._ pp. 17, 65.
[1363] _Ibid._ p. 26.
[1364] Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), pp. 75, 76.
[1365] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.) p.
19. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 1 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 102).
[1366] “Exeunt securi ab urbibus et castris ad nundinas
negotiatores, ad creditores repetendos Judæi.” Will.
Fitz-Steph. as above.
Henry returned to England soon after Easter 1157.[1367] His first step,
as we have seen, was to secure the obedience of East-Anglia. Having
thus fully established his authority throughout his immediate realm,
his next aim was to assert the rights of his crown over its Scottish
and Welsh dependencies. The princes of Wales, who had long been
acknowledged vassals of England, must be made to do homage to its new
sovereign; the king of Scots owed homage no less, if not for his crown,
at any rate for his English fiefs; moreover, his title to these was
in itself a disputed question. Three English shires, Northumberland,
Cumberland and Westmoreland, had been conquered by David, nominally
in behalf of his niece the Empress Matilda, in the early years of
Stephen’s reign; Stephen, making a virtue of necessity, had formally
granted their investiture to David’s son Henry;[1368] and they were
now in the hands of Henry’s son, the young king Malcolm IV. The story
went that old King David, before he knighted his grand-nephew Henry
Fitz-Empress in 1149, had made him swear that if ever he came to the
English throne he would suffer the king of Scots to keep these shires
in peace for ever.[1369] Henry does not seem to have denied his oath;
he simply refused to keep it, on the ground that it ran counter to his
duty as king. Acting on what his enemies declared to be his habitual
principle, of choosing to do penance for a word rather than for a
deed,[1370] he declared that the crown of England must not suffer such
mutilation, and summoned his Scottish cousin to give back to him the
territory which had been acquired in his name.[1371]
[1367] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157. Cf. Chron. de Bello (Angl.
Christ. Soc.), p. 84.
[1368] Cumberland was granted to Henry of Scotland by Stephen
in 1136 and Northumberland in 1139; see above, pp. 282,
300. Westmoreland seems to have counted as a dependency of
Cumberland.
[1369] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 211. Will. Newb., l.
ii. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 105).
[1370] “Quoties res in arctum devenerat, de dicto malens quam
de facto pœnitere, verbumque facilius quam factum irritum
habere.” Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._ dist. ii. c. 24 (Angl.
Christ. Soc. p. 72).
[1371] Will. Newb. as above.
Meanwhile, without waiting for Malcolm’s answer, Henry prepared for his
first Welsh war. The domestic quarrels of the Welsh princes furnished
him with an excellent pretext. Owen, prince of North-Wales, had
confiscated the estates of his brother Cadwallader and banished him
from the country; Cadwallader appealed to King Henry, and of course
found a gracious reception.[1372] A council was held at Northampton
on July 17,[1373] and thence orders were issued for an expedition into
North-Wales. The force employed was the feudal levy, but in a new form;
instead of calling out the whole body of knights to serve their legal
term of forty days, Henry required every two knights throughout England
to join in equipping a third[1374]--no doubt for a threefold term of
service. By this expedient he obtained a force quite sufficient for his
purpose, guarded against the risk of its breaking up before its task
was accomplished--a frequent drawback in medieval warfare--and made the
first innovation upon the strict rule of feudal custom in such a manner
as to avoid all offence.
[1372] Caradoc of Llancarvan (Llwyd), p. 159. Some grants of
land in Shropshire to Cadwallader appear in the Pipe Rolls of
1156 and 1157 (Hunter, pp. 43 and 88).
[1373] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 163.
[1374] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157. See Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, vol.
i. pp. 455, 589.
The invasion was to be twofold, by land and sea.[1375] The host
assembled near Chester,[1376] on Saltney marsh,[1377] and was joined
by Madoc Ap Meredith, prince of Powys. Owen of North-Wales, with his
three sons and all his forces, entrenched himself at Basingwerk.[1378]
The king, with his youthful daring,[1379] set off at once by way of
the sea-coast, hoping to fall upon the Welsh at unawares; Owen’s
sons however were on the watch,[1380] and in the narrow pass of
Consilt[1381] the English suddenly found themselves face to face with
the foe. Entangled in the woody, marshy ground, they were easily routed
by the nimble light-armed Welsh;[1382] and a cry that the king himself
had fallen caused the constable, Henry of Essex, to drop the royal
standard and fly in despair. Henry of Anjou soon shewed himself alive,
rallied his troops, and almost, like his ancestor Fulk at Conquereux,
turned the defeat into a victory;[1383] for he cut his way through the
Welsh ambushes with such vigour that Owen judged it prudent to withdraw
from Basingwerk and seek a more inaccessible retreat.[1384] Cutting
down the woods and clearing the roads before him, Henry pushed on to
Rhuddlan, and there fortified the castle.[1385] Meanwhile the fleet had
sailed[1386] under the command of Madoc Ap Meredith.[1387] It touched
at Anglesey and there landed a few troops whose sacrilegious behaviour
brought upon them such vengeance from the outraged islanders[1388] that
their terrified comrades sailed back at once to Chester, where they
learned that the war was ended.[1389] Owen, in terror of being hemmed
in between the royal army and the fleet, sent proposals for peace,
reinstated his banished brother,[1390] performed his own homage to King
Henry,[1391] and gave hostages for his loyalty in the future.[1392]
As the South-Welsh princes were all vassals of North-Wales, Owen’s
submission was equivalent to a formal acknowledgement of Henry’s rights
as lord paramount over the whole country, and the young king was
technically justified in boasting that he had subdued all the Welsh to
his will.[1393]
[1375] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157. A charge in the year’s Pipe
Roll--“In locandâ unâ nave ad portandum corredium regis usque
Pembroc” (Winchester accounts, Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II., Hunter,
p. 108)--looks as if Henry had meditated an attempt upon South
as well as North Wales. But it also seems to imply that the
attempt was not actually made.
[1376] Ann. Cambr. a. 1158. _Brut y Tywysogion_, a. 1156. (The
chronology of these Welsh chronicles is hopelessly wrong).
[1377] Caradoc (Llwyd), p. 159.
[1378] Ann. Cambr., _Brut y Tywys._, and Caradoc as above.
[1379] Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l. ii. c. 10 (_Opera_,
Dimock, vol. vi. p. 137), and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
165, make no scruple of calling it rashness.
[1380] Ann. Cambr. and Caradoc as above.
[1381] “In arcto silvestri apud Coleshulle, id est, Carbonis
collem” (Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 7, p. 130)--that is, Consilt,
near Flint. Cf. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p.
107).
[1382] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 107, 108). _Brut y Tywys._ a.
1156. Caradoc (Llwyd), p. 160. Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l.
ii. c. 7 (Dimock, vol. vi. p. 130) and c. 10 (p. 137).
[1383] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 108).
Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 165. Caradoc (Llwyd, p.
160) has a totally different version of the battle, but it is
incompatible with the undoubted facts about Henry of Essex.
[1384] Ann. Cambr. a. 1158. Caradoc (Llwyd), p. 160. _Brut y
Tywys._ a. 1156.
[1385] _Ibid._
[1386] Ann. Cambr. and _Brut y Tywys._ as above.
[1387] So says Caradoc (as above); but is it possible that
Madoc, a Welsh prince and one whose territory lay wholly
inland, should have been put in command of the English fleet?
[1388] Ann. Cambr. a. 1158. _Brut y Tywys._ a. 1158. Caradoc
(Llwyd), p. 160. Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l. ii. c. 7
(Dimock, vol. vi. p. 130).
[1389] Caradoc as above.
[1390] Ann. Cambr., _Brut y Tywys._, and Caradoc, as above.
[1391] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166. Will. Newb., l.
ii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 108, 109). Mat. Paris (_Hist.
Angl._, Luard, vol. i. p. 308) says the homage was done at
Snowdon; how could this be?
[1392] See reference to the hostages in Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II.
(Hunter), p. 114.
[1393] “Subjectis ad libitum Walensibus,” Rob. Torigni,
a. 1157. The only entries in this year’s Pipe Roll visibly
relating to the Welsh war are: “Pro thesauro conducendo ad
Waliam xxxi s. et viii d.” (Oxfordshire, Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II.,
Hunter, p. 82), and a payment of two marks of silver by the
abbot of Abbotsbury “de Exercitu Wal.” (Dorset, _ib._ p. 99).
In the next year’s roll there are several references to the
matter; Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II. (Hunter) pp. 114, 170, 175. The
first relates to the hostages, the second to payments made to
Henry’s Welsh allies, and the last is a payment made to Ralf
“_vitulus_” (cf. Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 73,
Hardy, p. 767) of Winchester “de Itinere de Waliâ”--_i.e._ for
the fleet.
It was doubtless on his triumphant return that the king of Scots came
to meet him at Chester.[1394] Whichever of the royal kinsmen might
have the better cause, Malcolm now clearly perceived that the power to
maintain it was all on Henry’s side. He therefore surrendered the three
disputed shires,[1395] with the fortresses of Newcastle, Bamborough and
Carlisle,[1396] and acknowledged himself the vassal of the English king
“in the same manner as his grandfather had been the man of King Henry
the Elder.”[1397] The precise import of this formula is uncertain, and
was probably not much less so at the time; the exact nature and grounds
of the Scottish homage to England formed a question which both parties
usually found it convenient to leave undetermined.[1398] For Henry’s
present purpose it sufficed that, on some ground or other, the homage
was done.
[1394] Chron. Mailros, a. 1157.
[1395] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 105, 106).
[1396] Rob. Torigni, a. 1157.
[1397] Chron. Mailros, a. 1157.
[1398] The Scottish theory seems to be that Malcolm did homage
for the earldom of Huntingdon, which had lapsed on his father’s
death, and which Will. Newb. (as above, p. 106) and Rob.
Torigni (a. 1157) say was now granted afresh to him. But, on
the one hand, the treatise “De Judithâ uxore Waldevi comitis”
in _Chroniques Anglo-Normandes_ (Francisque Michel, vol. ii.
p. 128) says that Huntingdon was not granted to Malcolm till
1159; and on the other, the terms of homage as stated by the
Chron. Mailros exclude Huntingdon, which was granted to Henry
of Scotland not by Henry I. but by Stephen. The truth probably
lurks in another phrase of Rob. Torigni (a. 1157), which
says that Malcolm surrendered, besides the three fortresses
above-named, Edinburgh “et comitatum Lodonensem.” This can
only mean that he made a surrender of Lothian, to receive its
investiture again on the same terms as his forefathers--_i.e._
as a fief of the English Crown. Huntingdon appears in the Pipe
Rolls of 1156, 1157 and 1158, but without mention of its third
penny.
The closing feast of the year was celebrated with a brilliant gathering
of the court at Lincoln. More cautious than his predecessor, Henry did
not venture to defy local tradition by appearing in his regal insignia
within the city itself; he wore his crown on Christmas day, not in the
great minster on the hill-top, but in the lesser church of S. Mary
in the suburb of Wigford beyond the river.[1399] Next Easter the king
and queen went through this ancient solemnity of the “crown-wearing”
together, and for the last time, in Worcester cathedral. When the
moment came for making their oblations, they laid their crowns upon the
altar and vowed never to wear them again.[1400] The motive for this
renunciation was probably nothing more than Henry’s impatience of court
pageantry; but the practice thus solemnly forsaken was not revived,
save once under very exceptional circumstances in the middle of the
next reign, till the connexion between England and Anjou was on the
eve of dissolution; and as it happens, the abandonment of this custom
of Old-English royalty marks off one of the lesser epochs in Henry’s
career. He was about to plunge into a sea of continental politics and
wars which kept him altogether away from his island-realm for six
years, and from which he never again thoroughly emerged. This last
crown-wearing at Worcester serves as a fitting point at which we may
leave our own country for a while and glance once more at the history
of the lands united with her beneath the sceptre of the Angevin king.
[1399] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 117,
118). Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216; it is he who gives
the name of the suburb, “Wikeford.” Will. Newb. has a wrong
date; the Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II. (Hunter), p. 136, settles that
point.
[1400] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216; more briefly,
R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302; both with very confused
dates, but again they are set right by the Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II.
(Hunter), p. 175.