Henry I was dwelling. They had a very small force to support their
pretensions. The Earl crossed the country to Bristol. "All England was
struck with alarm, and men's minds were agitated in various ways. Those
who secretly or openly favored the invaders were roused to more than
usual activity against the King, while his own partisans were terrified
as if a thunderbolt had fallen." Stephen invested the castle of Arundel.
But in the most romantic spirit of chivalry he permitted the Empress to
pass out, and to set forward to join her brother at Bristol, under a
safe-conduct. In 1140 the whole kingdom appears to have been subjected
to the horrors of a partisan warfare. The barons in their castles were
making a show of "defending their neighborhoods, but, more properly to
speak, were laying them waste." The legate and the bishops were
excommunicating the plunderers of churches, but the plunderers laughed
at their anathemas. Freebooters came over from Flanders, not to practise
the industrial arts as in the time of Henry I, but to take their part in
the general pillage. There was frightful scarcity in the country, and
the ordinary interchange of man with man was unsettled by the debasement
of the coin. "All things," says Malmesbury, "became venial in England;
and churches and abbeys were no longer secretly but even publicly
exposed to sale." All things become venial, under a government too weak
to repress plunder or to punish corruption. The strong aim to be rich by
rapine, and the cunning by fraud, when the confusion of a kingdom is
grown so great that, as is recorded of this period, "the neighbor could
put no faith in his nearest neighbor, nor the friend in his friend, nor
the brother in his own brother." The demoralization of anarchy is even
more terrible than its bloodshed.
The marches and sieges, the revolts and treacheries, of this evil time
are occasionally varied by incidents which illustrate the state of
society. Robert Fitz-Herbert, with a detachment of the Earl of
Gloucester's soldiers, surprised the castle of Devizes, which the King
had taken from the Bishop of Salisbury. Robert Fitz-Herbert varies the
atrocities of his fellow-barons, by rubbing his prisoners with honey,
and exposing them naked to the sun. But Robert, having obtained Devizes,
refused to admit the Earl of Gloucester to any advantage of its
possession, and commenced the subjection of the neighborhood on his own
account. Another crafty baron, John Fitz-Gilbert, held the castle of
Marlborough; and Robert Fitz-Herbert, having an anxious desire to be
lord of that castle also, endeavoring to cajole Fitz-Gilbert into the
admission of his followers, went there as a guest, but was detained as a
prisoner. Upon this the Earl of Gloucester came in force for revenge
against his treacherous ally, Fitz-Herbert, and, conducting him to
Devizes, there hanged him. The surprise of Lincoln Castle, upon which
the events of 1141 mainly turned, is equally characteristic of the age.
Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and William de Roumare, his half-brother, were
avowed friends of King Stephen. But their ambition took a new direction
for the support of Matilda. The garrison of Lincoln had no apprehension
of a surprise, and were busy in those sports which hardy men enjoy even
amid the rougher sport of war. The Countess of Chester and her
sister-in-law, with a politeness that the ladies of the court of Louis
le Grand could not excel, paid a visit to the wife of the knight who had
the defence of the castle. While there, at this pleasant morning call,
"talking and joking" with the unsuspecting matron, as Ordericus relates,
the Earl of Chester came in, "without his armor or even his mantle,"
attended only by three soldiers. His courtesy was as flattering as that
of his countess and her friend. But his men-at-arms suddenly mastered
the unprepared guards, and the gates were thrown open to Earl William
and his numerous followers. The earls, after this stratagem, held the
castle against the King, who speedily marched to Lincoln. But the Earl
of Chester contrived to leave the castle, and soon raised a powerful
army of his own vassals. The Earl of Gloucester joined him with a
considerable force, and they together advanced to the relief of the
besieged city. The battle of Lincoln was preceded by a trifling incident
to which the chroniclers have attached importance. It was the Feast of
the Purification; and at the mass which was celebrated at the dawn of
day, when the King was holding a lighted taper in his hand it was
suddenly extinguished. "This was an omen of sorrow to the King," says
Hoveden. But another chronicler, the author of the _Gesta Stephain_,
tells us, in addition, that the wax candle was suddenly relighted; and
he accordingly argues that this incident was "a token that for his sins
he should be deprived of his crown, but on his repentance, through God's
mercy, he should wonderfully and gloriously recover it." The King had
been more than a month laying siege to the castle, and his army was
encamped around the city of Lincoln. When it was ascertained that his
enemies were at hand he was advised to raise the siege and march out to
strengthen his power by a general levy. He decided upon instant battle.
He was then exhorted not to fight on the solemn festival of the
Purification. But his courage was greater than his prudence or his
piety. He set forth to meet the insurgent earls. The best knights were
in his army; but the infantry of his rivals was far more numerous.
Stephen detached a strong body of horse and foot to dispute the passage
of a ford of the Trent. But Gloucester by an impetuous charge obtained
possession of the ford, and the battle became general. The King's
horsemen fled. The desperate bravery of Stephen, and the issue of the
battle, have been described by Henry of Huntingdon with singular
animation: "King Stephen, therefore, with his infantry, stood alone in
the midst of the enemy. These surrounded the royal troops, attacking the
columns on all sides, as if they were assaulting a castle. Then the
battle raged terribly round this circle; helmets and swords gleamed as
they clashed, and the fearful cries and shouts reëchoed from the
neighboring hills and city walls. The cavalry, furiously charging the
royal column, slew some and trampled down others; some were made
prisoners. No respite, no breathing time, was allowed; except in the
quarter in which the King himself had taken his stand, where the
assailants recoiled from the unmatched force of his terrible arm. The
Earl of Chester seeing this, and envious of the glory the King was
gaining, threw himself upon him with the whole weight of his
men-at-arms. Even then the King's courage did not fail, but his heavy
battle-axe gleamed like lightning, striking down some, bearing back
others. At length it was shattered by repeated blows. Then he drew his
well-tried sword, with which he wrought wonders, until that too was
broken. Perceiving which, William de Kaims, a brave soldier, rushed on
him, and seizing him by his helmet, shouted, 'Here, here, I have taken
the King!' Others came to his aid, and the King was made prisoner."
After the capture of King Stephen, at this brief but decisive battle, he
was kept a close prisoner at Bristol Castle. Then commenced what might
be called the reign of Queen Matilda, which lasted about eight months.
The defeat of Stephen was the triumph of the greater ecclesiastics. On
the third Sunday in Lent, 1141, there was a conference on the plain in
the neighborhood of Winchester--a day dark and rainy, which portended
disasters. The Bishop of Winchester came forth from his city with all
the pomp of the pope's legate; and there Matilda swore that in all
matters of importance, and especially in the bestowal of bishoprics and
abbeys, she would submit to the Church; and the Bishop and his
supporters pledged their faith to the Empress on these conditions. After
Easter, a great council was held at Winchester, which the Bishop called
as the Pope's vicegerent. The unscrupulous churchman boldly came
forward, and denounced his brother, inviting the assembly to elect a
sovereign; and, with an amount of arrogance totally unprecedented, thus
asserted the notorious untruth that the right of electing a king of
England principally belonged to the clergy: "The case was yesterday
agitated before a part of the higher clergy of England, to whose right
it principally pertains to elect the sovereign, and also to crown him.
First, then, as is fitting, invoking God's assistance, we elect the
daughter of that peaceful, that glorious, that rich, that good, and in
our times incomparable king, as sovereign of England and Normandy, and
promise her fidelity and support." The Bishop then said to the
applauding assembly: "We have despatched messengers for the Londoners,
who, from the importance of their city in England, are almost nobles, as
it were, to meet us on this business." The next day the Londoners came.
They were sent, they said, by their fraternity to entreat that their
lord, the King, might be liberated from captivity. The legate refused
them, and repeated his oration against his brother. It was a work of
great difficulty to soothe the minds of the Londoners; and St. John's
Day had arrived before they would consent to acknowledge Matilda. Many
parts of the kingdom had then submitted to her government, and she
entered London with great state. Her nature seems to have been rash and
imperious. Her first act was to demand subsidies of the citizens; and
when they said that their wealth was greatly diminished by the troubled
state of the kingdom, she broke forth into insufferable rage. The
vigilant queen of Stephen, who kept possession of Kent, now approached
the city with a numerous force, and by her envoys demanded her husband's
freedom. Of course her demand was made in vain. She then put forth a
front of battle. Instead of being crowned at Westminster, the daughter
of Henry I fled in terror; for "the whole city flew to arms at the
ringing of the bells, which was the signal for war, and all with one
accord rose upon the Countess [of Anjou] and her adherents, as swarms of
wasps issue from their hives."
William Fitzstephen, the biographer of Thomas à Becket, in his
_Description of London_, supposed to be written about the middle of the
reign of Henry II, says of this city, "ennobled by her men, graced by
her arms, and peopled by a multitude of inhabitants," that "in the wars
under King Stephen there went out to a muster of armed horsemen,
esteemed fit for war, twenty thousand, and of infantry, sixty thousand."
In general, the _Description of London_ appears trustworthy, and in some
instances is supported by other authorities. But this vast number of
fighting men must, unquestionably, be exaggerated: unless, as Lyttelton
conjectures, such a muster included the militia of Middlesex, Kent, and
other counties adjacent to London. Peter of Blois, in the reign of Henry
II, reckons the inhabitants of the city at forty thousand. That the
citizens were trained to warlike exercises, and that their manly sports
nurtured them in the hardihood of military habits, we may well conclude
from Fitzstephen's account of this community at a little later period
than that of which we are writing. To the north of the city were pasture
lands, with streams on whose banks the clack of many mills was pleasing
to the ear; and beyond was an immense forest, with densely wooded
thickets, where stags, fallow-deer, boars, and wild bulls had their
coverts. We have seen that in the charter of Henry I the citizens had
liberty to hunt through a very extensive district, and hawking was also
among their free recreations. Football was the favorite game; and the
boys of the schools, and the various guilds of craftsmen, had each their
ball. The elder citizens came on horseback to see these contests of the
young men. Every Sunday in Lent a company with lances and shields went
out to joust. In the Easter holidays they had river tournaments. During
the summer the youths exercised themselves in leaping, archery,
wrestling, stone-throwing, slinging javelins, and fighting with
bucklers. When the great marsh which washed the walls of the city on the
north was frozen over, sliding, sledging, and skating were the sports of
crowds. They had sham fights on the ice, and legs and arms were
sometimes broken. "But," says Fitzstephen, "youth is an age eager for
glory and desirous of victory, and so young men engage in counterfeit
battles, that they may conduct themselves more valiantly in real ones."
That universal love of hardy sports, which is one of the greatest
characteristics of England, and from which we derive no little of that
spirit which keeps our island safe, is not of modern growth. It was one
of the most important portions of the education of the people seven
centuries ago.
It was this community, then, so brave, so energetic, so enriched by
commerce above all the other cities of England, that resolutely abided
by the fortunes of King Stephen. They had little to dread from any
hostile assaults of the rival faction; for the city was strongly
fortified on all sides except to the river; but on that side it was
secure, after the Tower was built. The palace of Westminster had also a
breastwork and bastions. After Matilda had taken her hasty departure,
the indignant Londoners marched out, and they sustained a principal part
in what has been called "the rout of Winchester," in which Robert, Earl
of Gloucester, was taken prisoner. The ex-Empress escaped to Devizes.
The capture of the Earl of Gloucester led to important results. A
convention was agreed to between the adherents of each party that the
King should be exchanged for the Earl. Stephen was once more "every inch
a king." But still there was no peace in the land.
The Bishop of Winchester had again changed his side. In the hour of
success the empress Matilda had refused the reasonable request that
Prince Eustace, the son of Stephen, should be put in possession of his
father's earldom of Boulogne. Malmesbury says, "A misunderstanding arose
between the legate and the Empress which may be justly considered as the
melancholy cause of every subsequent evil in England." The chief actors
in this extraordinary drama present a curious study of human character.
Matilda, resting her claim to the throne upon her legitimate descent
from Henry I, who had himself usurped the throne--possessing her
father's courage and daring, with some of his cruelty--haughty,
vindictive--furnishes one of the most striking portraits of the proud
lady of the feudal period, who shrank from no danger by reason of her
sex, but made the homage of chivalry to woman a powerful instrument for
enforcing her absolute will. The Earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate
brother of Matilda, brave, steadfast, of a free and generous nature, a
sagacious counsellor, a lover of literature, appears to have had few of
the vices of that age, and most of its elevating qualities. Of Stephen
it has been said, "He deserves no other reproach than that of having
embraced the occupation of a captain of banditti." This appears rather a
harsh judgment from a philosophical writer. Bearing in mind that the
principle of election prevailed in the choice of a king, whatever was
the hereditary claim, and seeing how welcome was the advent of Stephen
when he came, in 1135, to avert the dangers of the kingdom, he merits
the title of "a captain of banditti" no more than Harold or William the
Conqueror. After the contests of six years--the victories, the defeats,
the hostility of the Church, his capture and imprisonment--the
attachment of the people of the great towns to his person and government
appears to have been unshaken. When he was defeated at Lincoln, and led
captive through the city, "the surrounding multitude were moved with
pity, shedding tears and uttering cries of grief." Ordericus says: "The
King's disaster filled with grief the clergy and monks and the common
people; because he was condescending and courteous to those who were
good and quiet, and if his treacherous nobles had allowed it, he would
have put an end to their rapacious enterprises, and been a generous
protector and benevolent friend of the country." The fourth and not
least remarkable personage of this history is Henry, the Bishop of
Winchester, and the Pope's legate. At that period, when the functions of
churchman and statesman were united, we find this man the chief
instrument for securing the crown for his brother. He subsequently
becomes the vicegerent of the papal see. Stephen, with more justice than
discretion, is of opinion that bishops are not doing their duty when
they build castles, ride about in armor, with crowds of retainers, and
are not at all scrupulous in appropriating some of the booty of a
lawless time. From the day when he exhibited his hostility to fighting
bishops, the Pope's legate was his brother's deadly enemy. But he found
that the rival whom he had set up was by no means a pliant tool in his
hands, and he then turned against Matilda. When Stephen had shaken off
the chains with which he was loaded in Bristol Castle, the Bishop
summoned a council at Westminster, on his legatine authority; and there
"by great powers of eloquence, endeavored to extenuate the odium of his
own conduct"; affirming that he had supported the Empress, "not from
inclination, but necessity." He then "commanded on the part of God and
of the Pope, that they should strenuously assist the King, appointed by
the will of the people, and by the approbation of the Holy See."
Malmesbury, who records these doings, adds that a layman sent from the
Empress affirmed that "her coming to England had been effected by the
legate's frequent letters"; and that "her taking the King, and holding
him in captivity, had been done principally by his connivance." The
reign of Stephen is not only "the most perfect condensation of all the
ills of feudality," but affords a striking picture of the ills which
befall a people when an ambitious hierarchy, swayed to and fro at the
will of a foreign power, regards the supremacy of the Church as the one
great object to be attained, at whatever expense of treachery and
falsehood, of national degradation and general suffering.
In 1142 the civil war is raging more fiercely than ever. Matilda is at
Oxford, a fortified city, protected by the Thames, by a wall, and by an
impregnable castle. Stephen, with a body of veterans, wades across the
river and enters the city. Matilda and her followers take refuge in the
keep. For three months the King presses the siege, surrounding the
fortress on all sides. Famine is approaching to the helpless garrison.
It is the Christmas season. The country is covered with a deep snow. The
Thames and the tributary rivers are frozen over. With a small escort
Matilda contrives to escape, and passes undiscovered through the royal
posts, on a dark and silent night, when no sound is heard but the clang
of a trumpet or the challenge of a sentinel. In the course of the night
she went to Abingdon on foot, and afterwards reached Wallingford on
horseback. The author of the _Gesta Stephani_ expresses his wonder at
the marvellous escapes of this courageous woman. The changes of her
fortune are equally remarkable. After the flight from Oxford the arms of
the Earl of Gloucester are again successful. Stephen is beaten at
Wilton, and retreats precipitately with his military brother, the Bishop
of Winchester. There are now in the autumn of 1142 universal turmoil and
desolation. Many people emigrate. Others crowd round the sanctuary of
the churches, and dwell there in mean hovels. Famine is general. Fields
are white with ripened corn, but the cultivators have fled, and there is
none to gather the harvest. Cities are deserted and depopulated. Fierce
foreign mercenaries, for whom the barons have no pay, pillage the farms
and the monasteries. The bishops, for the most part, rest supine amid
all this storm of tyranny. When they rouse themselves they increase
rather than mitigate the miseries of the people. Milo, Earl of Hereford,
has demanded money of the Bishop of Hereford to pay his troops. The
Bishop refuses, and Milo seizes his lands and goods. The Bishop then
pronounces sentence of excommunication against Milo and his adherents,
and lays an interdict upon the country subject to the Earl's authority.
We might hastily think that the solemn curse pronounced against a
nation, or a district, was an unmeaning ceremony, with its "bell, book,
and candle," to terrify only the weakminded. It was one of the most
outrageous of the numerous ecclesiastical tyrannies. The consolations of
religion were eagerly sought for and justly prized by the great body of
the people, who earnestly believed that a happy future would be a reward
for the patient endurance of a miserable present. As they were admitted
to the holy communion, they recognized an acknowledgment of the equality
of men before the great Father of all. Their marriages were blessed and
their funerals were hallowed. Under an interdict all the churches were
shut. No knell was tolled for the dead, for the dead remained unburied.
No merry peals welcomed the bridal procession, for no couple could be
joined in wedlock. The awe-stricken mother might have her infant
baptized, and the dying might receive extreme unction. But all public
offices of the Church were suspended. If we imagine such a condition of
society in a village devastated by fire and sword, we may wonder how a
free government and a Christian church have ever grown up among us.
If Stephen had quietly possessed the throne, and his heir had succeeded
him, the crowns of England and Normandy would have been disconnected
before the thirteenth century. Geoffrey of Anjou, while his duchess was
in England, had become master of Normandy, and its nobles had
acknowledged his son Henry as their rightful duke. The boy was in
England, under the protection of the Earl of Gloucester, who attended to
his education. The great Earl died in 1147. For a few years there had
been no decided contest between the forces of the King and the Empress.
After eight years of terrible hostility, and of desperate adventure,
Matilda left the country. Stephen made many efforts to control the
license of the barons, but with little effect. He was now engaged in
another quarrel with the Church. His brother had been superseded as
legate by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, in consequence of the
death of the Pope who had supported the Bishop of Winchester. Theobald
was Stephen's enemy, and his hostility was rendered formidable by his
alliance with Bigod, the Earl of Norfolk. The Archbishop excommunicated
Stephen and his adherents, and the King was enforced to submission. In
1150 Stephen, having been again reconciled to the Church, sought the
recognition of his son Eustace as the heir to the kingdom. This
recognition was absolutely refused by the Archbishop, who said that
Stephen was regarded by the papal see as an usurper. But time was
preparing a solution of the difficulties of the kingdom. Henry of Anjou
was grown into manhood. Born in 1133, he had been knighted by his uncle,
David of Scotland, in 1149. His father died in 1151, and he became not
only Duke of Normandy, but Earl of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine. In 1152
he contracted a marriage of ambition with Eleanor, the divorced wife of
Louis of France, and thus became Lord of Aquitaine and Poitou, which
Eleanor possessed in her own right. Master of all the western coast of
France, from the Somme to the Pyrenees, with the exception of Brittany,
his ambition, thus strengthened by his power, prepared to dispute the
sovereignty of England with better hopes than ever waited on his
mother's career. He landed with a well-appointed band of followers in
1153, and besieged various castles. But no general encounter took place.
The King and the Duke had a conference, without witnesses, across a
rivulet, and this meeting prepared the way for a final pacification. The
negotiators were Henry, the Bishop, on the one part, and Theobald, the
Archbishop, on the other. Finally Stephen led the Prince in solemn
procession through the streets of Winchester, "and all the great men of
the realm, by the King's command, did homage, and pronounced the fealty
due to their liege lord, to the Duke of Normandy, saving only their
allegiance to King Stephen during his life." Stephen's son Eustace had
died during the negotiations. The troublesome reign of Stephen was soon
after brought to a close. He died on the 25th of October, 1154. His
constant and heroic queen had died three years before him.
ANTIPAPAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT: ARNOLD OF BRESCIA
ST. BERNARD AND THE SECOND CRUSADE
A.D. 1145-1155
JOHANN A.W. NEANDER
(During the first half of the twelfth century--a period marked by
conflicting spiritual tendencies--in Italy began a work of political and
religious reform, which has ever since been associated with the name of
its chief originator and apostle, Arnold of Brescia, so called from his
native city in Lombardy. He was born about the year 1100, became a
disciple of Abelard--whose teachings fired him with enthusiasm--and
entered the priesthood.