RICHARD AND ENGLAND.
1189–1194.
All doubts as to the destination of Henry’s realms after his death were
settled at once by the discovery of John’s treason. Throughout the
Angevin dominions not a voice was raised to challenge the succession
of Richard. The English marshal and the Angevin barons gathered at
Fontevraud received him unquestioningly as their lord, and were at once
accepted as loyal subjects. One of them indeed, the seneschal of Anjou,
Stephen of Turnham or of Marçay, was flung into prison for failing to
surrender the royal treasure;[1334] but the reason of his failure seems
to have been simply that the treasury was empty.[1335] According to
one contemporary historian, Richard sealed his forgiveness of William
the Marshal by at once despatching him to England with a commission
to hold the country for him--in effect, to act as justiciar--till he
could proceed thither himself.[1336] In all probability, however,
William was authorized to do nothing more than set Eleanor at liberty;
it was she who, by her son’s desire, undertook the office of regent
in England,[1337] which she fulfilled without difficulty for the
next six weeks. Geoffrey the chancellor resigned his seal into his
half-brother’s hands as soon as the funeral was over.[1338] The
promise of the Norman castellans to Henry that they would surrender to
no one but John was of course annulled by later events. John himself
hastened to join his brother; Richard gave him a gracious welcome,
and they returned to Normandy together.[1339] At Séez the archbishops
of Canterbury and Rouen came to meet them, and absolved Richard from
the excommunication[1340] laid on him by the legate John of Anagni.
Thence they all proceeded to Rouen. On July 20 Richard went in state
to the metropolitan church, where Archbishop Walter girded him with
the ducal sword and invested him with the standard of the duchy.[1341]
On the same day he received the fealty of the Norman barons,[1342]
and held his first court as duke of Normandy, and also, it seems, as
king-elect of England, although there had been no formal election. He
at once made it clear that the abettors of his revolt had nothing to
hope from him--three of the most conspicuous had been deprived of their
lands already[1343]--and that his father’s loyal servants had nothing
to fear, if they would transfer their loyalty to him. He shewed indeed
every disposition to carry out his father’s last wishes; he at once
nominated Geoffrey for the see of York, and confirmed Henry’s last
grant to John, consisting of the Norman county of Mortain and four
thousand pounds’ worth of land in England;[1344] at the same time he
bestowed upon William the Marshal the hand of Isabel de Clare, daughter
and heiress of Earl Richard of Striguil, and upon the son of the count
of Perche a bride who had already been sought by two kings--his niece,
Matilda of Saxony.[1345]
[1334] _Gesta Ric._ (“Benedict of Peterborough,” Stubbs, vol.
ii.), p. 71. Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 6.
[1335] See _Hist. de Guill. le Mar._, vv. 9198, 9199
(_Romania_, vol. xi. p. 67).
[1336] _Ib._ vv. 9347–9354 (p. 69).
[1337] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 67.
[1338] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 5 (Brewer, vol. iv.
p. 372).
[1339] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 72.
[1340] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 67. How had the
archbishops power to cancel a legatine sentence?
[1341] _Ibid._ _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 73. (The date is from
this last).
[1342] _Gesta Ric._ as above.
[1343] _Ib._ p. 72.
[1344] _Ib._ p. 73. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 3 (Howlett, vol. i.
p. 301). On John and Mortain see Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii.
p. 6 and note 2, and preface to vol. iii. p. xxiv, note 1.
[1345] _Gesta Ric._ as above.
This last match was evidently intended to secure the attachment of the
important little border-county of Perche in case of a rupture with
France, which seemed by no means unlikely. The alliance of Philip
and Richard had expired with King Henry; now that Richard stood
in his father’s place, Philip saw in him nothing but his father’s
successor--the head of the Angevin house, whose policy was to be
thwarted and his power undermined on every possible occasion and by
every possible means. This was made evident at a colloquy held on
S. Mary Magdalene’s day to settle the new relations between the two
princes; Philip greeted his former ally with a peremptory demand for
the restitution of the Vexin.[1346] Richard put him off with a bribe
of four thousand marks, over and above the twenty thousand promised by
Henry at Colombières; and on this condition, accompanied, it seems,
by a vague understanding that Richard and Adela were to marry after
all,[1347] Philip agreed to leave Richard in undisturbed possession
of all his father’s dominions, including the castles and towns which
had been taken from Henry in the last war,[1348] except those of
Berry and Auvergne.[1349] Thus secured, for the moment at least, in
Normandy, Richard prepared to take possession of his island realm. He
had paved the way for his coming there by empowering Eleanor to make a
progress throughout England, taking from all the freemen of the land
oaths of fealty in his name, releasing captives, pardoning criminals,
mitigating, so far as was possible without upsetting the ordinary
course of justice, the severe administration of the late king. Richard
himself now restored the earl of Leicester and the other barons whom
Henry had disseized six years before.[1350] The next step was to send
home the archbishop of Canterbury and three other English prelates who
were with him in Normandy.[1351] On August 12 they were followed by
Richard himself.[1352]
[1346] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 73, 74. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. iii. pp. 3, 4.
[1347] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 74.
[1348] Rog. Howden as above, p. 4.
[1349] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
29. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ib._), p. 75. Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 450.
[1350] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 74, 75.
[1351] _Ib._ p. 75.
[1352] Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 457. The _Gesta Ric._, as
above, give a confused date--“Idus Augusti, die dominicâ post
Assumptionem B. Mariæ.”
His politic measures of conciliation, executed by his mother with
characteristic intelligence and tact, had secured him a ready welcome.
It was only by slow degrees, and with the growing experience of years,
that the English people learned how much they owed to the stern old
king who was gone. At the moment they thought of him chiefly as the
author of grievances which his son seemed bent upon removing.[1353]
Richard’s mother, with a great train of bishops and barons, was
waiting to receive him at Winchester;[1354] there, on the vigil of the
Assumption, he was welcomed in solemn procession;[1355] and there, too,
he came into possession of the royal treasury, whose contents might
make up for the deficiencies in that of Anjou.[1356] So complete was
his security that instead of hastening, as his predecessors had done,
to be crowned as soon as possible, he left Eleanor nearly three weeks
in which to make the arrangements for that ceremony,[1357] while he
went on a progress throughout southern England,[1358] coming back at
last to be crowned by Archbishop Baldwin at Westminster on September
3.[1359] No charter was issued on the occasion. The circumstances of
the new king’s accession were not such as to make any special call for
one; they were sufficiently met by a threefold oath embodied in the
coronation-service, pledging the sovereign to maintain the peace of
the Church, to put down all injustice, and to enforce the observance
of righteousness and mercy.[1360] In the formal election by clergy and
people which preceded the religious rite,[1361] and in the essentials
of the rite itself, ancient prescription was strictly followed. The
order of the procession and the details of the ceremonial were,
however, arranged with unusual care and minuteness; it was the most
splendid and elaborate coronation-ceremony that had ever been seen in
England, and it served as a precedent for all after-time.[1362] Richard
had none of his father’s shrinking from the pageantries and pomps of
kingship; he delighted in its outward splendours almost as much as in
its substantial powers.[1363] He himself, with his tall figure, massive
yet finely-chiselled features, and soldierly bearing, must have been
by far the most regal-looking sovereign who had been crowned since the
Norman Conqueror; and when Archbishop Baldwin set the crown upon his
golden hair, Englishmen might for a moment dream that, stranger though
he had been for nearly thirty years to the land of his birth, Richard
was yet to be in reality what he was in outward aspect, a true English
king.
[1353] Cf. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 75, 76; and Will. Newb.,
l. iv. c. 1 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 293).
[1354] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 453, 454.
[1355] _Ib._ p. 457. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 67. _Gesta
Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 74.
[1356] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 76, 77.
[1357] “Mater comitis Alienor regina de vocatione comitum,
baronum, vicecomitum, uit sollicita.” R. Diceto as above, p. 68.
[1358] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 77. Gerv. Cant. as above, p.
457, says he went to check the depredations of the Welsh.
[1359] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 78, 79. Gerv. Cant. and R.
Diceto as above. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 5. R. Coggeshall
(Stevenson), pp. 26, 27. Will. Newb. as above (p. 294).
[1360] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 81, 82. R. Diceto as above.
This last was an eye-witness, for, the see of London being
vacant, the dean had to fulfil in his bishop’s stead the duty
of handing the unction and chrism to the officiating primate.
_Ib._ p. 69.
[1361] R. Diceto as above, p. 68.
[1362] See details in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 80–83; and
Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 9–12.
[1363] We see this in the descriptions of his magnificent
dress, brilliant armour, etc. in the _Itinerarium Regis
Ricardi_.
Such dreams however were soon to be dispelled. On the second day after
his crowning Richard received the homage of the bishops and barons
of his realm;[1364] he then proceeded into Northamptonshire, and on
September 15 held a great council at Pipewell.[1365] His first act
was to fill up the vacant sees, of which there were now four besides
that of York. The appointments were made with considerable judgement.
London, whose aged bishop Gilbert Foliot had died in 1187,[1366] was
bestowed upon Richard Fitz-Nigel,[1367] son of Bishop Nigel of Ely, and
for the last twenty years his successor in the office of treasurer;
while Ely, again vacated scarcely three weeks ago by the death of
Geoffrey Ridel,[1368] rewarded the past services and helped to secure
the future loyalty of Richard’s chancellor, William of Longchamp.[1369]
Winchester, vacated nearly a year ago by the death of Richard of
Ilchester,[1370] was given to Godfrey de Lucy, a son of Henry’s early
friend and servant Richard de Lucy “the loyal”;[1371] Salisbury, which
had been without a bishop ever since November 1184,[1372] was given to
Hubert Walter,[1373] a near connexion of the no less faithful minister
of Henry’s later years, Ralf de Glanville. This last appointment had
also another motive. Hubert Walter was dean of York; he stood at the
head of a party in the York chapter which had strongly disputed the
validity of Geoffrey’s election in the preceding August, and some of
whom had even proposed the dean himself as an opposition candidate
for the primacy.[1374] Hubert’s nomination to Salisbury cleared this
obstacle out of Geoffrey’s way, and no further protest was raised when
Richard confirmed his half-brother’s election in the same council of
Pipewell.[1375]
[1364] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 84.
[1365] _Ib._ p. 85. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 69. Gerv.
Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 458.
[1366] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 5. R. Diceto as
above, p. 47.
[1367] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 85. R. Diceto as above, p. 69.
Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 9.
[1368] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 78. R. Diceto as above, p. 68.
[1369] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 85. R. Diceto as above, p. 69.
Ric. Devizes as above.
[1370] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 58. R. Diceto as above, p. 58.
[1371] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 84. R. Diceto as above, p. 69.
Ric. Devizes as above.
[1372] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 32. _Gesta Hen._
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 320.
[1373] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 84. R. Diceto as above, p. 69.
Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 9.
[1374] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 77, 78. Cf. Gir. Cambr. _Vita
Galfr._, l. i. c. 6 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 373). Hubert had
indeed been proposed for the see as far back as 1186; _Gesta
Hen._ as above, p. 352. See also Bishop Stubbs’s preface to
Rog. Howden, vol. iv. pp. xxxix–xlvi.
[1375] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 374).
When, however, the king turned from the settlement of the Church to
that of the state, it became gradually apparent that his policy in
England had only two objects:--to raise money for the crusade, and to
secure the obedience of his realm during his own absence in the East.
These objects he endeavoured to effect both at once by a wholesale
change of ministers, sheriffs and royal officers in general, at the
council of Pipewell or during the ten days which elapsed between its
dissolution and the Michaelmas Exchequer-meeting. The practice of
making a man pay for the privilege either of entering upon a public
office or of being released from its burthen was, as we have seen,
counted in no way disgraceful in the days of Henry I., and by no means
generally reprobated under Henry II. Richard however carried it to a
length which clearly shocked the feelings of some statesmen of the
old school,[1376] if not those of the people in general. The first
to whom he applied it was no less a person than the late justiciar,
Ralf de Glanville. Ralf was, like Richard himself, under a vow of
crusade, which would in any case have rendered it impossible for him
to retain the justiciarship after the departure of the English host
for Palestine.[1377] The king, however, insisted that his resignation
should take effect at once,[1378] and also that it should be paid for
by a heavy fine--a condition which was also required of the Angevin
seneschal, Stephen of Turnham, as the price of his release from
prison.[1379] Worn out though he was with years and labours,[1380] Ralf
faithfully kept his vow.[1381] If all the intending crusaders had done
the same, it would have been no easy matter to fill his place or to
make adequate provision for the government and administration of the
realm. Both king and Pope, however, had learned that for eastern as
well as western warfare money was even more necessary than men; Richard
had therefore sought and obtained leave from Clement III. to commute
crusading vows among his subjects for pecuniary contributions towards
the expenses of the war.[1382] By this means he at once raised a large
sum of money, and avoided the risk of leaving England deprived of all
her best warriors and statesmen during his own absence. Instead of
Ralf de Glanville he appointed two chief justiciars, Earl William de
Mandeville and Bishop Hugh of Durham;[1383] under these he placed five
subordinate justiciars, one of whom was William the Marshal.[1384] The
bishop-elect of London, Richard Fitz-Nigel, was left undisturbed in his
post of treasurer, where his services were too valuable for the king to
venture upon the risk of forfeiting them; but the bishop-elect of Ely,
although a favourite servant and almost a personal friend of Richard,
had to pay three thousand pounds for his chancellorship. On the other
hand, Richard proved that in this instance he was not actuated solely
by mercenary motives, by refusing a still higher bid from another
candidate.[1385] All the sheriffs were removed from office; some seven
or eight were restored to their old places, five more were appointed
to shires other than those which they had formerly administered;[1386]
the sheriffdom of Hampshire was sold to the bishop-elect of
Winchester,[1387] that of Lincolnshire to Gerard de Camville, those
of Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire to Bishop Hugh of
Chester;[1388] and the earldom of Northumberland was granted on similar
terms to the justiciar-bishop of Durham.[1389]
[1376] This appears from the tone in which his sales of office,
etc., are described by Richard Fitz-Nigel in the _Gesta Ric._
(Stubbs), pp. 90, 91, and by Roger of Howden (Stubbs), vol.
iii. p. 13.
[1377] He had taken the cross in 1185; Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. ii. p. 302. The _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 87, and Will.
Newb. l. iv. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 302) say distinctly that
Ralf himself wished to resign in order to fulfil his vow.
[1378] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 90. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson),
p. 7, says he even put him in ward.
[1379] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 6, 7.
[1380] _Ib._ p. 9.
[1381] He died at the siege of Acre before October 21, 1190.
_Epp. Cant._ ccclvi. (Stubbs, p. 329).
[1382] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 17.
[1383] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 87. Hugh paid a thousand
marks for the remission of his crusading vow, to enable him to
undertake the office. _Ib._ p. 90.
[1384] Rog. Howden as above, p. 16.
[1385] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 9.
[1386] Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xxix.
[1387] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 10.
[1388] Stubbs as above, pp. xxviii, xxix, and Madox, _Hist.
Exch._, vol. i. p. 458, from Pipe Roll 2 Ric. I.
[1389] Pipe Roll 2 Ric. I. (Stubbs, as above, p. xxviii, note
3). _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 90. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p.
8. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 304). Geoff.
Coldingham, c. 9 (_Script. Dunelm. III._, Raine, p. 14). The
grant itself, dated November 25, is in _Scriptt. Dunelm. III._,
App. p. lxii.
Two other matters had to be dealt with before Richard’s preparations
for departure were completed. To guard his realm from external
disturbance, he must secure the fealty of the vassal-rulers of Scotland
and Wales. To guard it against internal treason, he must, if such a
thing were possible, secure the loyalty of the brother whom he was
leaving behind him. The first was at once the less important and the
easier matter of the two. Rees of South Wales had indeed profited
by the change of rulers in England to break the peace which he had
been compelled to maintain with King Henry, and after the council
of Pipewell Richard sent John against him at the head of an armed
force. The other Welsh princes came to meet John at Worcester and
made submission to him as his brother’s representative;[1390] Rees
apparently refused to treat with any one but the king in person, and
accordingly he came back with John as far as Oxford, but Richard would
not take the trouble to arrange a meeting, and was so unconcerned about
the matter that he let him go home again without an audience, and,
of course, in a state of extreme indignation.[1391] His threatening
attitude served as an excuse for raising a scutage, nominally for a
Welsh war;[1392] but the expedition was never made. The king of Scots
was otherwise dealt with. Early in December, while Richard was at
Canterbury on his way to the sea, William the Lion came to visit him,
and a bargain was struck to the satisfaction of both parties. Richard
received from William a sum of ten thousand marks, and his homage for
his English estates, as they had been held by his brother Malcolm;
in return, he restored to him the castles of Roxburgh and Berwick,
and released him and his heirs for ever from the homage for Scotland
itself, enforced by Henry in 1175.[1393]
[1390] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 87, 88.
[1391] _Ib._ p. 97.
[1392] Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. p. 664, from Pipe Roll 2
Ric. I.
[1393] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 98. Richard’s charter of
release to William is in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 30; _Gesta
Ric._ as above, pp. 102, 103; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii.
pp. 25, 26. It is dated (in Rymer’s copy) December 5. On this
transaction see also R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 72, and
Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 304).
Richard’s worst difficulty however was still unsolved: how to prevent
John from trying to supplant him in his absence. Richard knew that this
lad, ten years younger than himself, had been his rival ever since
he was of an age to be a rival to any one; and he knew his brother’s
character as, perhaps, no one else did know it as yet--for their mother
had scarcely seen her youngest child since he was six years old. In the
light of later history, it is impossible not to feel that Richard’s
wisest course, alike for his own sake and for England’s, would have
been to follow the instinct which had once prompted him to insist that
John should go with him to the crusade. In this case however he was now
led astray by the noblest feature in his character, his unsuspecting
confidence and generosity. From the hour of their reconciliation
after their father’s death, Richard’s sole endeavour respecting John
was to gain his affection and gratitude by showering upon him every
honour, dignity and benefit of which it was possible to dispose in his
favour. The grant of the county of Mortain made him the first baron
of Normandy, and it was accompanied by a liberal provision in English
lands. To these were added, as soon as the brothers reached England, a
string of “honours”--Marlborough, Luggershall, Lancaster, each with its
castle; the Peak, Bolsover, and the whole honour of Peverel; those of
Wallingford and Tickhill, and that of Nottingham, including the town;
and the whole shire of Derby;[1394] besides the honour of Gloucester,
which belonged to John’s betrothed bride Avice, and which Richard
secured to him by causing him to be married to her at Marlborough on
August 29,[1395] in spite of Archbishop Baldwin’s protests against a
marriage between third cousins without dispensation from the Pope.
Baldwin at once laid all the lands of the young couple under interdict;
but John appealed against him, and a papal legate who came over in
November to settle Baldwin’s quarrel with his own monks confirmed the
appeal and annulled the sentence of the primate.[1396] At the same time
Richard bestowed upon his brother four whole shires in south-western
England--Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset--with the ferms and the
entire profits of jurisdiction and administration.[1397] More than this
even Richard could not give; if more was needed to hold John’s ambition
in check, he could only trust to the skilful management of Eleanor.
She was left, seemingly without any formal commission, but with the
practical authority of queen-regent, and with the dowries of two former
queens in addition to her own.[1398]
[1394] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 78. See also Stubbs, _Rog.
Howden_, vol. iii., pref. p. xx.
[1395] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 78.
[1396] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 72, 73.
[1397] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 99. Stubbs as above, p. xxv.
Cf. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 3 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 301), and his
comments on the subject (_ib._ p. 302).
[1398] _Gesta Ric._ as above.
One important part of Richard’s administrative arrangements was however
already upset: William de Mandeville, having gone to Normandy on
business for the king, died there on November 14.[1399] Earl of Essex
by grant of Henry II., count of Aumale by marriage with its heiress,
William had been through life one of Henry’s most faithful friends;
he was honoured and esteemed by all parties on both sides of the sea;
there was no one left among the barons who could command anything like
the same degree of general respect; and Richard for the moment saw no
means of filling his place. He therefore left Bishop Hugh of Durham as
sole chief justiciar; but he made a change in the body of subordinate
justiciars appointed at Pipewell. Two of them were superseded; one was
replaced by Hugh Bardulf, and the other, it seems, by the chancellor
William of Longchamp, who, in addition to the office which he already
held, was put in charge of the Tower of London, and intrusted with
powers which virtually made him equal in authority to the chief
justiciar.[1400]
[1399] R. Diceto as above, p. 73. _Gesta Ric._ as above, p.
92. The day comes from Ralf. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 26,
makes it December 12.
[1400] On these appointments cf. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p.
101; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 28; Ric. Devizes
(Stevenson), pp. 8, 11; Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol.
i. p. 306); and Bishop Stubbs’s note, pref. to Rog. Howden as
above, p. xxx.
None of these appointments was in itself unwise; but two worse-matched
yokefellows than the justiciar and the chancellor it would have been
difficult to find. Hugh of Puiset--or “Pudsey,” as his English flock
called him--had stood high in both Church and state ever since the days
of the civil war. Through his mother he was a great-grandson of the
Conqueror, and thus cousin in no remote degree to Henry Fitz-Empress
and Richard Cœur-de-Lion, as well as to Philip of France. We saw
him more than forty years ago, as archdeacon and treasurer of York,
meeting the ecclesiastical censures of his metropolitan with a retort
on equal terms, and wielding not unsuccessfully the weapons both of
spiritual and temporal warfare in the cause of his cousin William of
York and his uncle Henry of Winchester. Since 1153 he had been bishop
of Durham; certainly not an ideal successor of S. Cuthbert; yet his
appointment had been sanctioned by the saintly archbishop Theobald;
and throughout his long episcopate he shewed himself by no means
ill-fitted, on the whole, for his peculiar position. That position, it
must be remembered, had more than that of any other English bishop an
important political side. The bishop of Durham was earl palatine of his
shire; its whole administration, secular as well as ecclesiastical,
was in his hands. His diocesan jurisdiction, again, extended over the
whole of Northumberland, and thus brought him into immediate contact
with the Scots across the border. His diocese was in fact a great
marchland between England and Scotland; he was the natural medium
of communication or negotiation between the two realms; and on him
depended in no small degree the security of their relations with each
other. For such a post it was well to have a strong man, in every sense
of the words; and such a man was Hugh of Puiset. His strength was not
based solely upon an unscrupulous use of great material and political
resources. He was a popular man with all classes; notwithstanding
his unclerical ways, he never fell into any ecclesiastical disgrace
except with his own metropolitan, for whom he was generally more than
a match; and he was one of the very few prelates who managed to steer
their way through the Becket quarrel without either damaging their
reputation as sound churchmen or forfeiting the confidence of Henry II.
His intrigues with the Scot king and the rebel barons in 1174 failed
so completely and so speedily that Henry found it scarcely worth while
to punish them in any way; and on the other hand, Hugh’s position
was already so independent and secure that he himself never found it
worth while to renew them. In his own diocese, whatever he might be
as a pastor of souls, he was a vigorous and on the whole a beneficent
as well as magnificent ruler; the men of the county palatine grumbled
indeed at his extravagance and at the occasional hardships brought
upon them by his inordinate love of the chase, but they were none the
less proud of his splendid buildings, his regal state, and his equally
regal personality. His appearance and manners corresponded with his
character and his rank; he was tall in stature, dignified in bearing,
remarkably attractive in look, eloquent and winning in address.[1401]
Moreover, he had lived so long in England, and all his interests had
so long been centred there, that for all practical purposes, social as
well as political, he was a thorough Englishman--certainly far more
of an Englishman than his young English-born cousin, King Richard.
For the last eight years, indeed, he had held in the north much the
same position as had belonged in earlier times to the archbishops of
York; for the northern province had been without a metropolitan ever
since the death of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque in November 1181,[1402] and
the supreme authority, ecclesiastical as well as secular, had thus
devolved upon the bishop of Durham. He was now threatened with the loss
of this pre-eminence; but he had no intention of giving it up without
a struggle, in which his chances of success were at least as good as
those of his rival the archbishop-elect; and whatever the result might
be with respect to his ecclesiastical independence, he had secured a
formidable counterpoise to the primate’s territorial influence by his
purchase of Northumberland, which made him sole head, under the Crown,
of the civil administration of the whole country between the Tweed and
the Tees.
[1401] On Hugh of Durham see Will. Newb., l. v. c. 10 (Howlett,
vol. ii. pp. 436–438), Geoff. Coldingham, cc. 1, 4, 11, 14
(_Script. Dunelm. III._, Raine, pp. 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14), and
Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xxxiii.–xxxvii.
[1402] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 283. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 10. Will. Newb., l. iii. c. 5 (Howlett,
vol. i. p. 225).
Alike in himself and in his antecedents Hugh of Puiset was the very
antithesis to William of Longchamp. William had nothing of the
stately presence and winning aspect which distinguished the bishop
of Durham; on the contrary, he laboured under personal disadvantages
which should have entitled him to sympathy, but which one of his
political opponents was heartless enough to caricature, after his
fall, in order to make him an object of vulgar contempt and disgust.
His stature was diminutive, his countenance swarthy and ill-favoured,
his figure mis-shapen, and he was moreover very lame.[1403] His
origin was as lowly as his person. His father was a certain Hugh of
Longchamp who in 1156 received from the king a grant of lands in
Herefordshire,[1404] and about the time of the barons’ revolt was
fermor of the honour of Conches in Normandy.[1405] His grandfather was
said to have been a French serf who had fled from the justice of his
lord and found a refuge in the Norman village whence his descendants
took their name.[1406] In Henry’s latter years Hugh of Longchamp was
deep in debt and disgrace,[1407] and his six sons had to make their
way in the world as best they could under the shadow of the king’s
displeasure.[1408] William, whose physical infirmities must have shut
him out from every career save that of a clerk, first appears under
the patronage of Geoffrey the chancellor, as his official in one of
his many pieces of Church preferment, the archdeaconry of Rouen.[1409]
The king, however, remonstrated strongly with his son on the danger
of associating with a man whom he declared to be “a traitor, like his
father and mother before him.”[1410] The end of his remonstrances was
that, shortly before the last outbreak, William fled from Geoffrey to
Richard, and, according to one account, became the chief instigator
of Richard’s rebellion.[1411] However this may be, it is certain that
Richard, while still merely duke of Aquitaine, employed William as his
chancellor,[1412] and that he was not only so well satisfied with his
services as to retain him in the same capacity after his accession to
the crown, but had formed such a high opinion of his statesmanship and
his fidelity as to make him his chief political adviser and confidant.
Richard, like his father, was constant in his friendships, and very
unwilling to discard those to whom he had once become really attached;
his trust in William remained unshaken to the end of his life, and
in some respects it was not misplaced. William seems to have been
thoroughly loyal to his master, and his energy and industry were as
unquestionable as his loyalty. As Richard’s most intimate companion,
confidential secretary, and political adviser in foreign affairs,
William was in his right place; but he was by no means equally well
fitted to be Richard’s representative in the supreme government and
administration of England. He had the primary disqualification of being
a total stranger to the land, its people and its ways. Most likely he
had never set foot in England till he came thither with Richard in
1189; he was ignorant of the English tongue;[1413] his new surroundings
were thoroughly distasteful to him; and as he was by no means of a
cautious or conciliatory temper, he expressed his contempt and dislike
of them in a way which was resented not only by the people, but even
by men whose origin and natural speech were scarcely more English
than his own.[1414] He had in short every qualification for becoming
an extremely unpopular man, and he behaved as if he desired no other
destiny. The nation at large soon learned to return his aversion
and to detest him as a disagreeable stranger; his colleagues in the
administration despised him as an upstart interloper; the justiciar,
in particular, keenly resented his own virtual subordination to one
whom he naturally regarded as his inferior in every way.[1415] It was
sound policy on Richard’s part to place a check upon Hugh of Durham;
and it was not unnatural that he should select his chancellor for that
purpose. The seven happiest years of Henry Fitz-Empress had been the
years during which another chancellor had wielded a power almost as
great as that which Richard intrusted to William of Longchamp. But, on
the other hand, any one except Richard might have seen at a glance that
of all statesmen living, William of Longchamp was well-nigh the least
fitted to reproduce the career of Thomas of London.
[1403] Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 11, with the horrible
caricature in Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 19 (Brewer,
vol. iv. p. 420).
[1404] Pipe Roll 2 Hen. II. (Hunter), p. 51.
[1405] _Mag. Rot. Scacc. Norm._ (Stapleton), vol. i. p. 74. Cf.
Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xxxviii.
[1406] Letter of Hugh of Nonant, in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs),
p. 216 (also in Rog. Howden, Stubbs, vol. iii. p. 142). Gir.
Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 18 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 418).
[1407] _Mag. Rot. Scacc. Norm._ (Stapleton), vol. i. p. 74.
Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xxxviii, xxxix and
notes.
[1408] Stubbs, as above, pp. xxxix, xl.
[1409] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 1 (p. 388).
[1410] _Ibid._ Cf. c. 19 (pp. 420, 421). It does not seem to be
known exactly who William’s mother was; but she brought to her
husband in dower a knight’s fee in Herefordshire under Hugh de
Lacy. See _Lib. Nig. Scacc._ (Hearne), p. 155, and Stubbs, as
above, p. xxxviii, note 4.
[1411] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 19 (p. 421).
[1412] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 6.
[1413] Letter of Hugh of Nonant in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), vol.
ii. p. 219.
[1414] See Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 19 (Brewer,
vol. iv. p. 424).
[1415] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 101. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. iii. p. 29.
The king left England on December 11.[1416] William was consecrated,
together with Richard Fitz-Nigel, on December 31,[1417] and on the
feast of the Epiphany he was enthroned at Ely.[1418] Immediately
afterwards he began to assert his temporal authority. At a meeting
of the Court of Exchequer the bishop of Durham was turned out by
the chancellor’s orders; presently after he was deprived of his
jurisdiction over Northumberland. Soon after this, Bishop Godfrey of
Winchester was dispossessed not merely of his sheriffdom and castles,
but even of his own patrimony.[1419] For this last spoliation there
is no apparent excuse; that a man should hold a sheriffdom together
with a bishopric was, however, contrary alike to Church discipline and
to sound temporal policy; and the non-recognition of Hugh’s purchase
of Northumberland might be yet further justified by the fact that
the purchase-money was not yet paid.[1420] In February 1190 Richard
summoned his mother, his brothers and his chief ministers to a final
meeting in Normandy;[1421] the chancellor, knowing that complaints
against him would be brought before the king, hurried over in advance
of his colleagues, to justify himself before he was accused,[1422] and
he succeeded so well that Richard not only sent him back to England
after the council with full authority to act as chief justiciar as well
as chancellor,[1423] but at the same time opened negotiations with Rome
to obtain for him a commission as legate[1424]--an arrangement which,
the archbishop of Canterbury being bound on crusade like the king,
would leave William supreme both in Church and state.
[1416] _Gesta Ric._ as above. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p.
73, makes it December 14.
[1417] R. Diceto as above, p. 75. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p.
11.
[1418] R. Diceto as above.
[1419] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 11.
[1420] See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xxxi. and
note 3.
[1421] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 105, 106.
[1422] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 12.
[1423] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 106. Cf. Ric. Devizes as
above, and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 14 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 331).
[1424] _Gesta Ric._ as above.
The new justiciar’s first act on his return was to fortify the Tower
of London;[1425] his next was to punish a disturbance which had lately
occurred at York. During the last six months the long-suppressed hatred
which the Jews inspired had broken forth into open violence. The first
pretext had been furnished by a misunderstanding on the coronation-day.
Richard, who had some very strict ideas about the ceremonials of
religion, had given orders that no Jew should approach him on that
solemn occasion; in defiance or ignorance of the prohibition, some
rich Jews came to offer gifts to the new sovereign; the courtiers and
the people seized the excuse to satisfy at once their greed and their
hatred; the unwelcome visitors were driven away, robbed, beaten, some
even slain;[1426] and the rage of their enemies, once let loose, spent
itself throughout the night in a general sack of the Jewish quarter.
Richard, engaged at the coronation-banquet, knew nothing of what had
happened till the next day,[1427] when he did his best to secure the
ringleaders, and punished them severely.[1428] When he was gone,
however, the spark thus kindled burst forth into a blaze in all the
chief English cities in succession, Winchester being almost the sole
exception.[1429] Massacres of Jews took place at Norwich on February 6,
at Stamford on March 7, at S. Edmund’s on March 18, Palm Sunday.[1430]
A day before this last, a yet worse tragedy had occurred at York. The
principal Jews of that city, in dread of a popular attack, had sought
and obtained shelter in one of the towers of the castle, under the
protection of its constable and the sheriff of Yorkshire.[1431] Once
there, they refused to give it up again; whereupon the constable and
the sheriff called out all the forces of city and shire to dislodge
them. After twenty-four hours’ siege the Jews offered to ransom
themselves by a heavy fine; but the blood of the citizens was up, and
they rejected the offer. The Jews, in desperation, resolved to die by
their own hands rather than by those of their Gentile enemies; the
women and children were slaughtered by their husbands and fathers,
who flung the corpses over the battlements or piled them up in the
tower, which they fired.[1432] Nearly five hundred Jews perished in the
massacre or the flames;[1433] and the citizens and soldiers, baulked of
their expected prey, satiated their greed by sacking and burning all
the Jewish houses and destroying the bonds of all the Jewish usurers
in the city.[1434] At the end of April or the beginning of May[1435]
the new justiciar came with an armed force to York to investigate
this affair. The citizens threw the whole blame upon the castellan
and the sheriff; William accordingly deposed them both.[1436] As the
castle was destroyed, he probably thought it needless to appoint a
new constable until it should be rebuilt; for the sheriff--John,
elder brother of William the Marshal--he at once substituted his own
brother Osbert.[1437] Most of the knights who had been concerned in
the tumult had taken care to put themselves out of his reach; their
estates were, however, mulcted and their chattels seized;[1438] and the
citizens only escaped by paying a fine[1439] and giving hostages who
were not redeemed till three years later, when all thought of further
proceedings in the matter had been given up.[1440] Even the clergy of
the minster had their share of punishment, although for a different
offence: William, though his legatine commission had not yet arrived,
claimed already to be received as legate, and put the church under
interdict until his claim was admitted.[1441]
[1425] _Ibid._
[1426] The _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 83, lay the blame
on “curiales”; with Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p.
12, the source of the mischief is “plebs superbo oculo et
insatiabili corde”; R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 69, is
so ashamed of the whole business that he tries to shift
the responsibility off all English shoulders alike--“Pax
Judæorum, quam ab antiquis temporibus semper obtinuerant, ab
alienigenis interrumpitur.” Cf. the very opposite tone of R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 28, and the judicial middle course
characteristically steered by Will. Newb., l. iv. cc. 1 and 9
(Howlett, vol. i. pp. 297, 298, 316, 317).
[1427] R. Diceto as above.
[1428] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 84. Rog. Howden as above.
Both take care to assure us that Richard’s severity was owing
not to any sympathy for the Jews, but to the fact that in
the confusion a few Christians had suffered with them. Cf. a
slightly different version in Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 1 (as
above, pp. 297–299).
[1429] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 5.
[1430] R. Diceto as above, p. 75. Cf. Will. Newb., l. iv. cc.
7, 8 (as above, pp. 308–312), who adds Lynn to the series.
[1431] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 107, and a more detailed
account in Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 9 (as above, pp. 312–314).
From him we learn that the Jews of Lincoln did the same, and
with a more satisfactory result.
[1432] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 107. For date--March 16--see
R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 75.
[1433] R. Diceto as above.
[1434] _Gesta Ric._ as above. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii.
p. 34. Cf. the somewhat different version of Will. Newb., l.
iv. cc. 9, 10 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 314–322), and also R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 27, 28.
[1435] The _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 108, say merely “post
Pascha”; Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 11 (as above, p. 323), says
“circa Dominicæ Ascensionis solemnia,” which fell on May 4.
[1436] _Gesta Ric._ as above.
[1437] Rog. Howden as above.
[1438] Will. Newb. as above (p. 323). Cf. Pipe Roll 2 Ric. I.,
quoted in Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xliv.,
notes 4, 5, xlv., note 1.
[1439] Will. Newb. as above.
[1440] Pipe Roll 5 Ric. I. in Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii.
pref. p. xliv., note 7. Will. Newb., as above (p. 324), says
that nothing further was ever done in the matter.
[1441] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 108, 109.
For the moment William’s power was undisputed even in the north;
for Hugh of Durham was still in Gaul. Now, however, there came a
notice from the king that he was about to send Hugh back to England
as justiciar over the whole country north of the Humber.[1442] Hugh
himself soon afterwards arrived, and hurried northward, in the hope,
it seems, of catching the chancellor on the further side of the Humber
and thus compelling him to acknowledge his inferiority.[1443] In this
hope he was disappointed; they met at Blyth in Nottinghamshire.[1444]
Hugh, impetuous in old age as in youth, talked somewhat too much
as the chancellor had acted--“as if all the affairs of the realm
were dependent on his nod.”[1445] At last, however, he produced the
commission from Richard upon which his pretensions were founded;[1446]
and William, who could read between the lines of his royal friend’s
letters, saw at once that he had little to fear.[1447] He replied
simply by expressing his readiness to obey the king’s orders,[1448]
and proposing that all further discussion should be adjourned to a
second meeting a week later at Tickhill. There Hugh found the tables
turned. The chancellor had reached the place before him; the bishop’s
followers were shut out from the castle; he was admitted alone into
the presence of his rival, who, without giving him time to speak, put
into his hands another letter from Richard, bidding all his English
subjects render service and obedience to “our trusty and well-beloved
chancellor, the bishop of Ely,” as they would to the king himself.
The letter was dated June 6--some days, if not weeks, later than
Hugh’s credentials;[1449] and it seems to have just reached William
together with his legatine commission, which was issued on the previous
day.[1450] He gave his rival no time even to think. “You had your say
at our last meeting; now I will have mine. As my lord the king liveth,
you shall not quit this place till you have given me hostages for the
surrender of all your castles. No protests! I am not a bishop arresting
another bishop; I am the chancellor, arresting his supplanter.”[1451]
Hugh was powerless; yet he let himself be dragged all the way to London
before he would yield. Then he gave up the required hostages,[1452] and
submitted to the loss of all his lately-purchased honours--Windsor,
Newcastle, Northumberland, even the manor of Sadberge which he had
bought of the king for his see[1453]--everything, in short, except his
bishopric. For that he set out as soon as he was liberated; but at his
manor of Howden he was stopped by the chancellor’s orders, forbidden
to proceed further, and again threatened with forcible detention. He
promised to remain where he was, gave security for the fulfilment of
his promise, and then wrote to the king his complaints of the treatment
which he had received.[1454] All the redress that he could get,
however, was a writ commanding that Sadberge should be restored to him
at once and that he should suffer no further molestation.[1455]
[1442] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 109. This appointment is
mentioned (_ib._ p. 106) among those made at the council of
Rouen, where William himself was appointed; but it seems plain
that it was not ratified till some time later.
[1443] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 12.
[1444] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 109.
[1445] Ric. Devizes as above.
[1446] _Ib._ p. 13. _Gesta Ric._ as above.
[1447] Ric. Devizes as above.
[1448] _Gesta Ric._ as above.
[1449] Cf. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 83, with Ric.
Devizes as above.
[1450] R. Diceto as above.
[1451] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 13.
[1452] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 109. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. iii. p. 35, places the submission at Southwell.
[1453] _Gesta Ric._ as above. On Sadberge see Rog. Howden as
above, p. 13.
[1454] _Gesta Ric._, pp. 109, 110.
[1455] The _Gesta Ric._, p. 110, say Richard ordered the
restitution of Newcastle and Sadberge; for Newcastle Rog.
Howden, as above, p. 38, substitutes “comitatum Northumbriæ”;
but the king’s letter, given by Roger himself (_ib._ pp. 38,
39), mentions nothing except Sadberge. For its date see _ib._
pp. 37 note 1, 39 note 3, and _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 112,
note 1.
The chancellor’s first rival was thus suppressed; but already he
could see other stumbling-blocks arising in his path, not a few of
them placed there by the shortsighted policy of his royal master.
Richard’s reckless bestowal of lands and jurisdictions would, if left
undisturbed, have put the administration of at least ten whole shires
practically beyond the control of the central government. The bishops
of Durham, Winchester and Coventry or Chester would have had everything
their own way, in temporal matters no less than in spiritual,
throughout their respective dioceses. To this state of things William
had summarily put an end in the cases of Northumberland and Hampshire;
in those of Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire the
primate had been induced to remonstrate with Hugh of Coventry upon
the impropriety of a bishop holding three sheriffdoms, and Hugh had
accordingly given up two of them, though he managed to get them back
after Baldwin’s death at the close of 1190.[1456] There were however
still four shires in the south-west and one in Mid-England over which
the king’s justiciar was not only without practical, but even without
legal jurisdiction. In these, and in a number of “honours” scattered
over the midland shires from Gloucester to Nottingham, the whole rights
and profits of government, administration and finance belonged solely
to John; for his exercise of them he was responsible to no one but
the king; and thus, as soon as Richard was out of reach, John was to
all intents and purposes himself king of his own territories. For the
present indeed he was unable to set foot in his little realm: Richard
in the spring had made both his brothers take an oath to keep away
from England for three years.[1457] It was however easy enough for
John to govern his part of England, as the whole of it had often been
governed for years together, from the other side of the Channel. He
had his staff of ministers just like his brother--his justiciar Roger
de Planes,[1458] his chancellor Stephen Ridel,[1459] his seneschal
William de Kahaines, and his butler Theobald Walter;[1460] the sheriffs
of his five counties and the stewards or bailiffs of his honours were
appointed by him alone, and exercised their functions solely for
his advantage, without reference to the king’s court or the king’s
exchequer.[1461] It is evident that, even though as yet the sea lay
between them, John had already the power to make himself, if he were
so minded, a serious obstacle to the chancellor’s plans of governing
England for Richard. Moreover, before Richard finally quitted Gaul, his
mother persuaded him to release John from his oath of absence;[1462]
and William of Longchamp himself, in his new character of legate, was
obliged to confirm the release with his absolution.[1463] In view of
the struggle which he now saw could not be far distant, William began
to marshal his political forces and concert his measures of defence. On
August 1 he held a Church council at Gloucester, in the heart of John’s
territories;[1464] on October 13 he held another at Westminster;[1465]
and he seems to have spent the winter in a sort of half legatine, half
vice-regal progress throughout the country, for purposes of justice and
finance and for the assertion of his own authority. This proceeding
stirred up a good deal of discontent. Cripple though he was, William of
Longchamp seems to have been almost as rapid and restless a traveller
as Henry II.; one contemporary says he “went up and down the country
like a flash of lightning.”[1466] It may be however that these words
allude to the disastrous effects of the chancellor’s passage rather
than to its swiftness and suddenness; for he went about in such state
as no minister except Henry’s first chancellor had ever ventured to
assume. His train of a thousand armed knights, besides a crowd of
clerks and other attendants, was a ruinous burthen to the religious
houses where he claimed entertainment; and the burthen was made almost
unbearable by the heavy exactions, from clerk and layman alike, which
he made in his master’s name.[1467]
[1456] See R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 77, 78, and Stubbs,
_Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xxxi. and note 5.
[1457] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 106. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson),
p. 15.
[1458] R. Diceto as above, p. 99.
[1459] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 224.
[1460] Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 55.
[1461] See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xxxiii
and lii.
[1462] _Gesta Ric._ and Ric. Devizes as above.
[1463] Gir. Cambr. _De rebus a se gestis_, l. ii. c. 23
(Brewer, vol. i. p. 86). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 15, says
the arrangement was that John “in Angliam per cancellarium
transiens staret ejus judicio, et ad placitum illius vel
moraretur in regno vel exularet.” But with Eleanor in England
to back her son, William could really have no choice in the
matter.
[1464] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 83. On the version of
this in Ric. Devizes (as above, pp. 13, 14), see Stubbs, _Rog.
Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xlix.
[1465] R. Diceto as above, p. 85. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i.
p. 488, makes it October 16.
[1466] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 14.
[1467] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 214. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. iii. p. 72. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 14 (Howlett, vol. i.
pp. 333, 334).
That master was now with Philip of France at Messina,[1468] preparing
for his departure from Europe. When he would come back--whether he ever
would come back at all--was felt by all parties to be doubtful in the
extreme. With his ardent zeal, rash valour and peculiar health, he was
little likely to escape both the chances of war and the effects of the
eastern climate;[1469] and the question of the succession was therefore
again becoming urgent. There was indeed not much latitude of choice;
the male line of Anjou, already extinct in Palestine, had in Europe
only three representatives--Richard himself, John, and their infant
nephew Arthur of Britanny. By the strict feudal rule of primogeniture,
Arthur, being Geoffrey’s son, would have after Richard the next claim
as head of the Angevin house. By old English constitutional practice,
John, being a grown man and the reigning sovereign’s own brother,
would have a much better chance of recognition as his successor than
his nephew, a child not yet four years old. Neither alternative was
without drawbacks. Richard himself had made up his mind to the first;
early in November 1190 he arranged a marriage for Arthur with a
daughter of King Tancred of Sicily, on a distinct understanding that
in case of his own death without children Arthur was to succeed to
all his dominions;[1470] while at the same time William of Longchamp
was endeavouring to secure the Scot king’s recognition of Arthur as
heir-presumptive to the English crown.[1471] The queen-mother was
unwilling to contemplate the succession of either Arthur or John; she
was anxious to get Richard married. Knowing that he never would marry
the woman to whom he had been so long betrothed, she took upon herself
to find him another bride. Her choice fell upon Berengaria, daughter
of King Sancho VI. of Navarre;[1472] it was accepted by Richard;
early in February 1191[1473] she went over to Gaul; there she met her
intended daughter-in-law, whom she carried on with her into Italy,
and by the end of March they were both with Richard at Messina.[1474]
On the very day of their arrival Philip had sailed.[1475] After long
wrangling with him, Richard had at last succeeded in freeing himself
from his miserable engagement to Adela;[1476] he at once plighted his
troth to Berengaria; and when his mother, after a four days’ visit, set
out again upon her homeward journey,[1477] his bride remained with him
under the care of his sister the widowed queen Jane of Sicily[1478]
till the expiration of Lent and the circumstances of their eastward
voyage enabled them to marry. The wedding was celebrated and the queen
crowned at Limasol in Cyprus on the fourth Sunday after Easter.[1479]
[1468] Richard was there from September 23, 1190, to April 10,
1191. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 125, 162; R. Diceto as above,
pp. 84, 91.
[1469] See Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 306).
[1470] Treaty in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 133–136, and Rog.
Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 61–64. It is dateless, but
on November 11 Richard wrote to the Pope telling him of its
provisions and asking for his sanction. _Gesta Ric._ as above,
pp. 136–138; Rog. Howden as above, pp. 65, 66.
[1471] Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 14 (as above, pp. 335, 336).
William represents this as an unauthorized proceeding of the
chancellor’s, contrived in his own interest as against John. He
seems to place it at a later date.
[1472] “Puella prudentior quam pulchra” says Ric. Devizes
(Stevenson), p. 25; but he seems to be contrasting her with
Eleanor. On the other hand, Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 19 (as
above, p. 346), calls her “famosæ pulchritudinis et prudentiæ
virginem.” According to the _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 175,
this had been Richard’s own choice for many years past.
[1473] Richard sent ships to meet her at Naples before the end
of that month. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 157.
[1474] They arrived on March 30. _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 161.
[1475] _Ibid._
[1476] _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 160, 161. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 99. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 86.
Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 26. The actual treaty between
Richard and Philip, of which more later, is in Rymer, _Fœdera_,
vol. i. p. 54.
[1477] She sailed on April 2. _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 161.
Cf. R. Diceto as above.
[1478] _Ibid._ Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 28.
[1479] _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 166, 167. Ric. Devizes, p.
39. _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 195, 196.
On her way home Eleanor stopped to transact some diplomatic business
at Rome, and she seems to have remained in Gaul until the beginning of
the next year. Long before she returned to England there were evident
tokens that when Richard had proposed to keep John out of it, he had
for once been wiser than his mother. Early in the year John, profiting
by the liberty which her intercession had procured him, came over to
England and there set up his court in such semi-regal state as to make
it a source of extreme irritation, if not of grave anxiety, to the
chancellor.[1480] Eleanor’s departure thus left William of Longchamp
face to face with a new and most formidable rival; while about the
same time he saw his power threatened on another side. In March 1191
tidings came that Archbishop Baldwin had died at Acre in the foregoing
November.[1481] If a new primate should be appointed, it was to be
expected as a matter of course that the bishop of Ely would lose the
legation; he could hope to retain it only by persuading Richard either
to nominate him to the primacy, or to keep it vacant altogether.
Richard’s notions of ecclesiastical propriety were however too strict
to admit the latter alternative; from the former he would most likely
be deterred by his father’s experiences with another chancellor; so, to
the astonishment of everybody, he nominated for the see of Canterbury
a Sicilian prelate, one of his fellow-crusaders, William archbishop
of Monreale.[1482] Meanwhile John and the chancellor were quarrelling
openly; popular sympathy, which William had alienated by his arrogance
and his oppressions, was on the side of John; even the subordinate
justiciars, who had stood by William in his struggle with Hugh of
Durham,[1483] were turning against him now; from one and all complaints
against him were showering in upon the king;[1484] till at the end of
February Richard grew so bewildered and so uneasy that he decided upon
sending the archbishop of Rouen to investigate the state of affairs in
England and see what could be done to remedy it.[1485]
[1480] See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. li., lii.
[1481] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 488, 490.
[1482] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 493, 494; date,
January 25 [1191].
[1483] See Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 11, 12.
[1484] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 158. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. iii. pp. 95, 96.
[1485] _Gesta Ric_. as above. Rog. Howden as above, p. 96. We
get the date approximately from Richard’s letter in R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 90.
The archbishop of Rouen--Walter of Coutances--was a man of noble birth
and stainless character who had been successively archdeacon of Oxford,
treasurer of Rouen cathedral and vice-chancellor to Henry II.;[1486]
in this last capacity he had for eight years done the whole work of
head of the chancery for his nominal chief Ralf of Varneville,[1487]
till Ralf was succeeded in 1182 by the king’s son Geoffrey, and next
year the vice-chancellor was promoted to the see of Lincoln, which
Geoffrey had resigned. A year later Walter was advanced to the primacy
of Normandy.[1488] He was now with Richard, on his way to Holy Land,
but commuted his vow to serve the king.[1489] He was a very quiet,
unassuming person, and certainly not a vigorous statesman; but his
integrity and disinterestedness were above question;[1490] and the
position in which he was now placed was one in which even a Thomas
Becket might well have been puzzled how to act. The only commission
given him by Richard of which we know the date was issued on February
23;[1491] but it was not till April 2 that he was allowed to leave
Messina;[1492] and during the interval Richard, in his reluctance to
supersede the chancellor, seems to have been perpetually changing his
mind and varying his instructions, some of which were sent direct to
England and some intrusted to Walter, till by the time the archbishop
started he was laden with a bundle of contradictory commissions,
addressed to himself, to William and to the co-justiciars, and
apparently accompanied by a verbal order to use one, all or none of
them, wholly at his own discretion.[1493]
[1486] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 10 (Brewer, vol.
iv. p. 408).
[1487] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 367.
[1488] _Ib._ vol. ii. pp. 10, 14, 21.
[1489] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 27--very unfairly coloured.
[1490] Cf. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 10 (Brewer,
vol. iv. p. 408), and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 15 (Howlett, vol.
i. p. 336). In this place William calls Walter “virum prudentem
et modestum”; but in l. iii. c. 8 (_ib._ p. 236) he displays a
curiously bitter resentment against him for his abandonment of
the see of Lincoln for the loftier see of Rouen.
[1491] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 90. Gir. Cambr. as
above, c. 6 (p. 401), gives the date as February 20.
[1492] He and Eleanor left Messina together. _Itin. Reg. Ric._
(Stubbs), p. 176.
[1493] This seems the only possible explanation at once of
Walter’s conduct and of the conflicting accounts in R. Diceto
as above, pp. 90, 91; Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 400, 401);
_Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 158; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii.
pp. 96, 97; Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 27–29; and Will.
Newb. as above. See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp.
lx., lxi., note 1.
Before he reached England John and the chancellor were at open war.
On Mid-Lent Sunday they met at Winchester to discuss the payment of
John’s pensions from the Exchequer and the possession of certain
castles within his territories.[1494] The discussion clearly ended in a
quarrel; and this served as a signal for revolt against the unpopular
minister. Gerard de Camville, sheriff of Lincolnshire by purchase from
the king, was also constable of Lincoln castle in right of his wife
Nicolaa de Haye. He was accused of harbouring robbers in the castle,
and when summoned before the king’s justices he refused to appear,
declaring that he had become John’s liegeman and was answerable only
to him.[1495] At the opposite end of England Roger de Mortemer, the
lord of Wigmore--successor to that Hugh de Mortemer who had defied
Henry II. in 1156--was at the same moment found to be plotting treason
with the Welsh. Against him the chancellor proceeded first, and his
mere approach so alarmed Roger that he gave up his castle and submitted
to banishment from the realm for three years.[1496] William then
hurried to Lincoln; but before he could reach it Gerard and Nicolaa
had had time to make their almost impregnable stronghold ready for
a siege, and John had had time to gain possession of Nottingham and
Tickhill[1497]--two castles which the king had retained in his own
hands, while bestowing upon his brother the honours in which they
stood. Nicolaa was in command at Lincoln, and was fully equal to the
occasion; her husband was now with John, and John at once sent the
chancellor a most insulting message, taunting him with the facility
with which the two castles had been betrayed,[1498] and threatening
that if the attempt upon Lincoln was not at once given up, he would
come in person to avenge the wrongs of his liegeman.[1499] William saw
that John was now too strong for him; he knew by this time that Pope
Clement was dead,[1500] and his own legation consequently at an end; he
must have known, too, of the mission of Walter of Rouen; he therefore,
through some of his fellow-bishops,[1501] demanded a personal meeting
with John, and proposed that all their differences should be submitted
to arbitration. John burst into a fury at what he chose to call the
impudence of this proposal,[1502] but he ended by accepting it, and on
April 25 the meeting took place at Winchester. The case was decided by
the bishops of London, Winchester and Bath, with eleven lay arbitrators
chosen by them from each party. Their decision went wholly against the
chancellor. He was permitted to claim the restitution of Nottingham and
Tickhill, but only to put them in charge of two partizans of John; his
right to appoint wardens to the other castles in dispute was nominally
confirmed, but made practically dependent upon John’s dictation; he was
compelled to reinstate Gerard de Camville, and moreover to promise that
in case of Richard’s death he would do his utmost to secure the crown
for John.[1503]
[1494] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 26.
[1495] Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 30, with Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 242, 243, and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 16
(Howlett, vol. i. pp. 337, 338), and see Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_,
vol. iii. pref. pp. lvi., lvii.
[1496] Ric. Devizes as above.
[1497] _Ibid._ _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 207. Will. Newb. as
above (p. 338).
[1498] Ric. Devizes as above.
[1499] _Ibid._ _Gesta Ric._ as above.
[1500] He died on the Wednesday before Easter--April 10--and
his successor Celestine III. was elected on Easter-day. _Gesta
Ric._ as above, p. 161.
[1501] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 31, makes Walter of Rouen
the mediator, but we shall see that this is chronologically
impossible.
[1502] _Ibid._
[1503] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 32, 33. On the date see
Bishop Stubbs’s notes to _Gesta Ric._, p. 208, and Rog. Howden,
vol. iii. p. 134, and pref. to latter, pp. lviii., lix.
Two days later Walter of Rouen landed at Shoreham.[1504] He was
evidently not wanted now to act as a check upon William of Longchamp;
he might almost expect to be soon wanted as a check upon John; but
meanwhile, he could only stand aside and watch the effect of the
new arrangements. His passive attitude gave, however, an indirect
support to the chancellor; after midsummer, therefore, the latter
ventured to repudiate the concessions wrung from him at Winchester;
he again advanced upon Lincoln, and formally deprived Gerard of the
sheriffdom, which he conferred upon William de Stuteville.[1505] Once
more the other bishops interposed, backed now by the Norman primate.
Another assembly met at Winchester on July 28,[1506] and here a
fresh settlement was made. Gerard was reinstated in the sheriffdom
of Lincolnshire, pending his trial in the king’s court; William and
John were both bound over to commit no more forcible disseizures;
the disputed castles were to be again put in charge for the king,
but through the medium of the archbishop of Rouen instead of the
chancellor, and John was allowed no voice in the selection of the
castellans, who were chosen by the assembly then and there. If the
chancellor should infringe the agreement, or if the king should die,
these castles were to be given up to John; but all reference to his
claims upon the succession to the throne was carefully omitted.[1507]
The contest almost seemed to have ended in a drawn battle. It was
strictly a contest between individuals, involving no national or
constitutional interests. The barons, as a body, clearly sided with
John; but, just as clearly, they sided with him from loyal motives. The
authority of the Crown was never called in question; the question was,
who was fittest to represent and uphold it--the king’s chancellor, or
his brother. Of treason, either to England or to Richard, there was not
a thought, unless--as indeed is only too probable--it lurked in the
mind of John himself.
[1504] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 497, says he landed
about midsummer, and the printed text of R. Diceto (Stubbs),
vol. ii. p. 90, makes the date June 27; but see note in latter
place. Bishop Stubbs (_Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. lix.)
adopts the earlier date.
[1505] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 207.
[1506] The date comes from Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 32,
who however misapplies it. See Bishop Stubbs’s notes to _Gesta
Ric._, p. 208, and Rog. Howden, vol. iii. p. 134.
[1507] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 135–137.
A drawn battle, however, could not possibly be the end of a struggle
between two such men as John of Mortain and William of Longchamp. In
the autumn a new element was added to the strife by the return of
Archbishop Geoffrey of York. For thirty-five years Geoffrey had been
the eldest living child, if indeed he was not actually the first-born,
of Henry Fitz-Empress;[1508] but of the vast Angevin heritage there
fell to his share nothing, except the strong feelings and fiery temper
which caused half the troubles of his life. As a child he had been
brought up at court almost on equal terms with his half-brothers;[1509]
he seems indeed to have been his father’s favourite, till he was
supplanted by the little John. When he grew to manhood, however, Henry
could see no way of providing for him except by forcing him into
a career for which he had no vocation. At an early age he was put
into deacon’s orders and made archdeacon of Lincoln;[1510] in 1173,
when about twenty years of age, he was appointed to the bishopric of
the same place.[1511] The Pope, however, demurred to the choice of
a candidate disqualified alike by his youth and his birth; and when
the former obstacle had been outlived and the latter might have been
condoned, Geoffrey voluntarily renounced an office in which he would
have been secure for life, but which he had never desired and for
which he felt himself unfit,[1512] in order to become his father’s
chancellor and constant companion during the last eight years of his
life. It was Henry’s last regret that this son, the only one of his
sons whose whole life had been an unbroken course of perfect filial
obedience, had to be left with his future entirely at the mercy of his
undutiful younger half-brother. Richard received him with a brotherly
welcome;[1513] when, however, he nominated him to the see of York, he
was indeed carrying out their father’s last wishes, but certainly not
those of Geoffrey himself. Richard seems to have thought that he was
held back by other motives than those of conscience or of preference
for a secular life; he suspected him of cherishing designs upon the
crown.[1514] It can only be said that Geoffrey, so far as appears,
never did anything to justify the suspicion, but shewed on the contrary
every disposition to act loyally towards both his brothers, if they
would but have acted with equal loyalty towards him. As soon however
as the tonsure had marked him irrevocably for a priestly life,[1515]
Richard’s zeal for his promotion cooled. The bishop of Durham, who was
striving to make his see independent of the metropolitan,[1516] and a
strong party in the York chapter with whom Geoffrey had quarrelled on
a point of ecclesiastical etiquette, easily won the king’s ear;[1517]
it was not till the very eve of Richard’s departure from England that
Geoffrey was able to buy his final confirmation both in the see of
York and in the estates which his father had bequeathed to him in
Anjou;[1518] and in March he was summoned over to Normandy and there,
like John, made to take an oath of absence from England for three
years.[1519]
[1508] In the first chapter of his _Life_ by Gerald (Brewer,
vol. iv. p. 363), we are told that Geoffrey was scarcely twenty
when elected to Lincoln, _i.e._ in 1173. But in l. i. c. 13
(_ib._ p. 384), Gerald says that he was consecrated to York
“anno ætatis quasi quadragesimo,” in 1191. These two dates, as
is usual with Gerald in such cases, do not agree, and neither
of them pretends to be more than approximate. Still it seems
plain that Geoffrey’s birth must fall somewhere between 1151
and 1153. Even if we adopt the latest date, he must have
been born in the same year as Eleanor’s first son--the baby
William who died in 1156--and must have been at least two years
older than the young king, four years older than Richard, and
fourteen years older than John.
[1509] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 1 (Brewer, vol. iv.
p. 363).
[1510] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 1 (Brewer, vol. iv.
p. 363).
[1511] _Ib._ p. 364. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 22 (Howlett, vol.
i. p. 154).
[1512] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 271, 272. Gir.
Cambr. as above, c. 4 (p. 368). The resignation was formally
completed at Epiphany 1182. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 10.
[1513] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 5 (p. 372).