THE LATER YEARS OF RICHARD.
1194–1199.
The political history of England during the four years which
followed Richard’s departure over sea is simply the history of the
administration of Hubert Walter. Richard never again interfered in
the concerns of his island realm, save for the purpose of obtaining
money from it; and even the method whereby the money was to be raised
he left, like all other details of administration, wholly to the
justiciar’s discretion. Hubert in fact, as justiciar and archbishop,
wielded during these years a power even more absolute than that
which William of Longchamp had wielded during the king’s absence on
crusade. But Richard’s second experiment in governing England by deputy
succeeded far otherwise than the first. It was, indeed, attended with
far less risk; for the king himself was never really out of reach, and
could at any moment have returned to take up the reins of government
in person, had there been any need to do so. Moreover, the man whom he
now left as viceroy had far other qualifications for the office than
William of Longchamp.
Hubert Walter had been trained under the greatest constitutional lawyer
and most successful administrator of the age, Ralf de Glanville. He
was nephew to Ralf’s wife,[1695] and had been a clerk or chaplain
in Ralf’s household until 1186, when he was appointed dean of
York.[1696] A few months later he was one of five persons nominated
by the York chapter in answer to a royal mandate for election to the
vacant see.[1697] King Henry, however, refused all five, and Hubert
remained dean of York for three years longer. He seems to have held,
besides his deanery, an office at court, either as protonotary or
as vice-chancellor under Geoffrey; for during the last few months
of Henry’s life he is found in Maine attending upon the king,
and apparently charged with the keeping of the royal seal.[1698]
Consecrated to Salisbury by Archbishop Baldwin on October 22,
1189,[1699] he immediately afterwards set out with him for Palestine;
there he won universal esteem by the zeal and ability with which he
exerted himself to relieve the wants of the poorer crusaders;[1700] on
Baldwin’s death Hubert virtually succeeded to his place as the chief
spiritual authority in the host;[1701] and after Richard’s arrival
he made himself no less useful as the king’s best adviser and most
trusty diplomatic agent in Palestine.[1702] It was Hubert who headed
in Richard’s stead the first body of pilgrims whom the Turks admitted
to visit the Holy Sepulchre;[1703] and it seems to have been he, too,
who led back the English host from Palestine to Europe after Richard’s
departure. He hastened as early as possible to visit the king in his
captivity;[1704] and Richard lost no time in sending him to England
to be made archbishop, and to help the justiciars in collecting the
ransom.[1705] They had refused the help of William of Longchamp,
but they could not reject that of Hubert; for they knew that, as a
contemporary historian says, “the king had no one so like-minded with
himself, whose fidelity, prudence and honesty he had proved in so
many changes of fortune.”[1706] Hubert was one of the commissioners
appointed to have the custody of the ransom;[1707] and there can be
little doubt that the scheme by which it was raised was in part at
least devised by his financial genius, and carried into execution by
his energy and skill--qualities which he displayed no less effectively
in dealing with the revolt which was finally quelled by the return of
Richard himself.
[1695] Hubert’s mother and Ralf’s wife were sisters; cf. the
Glanville family history in Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. vi.
pt. i., p. 380, and the foundation-charter of Arklow, given by
Hubert’s brother Theobald, _ib._ pt. ii. p. 1128. Hubert and
his brothers seem to have been brought up by their aunt and her
husband; Hubert, when dean of York, founded a Premonstratensian
house at West Dereham “pro salute aniniæ meæ, et patris, et
matris meæ, et domini Ranulphi de Glanvillâ, et dominæ Bertriæ
uxoris ipsius, qui nos nutrierunt.” _Ib._ vol. vi. pt. ii. p.
899.
[1696] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. 360. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 310.
[1697] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 352.
[1698] See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iv. pref. p. xli. note 1.
[1699] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 71.
[1700] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 134–137. _Gesta Ric._
(Stubbs), p. 145.
[1701] R. Diceto as above, p. 88. The Patriarch Heraclius
had become discredited in the eyes of all the right-minded
crusaders by his share in the divorce and remarriage of Queen
Isabel, which broke Baldwin’s heart.
[1702] Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 29 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 378).
[1703] _Ibid._ _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 437, 438.
[1704] Will. Newb. as above, c. 33 (p. 388). Cf. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 209.
[1705] Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 33 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 388). Cf.
Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 516, 517.
[1706] Will. Newb. as above.
[1707] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 212.
Hubert entered upon his vice-royalty--for it was nothing less--under
more favourable conditions than William of Longchamp. He came to it
not as an upstart stranger, but as an Englishman already of high
personal and official standing, thoroughly familiar and thoroughly in
sympathy with the people whom he had to govern, intimately acquainted
with the principles and the details of the system which he was called
upon to administer; his qualifications were well known, and they were
universally acknowledged. Moreover, there was now no one capable of
heading any serious opposition to his authority, at least in secular
affairs. William of Longchamp was still chancellor; but like the
royal master to whose side he clave for the rest of his life, he had
left England for ever. From John there was also nothing to fear. His
intended trial never took place, for he threw himself at Richard’s
feet at the first opportunity, and was personally forgiven; but the
king was wise enough to leave untouched the sentence of forfeiture
passed by the justiciar, and to keep his brother at his own side,
a dependent upon his royal bounty, for nearly twelve months;[1708]
and then he restored to him nothing but the counties of Mortain and
Gloucester and the honour of Eye, but without their castles, giving
him in compensation for the latter and for his other estates a yearly
pension of eight thousand pounds Angevin.[1709] Even John’s capacities
for mischief-making were so far paralyzed by this arrangement that he
seems to have made no further attempt to meddle in English politics so
long as Richard lived. The one man in whom Hubert saw, or fancied he
saw, a possible rival on personal and ecclesiastical grounds, he swept
roughly out of his path. The two primates had already quarrelled over
the privileges of their respective sees, and nothing but the king’s
presence had availed to keep peace between them.[1710] The northern one
had been at feud with his own chapter ever since his appointment, and
they were now prosecuting an appeal against him at Rome. In June 1194,
backed, it can hardly be doubted, by Hubert’s influence, they obtained
from the Pope a sentence which practically condemned Geoffrey without
trial;[1711] and before these tidings reached England in September,
a committee of royal justices, sent by Hubert to deal with the case
in its temporal aspect, had already punished Geoffrey’s refusal to
acknowledge their jurisdiction by confiscating all his archiepiscopal
estates except Ripon.[1712] He went over sea and appealed to the
king, but in vain;[1713] and for the next five years there was again
but one primate in the land. One northern bishop, however, was still
ready to defy Hubert as he had defied William of Longchamp and his
own metropolitan. When the newly appointed sheriff of Northumberland,
Hugh Bardulf, sought to enter upon his office shortly after Richard’s
departure, he found that Hugh of Durham had already made a fresh
bargain with the king, whereby he was to retain the county on a
payment of two thousand marks. He tried, however, as before, to evade
the necessity of payment, and was in consequence forcibly disseized
by Richard’s orders.[1714] Still he was unwilling to give up the
game; and in the spring of 1195 he made another attempt to regain
the territorial influence in the north which Geoffrey’s fall seemed
to have placed again within his reach. The story went in Yorkshire
that he actually succeeded in once more obtaining from Richard--of
course on Richard’s usual terms--a commission as co-justiciar with
Hubert.[1715] Such a commission can hardly have been given otherwise
than in mockery; yet the aged bishop, untaught by all his experience
of the king’s shifty ways, once again set out from York, where he
had just been excommunicating some of Geoffrey’s partizans,[1716] to
publish his supposed triumph in London. Sickness, however, overtook him
on the way; from Doncaster he was compelled to turn back to his old
refuge at Howden, and there on March 3 he died.[1717] His palatinate
was of course taken into the custody of the royal justiciars.[1718] A
fortnight later Celestine III. sent to Archbishop Hubert a commission
as legate for all England;[1719] and thenceforth he was undisputed
ruler alike in Church and state.
[1708] Cf. Rog. Howden as above, pp. 252 and 286, and also R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 64.
[1709] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 286.
[1710] _Ib._ pp. 246, 247, 250; vol. iv. pref. pp. lix, lx.
[1711] _Ib._ vol. iii. pp. 272, 273, 278–286; vol. iv. pref.
pp. lxii, lxiv.
[1712] _Ib._ vol. iii. pp. 261, 262; vol. iv. pref pp. lxi,
lxii.
[1713] Richard in November ordered his restoration, but the
order was not carried out; the brothers went on quarrelling,
and next year Richard again declared the archiepiscopal estates
forfeited, and this time finally. _Ib._ vol. iii. pp. 273, 287;
vol. iv. pref. pp. lxiv, lxix.
[1714] _Ib._ vol. iii. pp. 260, 261; cf. p. 249.
[1715] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 438,
439).
[1716] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 284.
[1717] _Ibid._ Will. Newb. as above (p. 439).
[1718] Rog. Howden as above, p. 285.
[1719] Dated March 18 [1195]. _Ib._ pp. 290–293. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 125–127.
Like most of the higher clergy of Henry’s later years, Hubert was
distinctly more of a statesman than a churchman. His pontificate left
no mark on the English Church; as primate, his chief occupation was
to quarrel with his chapter. No scruples such as had moved Archbishop
Thomas to resign the chancellorship, or had made even Bishop Roger
of Salisbury seek a papal dispensation before he would venture to
undertake a lay office,[1720] held back Hubert Walter from uniting in
his own person the justiciarship and the primacy of all England. He
was, however, a statesman of the best school of the time, steeped in
the traditions of constitutional and administrative reform which had
grown up during Henry’s later years under the inspiration of the king
himself and the direction of Ralf de Glanville. The task of developing
their policy, therefore, could not have fallen to more competent
hands; and as Richard was totally destitute of his father’s business
capacities, it was well that Hubert was left to fulfil it according to
his own judgement and on his own sole responsibility for nearly four
years.
[1720] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 408 (Hardy, p. 637).
The justiciar’s first act after his sovereign’s departure was to
despatch the judges itinerant upon their annual visitation-tour with
a commission[1721] which struck the key-note of his future policy.
It was the note which had been struck by Henry II. in the Assizes
of Clarendon and Northampton; but the new commission shewed a great
advance in the developement of the principles which those measures
embodied. The jurisdiction of the justices is defined with greater
fulness and extended over a much wider sphere. The “pleas of the
Crown” with which they are empowered to deal include, besides those
formerly recognized under this head, such various matters as the
number and condition of churches in the king’s gift,[1722] escheats,
wardships and marriages;[1723] forgers[1724] and defaulters;[1725]
the harbouring of malefactors;[1726] the arrears of the ransom;[1727]
the use of false measures;[1728] the debts of the murdered Jews; the
fines due from their slayers,[1729] from the adherents of John, and
from his debtors, as well as from his own forfeited property;[1730]
the disposal of the chattels of dead usurers, and also of crusaders
who had died before setting out on their pilgrimage;[1731] and the
taking of recognitions under the Great Assize concerning land worth
not more than five pounds a year.[1732] In all these proceedings the
chief object evidently was to procure money for the royal treasury; a
tallage which the judges were also directed to assess upon all cities,
towns and royal demesnes[1733] being deemed insufficient to supply its
needs. The details of this multifarious business are however of less
historical importance than the method employed for its transaction.
Every item of it was to be dealt with on the presentment of what may
now be called the “grand jury”--the jury of sworn recognitors in
every shire, whose functions, hitherto confined to the presentment of
criminals, were thus extended to all branches of judicial work. This
growth in the importance of the jury was marked by the introduction
of a new ordinance for its constitution. The Assizes of Clarendon and
Northampton simply ordered that the jury should consist of twelve
lawful men of every hundred and four of every township, without
specifying how they were to be selected. Most probably they were
nominated by the sheriff.[1734] The recognitors employed in the civil
process known as the Great Assize, however, were from the first
appointed in a special manner prescribed in the Assize itself. Four
knights of the shire were summoned by the sheriff, and these four
elected the twelve recognitors.[1735] By the “Form of proceeding in
the pleas of the Crown” delivered to the justices-errant in 1194,
this method of election was applied to the jury of presentment in
all cases, with a modification which removed the choice yet one step
further from the mere nomination of the sheriff. Four knights were
first to be chosen out of the whole shire; these were to elect two
out of every hundred or wapentake, and these two were to choose ten
others, who with them constituted the legal twelve.[1736] Whether or
not the choice of the first four was actually, as seems most probable,
transferred from the sheriff to the body of the freeholders assembled
in the county-court,[1737] still this enactment shews a distinct
advance in the principles of election and representation, as opposed
to that of mere nomination by a royal officer. Another step in the
same direction was the appointment of three knights and a clerk to be
“elected in every shire to keep the pleas of the Crown.”[1738] This
was the origin of the office afterwards known as that of coroner. It
had the effect of depriving the sheriff of a considerable part of his
judicial functions; and his importance was at the same time yet further
limited by an order that no sheriff should act as justiciar in his own
shire, nor in any shire which he had held at any time since the king’s
first crowning.[1739] The difficulty of checking the abuse of power in
the hands of the sheriffs, which Henry had been unable to overcome,
had certainly not been lessened by Richard’s way of distributing the
sheriffdoms in his earlier years. It had indeed become so serious
that in this very year either the new justiciar, or possibly the king
himself, proposed an inquisition similar to that made by Henry in
1170, into the administration of all servants of the Crown, whether
justices, sheriffs, constables, or foresters, since the beginning of
the reign. When the king was gone, however, it seems to have been
felt that such an undertaking would add too heavily to the labours of
the judges-errant; and the inquiry was accordingly postponed for an
indefinite time by the archbishop’s orders.[1740]
[1721] “Forma qualiter procedendum est in placitis Coronæ
Regis.” Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 262–267; Stubbs,
_Select Charters_, pp. 259–263.
[1722] _Forma procedendi_, c. 4 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p.
259).
[1723] _Ib._ cc. 3, 5, 6, 23 (pp. 259, 260, 261).
[1724] _Ib._ c. 8 (p. 260).
[1725] _Ib._ c. 19 (as above).
[1726] _Ib._ c. 7 (as above).
[1727] _Ib._ c. 10 (as above).
[1728] _Ib._ c. 16 (as above). Richard had at the beginning of
his reign caused all weights and measures to be reduced to one
standard; Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 351.
[1729] _Forma proced._, c. 9 (as above).
[1730] _Ib._ cc. 11–14 (as above).
[1731] _Ib._ cc. 15, 17 (as above).
[1732] _Ib._ c. 18 (as above).
[1733] _Ib._ c. 22 (p. 261).
[1734] Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iv. pref. pp. xcvi, xcvii.
[1735] R. Glanville, _De Legg. Angl._, l. xiii. c. 3.
[1736] _Forma proced._, introductory chap., Stubbs, _Select
Charters_, p. 259; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 262.
[1737] Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, as above, pp. xcvii–xcix.
[1738] _Forma proced._, c. 20 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p.
260).
[1739] _Ib._ c. 21 (as above).
[1740] _Ib._ c. 25 (p. 263).
The principle of co-operation between the government and the people
for maintaining order and peace, which underlies all Henry’s reforming
measures, and of which the new regulations for election of the
grand jury are a further recognition, was again enunciated yet more
distinctly in the following year. An edict was published requiring
every man above the age of fifteen years to take an oath that he would
do all that in him lay for the preservation of the king’s peace; that
he would neither be a thief or robber, nor a receiver or accomplice of
such persons, but would do his utmost to denounce and deliver them to
the sheriff, would join to the uttermost of his power in the pursuit of
malefactors when hue and cry was raised against them, and would deliver
up to the sheriff all persons who should have failed to perform their
share in this duty.[1741] The obligation binding upon every member
of the state to lend his aid for the punishment of offences against
its peace had been declared, in words which are almost echoed in this
edict, as long ago as the reign of Cnut.[1742] The difficulty of
enforcing it caused by the disorganized condition of society which had
grown up during the civil war was probably the reason which led Henry,
in framing his Assizes of Clarendon and Northampton, at once to define
it more narrowly and to lay the responsibility of its execution upon a
smaller body of men specially appointed for the purpose in every shire.
The completeness of organization which the system introduced by these
Assizes had now attained, however, gave scope for a wider application
of the principle through one of those revivals of older custom in which
the enduring character of our ancient national institutions and their
capacity for adaptation to the most diverse conditions of national
life are so often and so strikingly displayed. The edict of 1195 forms
a link between the usage of Cnut’s day and that of modern times. It
directed that the oath should be taken before knights assigned for the
purpose in every shire; out of the office thus created there seems to
have grown that of conservators of the peace; and this again developed
in the fourteenth century into that of justices of the peace, which has
retained an unbroken existence down to our own age.[1743]
[1741] _Edictum Regium._ Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp.
299, 300; Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 264.
[1742] “And we will that every man above xii years make oath
that he will neither be a thief nor cognizant of theft.” Cnut,
Secular Dooms, c. 21, Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 74.
[1743] Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 263; _Constit. Hist._,
vol. i. p. 507; pref. to Rog. Howden, vol. iv. pp. c, ci.
The same year was marked by the only important ecclesiastical act of
Hubert’s pontificate. Having received in the spring his commission
as legate, he made use of it to hold a visitation of the northern
province--now, by Geoffrey’s absence and Hugh of Puiset’s death,
deprived of both its chief pastors--and a council in York minster at
which fifteen canons were passed[1744] to remedy the general relaxation
of Church discipline which had been growing ever since Thomas’s flight.
At the close of the year Hubert was again at York, upon a different
errand: the negotiation of a fresh treaty with Scotland, on the basis
of a marriage between the Scot king’s eldest daughter and Richard’s
nephew Otto of Saxony.[1745] The marriage never took place, but the
alliance of which it was to be the pledge lasted throughout Richard’s
reign; and it is a noteworthy proof at once of the growth of friendly
relations between the two countries, and of the success of Hubert’s
recent ordinance for the preservation of peace and order in England,
that in the following year a similar edict, evidently modelled upon the
English one, was issued in Scotland by William the Lion.[1746]
[1744] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 293–298. Cf. R.
Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 146–148, and Will. Newb., l. v.
c. 12 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 442).
[1745] William the Lion had been sick almost to death, and
having no son, had proposed to leave his crown to his eldest
daughter, under the protection of Richard, whose nephew he
wished her to marry. The opposition of his barons, and the
restoration of his own health, caused him to drop the scheme of
bequest (Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 298, 299). That of
the marriage however was still pursued, and accepted by Hubert
in Richard’s name, on somewhat singular conditions: Lothian, as
the bride’s dowry, was to be given over to Richard’s custody,
while Northumberland and the county of Carlisle were to be
settled upon Otto and made over to the keeping of the king of
Scots. The negotiation, however, dragged on for a year, and
was again checked by the hope of an heir to the Scottish crown
(_ib._ p. 308); and the fulfilment of this hope in August 1198
led to its abandonment. _Ib._ vol. iv. p. 54.
[1746] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 33. He says William
issued his proclamation “de bono sumens exemplum.”
Neither the renewal of order in the Church, nor the securing
of the external tranquillity of the realm by alliance with its
neighbour-states, nor the organization of justice and police within
its own borders, was however the most laborious part of Hubert’s task.
One thing only was required of him by his royal master; but that was
precisely the one thing which cost him the most trouble to obtain.
From a country which must, as it seems, have been almost drained of
its financial resources over and over again during the last ten years,
he was perpetually called upon to extract supplies of money such as
had never been furnished before to any English king. That he contrived
to meet Richard’s ceaseless demands year after year without either
plunging the nation into helpless misery or provoking it to open
revolt, is the strongest proof not only of his financial genius and
tact, but also of the increase in material prosperity and national
contentment which had been fostered by Henry’s rule, and of the success
of Hubert’s own efforts in carrying out the policy which Henry had
begun. By Michaelmas 1194 it seems that the whole of the complicated
accounts for the ransom, including the carucage imposed in the
spring, were closed.[1747] In the same year the country had borne the
additional burthen of a tallage upon the towns. This, however, added
to the sums raised by sales of office during the king’s visit and to
the proceeds of the judges’ visitation, failed to satisfy the wants of
Richard. He therefore resorted to two other methods of raising money,
both apparently of his own devising, and both harmonizing very ill with
the constitutional policy of his justiciar. Save during the disorderly
reign of Stephen, the practice of tournaments had been hitherto
unknown in England. Both Henry I. and Henry II. were too serious and
practical-minded to encourage vain shews of any kind, far less to
countenance the reckless waste of energy and the useless risk of life
and limb which these entertainments involved, which had moved Pope
after Pope to denounce them as perilous alike to body and soul,[1748]
and, in spite of a characteristic protest from Thomas Becket, to
exclude those who were slain in them from the privileges of Christian
burial.[1749] The Church had indeed been unable to check this obnoxious
practice in Gaul; backed, however, by the authority of the Crown, she
had as yet succeeded in keeping it out of England. But in 1194 a fresh
prohibition, issued by Pope Celestine in the previous year,[1750] was
met by Richard with a direct defiance. On August 20 he issued a license
for the holding of tournaments in England, on condition that every man
who took part in them should pay to the Crown a specified sum, varying
according to his rank. Five places were appointed where tournaments
might be held, and no one was allowed to enter the lists until he
had paid for his license.[1751] The collection of this new item of
revenue was evidently looked upon as an important matter, for it was
intrusted to the justiciar’s brother Theobald Walter.[1752] Whatever
may have been Hubert’s share in this measure, he was clearly in no way
responsible for the other and yet more desperate expedient to which
Richard, almost at the same time, resorted for the replenishment of his
treasury. On pretext of a quarrel with his chancellor, he took away the
seal from him, ordered another to be made, and declared all acts passed
under the old one to be null and void, till they should have been
brought to him for confirmation:[1753] in other words, till they should
have been paid for a second time.
[1747] See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iv. pref. pp.
lxxxii–lxxxiv and notes.
[1748] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 422, 423).
[1749] Ep. xxiv., Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p. 36.
[1750] Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 56.
[1751] Writ in Rymer, as above, p. 65, and in Stubbs, _R.
Diceto_, vol. ii., app. to pref. pp. lxxx, lxxxi; this latter
copy is dated August 22. Cf. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p.
268, Will. Newb., l. v. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 422, 423),
and R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 120.
[1752] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 268.
[1753] _Ib._ p. 267. Cf. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 93. Rog.
Howden’s very confused account of the seals is made clear by
Bishop Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 506 note.
In the following spring a fit of characteristic Angevin
penitence--fervent and absorbing while it lasted, but passing away all
too soon--moved the king to make some amends for his extortions as well
as for his other sins; he began to replace the church-plate which had
been given up for his ransom;[1754] no fresh tax was imposed till late
in the year, and then it was only a scutage of the usual amount--twenty
shillings on the knight’s fee--for the war in Normandy.[1755] Next
year, however, the king’s mood again changed. He was now resolved to
carry into effect, with or without Hubert’s assent, the inquiry into
the financial administration which Hubert had postponed in 1194. For
this purpose he sent over to England Robert, abbot of S. Stephen’s at
Caen, who, notwithstanding his monastic profession, had acquired great
experience as a clerk of the Norman exchequer, and seems to have there
enjoyed a high reputation for knowledge and skill in all matters of
finance.[1756] The abbot, accompanied by the bishop-elect of Durham,
Philip of Poitiers,[1757] reached London in Lent 1196, and demanded
Hubert’s co-operation in fulfilling the royal orders. The justiciar,
though displeased and hurt, had no choice but to comply, and an order
was issued in the king’s name bidding all sheriffs and officers of the
Crown be ready to give an account of their stewardship in London on
a certain day--apparently the day of the usual Exchequer-meeting in
Easter-week.[1758] Before Easter came, the abbot of Caen himself was
gone to his last account; he was seized with illness while dining with
Archbishop Hubert on Passion Sunday, and five days later he died.[1759]
The intended inquisition never took place; but the mere proposal to
conduct it thus through the medium of a stranger from over sea was
a direct slight offered to the justiciar by the king;[1760] and it
coincided with a disturbance which warned Hubert of a possible danger
to his authority from another quarter.
[1754] Rog. Howden as above, p. 290. Cf. _Itin. Reg. Ric._
(Stubbs), pp. 449, 450.
[1755] See Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. pp. 637, 638. That it
was imposed late in the year seems implied by so much of it not
being accounted for till the next year; see Stubbs, pref. to
Rog. Howden, vol. iv. p. lxxxviii and note 3.
[1756] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 19 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 464). Cf.
Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 5.
[1757] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 5. He seems to imply
that Philip shared in the abbot’s commission; but he evidently
made no attempt to act upon it after Robert’s death.
[1758] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 19 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 465).
[1759] Rog. Howden as above. “Nec cum eis quos evocaverat post
Pascha positurus, sed ante Pascha rationem superno Judici de
propriis actibus redditurus.” Will. Newb. as above.
[1760] On April 15, four days after the abbot’s death, Richard
wrote a sort of apology to the justiciar. See Stubbs, _R.
Diceto_, vol. ii. app. to pref. pp. lxxix, lxxx.
Strive as he might to equalize the burthens of taxation, he could
not prevent them from pressing upon the poorer classes with a
severity which grew at last well-nigh intolerable. The grievance was
felt most keenly in London. The substitution of the “commune” for
the older shire-organization of London in 1191 was a step towards
municipal unity, and thus indirectly towards local independence and
self-government; but it had done nothing for the poorer class of
citizens. It had placed the entire control of civic administration,
including the regulation of trade and the assessment of taxes, in the
hands of a governing body consisting of a mayor and aldermen, one of
whom presided over each of the wards into which the whole city was
divided, the head of them all being the mayor.[1761] This corporation
was the representative of the merchant-gild, which had thus absorbed
into itself all the powers and privileges of the earlier ruling
class of territorial magnates, in addition to its own. As might be
expected, the rule of this newly-established oligarchy over the mass
of its unenfranchized fellow-citizens was at least as oppressive as
that of the sheriffs and “barons of the city” which had preceded it;
and it was less willingly borne, owing to the jealousy which always
existed between the craftsmen and the merchant-gild. As the taxes
grew more burthensome year by year, a suspicion began to spread
that they were purposely assessed in such a manner as to spare the
well-filled pockets of the assessors, and wring an unfair proportion
of the required total from the hard-earned savings of the poor.[1762]
Whether the injustice was intentional or not, the grievance seems to
have been a real one; and it soon found a spokesman and a champion.
William Fitz-Osbert--“William with the Long Beard,” as he was commonly
called--was by birth a member of the ruling class in the city.[1763]
He seems to have shared with a goldsmith named Geoffrey the leadership
of a band of London citizens who in 1190 formed part of the crusading
fleet, and did good service, not indeed, so far as we know, in Holy
Land, but like their brethren forty-three years earlier, in helping
to drive the Moors out of Portugal.[1764] Since his return, whether
fired by genuine zeal for the cause of the oppressed, or, as some of
his contemporaries thought, moved by the hope of acquiring power and
influence which he found unattainable by other means,[1765] he had
severed himself from his natural associates in the city to become the
preacher and leader of another sort of crusade, for the deliverance
of the poorer classes from the tyranny of their wealthy rulers. At
every meeting of the governing body he withstood his fellow-aldermen
to the face, remonstrating continually against their corrupt fiscal
administration. They could not silence and dared not expel him,
for they knew that his whispers were stirring up the craftsmen;
and although the rumour that he had more than fifty thousand sworn
followers at his back must have been an exaggeration, yet there could
be no doubt of the existence of a conspiracy sufficiently formidable
to excuse, if not to justify, the terror of the civic rulers.[1766]
When after a visit to Normandy William began openly to boast of the
king’s favour and support, the justiciar thought it time to interfere.
He called the citizens together, endeavoured to allay their discontent
by reasonings and remonstrances, and persuaded them to give hostages
for their good behaviour.[1767] William however set his authority at
defiance. Day after day, in the streets and open spaces of the city,
and at last even in S. Paul’s itself,[1768] this bold preacher with the
tall stately form, singular aspect and eloquent tongue gathered round
him a crowd of eager listeners to whom he proclaimed himself as the
“king and saviour of the poor.” One of his audience afterwards reported
to a writer of the time his exposition of a text from Isaiah: “With joy
shall ye draw water out of the wells of the Saviour.”[1769] “I,” said
William, “am the saviour of the poor. Ye poor who have felt the heavy
hand of the rich, ye shall draw from my wells the water of wholesome
doctrine, and that with joy, for the time of your visitation is at
hand. For I will divide the waters from the waters. The people are the
waters; and I will divide the humble and faithful people from the proud
and perfidious people. I will divide the elect from the reprobate, as
light from darkness.”[1770]
[1761] In the _Liber de Antiquis Legibus_ (a chronicle of the
mayors and sheriffs of London, compiled in 1274, and edited
by Mr. Stapleton for the Camden Soc.), p. 1, the first mayor,
Henry Fitz-Aylwine, is said to have been appointed “anno gratie
Mº centesimo lxxxviii, anno primo regni Regis Ricardi;” and
the document known as Fitz-Aylwine’s Assize (_ib._ p. 206)
purports to have been issued “Anno Domini Mº Cº lxxxix,
scilicet primo anno regni illustris Regis Ricardi, existente
tunc Henrico filio Aylewini Maiore, qui fuit primus Maiorum
Londoniarum.” On this however Bishop Stubbs remarks: “It is
improbable that London had a recognized mayor before 1191,
in which year the communa was established ... and there is
I believe no mention of such an official in a record until
some three years later.” Introd. to _Annales Londonienses_
(“Chronicles of Ed. I. and Ed. II.”), p. xxxi.
[1762] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 5. Mat. Paris, _Chron.
Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 418. Will. Newb., l. v. c. 20
(Howlett, vol. ii. p. 466).
[1763] “Willelmus cum Barbâ,” Rog. Howden as above, pp. 5,
6; “agnomen habens a barbâ prolixâ,” Will. Newb. (as above);
“cognomento cum-Barbâ,” “dictus Barbatus vel Barba,” Mat.
Paris (as above), pp. 418, 419. Will. Newb. thinks he wore the
unusual appendage simply to make himself conspicuous; Mat.
Paris explains “cujus genus avitum ob indignationem Normannorum
radere barbam contempsit,” on which see Freeman, _Norm. Conq._,
vol. v. p. 900.
[1764] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 116–118.
[1765] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 5, 6, and Mat. Paris,
_Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. pp. 418, 419, represent the
former view; Will. Newb., l. v. c. 20 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp.
467, 468), and R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 143, the latter.
[1766] Will. Newb. as above (p. 468).
[1767] _Ib._ (pp. 468, 469).
[1768] R. Diceto as above.
[1769] “Of salvation,” A. V.; “de fontibus Salvatoris,” Vulg.
Is. xii. 3.
[1770] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 20 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 469).
Powerless to deal with these assemblies within the city, Hubert
determined at least to check the spread of such teaching as this,
and issued orders that any citizen of the lower class found outside
the walls should be arrested as an enemy to king and kingdom. Some
chapmen from London were accordingly arrested at Mid-Lent at Stamford
fair.[1771] A day or two afterwards--the justiciar’s fears being
perhaps quickened by the arrival of the abbot of Caen, which William
might easily interpret as the effect of his own remonstrances with the
king--an attempt was made to call William himself to account for his
seditious proceedings. The bearer of the summons found him surrounded
by such a formidable array of followers that he dared not execute
his commission, and a forcible arrest was decided on. Guided by two
citizens who undertook to catch him at unawares, a party of armed men
was sent to seize him;[1772] one of the guides was felled with a blow
of a hatchet by William himself, the other was slain by his friends;
William, with a few adherents, took sanctuary in the church of S.
Mary-at-Bow. The justiciar, after surrounding the church with soldiers,
ordered it to be set on fire,[1773] and William, driven out by the
smoke and the flames, was stabbed on the threshold by the son of the
man whom he had killed an hour before.[1774] The wound however was
not immediately fatal; the soldiers seized him and carried him to the
Tower for trial before the justiciars, who at once condemned him to
death; he was stripped, tied to a horse’s tail, thus dragged through
the city, and hanged with eight of his adherents.[1775] The rest of
the malcontents were so overawed by this spectacle that they at once
made complete submission.[1776] The justiciar had triumphed; but his
triumph was dearly bought at the cost of what little still remained
to him of personal popularity and ecclesiastical repute. The common
people persisted in reverencing William Longbeard as a martyr;[1777]
the clergy were horrified at the sacrilege involved in the violation
of the right of sanctuary and the firing of a church, a sacrilege all
the more unpardonable because committed by an archbishop; while his
own chapter seized upon it as the crowning charge in the already long
indictment which they were preparing against their primate.[1778]
Thus overwhelmed with obloquy on all sides, Hubert in disgust for a
moment threw up the justiciarship, but resumed it as soon as he was
once more assured of Richard’s confidence.[1779] For two more years
he toiled on at his thankless task. The budget of 1196 was made up
by the safe expedient of another scutage.[1780] Next year the sole
legislative act ventured upon by the justiciar was an attempt to
enforce uniformity of weights and measures throughout the kingdom by
means of an Assize,[1781] whose provisions however turned out to be
so impracticable that, like a similar ordinance issued earlier in the
reign, it seems to have remained inoperative, and six years later was
abolished altogether.[1782] In the autumn Hubert went over to Normandy,
where he was occupied for some weeks in diplomatic business for the
king.[1783] A month after his return the crisis came.
[1771] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 6.
[1772] Will. Newb. as above (p. 470).
[1773] _Ibid._ Rog. Howden as above; Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._
(Luard) vol. ii. p. 419. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 143,
makes William himself fire the church, but this seems nonsense,
as he clearly had no intention of dying in it.
[1774] Will. Newb. as above. Cf. Rog. Howden as above.
[1775] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 20 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 471) says
nine. Eight is the number given by Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol.
iv. p. 6. Cf. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 143; Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 533, 534; and Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._
(Luard), vol. ii. p. 419. Gervase calls the place of execution
“ad ulmos,” Mat. Paris “ad Ulmetum” [“the Elms in Smithfield”
notes Mr. Luard in the margin]. R. Diceto calls it Tyburn;
the other writers give it no name at all. We are indebted
to Gervase (as above, p. 533) for the date of this affair;
Saturday, April 6--the day before the abbot of Caen fell sick;
see above, p. 344.
[1776] Rog. Howden and R. Diceto, as above.
[1777] See Will. Newb. as above, c. 21 (pp. 471, 472). Mat.
Paris (as above) heartily shared in their opinion.
[1778] Rog. Howden as above, p. 48.
[1779] _Ib._ pp. 12, 13.
[1780] Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iv. pref. p. lxxxviii and
note 3. Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. pp. 637, 638.
[1781] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 33, 34.
[1782] _Ib._ p. 172. Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 509.
[1783] R. Diceto as above, p. 158. Gerv. Cant. as above, pp.
544, 545. The dates do not exactly agree.
Richard, at the height of his struggle with Philip of France, found
himself short not only of money but of men,[1784] at any rate of men
whom he could trust. He called upon Hubert to send him over from
England either a force of three hundred knights to serve him at their
own charges for a year, or a sum which would enable him to enlist the
same number of mercenaries for the same period, at the rate of three
English shillings a day.[1785] For some reason or other it seems
that Hubert, somewhat unwisely, at once decided to ignore the second
alternative; in a great council held at Oxford on December 7[1786] he
simply proposed, in his own name and that of his colleagues in the
government, that the barons of England, among whom the bishops were to
be reckoned, should come to the rescue of their distressed sovereign by
supplying him with three hundred knights to serve him at their own cost
for a year. Hubert himself, in his character of archbishop, declared
his readiness to take his share of the burthen; so did the bishop of
London, Richard Fitz-Nigel the treasurer. The bishop of Lincoln, Hugh
of Avalon, was then asked for his assent. “O ye wise and noble men here
present,” said the Burgundian saint, “ye know that I came to this land
as a stranger, and from the simplicity of a hermit’s life was raised
to the office of a bishop. When therefore my inexperience was called
to rule over the church of our Lady, I set myself carefully to learn
its customs and privileges, its duties and burthens; and for thirteen
years I have not strayed from the path marked out by my predecessors,
in preserving the one and fulfilling the other. I know that the church
of Lincoln is bound to do the king military service, but only in this
land; outside the boundaries of England she owes him no such thing.
Wherefore I deem it meeter for me to go back to my native land and my
hermit’s cell, rather than, while holding a bishopric here, to bring
upon my church the loss of her ancient immunities and the infliction of
unwonted burthens.”[1787]
[1784] _Magna Vita S. Hugonis_ (Dimock), p. 248.
[1785] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 40.
[1786] Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 549, and _Mag. Vita
S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 251.
[1787] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), pp. 249, 250.
Hugh of Lincoln was the universally-acknowledged leader of the English
Church in all matters of religion and morals; he had exercised in Henry
II.’s later years such an influence over the king as no one, except
perhaps Thomas Becket, had ever possessed; the whole Church and nation
reverenced him as it had never reverenced any man since the death of S.
Anselm. When he took up the position of Thomas and Anselm as a champion
of constitutional liberty, the victory was sure. Strangely enough, his
action seems to have taken the primate completely by surprise. For a
moment Hubert stood speechless; then he turned to Bishop Herbert of
Salisbury, and with quivering lips asked what he was minded to do for
the king’s assistance. As a son of Richard of Ilchester and a kinsman
of the great ministerial house founded by Roger of Salisbury,[1788]
Herbert represented the traditions of an old and venerated political
school, as Hugh represented those of the best school of ecclesiastics.
The statesman’s reply was an echo of the saint’s: “It seems to me that,
without grievous wrong to my church, I can neither do nor say aught but
what I have heard from my lord of Lincoln.” The justiciar, hurling a
torrent of reproaches at Hugh, broke up the assembly, and wrote to the
king that his plan had been foiled through Hugh’s opposition.[1789]
Richard in a fury ordered the property of the two recalcitrant bishops
to be confiscated; in the case of Salisbury this was done, but no
Englishman dared lay a finger on anything belonging to the saint of
Lincoln, “for they feared his curse like death itself.” In vain did
the king reiterate his command, till at last his own officers begged
Hugh to put an end to the scandal by making his peace, for their sakes
if not for his own; Hugh therefore went to seek Richard in Normandy,
and literally forced him into a reconciliation on S. Augustine’s day.
Herbert, on the other hand, had to purchase his restoration at a
heavy price;[1790] but the king and his justiciar were none the less
completely beaten. The death of Rees Ap-Griffith and a dispute between
his sons for the succession in South Wales gave Hubert an opportunity
of renewing his fading laurels by a brilliant expedition to the Welsh
marches, where he succeeded in restoring tranquillity and securing
the border-fortresses for the king.[1791] He had however scarcely had
time to recover from his political defeat before he was overwhelmed by
the bursting of an ecclesiastical storm which had long been hanging
over his head. Pope Celestine died on January 8, 1198. On the morrow
the cardinals elected as his successor a young deacon named Lothar,
who took the name of Innocent III., and began at once to sweep away
the abuses of the Roman court and to vindicate the rights of his see
against the Roman aristocracy with a promptness and vigour which were
an earnest of his whole future career.[1792] The monks of Canterbury
lost no time in sending to the new Pope their list of grievances
against their primate; and at the head of the list they set a charge
which, in the eyes of such a pontiff as Innocent, could admit of no
defence. Hubert, said they, had violated the duties and the dignity
of his order by becoming the king’s justiciar, acting as a judge in
cases of life and death, and so entangling himself in worldly business
that he was incapable of paying due attention to the government of
the Church. Innocent immediately wrote to the king, charging him, if
he valued his soul’s health, not to suffer either the archbishop of
Canterbury or any other priest to continue in any secular office;
and at the same time he solemnly forbade the acceptance of any such
office by any bishop or priest throughout the whole Church. Discredited
as Hubert now was in the eyes of all parties, he had no choice but
to resign, and this time Richard had no choice but to accept his
resignation.[1793]
[1788] On Herbert’s antecedents and connexions see Stubbs,
_Rog. Howden_, vol. iv. pref. p. xci, note 4.
[1789] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 250. Cf. the brief
account in Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 40.
[1790] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 251.
[1791] On Rees’s death his two sons quarrelled over the
succession, and Hubert had to go to the “fines Gwalliæ” and
make peace between them. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p.
21. At Christmas he was at Hereford, where he took the castle
into his own hands, turning out its custodians and putting in
new ones, “ad opus regis”; he did the same at Bridgenorth and
Ludlow. _Ib._ p. 35. See also Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
543, Gerald’s letter to Hubert after his victory, and Hubert’s
reply: Gir. Cambr. _De Rebus a se gestis_, l. iii. cc. 5, 6
(Brewer, vol. i. pp. 96–102).
[1792] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 41–44.
[1793] _Ib._ pp. 47, 48.
The last few months of his justiciarship were however occupied with the
projection, if not the execution, of a measure of great constitutional
importance. Early in the spring he had, in his master’s name, laid upon
England a carucage to the amount of five shillings upon every carucate
or ploughland. The great increase in the rate of taxation, as compared
with that of 1194, was not unjustifiable; for since that year the
socage-tenants, on whom the impost fell, had paid no direct taxes at
all, while two scutages had been exacted from the tenants-in-chivalry.
But a far more important change was made in the assessment of the new
impost. Until now, the carucate, like the hide, had been a term of
elastic significance. It represented, as the literal meaning of the
word implied, the extent of land which could be cultivated by a single
plough; and this of course varied in different parts of the country
according to the nature of the soil, and the number and strength of
the plough-team. In general, however, a hundred acres seem to have
been reckoned as the average extent both of the carucate and of the
hide. In order to avoid the endless complications and disputes which
under the old system had made the assessment of the land-tax a matter
of almost more trouble than profit, Hubert Walter adopted this average
as a fixed standard, and ordered that henceforth, for purposes of
taxation, the word “carucate” should represent a hundred acres. It
followed as a necessary consequence that the whole arable land of
England must be re-measured. The old customary reckoning of hides,
based upon the Domesday survey, would no longer answer its purpose:
the venerable rate-book which had been in use for more than a hundred
years, partially superseded since 1168 by the Black Book of the
Exchequer, was now to be superseded entirely. Hubert therefore issued
in the king’s name a commission for what was virtually a new Domesday
survey. Into every shire he sent a clerk and a knight, who, together
with the sheriff and certain lawful men chosen out of the shire, were,
after swearing that they would do the king’s business faithfully, to
summon before them the stewards of the barons of the county, the lord
or bailiff of every township and the reeve and four lawful men of the
same, whether free or villein, and two lawful knights of the hundred;
these persons were to declare upon oath what ploughlands there were in
every township--how many in demesne, how many in villenage, how many
in alms, and who was responsible for these last. The carucates thus
ascertained were noted in a roll of which four copies were kept, one
by each of the two royal commissioners, one by the sheriff, and the
other divided among the stewards of the local barons. The collection
of the money was intrusted to two lawful knights and the bailiff of
every hundred; these were responsible for it to the sheriff; and the
sheriff had to see that it agreed with his roll, and to pay it into
the Exchequer. Stern penalties were denounced against witnesses,
whether free or villein, who should be detected in trying to deceive
the commissioners. No land was to be exempted from the tax, except the
free estates belonging to the parish churches, and lands held of the
king by serjeanty or special service; even these last, however, were
to be included in the survey, and their holders were required to come
and prove their excuses at its conclusion, in London at the octave of
Pentecost.[1794]
[1794] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 46, 47.
This was Hubert’s last great administrative act, and it had a far
more important significance than he himself probably knew. In form,
the application of the process of jury-inquest to the assessment of
an impost on the land was only a return to the precedent of Domesday
itself. In reality, however, it was something much more important
than this. The jury-inquest had been introduced by the Conqueror in
1086 under exceptional circumstances, and for an exceptional purpose
which could be attained by no other means. So far as its original
use was concerned, the precedent had remained a wholly isolated one
for more than a hundred years. But during those years the principle
which lay at the root of the jury-inquest had made its way into every
branch of legal, fiscal and judicial administration. It had been
applied to the purposes of private litigation by the Great Assize,
to the determination of individual liability to military duty by the
Assize of Arms, to the assessment of taxation on personal property
by the ordinance of the Saladin tithe; it had penetrated the whole
system of criminal procedure through the Assizes of Clarendon and
Northampton; and it had gained a yet fuller recognition in the
judicial ordinances of 1194. Viewed in this light, its application
to the assessment of taxation on real property was another highly
important step in the extension of its sphere of work. But this was
not all. The chief value of the jury-system lay in its employment
of the machinery of local representation and election, whereby it
was a means of training the people to the exercise of constitutional
self-government. The commission of 1198 shews that, although doubtless
neither rulers nor people were conscious of the fact, this training
had now advanced within measurable distance of its completion. The
machinery of the new survey was not identical with that used in 1086.
The taxpayers were represented, not only by the witnesses on whose
recognition the assessment was based, but by the “lawful men chosen
out of the shire” who took their place side by side with the king’s
officers as commissioners for the assessment, and by the bailiff and
two knights of the hundred who were charged with the collection of
the money. The representative principle had now reached its furthest
developement in the financial administration of the shire. Its next
advance must inevitably result in giving to the taxpayers a share in
the determination, first of the amount of the impost, and then of the
purposes to which it should be applied, by admitting them, however
partially and indirectly, to a voice in the great council of the
nation.[1795]
[1795] On this “Great Carucage” see Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._,
vol. i. pp. 510, 511, and pref. to Rog. Howden, vol. iv. pp.
xci–xcv.
We must not credit Hubert Walter with views so lofty or so far-reaching
as these. The chief aim of his policy doubtless was to get for his
master as much money as he could, although he would only do it by
what he regarded as just and constitutional methods. Unluckily the
commissioners’ report is lost, and there is not even any proof that
it was ever presented; for before Whitsuntide the new Pope’s views
had become known, and on July 11 a royal writ announced Hubert’s
retirement from the justiciarship and the appointment of Geoffrey
Fitz-Peter in his stead.[1796] Like Hubert, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter came
of a family which had long been engaged in administrative work. His
elder brother Simon had in Henry’s early years filled the various
offices of sheriff, justice-in-eyre, and king’s marshal.[1797] Geoffrey
himself had been sheriff of Northampton throughout the last five years
of Henry’s reign, and had during the same period acted occasionally
as an ordinary justice of assize, and more frequently as a judge of
the forest-court.[1798] In 1189 Richard appointed him one of the
assistant-justiciars, and in this capacity he supported Walter of Rouen
in the affair of William of Longchamp’s deposition.[1799] In the early
days of William’s rule, however, Geoffrey had made use of the latter’s
influence to secure for himself the whole English inheritance of the
earl of Essex, William de Mandeville, upon which his wife had a distant
claim.[1800] Such a man was likely to be controlled by fewer scruples,
as well as hampered by fewer external restraints, than those which had
beset the justiciar-archbishop; and in truth, before the year was out,
both clergy and people had cause to regret the change of ministers.
Some of the religious orders refused to pay their share of the
carucage; their refusal was met by a royal edict declaring the whole
body of clergy, secular as well as monastic, incapable of claiming
redress for any wrongs inflicted on them by the laity, while for any
injury done by a clerk or a monk to a layman satisfaction was exacted
to the uttermost farthing. The archbishop of Canterbury could hardly
have published what was virtually a decree of outlawry against his own
order; the new justiciar published it seemingly without hesitation,
and the recalcitrant monks were compelled to submit.[1801] This act
was followed by a renewal of the decree requiring all charters granted
under the king’s old seal to be brought up for confirmation under
the new one[1802]--a step which seems to imply that Richard’s former
command to this effect had not been very strictly enforced by Hubert.
Meanwhile three justices-errant, acting on a set of instructions
modelled upon those of 1194, were holding pleas of the Crown in the
northern shires;[1803] “so that,” says King Henry’s old chaplain Roger
of Howden, “with these and other vexations, just or unjust, all England
from sea to sea was reduced to penury. And these things were not yet
ended when another kind of torment was added to confound the men of
the kingdom, through the justices of the forest,” who were sent out
all over England to hold a great forest-assize, which was virtually a
renewal of that issued by Henry in 1184.[1804]
[1796] Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 71.
[1797] He was sheriff of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and
Buckinghamshire from 1156 till 1160, and of Northamptonshire
again from Michaelmas 1163 till Easter 1170. See the list of
sheriffs in index to Eyton’s _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 337, 339. He
appears as marshal in 1165 (Madox, _Form. Angl._, p. xix), and
as justice-errant in Bedfordshire, A.D. 1163, in the story of
Philip de Broi (above, p. 21).
[1798] Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, list of sheriffs, p. 339; _ib._
pp. 265, 273, 281, 291, 298. Pipe Roll I. Ric. I. (Hunter)
_passim_.
[1799] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 16, 28, 96, 153.
[1800] Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii., pref. p. xlviii, note
6.
[1801] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 66.
[1802] _Ibid._ Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p.
451. Ann. Waverl. a. 1198 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p.
251).
[1803] Instructions in Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 61, 62. The
judges were Hugh Bardulf, Roger Arundel and Geoffrey Hacket;
they held pleas in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire,
Yorkshire, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Cumberland and
Lancashire.
[1804] Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 62–66.
Stern and cruel, however, as was the administration of the last eight
months of Richard’s reign, it was still part of a salutary discipline.
The milder chastenings which Richard’s English subjects had endured
from Hubert Walter, the scorpion-lashes with which he chastised them
by the hands of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, were both alike stages in the
training which Richard’s predecessor had begun, and whose value they
were to learn when left face to face with the personal tyranny of his
successor. For nearer at hand than they could dream was the day when
English people and Angevin king were to stand face to face indeed,
more closely than they had ever stood before. The nine generations of
increasing prosperity promised to Fulk the Good were all numbered and
fulfilled, and with their fulfilment had come the turn of the tide.
The power of the Angevins had reached its destined limit, and had
begun to recede again. From the sacred eastern land all trace of it was
already swept away; in the west it was, slowly indeed as yet, but none
the less surely falling back. Five years were still to pass before the
tide should be fairly out; then it was to leave the Good Count’s heir
stranded, not on the black rock of Angers, but on the white cliffs of
England.
Richard had spent the first half of his reign in fighting for a lost
cause in Palestine; he spent the other half in fighting for a losing
cause in Gaul. The final result of the long series of conquests
and annexations whereby the Angevin counts, from Fulk the Red to
Henry Fitz-Empress, had been enlarging their borders for more than
two hundred years, had been to bring them into direct geographical
contact and political antagonism with an enemy more formidable than
any whom they had yet encountered. In their earliest days the king
of the French had been their patron; a little later, he had become
their tool. Now, he was their sole remaining rival; and ere long he
was to be their conqueror. Since the opening of the century, a great
change had taken place in the political position of the French Crown;
a change which was in a considerable measure due to the yet greater
change in the position of the Angevin house. When Louis VI. came to the
throne in 1109, he found the so-called “kingdom of France” distributed
somewhat as follows. The western half, from the river Somme to the
Pyrenees, was divided between four great fiefs--Normandy, Britanny,
Anjou and Aquitaine. Four others--Champagne, Burgundy, Auvergne and
Toulouse--covered its eastern portion from the river Meuse to the
Mediterranean Sea; another, Flanders, occupied its northernmost angle,
between the sources of the Meuse, the mouth of the Scheld, and the
English Channel. The two lines of great fiefs were separated by an
irregular group of smaller territories, amid which lay, distributed in
two very unequal portions, the royal domain. Its northern and larger
half, severed from Flanders by the little counties of Amiens and
Vermandois, was flanked on the east by Champagne and on the north-west
by Normandy, while its south-western border was ringed in by the
counties of Chartres, Blois and Sancerre, which parted it from Anjou,
and which were all linked together with Champagne under the same ruling
house. Southward, in the upper valleys of the Loire and the Cher, a
much smaller fragment of royal domain, comprising the viscounty of
Bourges and the territory afterwards known as the Bourbonnais, lay
crowded in between Auvergne, the Aquitanian district of Berry, and the
Burgundian counties of Mâcon and Nevers and that of Sancerre, which
parted it from the larger royal possessions north of the Loire. The
whole domains of the Crown thus covered scarcely more ground than the
united counties of Anjou, Touraine and Maine, scarcely so much as the
duchy of Normandy. Within these limits, however, Louis VI. had in his
twenty-nine years’ reign contrived to establish his absolute authority
on so firm a basis that from thenceforth the independence of the Crown
was secured. To destroy that of the great feudataries, and to bring
them one by one into a subjection as absolute as that of the royal
domain itself, was the work which he bequeathed to his successors.
[Illustration: Map VII.
FRANCE AND THE ANGEVIN DOMINIONS.
To illustrate the wars of Richard and John with Philip Augustus.
Key: _Royal Domain of Philip. A. D. 1194._
Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co.
]
We may set aside the temporary annexation of Aquitaine through the
marriage of Louis VII. and Eleanor as forming no part of this process
of absorption. In the plans of Louis VI. it was doubtless meant to be a
very important part; but as a matter of fact, its historical importance
proved to be of a wholly different kind. The marriage of Louis and
Eleanor contributed to the final acquisition of Guienne and Gascony
by the French Crown not a whit more than the marriage of Geoffrey
Martel and Agnes had contributed to their acquisition by the house of
Anjou. The Parisian king, like his Angevin follower of old, had work
to do on his own side of the Loire before he might safely attempt
the conquest of the south. By the middle of the century, the map of
Gaul had undergone a marked transformation. Its eastern and central
portions indeed remained unchanged; but the western half was utterly
metamorphosed. Its four great divisions had been virtually swept away,
and the whole land had become Angevin. In face of this altered state
of things, the remaining powers of northern Gaul were of necessity
driven into union, as a counterpoise to this enormous growth of Anjou;
and the only possible centre of union, alike in a political and a
geographical point of view, was the king of the French. He alone could
claim to match in rank and dignity the crowned masters of the west;
and under his leadership alone was it possible to face them all along
the line from the mouth of the Somme to the source of the Cher with a
front as unbroken as their own. The old Angevin march had ceased to
be a marchland at all; its original character was now transferred to
the counties of Chartres and Blois; while to north and south of these,
from Nonancourt to Aumale and along the whole course of the Cher above
Vierzon, the royal domain itself was the sole bulwark of north-eastern
Gaul against the advancing power of Anjou. To secure Chartres and Blois
was the first necessity for the king: but their counts needed his
protection even more than he needed their fidelity, for the whole width
of his domains parted them from Champagne, where the bulk of their
strength lay. Accordingly Louis VII., by the matrimonial alliances
which he formed first for his daughters and lastly for himself with the
house of Blois and Champagne, easily succeeded in binding them to a
community of personal interests with the royal house of France, whereby
their subservience to the French Crown was for the future secured. The
chain was too strong to be broken by the boyish wilfulness of Philip
Augustus; and from the moment of his reconciliation with his mother and
uncles in 1180, the whole military and political strength of Blois,
Chartres and Champagne may be reckoned at his command as unreservedly
as that of his own immediate domains.
Since that time, the royal power had made an important advance to the
northward. At the opening of Philip’s reign the dominions of the count
of Flanders stretched from the Channel to the borders of Champagne,
covered the whole northern frontier of the royal domain, and touched
that of Normandy at its junction with Ponthieu. Twelve years later,
more than half this territory had passed, either by cession or by
conquest, into the hands of the king. Vermandois was given up to him
in 1186; and in 1191 the death of the Flemish count Philip made him
master of all Flanders south of the river Lys, which had been promised
to him as the dowry of his first queen, Elizabeth of Hainaut, niece
of the dead count and daughter of his successor.[1805] This was in
several respects a most valuable acquisition. Not only did it bring to
the Crown a considerable accession of territory, including the whole
upper valley of the Somme, the famous fortress of Péronne, and the
flourishing towns of Amiens and Arras; but the power of Flanders, which
a few years before had threatened to overshadow every other power in
northern Gaul, was completely broken; and the effect upon the political
position of Normandy was more important still. While Vermandois and
Amiens were in Flemish hands, a league between the Flemish count and
the ruler of Normandy would at any moment not only place the whole
north-western border of France at their mercy, but would enable them to
call in the forces of the imperial Crown to a junction which the French
king could have no power to hinder, and which must almost certainly
lead to his ruin. Now, on the other hand, such a junction was rendered
well-nigh impossible; the whole territory between Normandy, Ponthieu
and the German border was in the king’s own hands, and all that was
left of Flanders lay in almost complete isolation between the Lys and
the sea. In fine, as the dukes of Burgundy had for several generations
been obedient followers of their royal kinsmen, now that Blois,
Champagne and Vermandois were all secured, the power and influence of
the French Crown north of the Loire was fully a match in territorial
extent for that of the house of Anjou. South of the Loire the balance
was less equal. The extensive possessions of the house of S. Gilles may
indeed be left out of both scales; their homage for Toulouse was now
secured to the dukes of Aquitaine, but it was a mere formality which
left them practically still independent of both their rival overlords.
It was indeed at the expense of Toulouse that the Angevin rulers of
Poitou had made their last conquest, that of the Quercy. But since
then the French king, too, had been gaining territory in Aquitaine; and
his gains were made at the expense of the Poitevin duke. Richard had
found it needful to buy Philip’s assent to his peaceful entrance upon
his ancestral heritage after his father’s death by a renunciation of
all claims upon Auvergne and a cession of two important lordships in
Berry, Graçay and Issoudun.[1806] The sacrifice was trifling in itself,
but it was significant. It marked Richard’s own consciousness that a
turning-point had come in the career of his house. Hitherto they had
gone steadily forward; now it was time to draw back. The aggressive
attitude which had been habitual to the counts of Anjou for nearly
three hundred years must be dropped at last. Henceforth they were to
stand on the defensive in their turn against the advance of the French
Crown.
[1805] See above, p. 234, note 7{1115}.
[1806] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.) p.
29. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 75.