Henry the First
HENRY, although the youngest son of the Conqueror, obtained the throne by the exercise of the same activity which had given it to William Rufus, to the exclusion of their elder brother, Duke Robert. The latter had distinguished himself in the Holy Land, and was now upon his way home, but whether from his natural want of energy, or in ignorance of the prize that fortune had thus placed within his reach by the death of William, he wasted the time in Apulia. While he was here employed in wooing his future bride, Sibylla, Henry had attended to his interest in England, and in three days only after the death of Rufus he was crowned at Westminster. The friends of Robert had indeed attempted to make good his claims, but they had not been able to prevent the coronation of his more enterprising younger brother, which was performed by Maurice, Bishop of London, in the absence of the primate, Anseim, who, as we have already seen, had betaken himself to Rome, to incite the pontiff against his monarch.
The claims of Henry to the throne being so weakly grounded, e was fain to endeavour at conciliating the people, and, what was then of much more importance, the clergy. He recalled Anseim, and published a charter of liberties, of which, that it might be known to all, he caused copies to be sent to every county and deposited in' the principal monasteries. The conditions of this instrument were of the utmost importance, and only required to be as fairly fulfilled as they were wisely conceived, to have ensured the lasting welfare of the nation. By it, says the elegant and accomplished historian, Lingard, he "restored to the church its ancient immunities, and promised neither to sell the vacant benefices, nor to let them out to farm, nor to retain them in his own possession for the benefit of his exchequer, nor to raise tollages on their tenants. 2. He granted to all his barons and immediate vassals, (and required that they should make the same concession to their tenants) that they might dispose by will of their personal property; that they might give their daughters and female relatives in marriage without fee or impediment, provided the intended husband were not his enemy; that for breaches of the peace and other delinquencies, they should not be placed at the king's mercy, as in the days of his father and brother, but should be condemned in the sums assigned by the Anglo-Saxon laws; that their heirs should pay the customary reliefs for the livery of their lands, and not the arbitrary compensations which bad been exacted by his two predecessors; that heiresses should not be compelled by the king to marry without the consent of the barons; that widows should retain their dowers, and not be given in marriage against their will; and that the wardship of minors should, together with the custody of their lands, be committed to their mothers or nearest relations.
To the nation at large he promised to put in force the laws of Edward the Confessor, as they had been amended and published by his father; to levy no moneyage, which had not been paid in the Saxon times; and to punish with severity the coiners and vendors of light monies. He exempted from the Dane-gelt the demesne lands of all his military tenants, forgave all fines due to the exchequer, and the pecuniary muicts for murder before his coronation; and ordered, under the heaviest penalties, reparation to be made for all injustices committed in consequence of the death of his brother.",
From many of the clauses in this celebrated charter, we may infer the comparative mildness and equity of the Anglo-Saxon laws, as well as the oppressive nature of the feudal institutions, the lingering remnants of which in the present day are the real source of the struggle that is going on amidst the various classes, and threatening eventually changes of yet greater magnitude and importance.
If the circumstances under which Henry ascended the throne were highly beneficial to his subjects, so also was it to their advantage that, instead of being brought up as princes usually are, he had been educated in the more profitable school of adversity. Imprisoned after his father's death by one brother, besieged and driven out of Normandy by both, he had learnt at an early age to think and act for himself, and if, up to this time, he had not been particularly remarkable for the practice of the severer virtues, he had at least become familiar with difficulty and danger, and had acquired that most useful part of king-craft, a thorough insight into human nature. Originally gifted with a superior intellect and a strong bias towards learning, these qualities had been fostered by the Conqueror, who, at early age, had perceived and admired his son's promise, and they were ripened into excellence by the subsequent events, which afforded ample leisure for, while they gave encouragement to, study. In addition to this he was, in the very prime of life when he grasped at the English sceptre, being in his thirty-second year.
The commencement of his reign was signalised by a sudden self-reform, of the same kind as that which has made Henry the Fifth so famous. Up to this period his morals had been scarcely less questionable than those of his brothers, but now, either from prudence or a higher motive, he discarded his mistresses, and drove from his court the Falstaffs and other licentious characters, who found it more congenial to them to imitate the king in his old vices than in his new reform. Neither did he forget to conciliate the church; while he imprisoned the notorious Flambard, whose conduct disgraced his order, he recalled Archbishop Anseim by letters expressive of the strongest esteem and regard. What, perhaps, yet more gratified the nation, he married Matilda or Maud, the daughter of Malcolm, king of Scotland, by Margaret, the sister of Edgar the Etheling. Her descent from the Anglo-Saxon line endeared her to the people at large, and thus gave stability to his throne; but though it was a marriage so agreeable to all parties, it had well nigh been shipwrecked in the very outset by objections drawn from the ecclesiastical law. In her childhood she had been entrusted to the care of her aunt, Christina, Abbess of Wilton, who had made her wear the veil and mingle with the nuns, a usual mode of protection in those days against the brutal licentiousness of the Norman soldiery. Advantage was taken of this circumstance by the more bigoted of the clergy, or by the enemies of Henry, to declare that she was no longer free to marry, but the youthful bride pleaded her cause before the monkish Anseim in language that proved irresistible ;—" I do not," she said, "deny that 1 have worn the veil; for when 1 was a child, my friend Christina put a black cloth on my head to preserve me from outrage; and when I used to throw it off, she would torment me both with harsh blows and indecent reproaches. Sighing and trembling I have worn it in her presence; but, as soon as I could withdraw from her sight, I always threw it on the ground and trampled it under my feet. When my father once saw me in it, he tore it from me in a great rage, and execrated the person who had put it on me." The statement thus simply and forcibly given could not be impugned, and the objection was over-ruled, in conformity with a prior decision of Archbishop Lanfranc on a similar occasion.
It has already been related how the notorious Flambard had been committed to the Tower by Henry immediately upon his accession. Here he managed to live in the enjoyment of every luxury, and contrived by playing the boon companion, to ingratiate himself with those who had him in safe keeping. At length, about the beginning of February, he eluded their vigilance, and made his escape by means of a rope that had been sent to him concealed in a pitcher of wine. As was gene rally his custom, his keepers were invited to dine with him, and induced to drink freely 'till a late hour in the evening. In this state they retired to rest, and, when all were buried in profound sleep under the influence of wine, he descended through the window by the help of the rope, and was hastily conducted by his friends to the sea-coast. Hence it was no difficult matter for him to cross over into Normandy, and once safely arrived there, he lost no time in rousing the torpid Robert into action. Stimulated by such a councillor, the Duke hastened to summon his feudal retainers to his banner for a second invasion of England; nor on this occasion had he had any reason to complain of their want of energy or obedience; like the war-horse in that sublime passage 'of scripture, they scented the carnage in the distance and were eager enough for the battle, which was to desolate a country and make thousands of mourners. Some few too of the Norman barons in England espoused his cause, but the natives remained faithful to Henry, who had granted them much, and was now ready to promise more that he might secure their allegiance in the hour of danger. What was scarcely of' less importance, Anseim was the strenuous advocate of his cause, and even threatened to excommunicate the invaders if they did not forego their purpose. The fears, or the prudence, of either faction led to a friendly meeting before they got to blows, when fortunately for the people the regal competitors got to terms, and an adjustment was made, in virtue of which Robert renounced all claim to the throne of England, on consideration of his receiving a yearly pension of three thousand marks, the cession of all the castles possessed by William in Normandy, with the exception of Damfront, and the revocation of the sentence of forfeiture pronounced by William against his adherents. It was soon however seen that the king was anything but sincere in making this treaty., Under one pretence or another he contrived to get rid of all the disaffected nobles, and when Robert came over in person to plead the cause of one of the most powerful, the ferocious Earl of Shrewsbury, who had al ways been devoted to his cause, he received him, it is true, with smiles, but he did not the less make a prisoner of him. Nor would he release his victim 'till he had resigned his pension, which, to save the honour of both parties, was converted from the cowardly surrender of a right, into a free-will gift to Queen Matilda, a mere exchange of terms, which could deceive no one. This led to the renewal of hostilities the moment Robert had got his liberty; and fortune, as is too often the case, favouring the worse cause, Henry defeated his brother under the walls of Tenchebrai, and, having again made a prisoner of him, sent him over to England, where he remained in confinement 'till the hour of his death. The dukedom of Normandy thus became once more an appendage to the English crown, an union which perhaps was little to the advantage of either country,' however it might gratify the personal ambition of the monarch. 1t led to continual wars, which bore the name of rebellion on the one hand, and of resistance to usurpation on the other, for scarcely a year passed without some feud between Henry and the Nor man nobles, either for the extension or the maintenance of his territories. At the same time it must be allowed that however he might obtain his power, he used it well and wisely, for so strict was he in administering the law, that he obtained from the grateful admiration of his people, the honourable title of the Lion of Justice. The most potent of the barons were gradually brought under subjection to the law, and England enjoyed more internal quiet than she had done since the first hour of the Conquest.. The churchmen indeed, were far from joining in this popular regard for the monarch; they would fain have wrested from his strong and tenacious grasp, the right of nomination to the spiritual fiefs as they became vacant; but they might as well have attempted to tear his prey from the hungry lion. To under stand this matter thoroughly it will be necessary to travel back a little.
In early times the election of bishops had for the most part depended on the suffrage of the provincial prelates, as well as the united testimony of the clergy and people. By slow degrees, the traces of which are no longer evident, the monarchs contrived to assimilate the ecclesiastical tenure to the lay holding of property, assuming to themselves the right of approving the prelate elect, and compelling him to swear fealty like any knight or baron, and do homage as to his superior lord. By degrees, they went a step farther; from approving the abbot or bishop when elected, they came to nominate him, and invested him accordingly with the ring and crosier, the accepted emblems of episcopal and abbatial functions. However necessary this power might be to the sovereign in order to prevent the introduction of his enemies into places so full of influence, and therefore so dangerous to him, as the higher officers of the church, the ecclesiastics in general viewed the exercise of it with great jealousy. For more than half a century, council after council had endeavoured to wrest this important privilege from the English monarchs, but the latter as yet, proved too strong for them, and in spite of all the efforts of Archbishop Anseim, Pope Paschal II. in this reign was forced to enter into a compromise upon the subject, which though it might in some measure save his honour whole, left Henry in possession of tile substance. It was agreed that as fealty and homage were civil duties, they should be exacted from every priest before entering upon his temporalities; while as the ring and crosier denoted spiritual jurisdiction, to which the king admitted he bad no claim, the collation of those emblems was suppressed. The right of nomination, which after all was the real bone of contention, and the only thing worth contending for, he retained, with a promise that he would not appropriate to himself the revenues of tile vacant benefices. Some historians have said that he was not very nice about violating this promise when it suited him to do so. But when were pledges, extorted by necessity, ever kept when that necessity had ceased?
The complete subjugation of Normandy to his rule must have satisfied the ambition of Henry, if it were ever in the nature of ambition to be satisfied. He had crushed all his foes in that country, and had even obtained that the investiture of the duchy should be granted to his son William, by which measure lie had given stability to his conquest. This, however, was the work of four years' absence from England, whither he now resolved to return in triumph, and rest upon the laurels he had so hardly, as well as honourably, acquired. If war could ever be a fitting theme for our admiration, it would be in times like these, when its horrors were softened and its character elevated by the chivalrous spirit of the combatants, a feeling which oddly enough contrasts with the general barbarity of the age. Tile number of the slain in these chivalric encounters, was for the most part so exceedingly small, as to sound ridiculous in the ears of those who have the slightest acquaintance with the results of modern warfare. It was a trial of strength, skill, and courage, and the object of each knight was less to slay his adversary than to capture him; and yet with all this refinement of courtesy was mingled a barbarity that was at times revolting, and at others merely ridiculous. Thus while on the one hand, we are shocked at reading how Henry's daughter, Juliana, defended the castle of Bretenil against the royal forces, and deliberately aimed an arrow at the breast of her father, we are no less disgusted at his mode of punishing the intended parricide, whose sex should have exempted her from public degradation. "He closed the gate," says the elegant historian, "removed the draw-bridge, and sent her a peremptory order to quit the castle immediately. Juliana was obliged to let herself down without assistance from the rampart into the broad moat, which surrounded the fortress, and to wade through the water, which rose to her waist. At each step she had to break the ice, and to suffer the taunts and ridicule of the soldiers, who were drawn out to witness this singular spectacle." But the events, which had led to an exhibition so ludicrously disgraceful, were of a nature almost too horrible for repetition. The husband of this unfortunate daughter, Eustace, Lord of Breteuil, had solicited the grant of a strong fortress within the ducal demesne, and the king, unwilling to offend him by a positive refusal, and yet suspicious of his fidelity, demanded his own grand-daughters as hostages for his son-in-law's fidelity. At the same time it was agreed that the son of Harenc, the governor of the castle, should be delivered up to Eustace, as a pledge for the cession of the place when the war was ended. From some cause that does not appear in the old chronicles, Eustace became suspicious or dissatisfied, and, regardless of the safety of his own hostages, or presuming on the king's paternal feelings, he tore out tile eyes of the boy entrusted to him, and sent him back in that state to his father. That Harenc should be filled with resentment at this barbarous act and apply to Henry for vengeance is natural enough, and will to most seem pardonable; but what are we to say of the king, who could forget that the daughters of Eustace were his own grandchildren, and advise Harenc to retaliate upon them the injury he had received from the father? The catastrophe is almost too cruel for repetition. Neither their youth nor their sex availed to soften the ferocious spirit of the governor, who glutted his revenge by rooting out their eyes and cutting off their noses; and, if anything were wanting to the tale of horror, the king, their grandfather, actually loaded the monster with presents, and sent him back to his command. The historian of mankind must often pause in his dreary task to ask himself if by some mistake he has not been sitting down to the history of demons.
We resume the thread of our narrative. Henry, as we have already observed, was now about to return in triumph to England after a four years' absence; but in this, perhaps, the most brilliant hour of his life, avenging Nemesis was already at hand, and in the retribution that followed, however imperfect, the honest and justice-loving mind may find the same consolation that is felt in some artificial tale of woe when the successful oppressor is in his turn made to suffer. At Barfleur a Norman mariner, by name Fitz-Stephen, met the king, and earnestly prayed for the honour of conveying him back to England on board his own vessel, "the White Ship," which, he observed, was new, and manned with the ablest seamen. It was the service on which lie held his fee, and it appeared from his statement that his father had carried over the Conqueror upon his first invasion of England. Henry, however, refused the offer on the plea that he had already chosen his vessel, but he consented to trust his son and treasures to the care of Fitz-Stephen. Accordingly the young prince, who was then in his eighteenth year, embarked with Richard and Adela, two natural children of Henry's, the Earl of Chester, his countess, the king's niece, sixteen other noble ladies, and one hundred and forty knights. Hours were spent on the deck in mad revel, which, about sunset, had risen to such a height that the more prudent deemed it advisable to return ashore, and William then ordered Fitz-Stephen to follow his father, who had sailed long ere this with the first of the tide. But the crew and the passengers seem to have been alike intoxicated, and the care of the vessel being neglected, she struck upon a rock called the Catteraze. The young prince was immediately lowered into a boat, for the vessel upon striking began to fill, and in all probability he might have escaped; but his sister's cries recalled him to the sinking ship; the multitude poured into it, naturally eager to escape instant death, and very little regardful of royal safety when their own lives were at stake. The overloaded boat sank, and in a short time the vessel itself went down, dragging with it to the bottom at least three hundred living beings.
While this fatal event was taking place, Henry, who had arrived at Southampton, was impatiently wondering at his son's prolonged absence. For a long time—long in reference to such a calamity—no one dared to inform the king of what had happened, till the next morning a young page flung himself at his feet and revealed the melancholy tidings. The pride of Henry made him assume a stoic indifference to the loss, but in his heart it was evident that he felt it all the deeper, and from that day he was never observed to smile. It is probable that the nation lost nothing by the death of a prince, whose violent and haughty youth gave too ominous a presage of a despotic manhood. All eyes were turned to the king's nephew William, whose efforts to obtain the English throne were strongly supported by many of the Nor-mans, as well as by Fulk of Anjou, and only defeated by the singular prudence and activity of his uncle. Henry, by his well-paid and numerous spies, had become full early acquainted with the intended movements of his enemies in Normandy, and suddenly landing with a large body of English, he called together his faithful retainers, and in a few decisive encounters beat down all opposition for the time being.
To compensate William for these defeats, the French king, Louis, bestowed on him the hand of his sister-in-law, giving for her dowry Chaumont, Pontoise, and the Vexin; and other circumstances in a short time combined to render him more powerful than ever. Henry again became alarmed, and to defeat his nephew's hopes married Adelais, the daughter of Geoffrey duke of Louvain, and niece to Pope Calixtus; but when after three tears the union had produced no issue, he determined to settle the crown on Maude, his daughter by a former marriage, who had married Henry X. of Germany, and who by his decease became a widow. To this plan all the parties most concerned were equally opposed, himself excepted. The princess possessed in Germany a noble dowry, and had no mind to abandon it for a disputed inheritance; the barons objected to the SUCCESSION of a female, which in those times when a strong hand was requisite on the throne, and kings were of necessity soldiers, was equally foreign to the ideas of Englishmen and Normans. Maude, how ever, yielded up her own wishes to the commands of her father, and Henry had thus only the difficult task of reconciling the most powerful of his barons to this novel scheme of succession. Partly by fear of his resentment, and partly by bribery and fair promises, a seeming consent was wrung from them; but even at that very time his nephew, Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, and his natural son Robert, Earl of Gloucester, were each in secret nourishing his own projects to dispute the throne when the death of the reigning monarch should leave it vacant. To secure himself therefore as much as possible against all contingencies, Henry offered the hand of Matilda to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, the eldest son of Fulk, who had lately resigned his European states for the precarious throne of Jerusalem. Maude herself, as well as the English and Norman barons, was averse to the union, but he over-ruled the hesitation of the one by the despotic use of his paternal authority, and felt himself strong enough to despise the murmurs of the other, when he had by this alliance connected himself with the powerful house of Plantagenet. Fortune seemed well inclined to second these efforts of a prudent and selfish policy; for about this time William died, without issue, of a slight wound he had received in the hand from the pike of a foot-soldier, which being neglected rapidly brought on a mortification. On his death-bed he earnestly recommended to his uncle's mercy the faithful friends, who had only done their duty in adhering to his standard, and the wise generosity of Henry in forgiving them effectively won for him the hearts of the disaffected barons. The only draw-back to his general contentment was to be found in the conduct of his son-in-law, the wild and impetuous Geoffrey, who quarrelled with his wife and embroiled himself with Henry by the demand that Normandy should be ceded to him in virtue of a previous promise. Henry refused, and hence arose a serious breach between the potent relatives, which was yet farther widened by the arts of Maude, who although she had borne her husband three children, Henry, Geoffrey, and William, yet appears to have entertained a strong dislike for him.
Like all of his race since the time of the Conqueror, Henry was engaged in unceasing strife with the church of Rome and his clergy generally. As one source of profit, whenever a see became vacant he would keep it unoccupied for years, during which he appropriated to himself its revenues, and when at last he consented to fill it, he seldom, or never failed, to extort a handsome price from the new dignitary. But he devised a yet more doubtful mode of replenishing his exchequer. So early as the reign of Edgar, Saint Dunstan had endeavoured to enforce the celibacy of the clergy, and his example had been followed by Lanfranc, who in a synod held at Winchester, in 1075, resolved that although the village curates, who were married, might retain their wives, yet celibacy should be strictly imposed on the higher conventual clergy, while for the future a vow of continence was exacted from all candidates for the orders of deacon and priest. Six and twenty years afterwards the same subject was taken up by Archbishop Anselm, when it was enacted that every priest, deacon, or subdeacon should be compelled to keep the vows made at his ordination, and now the sagacious greediness of Henry determined to make this canon a source of profit to himself. He appointed a commission to enquire into the conduct of the clergy, with orders that all who had transgressed in this particular should be visited by a heavy fine. As the offenders proved to be too few to realise the sum expected, the intended penalty of guilt was changed into a general mulct upon the whole body of the parochial clergy, without regard to the plea of innocence.
A far less questionable event of this reign was Henry's dispute with the church of Rome in regard to the admission of the papal legates. The Pope, as head of the church, contended for his right, to enquire into the state of the clergy throughout the Catholic world; on the other hand it was affirmed, that, by the grant of former popes, the Archbishop of Canterbury was entitled to be papal legate within the kingdom. A sort of compromise was at length effected between the parties, but which left the real question as undecided as ever.
Henry had now arrived at the end of his career. While he was hunting near St. Denis le Froment, he was seized with an acute fever, of which he died in seven days, having bequeathed his lands on both sides of the sea to his daughter Matilda, and her heirs for ever. For ever! a fine phrase from the lips of poor mortality! But it is really absurd to see how man, whose utmost limits seldom exceeds fourscore, presumes in his blind arrogance to dictate to unborn ages, prescribing rights to the very land of which his own mouldering ashes have long since ceased to have any visible occupation. The bowels of the deceased monarch were deposited in the church of St. Mary, at Rouen, which had been founded by his mother, while his body was conveyed to England, and interred in the Abbey of Reading.