No More Learning

There the leading man,
since 1088, had been his younger brother Henry, the third surviving son
of the Conqueror, who had purchased all Robert's estates and ducal
rights in the Cotentin and the Avranchin with the money that had been
bequeathed to him by his father, and now called himself Count of the
Cotentin. But Robert, shifty as ever, had quickly regretted this deal
with his brother and wished to recover the ducal property. William,
knowing this, instead of attacking Robert in central Normandy went to
meet him at Caen and offered to assist him in attacking Henry and in
CH. XVI.


## p. 524 (#570) ############################################

524 Rufus and Scotland: annexation of Cumberland
recovering Maine, on the condition that the duke should cede to him
Cherbourg and Mont-Saint-Michel as soon as Henry had been expelled
from them, and also his ducal rights in Fécamp and parts of eastern
Normandy. The terms offered were very one-sided, but Robert thought
it safest to accept them; and shortly afterwards the two elder brothers
advanced against Henry and having ousted him from all his purchases
divided the spoils between them. With this result William might well
feel satisfied. In eighteen months he had acquired a firm grasp on the
duchy both in the east and the west, and what is more he had achieved
his success by a treaty with Robert without any serious fighting.
Meanwhile news came through that Malcolm Canmore had again
overrun Northumberland. Rufus accordingly left Normandy and hurried
north to retaliate. On reaching the Forth, he found Malcolm repentant
and willing to buy him off by doing homage and becoming his man on
the same terms as the Conqueror had exacted in 1072. In 1092, however,
Rufus broke the peace in his turn and overran the districts in Cumberland
and Westmorland, which had been regarded as parcel of the Scottish
kingdom ever since King Edmund had ceded them to Malcolm I in 945.
Not unnaturally Malcolm protested, and came in person to Gloucester to
treat with Rufus. But the English king refused to meet him and required
him as a vassal to submit his case to the Curia Regis. At the same time
he ordered English settlers to be planted in the valley of the Eden and
founded a castle at Carlisle. Malcolm went home indignant and a year
later again invaded England, but was slain in an ambush near Alnwick.
Here, too, William must be credited with a distinct success. Henceforth
the boundary of England was fixed for good at the Solway, and within
a few years Cumberland and Westmorland came to be reckoned as
English shires. Queen Margaret, who had done much to introduce
English ways into her husband's kingdom, died of grief on hearing the
news of his death, whereupon a struggle arose between the Celtic and the
English factions in Scotland as to the succession. The Celtic party set
Malcolm's brother Donaldbane on the throne in preference to any of
Margaret's sons, hoping thereby to put an end to the spread of English
influences ; but four years later Rufus took up the cause of the English
party and sent Edgar the Aetheling into Scotland with a force of Norman
knights, who drove out Donaldbane and made Margaret's son Edgar king.
This prince made the Lowlands his favourite abode, and being largely
dependent on Norman support never sought to deny that Rufus was his
feudal superior.
William's advance in the North had its counterpart also in Wales ;
but there the lead was taken by various barons independently and not by
the Crown. The Conqueror's general policy had been to leave all responsi-
bility for dealing with the Welsh in the hands of the three specially
privileged earls who had been granted the marcher lordships of Chester,
Shrewsbury, and Hereford. At the Conqueror's death, as Domesday


## p. 525 (#571) ############################################

Conquest of South Wales: the marcher lordships 525
shews, his lieutenants had already pressed into northern and mid Wales
beyond the line of Offa's dyke at several points, especially in Gwynedd
where Robert of Rhuddlan had established his outposts on the Conway,
and in Powys where Roger of Montgomery had reached the sources of
the Severn near Plynlimon. In South Wales on the other hand there had
been little advance since the death of William Fitz Osbern in 1071. The
frontier still ran roughly along a line from Radnor through Ewyas to
Caerleon; and though the Conqueror himself in 1081 had ridden west as
far as St David's, he had been content to leave Deheubarth and Glamorgan
in the hands of a Welsh prince called Rhys ap Tewdwr, exacting from
him only an annual tribute of £40. It was in 1088 that new advances
began. In that year Robert of Rhuddlan, soon after returning from the
siege of Rochester, fell a victim to a Welsh attack. But almost immedi-
ately afterwards the Earl of Chester got possession of the districts round
Snowdon. Thence he advanced into Anglesey, and in 1092 we find a Breton
named Hervé appointed to be Bishop of Bangor. It was also in 1088
that the Normans under Bernard of Neufmarché, the son-in-law of the
lord of Richard's Castle, first advanced against Brecknock, while a year or
two later they overran Glamorgan led by Robert Fitz Hamon of Évrecy
near Caen, a Kentish landowner who had come to the front in the struggle
against Bishop Odo, and who had been rewarded for his services to the
Crown by a grant of nearly all the lands which had once belonged to
Queen Matilda. In 1093 came another wave of conquest. In that year
Rhys ap Tewdwr was killed near Brecknock. In the confusion which
followed Roger of Montgomery dashed into Deheubarth, and having
established himself at Cardigan pushed on thence into Dyfed, where his
son Arnulf soon built a castle for himself at Pembroke. About the same
time William of Braiose, a Sussex baron, acquired a lordship at Builth
on the upper Wye, and William Fitz Baldwin, coming from Devon,
erected a fort on the Towy near Carmarthen. Such persistent encroach-
ments led in 1094 to a furious counter-attack by the Welsh, which
brought about the withdrawal of the Normans from Anglesey and the
destruction of a great many of the new castles. Next year the Welsh
even took Montgomery Castle and repulsed a royal army which Rufus
himself led into Gwynedd. In 1096 they besieged Pembroke, but the
castle held out bravely under Gerald of Windsor, and thenceforth the
marcher barons in South Wales nearly always held the upper hand. In
Gwynedd on the other hand the Normans failed to recover the ground
lost in 1094, in spite of serious efforts made by Rufus in 1097 and by
the Earls of Chester and Shrewsbury in 1098. North Wales never was
reduced but remained an independent principality under a Welsh prince
named Gruffydd ap Cynan.
At home the chief event during these years of external expansion was
William's quarrel with the Church. Irreligious and venal, the king saw
no reason at first for putting any curb on Flambard's systematic spolia-
CH. XVI.


## p. 526 (#572) ############################################

526
Anselm made primate. Council of Rockingham
tion of Church revenues. But in 1093 he fell ill, and fancying himself
face to face with death was seized with remorse. In this mood he gave
way to the general desire that the see of Canterbury should not remain
vacant any longer, and offered the archbishopric to Anselm of Aosta,
a saintly Italian scholar, who had been Lanfranc's favourite pupil and
who for the last fifteen years had been Abbot of Bec. Anselm himself
in no way desired the appointment; but as it was clearly the desire of
the English magnates both lay and clerical, as well as of the king, he
eventually consented, stipulating however that the lands of the arch-
bishopric must all be restored to the see and that he himself should be
free to recognise Urban II as Pope rather than his rival Clement III, the
imperial candidate. But William, as soon as he was well again, forgot
his repentance, and not only retained a good deal of the property of
the archbishopric but made heavy demands on Anselm for aids and
refused to allow him to initiate any Church reforms or hold any synods.
Anselm refused to pay the aids in full, and in 1095 exasperated the king
by asking leave to go to Rome to obtain his pallium from Urban. William
did not wish to be committed to either claimant for the Papacy, and like
his father he claimed that no Pope should be recognised in England
without his permission. The matter was referred to a council of mag-
nates held at Rockingham. The lay barons took Anselm's side and Rufus
had to give way. William next tried to negotiate with Urban for
Anselm's deposition; but he was outwitted by the Pope's legate, who
obtained the king's recognition of Urban and then refused to move
against Anselm, Two years later, in 1097, William again attacked the
archbishop, charging him with breach of his obligations as a tenant-in-
chief. Realising that he could do no good in England, Anselm again
preferred his request to be allowed to visit Urban. At first William
refused to acquiesce, but finally he changed his mind; and, as soon as
Anselm had sailed, once more took possession of the revenues of the
archbishopric. Anselm remained abroad for the rest of William's reign,
universally regarded as a martyr, though at Rome he got little active
support. By his firmness, however, he had set up a new standard of
independence for the English clergy, and had made the opening move in
the struggle between Church and State in England.
To return to secular affairs, William's desire to acquire Normandy
had only been whetted by the gains made in 1091. He therefore took
no pains to observe his treaty with Robert, and three years later resumed
hostilities. His forces invaded central Normandy, hoping to acquire Caen,
but they had little success; for King Philip of France came to Robert's
aid, with sufficient men to enable him to drive William's captains out
of Argentan and the neighbouring district of Le Houlme. They then
together crossed the Seine to attack William in eastern Normandy, but
the king saved himself by bribing Philip to desert his ally. In 1095,
William, being too much occupied in England with Mowbray's rebellion
1


## p. 527 (#573) ############################################

Normandy mortgaged to Rufus. His death
527
and the quarrel with Anselm to come to Normandy, opened negotiations
with his brother Henry, who had two years before found an asylum at
Domfront, and persuaded him to take up the struggle for him. This
move, however, proved to be unnecessary; for in 1096 the adventure-
loving Robert, carried away by Pope Urban's call for volunteers to deliver
the Holy Sepulchre, took the Cross regardless of his ducal interests, and
to obtain funds offered to mortgage his ducal rights in Normandy to his
brother for 10,000 marks. William quickly found the money, and in
September Robert set out for the East, taking Odo of Bayeux and
Edgar the Aetheling with him.
Being at last in temporary possession of Normandy, but fully con-
vinced that Robert would never be in a position to repay the loan and
redeem his patrimony, William applied himself with a will not only to
the task of restoring the ducal authority, but also to the recovery of
Maine. That county, owing to Robert's weakness, had fallen completely
into the hands of Hélie, lord of La Flèche; but in 1098 William captured
Hélie and soon afterwards, in spite of the opposition of Fulk le Rechin
of Anjou, took possession of Le Mans. He had, however, to conquer
the town a second time in 1099. He also undertook operations for the
recovery of the French Vexin. In 1100, growing still more ambitious, he
began negotiations with the Duke of Aquitaine, who wished to go on
crusade, for taking over the ducal rights in Poitou on the same kind of
terms as had been arranged in the case of Normandy. But this fanciful
scheme was destined to remain a dream. On 2 August, while hunting in
the New Forest, William fell, shot by an arrow from an unknown hand.
He was buried next day in Winchester Cathedral, some of the churches
in the city refusing to toll their bells. A brother-in-law of Gilbert of Clare,
Walter Tirel, lord of Langham near Colchester and of Poix in Picardy,
was thought to be responsible. But no inquiry was ever made. Men
were just content to know that their oppressor was dead. And yet Wil-
liam, despite all his vices and violence, had done a great work. As a
man he had been detestable; but as a king he had known how to make
himself obeyed, and though he pressed his feudal claims too far, he had
maintained unflinchingly his father's two great principles, that peace and
order must be respected and that the king's will must be supreme.
B. REIGN OF HENRY I (1100-1135).
The sudden removal of William Rufus at the age of forty, leaving
no children behind him, gave his brother Henry an easy opening for
making himself King of England. Not only was he on the spot, having
been one of the hunting party in the New Forest, but he was well ac-
quainted with the state of opinion in England, having lived, since 1095,
on friendly terins with Rufus and his various ministers. He was, more-
over, confident in himself. He knew well that all men had a contempt for
his eldest brother; and he could urge, like Rufus before him, that if the
CH. XVI.


## p. 528 (#574) ############################################

528
Accession of Henry I: his coronation charter
magnates set Robert's claims aside a second time they would only be
carrying out the Conqueror's wishes. Duke Robert, on the other hand,
was still far away in Sicily, and though he had somewhat redeemed his
character by his prowess in Palestine, had no supporters in England ex-
cept a turbulent section of the baronage who hated peace and order
and saw in the duke's weakness a golden opportunity to attack their
neighbours. Henry knew that this section was not formidable, if boldly
confronted. He therefore made straight for Winchester as soon as he
heard that Rufus was dead, and seized the royal treasury. Here the
Treasurer opposed him, but William Giffard, the Chancellor, took his
side, and also the Count of Meulan and the Earl of Warwick, that is to
say, the two brothers Robert and Henry of Beaumont, the only barons
of importance who seem to have been present. These greeted him as king,
whereupon he started with them for Westminster, and two days later
had himself crowned by the Bishop of London without any opposition.
To strengthen his position he next issued a manifesto intended for
publication in all the shire-courts, in which he promised redress of
grievances, and as a sign that he was in earnest ordered the arrest of
Ranulf Flambard, who only a year earlier had been made Bishop of
Durham by Rufus as a reward for his zealous services. This manifesto,
usually known as Henry's “Charter of Liberties,” contains many specific
promises to the Church and the baronage, as for example that benefices
should not be kept vacant or sold for the benefit of the Crown, or that
baronial demesnes should be exempt from Danegeld; but its main gist
is simply that Henry would restore his father's system of government
and abolish the evil innovations introduced by his brother in the matter
of reliefs, wardships, marriages, and murder fines. This programme he
knew would be popular, and the list of witnesses to the document shews
that in advancing it he had the support of the bishops and of such leading
barons as Walter Giffard, now Earl of Buckingham, Robert Malet of
Eye, Robert de Montfort, and Robert Fitz Hamon. Nor was Henry him-
self altogether insincere in his professions. Though only thirty-two, he
had been well schooled in adversity and had grown up the very antithesis
of his two brothers. Cool-headed, clear-sighted, and patient, a methodical
man of business, and for a prince well educated, he hated all waste, vio-
lence, and disorder, and he honestly wished to revert to the methods
which had made his father's reign the wonder of Western Europe. Fore-
most among these was the maintenance of harmony between Church and
State, to promote which Henry not only began to make appointments to
the sees and abbacies kept vacant by Rufus, but also sent messengers to
Anselm requesting him to return to England. The archbishop was at
Cluny and at once obeyed the summons; but no sooner did he meet
Henry than his actions quickly shewed that peace between himself and
the king was hardly to be expected, and that he was in no mood to play
the part of Lanfranc.


## p. 529 (#575) ############################################

Henry's marriage. Duke Robert invades England 529
Meantime Henry decided that the time had come for him to marry,
and gave out that the lady of his choice was Edith, the sister of the
King of Scots. This alliance was doubly advantageous, as it would
secure him the friendship of Scotland and also please the native English,
Edith being descended through her mother Margaret from the royal
house of Wessex. Some Normans of course scoffed at the idea of an
English-speaking queen, and also tried to make out that Edith had been
professed a nun; but Anselm brushed this latter objection aside, and
himself officiated at the wedding ceremony. To please the Normans,
Edith's name was changed to Matilda ; but the king's example must
have done something to encourage intermarriage between the Normans
and the English and so helped to bring about the eventual fusion of the
two races.
While Henry was thus making himself popular in England, Normandy
was slipping back into disorder. Robert reached home in September,
bringing with him a Sicilian bride, but men soon learnt that the duke
was as easy-going as ever. Partly from laziness, partly from lack of funds,
he took no steps to prevent the re-establishment of Hélie de la Flèche as
Count of Maine; and so that county fell once more under the influence
of Fulk le Rechin of Anjou, who two years earlier had affianced his son
to Hélie's only daughter. Nor did Robert shew much desire to intervene
in England until he was persuaded by Ranulf Flambard, who had escaped
from his English prison, that there was a party in England who wished
to make him king. In this belief he sailed for England in the summer of
1101, helped by William of Warenne whom Rufus had made Earl of
Surrey, and by Count Eustace of Boulogne who, though he had just
become Henry's brother-in-law, had fallen out with him about his
English fief. Robert soon found that the mass of the English baronage
had no intention of helping him openly, and that his only course was to
make the best terms he could with his brother. Accordingly, by a treaty
made at Alton, he surrendered his claim to England in return for a
promised pension of £2000 a year. Henry on his side gave up all claim
to be Count of the Cotentin under his earlier bargain with Robert in
1088, restored Eustace of Boulogne to his estates in England, and
promised his assistance against Hélie de la Flèche. This arrangement
probably suited Robert, who was desperately in need of money; but it is
typical of Henry's duplicity, as he had no real intention of paying the
pension and meant himself to make a bid for Normandy as soon as the
duke's misgovernment should afford him a colourable excuse. Meantime
the task immediately before him was that of humbling the restless ele-
ments in the English baronage and of finding pretexts for ridding
himself of those who had secretly favoured Robert, though they had not
dared to support him openly. The chief example of this class was Robert
of Bellême. That vicious, cruel, turbulent man had succeeded in 1098 to
the wide estates in Shropshire, Sussex, and elsewhere which formed the
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. XVI.
34


## p. 530 (#576) ############################################

530
Robert of Bellême and William of Mortain banished
earldom of Shrewsbury, and was also the greatest of the feudatories in
Normandy, being the possessor of the extensive lordships of Alençon
and Montgomeri, and in addition Count of Ponthieu in right of his
wife, Vicomte of Argentan and Falaise, and lord of a score of castellanies
in the borderlands of Perche and Maine. With Bellême near at hand,
Henry knew that he never could feel really safe; and so in 1102 he
deliberately picked a quarrel with him and summoned him to stand his
trial before the Curia Regis on some forty-five separate charges. As
Henry no doubt expected, the Earl of Shrewsbury preferred to fight
rather than to plead, and was supported in his revolt by his two brothers
Roger of Poitou and Arnulf of Montgomery, lords respectively of
Lancaster and Pembroke, and also by the Welsh of Powys. This com-
bination, though formidable, was quite unable to withstand Henry, who
within a month captured the earl's castles at Arundel and Bridgnorth
and forced the earl himself to surrender at Shrewsbury. This was the
end of feudal risings in England in Henry's lifetime. Bellême and his
brothers were allowed to leave the country, but their fiefs were all con-
fiscated, and for the next thirty-three years no baron ever ventured to
take the field against the Crown. Several, indeed, fell out with the king,
as for example his cousin the Count of Mortain, who was outlawed on
trivial pretexts in 1104; but even he, wealthy and proud as he was, with
his four castles of Pevensey, Berkhampstead, Montacute, and Trematon,
never attempted any armed resistance to Henry in England.
With nothing to fear in his kingdom, Henry was free to turn his
attention to the acquisition of his father's duchy. Like Rufus he utilised
the disorder prevailing in Normandy as a pretext for intervention, posing
not so much as a rival to Robert as the champion of the English barons
who had estates on both sides of the Channel. In particular he claimed
that his friends must be protected from the outrageous violence of Robert
of Bellême, who was venting his wrath upon them to avenge himself for
his English losses. The duke, however, was quite powerless to do anything
of the kind, and so in 1104 Henry himself crossed the Channel attended by
a formidable array of Anglo-Norman barons and sought out his brother
to remonstrate with him personally. At his wits' end to know how to
satisfy Henry, Robert offered to cede to him the overlordship over the
Count of Evreux, and thus for the moment put off an open quarrel.
But only for the moment. In 1105 the situation became more strained
than ever, as Robert of Bellênie joined his forces with those of the Count
of Mortain, and the pair then deliberately ravaged the Cotentin where
Henry had many trusted friends. Worse still, Duke Robert connived at
the arrest of Robert Fitz Hamon, the lord of Évrecy and Glamorgan,
and imprisoned him at Bayeux. This act determined Henry to make
war in earnest. He accordingly invited Hélie de la Flèche to attack
Robert from Maine, and himself crossing to Barfleur burnt Bayeux and
occupied Caen. All men could now guess that he meant to dispossess his
1


## p. 531 (#577) ############################################

Battle of Tinchebrai. Anselm opposes Henry
531
brother, but it was not till 28 September 1106 that the decisive encounter
took place not far from Tinchebrai, a castle belonging to the Count of
Mortain and situated some twelve miles north of Domfront. In this
battle, fought exactly forty years to a day after the Conqueror's landing
at Pevensey, Henry utterly routed the duke and took him prisoner, where-
upon the duke himself gave orders to Falaise and Rouen to surrender
and formally absolved his vassals from their allegiance. Such a complete
collapse can hardly have been expected even by Henry's adherents; but
no one seems to have doubted that it was irretrievable, so that even
Robert of Bellême abandoned his hostility and for a time acknowledged
Henry as his lawful overlord. As for Duke Robert, he never regained his
freedom, though he survived for another twenty-eight years; but his
claims passed to his infant son William, usually called “the Clito,” who,
being left at liberty, became, when he grew up, a centre for renewed
intrigues and disaffection.
Throughout the years spent in driving Bellême from England and in
acquiring his father's duchy, Henry was continuously engaged at home
in a stubborn controversy with Anselm over the question of clerical
immunities. While in Rome, in 1099, Anselm had taken part in the
council held at the Lateran by Pope Urban in which bishops and abbots
had been forbidden either to receive investiture from laymen or to do
homage to them. As a result he came back from his exile holding more
extreme views on the relations of Church and State than he had pre-
viously held, and began at once to put them into practice by refusing to
do homage to Henry for his temporalities, though he had not scrupled
to do homage to Rufus; and a little later he went further and refused to
consecrate the new bishops and abbots whom Henry had appointed, on
the double ground that they had not been freely elected by their chapters
and had received investiture with the symbols of their office from the
king. To these challenges Henry had replied that, while he could not
abandon the ancient customs of the realm, he was willing to refer the
matter to Rome and see if the new Pope, Paschal II (1099-1118), would
modify his predecessor's decrees. Meantime, he allowed Anselm to hold
a synod and issue canons with regard to the celibacy of the clergy and
other disciplinary matters of such a sweeping nature that they created
consternation in all ranks of society. Nothing, however, came of the
application to Paschal, and so in 1103 it was agreed, at the king's sug-
gestion, that Anselm himself should go on a mission to Rome to see if he
could not arrange some way round the difficulty. Again Paschal proved
obdurate, with the result that Anselm remained abroad, while Henry
appropriated the revenues of Canterbury to his own uses. For two years
after that matters remained in suspense; but in 1105 Paschal began to
threaten Henry with excommunication, a move which so alarmed Henry's
sister, the Countess of Blois, that she persuaded him to meet Anselm at
L'Aigle, near Évreux, and reopen negotiations. Once more envoys from
CH. XVI,
34-2


## p. 532 (#578) ############################################

532
The Investiture compromise. Death of Anselm
the king went to Rome, and this time they found Paschal ready for a
compromise, but it was not till April 1106 that he notified Anselm of
his new intentions, and not till the very eve of the Tinchebrai campaign
that Henry met Anselm at Bec and, adopting a scheme worked out by
Lanfranc's famous pupil, the great canonist Ivo of Chartres, effected a
common-sense settlement satisfactory to both parties. The terms of the
compromise were briefly as follows: bishops and abbots were for the
future to be canonically elected by cathedral or monastic chapters and
were no longer to receive the ring and staff on investiture from lay
hands; but the elections were to take place in the king's presence, and
those elected were to do homage to the king for their temporalities like
the lay barons. This arrangement, which was finally ratified by an
assembly of magnates in 1107, might seem to embody distinct con-
cessions by both sides; but in practice Henry retained nearly all that
he really wanted, the prelates being relieved of none of their feudal
obligations, whereas the king was left with a sufficient power of in-
fluencing the electors to secure that his nominees would usually be
elected. Anselm, on the other hand, by forcing the king to negotiate
with the Pope had established a striking precedent for appeals to Rome,
and so made it easier for future Popes to interfere in England, and for
future bishops to resist the royal supremacy. Despite all his tenacity
Anselm had not gained his immediate point; but he had demonstrated
to the world that the English Church could not and would not be the
obedient servant of the State.
The settlement with the Church, followed two years later by the
death of Anselm, brings to an end the first phase of Henry's reign, during
which he was winning his spurs as a ruler. The rest of his reign, which
was to last for over a quarter of a century, has a totally different cha-
racter in England, being notable not so much for exploits in the field or
for brilliant strokes of policy, as for the measures which the king took to
improve the system of government and set up a routine of law in the
place of an ill-regulated despotism. Not that Henry can be credited
with
any lofty motives in pursuing these ends. He pursued them, both in
England and Normandy, chiefly because he hated waste and loved money,
and had the wit to perceive that the surest way to fill his coffers was by
methodical pressure applied by well-trained agents in accordance with
definite rules, and not by handing over his subjects to rapacious farmers
and tax-gatherers, each acting as a law to himself. Henry was probably
quite as unscrupulous and quite as avaricious as Rufus; but he had the
temper of a shrewd, calculating, self-controlled man, and put his faith
from the outset in the wise selection of subordinates, in recourse to liti-
gation rather than to force, in the suppression of robbery and disorder,
in the development of trade and industry, and in the maintenance of a
business-like administration of justice and finance.


## p. 533 (#579) ############################################

Roger of Salisbury organises the Exchequer
533
To attain these ends Henry had perforce to work either through the
superior officers of his household or else through the agency of the Curia
Regis, that elastic advisory council being the only central organ of
government as yet in existence. When, however, he became duke as well
as king, the affairs of Normandy and the intrigues of Louis VI, the new
King of France (1108-1137), frequently prevented him for months or
even for years together from being present at the sessions of the Curia
or giving any attention to the supervision and control of the household
officers; and so he was obliged to make use of a deputy or confidential
chief minister to preside over the administration in his absence, and to
issue writs in his name and deal with urgent matters. The man whom
Henry chose for these important duties, and who, as long as Henry lived,
occupied the position of regent, whenever the king was absent, with the
title of iusticiarius totius Angliae, that is to say, “president of the Curia,”
or “justice-in-chief,” was Roger his sometime chaplain, a native of Caen,
whom he had promoted to be chancellor on his accession, and who two
years later was made Bishop of Salisbury (1102–1139). On his appoint-
ment to the bishopric, Roger, in obedience to precedent, ceased to be
chancellor, but became treasurer, a significant change of office, as it placed
him in the shoes of Flambard and gave him control of the revenue; but
exactly when he became permanent deputy for the king is not recorded.
It seems probable, however, that for some time Roger combined the
offices of regent and treasurer with such success that Henry came to re-
gard a permanent deputy as indispensable on both sides of the Channel,
and appointed John, Bishop of Lisieux (1107–1141), to hold a similar
position in Normandy.
Very little detailed information is forthcoming as to Bishop Roger's
activities year by year during his long tenure of the post of chief
minister, but such glimpses as we do get, coupled with the veneration in
which we know his name was held by the officials of the next generation,
shew that he must have been a very able man, and that he may be
credited with several innovations of permanent value. The one among
them which perhaps struck the imagination of his successors most was
the development, within the Curia Regis, of a board or group of barons
specially charged with the duties of auditing the sheriffs' accounts and
trying causes which concerned the collection of the various items of the
king's revenue. This board sat for auditing purposes twice a year,
at Lady Day and Michaelmas, and was known as the Scaccarium or
“Exchequer. ” It acquired its curious name from the chequered table-
cloth which was spread before the board to facilitate the reckoning of
the sheriffs' accounts by means of counters, the system employed being an
adaptation of the abacus method of working sums which had recently come
into vogue in Germany and France at the schools of Liège and Laon. The
permanent members of the board, known as “barons of the Exchequer,"
were Roger himself, who was the presiding officer, the treasurer, the
1
CH. XVI.


## p. 534 (#580) ############################################

534
The annual rolls of account. The itinerant justices
chancellor, the constable, the marshal, and two chamberlains, assisted
by the keeper of the king's seal and sundry clerks, one of whom had to
keep a written record of all the sums of money accounted for, the word-
ing of the enrolments being dictated by the Treasurer. This annual
record, known as the rotulus de thesauro, and in later days as the
magnus rotulus pipae, or “Pipe Roll,” may be taken to be one of
Roger's most practical and important innovations, for it not only gave
Henry a handy means of checking his officials, but served as the model
for nearly all English account-keeping for several centuries. Unfor-
tunately only one roll compiled under Roger's supervision survives,
namely the Pipe Roll for the financial year ended Michaelmas 1130, but
from it can be seen all the items of the revenue and how very carefully
they were collected, and what a great amount of detail had to be furnished
each year to the barons of the Exchequer by the sheriffs and other
local officials before they could obtain their discharge.
Besides developing the Exchequer, Bishop Roger surrounded himself
by degrees with a group of assistant justiciars, in whom we may see the
rudiments of the future bench of judges, though at this date they were
not in any sense professional lawyers. Some of them, like Roger him-
self, owed their elevation entirely to their own abilities. Of this class
were Ralph Basset and his son Richard, the latter of whom is sometimes
called capitalis iusticiarius. Some of them on the other hand were under-
tenants, like Geoffrey de Clinton, who became a chamberlain in the
king's household, and some were barons of medium rank like Walter
Espec of Malton or William de Albini of Belvoir. At first these justi-
ciars confined themselves to hearing causes in which the king's interest
was concerned, but as time went on their reputation as skilled and ex-
perienced judges attracted other litigation to the king's court, and great
men found it worth their while to pay the king considerable sums to be
allowed to bring their grievances before them. By degrees, too, the prac-
tice grew up of sending the justiciars on circuit round the shires to try
the so-called "pleas of the Crown"; and here too they gradually extended
their jurisdiction by the simple device of maintaining that all matters
which endangered the king's peace were matters that concerned the king
and so came into the category of pleas that should come before a royal
official. By this means a beginning was made towards bringing the local
courts into touch with the Curia Regis, and towards disseminating
through the land a common standard of law based on the practices of the
king's court. But it must not be thought that there was any intention as
yet that the justiciars should supersede the local courts. On the contrary,
the king's court was far too irregular in its sessions and the king's justice
far too expensive to be of much service to ordinary suitors.
For their
suits and the repression of every-day crime, the shire and hundred
courts remained the regular tribunals, and the only surviving ordinance
of Henry's reign is in fact one which strictly enjoins all men to attend


## p. 535 (#581) ############################################

The “ Laga Eadwardi” restated. Henry's activities 535
the local courts at the same times and in the same localities as in the
days of King Edward. So far as the local courts were in danger, it was
not from the interference of the king's justiciars, but from the rivalry
of the baronial and manor courts; and here too Henry protected the
ancient communal tribunals, laying it down that suits between the tenants
of different lords must be tried in the shire courts and not in the court
of either lord. We can also see that throughout Henry's reign quite
serious attempts were being made to state the old English law, which
was enforced in these courts, in an intelligible and rational way. Both
the Conqueror and Henry had confirmed the laga Eadwardi, but the
Norman sheriffs had great difficulty in ascertaining what that law was.
To help them, divers men set themselves to work not only to translate
the old English dooms but also to systematise them, and as a result
produced a number of very curious legal tracts which purport to har-
monise the old English customary rules and set them forth in practicable
form. The two most important examples are the tract called Quadri-
partitus and the so-called Leges Henrici. These were compiled apparently
between the years 1113 and 1118 by anonymous French writers; and,
though their authors had set themselves tasks which were quite beyond
their powers, they nevertheless tell us many things of great value and
shew especially that the Norman sheriffs were still gallantly attempting
to maintain the old English ideas as to sake and soke.
If the foregoing fiscal and judicial measures may probably be ascribed
to Bishop Roger, there were many other developments during the reign
in which we can trace the hand of the king. It is impossible to specify
them all, but a selection may be mentioned to indicate their width of
range. Such are the creation of the new dioceses of Ely and Carlisle in
1109 and 1133; the appointment of the first Norman bishop to St David's
in 1115; the acceptance of Scutage from the Church fiefs, that is to say,
of money contributions in lieu of the render of military service; the
restoration of capital punishment; the settlement of a colony of Flemings
in Pembrokeshire; the reform of the coinage, first in 1108 and then a
second time in 1125; the institution, recorded in the famous Consti-
tutio Domus Regis, of a new scale of stipends and allowances for the
officials of the king's household; and finally the supersession in 1129 of
the sheriffs of eleven counties and the appointment of two special com-
missioners in their place to act as temporary custodes or joint sheriffs, so
that the king might be made acquainted with all the details that went
to make up the farms of the counties and be in a position to insist on his
dues being paid to the uttermost farthing.
Varied as were these developments, there yet remain two matters which
cannot be altogether passed over, if we wish to outline Henry's chief
activities. The first is the king's dealings with the baronage, the second
his dealings with the merchants and craftsmen. As to the former, the view
usually held seems to be that Henry always looked upon the mass of the
)
CH. XVI.


## p. 536 (#582) ############################################

536
Henry and the baronage
barons as his enemies, and that, so far as he did make grants of land, he
deliberately endowed a class of ministerial nobles "to act as a counter-
poise to the older Conquest nobility. ” This view, however, fails to take
account of a number of facts which point to other conclusions. It has
of course some truth if applied to the first five years of Henry's reign. .
In those years Henry without doubt had reason to suspect quite a number
of the barons. But this early period is very distinct in character from the
remaining thirty years of the reign, and after 1105 it is really a miscon-
ception to picture either England or western Normandy as scenes of
baronial insubordination. In eastern Normandy, in the Vexin, and round
Évreux, Henry had trouble enough, culminating in open rebellions in the
years 1112, 1118, and 1123; but in these districts he had to contend not
only with a “perpetual pretender” in the person of his disinherited nephew
William Clito, but also with persistent intrigues fomented by Louis VI.
These factors kept the valleys of the Seine and Eure in a state of constant
unrest. But the disaffection in these districts was not really formidable;
for the men who proved disloyal were not the men with great fiefs on
both sides of the Channel like the Giffards or Mortimers or the house of
Warenne, but were either French counts whose territorial possessions
were only partly in Normandy, such as Amaury de Montfort, the claimant
to the county of Évreux, or Waleran Count of Meulan, or else the owners of
border fiefs such as Hugh of Gournay or Richer of L'Aigle, whose position
as marcher lords made them specially liable to be seduced from their
allegiance. How far these two classes were made use of by Louis VI in
his endeavours to arrest the expansion of Henry's power can be read at
length in the contemporary French and Norman chronicles; but their
double dealing had little effect in the long run, and their treacheries are
mainly of interest because the repeated failure of their schemes made it
plain to Henry that he need not fear his vassals or abstain for fear of
ulterior consequences from the normal feudal practice of creating fiefs to
reward his favourites. His feudal policy, at any rate in England, lends
itself best to this interpretation. For hardly had he seized on the wide-
spread fiefs held by the Malets and the Baignards, the Count of Mortain,
and the houses of Grantmesnil and Montgomery, than he set to work to
establish fresh baronies in their place which were just as extensive and
just as formidable. Leading examples of such creations are the baronies
given to the brothers Nigel and William de Albini; to Alan Fitz Flaald
of Dol, the ancestor of the famous house of Stuart; to Humphry de Bohun
and to Richard de Redvers; the honour of Wallingford conferred on
Brian Fitz Count; the honour of Huntingdon made over to David of
Scotland; and the still more important honour of Gloucester created for
the king's eldest illegitimate son, Robert of Caen. This latter tief, which
had for its nucleus the English and Welsh lands of Robert Fitz Hamon,
was erected into an earldom in 1122. It fairly dominated the south-
western counties and was as wide-spread and valuable as any barony created


## p. 537 (#583) ############################################

Stephen of Blois. The ports and portmen
537
by the Conqueror. It was not, however, unique among Henry's grants,
but was matched in splendour by a rival barony which he built up in the
east and north as an appanage for his favourite nephew Stephen of Blois,
by throwing together the three great honours of Eye, Boulogne, and Lan-
caster, in addition to creating him Count of Mortain in Normandy and
securing for him the hand of the heiress of the county of Boulogne in
France. It may perhaps be argued that family affection blinded Henry
to the dangers involved in making Robert and Stephen so powerful; but
no such plea can be advanced to account for his policy as a whole which
included many grants to the Giffards and the Beaumonts and to the
great houses of Clare and Bigod. Evidently his practice was founded on
the conviction that the traitor barons had learned their lesson and that
the Crown had grown powerful enough to be indifferent to would-be rivals.
Other signs that point the same way are the restoration of Ranulf Flam-
bard to the see of Durham and a marked relaxation of the Conqueror's
rule about the building of castles.
To appreciate Henry's dealings with the craftsmen and trading classes
it is necessary to obtain some notion of the number and size of the urban
communities—“ports” as the English termed them—which existed in
England in his day. When the Domesday survey was compiled in 1086,
there were just about one hundred localities-styled for the most part
“boroughs"—in which portmen (burgenses) or chapmen (mercatores) were
to be found. Such particulars as can be gleaned from the survey about
their organisation and customs are unfortunately difficult to interpret,
owing to the scantiness of many of the returns and their entire lack of
uniformity. But they are sufficient to shew that the word burgus stood
indifferently for several types of trading centre, including on the one hand
walled “ports” of ancient fame, such as London, Oxford, and Stafford,
and on the other tiny urban hamlets recently planted by Norman barons
near their newly-built castles, as at Wigmore and Rhuddlan. The cardinal
fact to be grasped is that the average burgus at the beginning of the
twelfth century was quite an insignificant community and often largely
agricultural in character. In more than fifty instances the number of port-
men (burgenses) is returned in the Domesday survey as less than a hundred,
and in some thirty of these instances as less than fifty. On the other
hand there are only some twenty boroughs where the record reports the
existence of more than 500 portmen; and even boroughs of the rank of
Gloucester and Chester were probably not much more populous than the
small market-towns of to-day having populations of 3000 to 4000 souls.
From the territorial point of view the lands and houses (masurae) com-
prised within the urban areas were in most boroughs held by a number
of different lords, a feature which has been described by the term “tenurial
heterogeneity"; but as the Conqueror had arranged the distribution of
the spoils, the king had the lion's share, being possessed usually of not
only the haws (hagan) and messuages (mansiones) which had formerly
CH. XVI.


## p. 538 (#584) ############################################

1
538
The boroughs in 1086, and under Henry I
belonged to King Edward but also of those which had belonged to the
earls. We may in fact think of some seventy of the burgi as king's
boroughs, in so far as the king had the largest share of the house-rents
(gafol), and the king's officers the control of their government. And from
these urban properties the Crown was receiving in 1086 a revenue whose
yearly value was round about L2400. The sums at which the profits of
London and Winchester were let to farm are nowhere recorded; but
York, Lincoln, and Norwich, the three boroughs next in importance, were
farmed for £100 a year each, Thetford and Bristol for about £80 each,
Oxford, Wallingford, Gloucester, and Hereford for £60 each, Canterbury,
Wilton, and Stamford for £50 each, Ipswich for £40, Colchester, Hun-
tingdon, Nottingham, and several others for £30, Yarmouth for £27,
Hertford for L20, Buckingham for £16, and so on. There were also
considerable sums derived from the mints, and various casual profits.
The collection of this urban revenue was entrusted to the sheriffs and
portreeves, who further were charged with the holding of the borough
courts (portmanmoots) and with the maintenance of law and order. Of
the “ports” in which the king had no interests the most important in
1086 were Sandwich, Hythe, Lewes, Chichester, Bury St Edmunds,
Dunwich, Shrewsbury, and Chester.
During the next fifty years a few new boroughs were founded by the
barons on their fiefs, and one by Henry himself at Dunstable; but the
Pipe Roll of 1130 shews that the relative importance of the boroughs
as a whole did not change much, except that Wallingford and Thetford
somewhat decayed. The king, however, handed over his interests in
Leicester and Warwick to the Beaumonts but, on the other hand, he
recovered control of Shrewsbury and Chichester. The real interest of
the Crown always lay in developing the boroughs as sources of revenue.
That most of them did develop in population and trade under Rufus
and Henry there can be little doubt; otherwise it would have been im-
possible for them to support the very heavy taxes which were imposed
upon them. But it is not easy to point to any very definite measures under-
taken by Henry for the benefit of the towns as a whole, other than his
strict maintenance of peace and order. There is ample evidence, on the
other hand, as to his schemes of taxation, his chief measure being the
abolition of the practice of taking Danegeld from the more important
boroughs and the imposition in its place of much heavier levies known as
“aids. " In 1130 these aids varied in amount from £3 in the case of Winch-
combe up to £120 in the case of London. Here and there, however, Henry
did do a little to encourage the beginnings of municipal self-government.
He allowed the men of York and Wilton for example, and perhaps of
Salisbury and Lincoln, to form merchant gilds, or voluntary societies, for
the regulation of trade; he sold the right of farming the revenues of their
borough to the men of Lincoln, thereby exempting them from the control
of the sheriff in financial matters; and he issued charters confirming the
i


## p. 539 (#585) ############################################

London under Henry. The battle of Brémule
539
men of Bury St Edmunds, Leicester, and Beverley in the privileges which
they had obtained from their immediate overlords. These measures would
seem to have been tentative, and can hardly be construed as evidence of
a definite policy pursued systematically throughout the reign. But just
at its close Henry did in the case of London grant its burghers some
extraordinary political privileges, which at any rate shewed that he did
not regard them as a danger to his authority. London was in the pecu-
liar position of being the largest borough in the kingdom but situated
in the smallest shire, and in one moreover where the king had no rural
demesne manors. The sheriff of Middlesex, on the other hand, except
for his duties with regard to London, had very little to do. It seemed
therefore obvious, if the Londoners were to farm the revenues of their
borough like the men of Lincoln, as they wished to do, that there was
little to be gained by maintaining a separate shire organisation. Henry,
accordingly, leased to the Londoners the shrievalty of Middlesex en bloc
and made them farmers of both Middlesex and London at an inclusive
rent of £300 a year. At the same time he permitted them to appoint
their own sheriff and their own justices, who were to keep and try the
pleas of the Crown to the exclusion of every other justice. The Londoners
thus acquired a very privileged and a very exceptional position, but one
that they were not destined to maintain.
The sketch just attempted of Henry's domestic measures in England
will have indicated how important they were in view of the future
development of English institutions. To Henry himself, however, this
side of his activities probably did not seem as important as his relations
with his French neighbours; for out of the twenty-nine years which
elapsed between 1106 and his death, he spent no less than seventeen years
in Normandy. His contest with Louis VI dragged on intermittently till
the death of William Clito in 1128; but already in 1119 by a victory at
Brémule, in the Vexin, Henry had virtually got the upper hand, and after
that he only encountered minor troubles in the regions round Évreux
and Breteuil. Even before his triumph at Brémule he had come to
terms with Fulk V of Anjou, and arranged a match between his eldest
son, who was just sixteen, and Fulk's daughter. By this means he hoped
eventually that the Norman house might recover the possession of Maine,
as it was agreed between their parents that that county should be settled
on the young pair. But in 1120 this cherished design was wrecked by a
sudden catastrophe, which left the whole future of Henry's dominions in
complete uncertainty. This was the tragic death of the young William,
who was drowned with his brother Richard and a number of other nobles
while crossing the Channel. As the loss of the two princes left Henry
without a legitimate male heir and as his wife Matilda had died in 1118,
Henry's thoughts naturally turned to a second marriage, and early in
1121 he contracted an alliance with Adelaide, the daughter of the Duke
of Lower Lorraine. But this marriage proved childless, and for four
CH. XVI.


## p. 540 (#586) ############################################

540
The succession problem: Matilda marries Geoffrey
years the question of how to provide for the succession still vexed the
king, as he was loth to see it pass to his nephews of the house of Blois.
He still had one legitimate child, his daughter Matilda, but she had
been married in 1114 to Henry V of Germany, which seemed an in-
superable bar to any plan of making her his heiress. To Henry's relief
this bar was removed by the death of the Emperor in 1125; whereupon
Henry summoned Matilda back to England, and in 1127 he held a great
council at which he required all the prelates and chief barons of England,
headed by David of Scotland, Stephen of Blois, and Robert of Gloucester,
to swear to accept her as their future sovereign. This arrangement many
of them very much disliked, as it was unprecedented that England or
Normandy should be ruled by a woman; nor was it yet disclosed what
plans Henry had for providing her with a second husband. On this point
Henry himself had unpopular but far-sighted views. He still desired to
recover Maine, and so he approached the Count of Anjou again and
proposed that the Empress should be married to Fulk's son and heir,
Geoffrey, nicknamed in later days Plantagenet. This of course was
acceptable to Fulk, for it meant that on Henry's death Geoffrey would
not only unite Normandy to Anjou and Maine but would also become
King of England and so be one of the most powerful princes in Western
Europe. This prospect quite gratified Henry's dynastic ambition, but it
was viewed with extreme dislike both in England and Normandy, as
most men of Norman blood regarded it as a disgrace that they should
have to accept the rule of their hereditary foe. Henry, however, would
not listen to any protests, and in June 1128 he brought his daughter to
Le Mans, where she was married to Geoffrey in the presence of a brilliant
assembly. Even then his anxieties for the future were not at an end.
Geoffrey was not yet fifteen; and Matilda, who was twenty-five, and of a
haughty disposition, soon quarrelled with her boy-husband. Many of
the barons also declared that, as they had not given their consent to the
match, they were no longer bound by the oaths as to the succession.
Henry met this objection by demanding, in 1131, a renewal of their
oaths; but it was not till 1133 that he had the satisfaction of hearing
that the Empress had borne a son, whom she duly christened Henry
and whose advent seemed to place the question of the succession at
length beyond dispute. Henry was now at the close of his sixty-fifth
year. As he was still apparently quite vigorous, he hoped to see his young
grandson reach an age when he might be accepted as king under his
mother's guardianship, and so obviate any opposition arising to a
female succession. But this was not to be. In August 1133 the king
crossed once more to Normandy anxious to see his little heir, but soon
found himself involved in troubles with Geoffrey, who was now the
reigning Count of Anjou, having succeeded his father in 1129, when
Fulk had withdrawn to Palestine to become King of Jerusalem. We are
told that Geoffrey wanted castles in Normandy; and as Henry would not


## p. 541 (#587) ############################################

Death of Henry I. Stephen claims the throne
541
accede to his wishes, he provoked William Talvas of Bellême to revive
his hereditary grievances and stir up trouble in the country round Séez.
Henry replied by outlawing Talvas, and in 1135 laid siege to his castle at
Alençon. The fortress did not hold out long against him, but the expe-
dition was Henry's last effort. A few weeks later he was taken suddenly
ill while hunting in the Vexin, and died on 1 December at Lions-le-Forêt,
having reigned a little over thirty-five years.
C. REIGN OF STEPHEN (1135–1154).
As soon as Henry's death was known, it rapidly became apparent
that his cherished schemes for his daughter's succession were not likely to
be carried out. Had his little grandson been older, a considerable party
would no doubt have favoured his accession and been willing to risk the
dangers of a long minority ; but, as things were, hardly anyone wanted
the crown to pass to the Empress, not only because there were no prece-
dents for the accession of a woman, but because she was personally
disliked
for her
arrogance and because men of Norman blood hated the 1
idea of having to submit to her Angevin husband. Even the Earl of
Gloucester made no move, so far as we know, in favour of his half-sister;
and such magnates as were gathered at Rouen began openly to discuss
whether the succession should not be offered to Theobald, Count of Blois,
as being the Conqueror's eldest male descendant and the person best able
to withstand the claims of the Count of Anjou. This discussion, however,
led to no decision; and meanwhile Theobald's brother Stephen, who
was at Boulogne when Henry died, without consulting his fellow-magnates,
made up his mind to bid for the crown himself, and embarked for England
with the intention of playing the same párt as his uncle Henry had done
thirty-five years before. There can be no denying that, if the oaths of
allegiance taken to Matilda in 1127 and 1131 were to be disregarded,
Stephen's territorial position as Count of Mortain and lord of the wealthy
honours of Boulogne, Eye, and Lancaster made him a much more suitable
candidate for the throne than Theobald. For Theobald, though promi-
nent in France, was practically a stranger in England ; whereas Stephen
had lived among the English for some thirty years and had married a
lady who, like the Empress, could claim descent from the old Saxon
kings. Stephen, too, was known as a brave and affable prince, who was
quite a favourite with the Londoners ; and he had also gained credit
with the Church by establishing a band of monks from Savigny at
Furness on his Lancashire fief, thereby introducing a new monastic order
into England. It is not surprising then that, when he presented him-
self in London and no other candidate's name was put forward, the
citizens, alarmed at the prospect of an interregnum, at once declared in
his favour and encouraged him to hurry on to Winchester to win over
the officials of the Exchequer and secure the royal treasury. At Winchester
CH. XVI.


## p. 542 (#588) ############################################

542
Stephen crowned: recognised by the Pope
he was welcomed by the citizens, as he had been in London, and also by
his younger brother Henry of Blois, the powerful bishop of the diocese,
who was not only prepared to disregard his oath to the Empress, but also
eagerly lent his aid in persuading others and especially William of Corbeil,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, to do likewise. The archbishop was
full of scruples, but was at last persuaded to accept Stephen in re-
turn for a promise that he would restore to the Church its liberties;
and so also were the Bishop of Salisbury and the chamberlain, William
de Pont de l'Arche, the heads of the administration, who placed the
royal treasure and the castle of Winchester at his disposal. Thus
strengthened Stephen returned to London and was duly crowned at
Westminster within three weeks of receiving the news of his uncle's death.
The attendance of barons at the coronation was small, but no one
challenged its propriety; and as soon as the news of it reached Rouen,
the barons who were in Normandy, such as the Earls of Leicester and
Surrey and the Count of Meulan together with all the Norman bishops
acquiesced in the decision. Count Theobald too, bearing his brother's
success with equanimity, took up his cause and negotiated a truce on his
behalf with Count Geoffrey of Anjou. The Empress, however, was not at
all content, and at once appealed to Pope Innocent II against Stephen's
usurpation; nor did the Earl of Gloucester give in his adhesion. For
the time, however, Stephen had clearly triumphed, and a little later he
was also successful at the Curia, his emissaries backed by the influence of
the King of France getting the better of those sent by the Empress and
obtaining a letter from Innocent in which he recognised Stephen as King
of England and Duke of Normandy. As the oaths of fealty which had
been sworn to Matilda were Stephen's greatest stumbling-block, this
recognition by the power which could absolve men from their oaths was
a great feather in Stephen's cap, and for the time made him feel
fairly secure as regarded the future. And so no doubt he would have
been, had he possessed the cunning of his predecessor, or even sufficient
foresight and tenacity to strike at his probable enemies before their
preparations were matured. Such ideas were, however, entirely foreign to
Stephen's nature; and hence, instead of making good his initial success,
and devising means to remove all supporters of the Empress cause, as
King Henry in his day had removed Robert of Bellême, which would have
impressed his subjects, he merely rested content with the position he had
so recklessly snatched, or at best tried to win over those whom he sus-
pected of being disloyal by concessions. Even this timid policy, though
expensive, might have succeeded, had Stephen only had men of his own
calibre to fight against. In the Empress, however, he had opposed to him
a most tenacious woman, who had at her side in the persons of her
husband Geoffrey and her half-brother Robert two very sagacious
captains, who knew how to wait and scheme and take advantage of
Stephen's difficulties. The result was that before two years were gone by


## p. 543 (#589) ############################################

The opposition to Stephen. Stephen in Normandy
543
Stephen's influence began to wane, and on both sides of the Channel men
began to whisper that he was a mild and soft ruler, and to realise that
he was quite incapable of maintaining the good peace which had persisted
so long under his predecessor.
The first persons to oppose Stephen openly were the vicomte of the
Hiesmois who admitted the Empress to Argentan and Exmes, William
Talvas of Ponthieu and Bellême who regained Alençon, and David of
Scotland who made a raid into Cumberland and Northumberland nomin-
ally in the interest of his niece but really to secure those districts for his
son Henry. Leaving Normandy to be dealt with later, Stephen promptly
hurried to Durham, and in February 1136 came to an agreement with
David by the simple process of granting half his demands. The terms
agreed were that David should acknowledge Stephen as king, and that
Stephen in return should grant Cumberland to Henry as a fief, and also
put him in possession of the honour of Huntingdon, which had long been
held by the King of Scots in right of his wife. Stephen seems to have
considered this settlement a good bargain, and in a way it was something
of a family arrangement, Henry being Stephen's nephew; but as Stephen
was soon to discover it had two drawbacks. It did not really satisfy David,
and it offended the powerful Earl of Chester who, having himself claims
on Cumberland, was converted into a life-long adversary. Returning to
London, Stephen celebrated his first Easter as king by holding a magnifi-
cent court, at which his wife Matilda was crowned. This court was attended
by no fewer than nineteen bishops, English and Norman, and by at least
forty barons drawn from all parts of the kingdom. The paucity of mag-
nates at his own coronation was thus fully made good; and a little later
even the Earl of Gloucester crossed the Channel and outwardly came to
terms with him. The only overt opposition to his rule during the rest of
this year came from Hugh Bigod in Norfolk, and from a petty rising in
Devon headed by Baldwin de Redvers and Robert of Bampton. These
troubles however were easily met, and in 1137 Stephen found himself free
to cross to Normandy, where he remained for nine months.
Though the Empress was still in possession of Argentan and some
other castles, Stephen, had he played his cards well, ought to have had
no difficulty in dispossessing her; for he had the support of Louis VI of
France, who in May invested him with the duchy, while Geoffrey of Anjou
had bitterly incensed the inhabitants of central Normandy in the previous
year by a futile raid on Lisieux in which his men had been guilty of many
outrages. Unfortunately, Stephen brought with him a band of Flemings
led by his personal friend William of Ypres, and in resisting a renewed
invasion by Count Geoffrey he gave great offence to the Norman leaders
by entrusting the chief command to this Flemish knight. This act was a
far-reaching blunder, as it not only alienated such important men as
William of Warenne and Hugh of Gournay, but led to fresh quarrels
with Robert of Gloucester, who accused the Fleming of suspecting his
CH. XVI.


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544 Outbreak of civil war. Battle of the Standard
loyalty and of attacking him treacherously. Gloucester was thus thrown
once again on to the side of his half-sister, which meant that Stephen
was unable to dislodge the Empress and consequently his position in
Normandy, especially in the Bessin where Gloucester's Norman fiefs lay,
was left even more insecure when he re-embarked for England than when
he had landed. When he departed he left the government of Normandy in
the hands of William of Roumare, lord of the honour of Bolingbroke in
England, a half-brother of the Earl of Chester, who is spoken of as justiciar.
Under him the ducal administration was maintained in eastern Normandy
for some time longer, but Stephen himself never returned to his duchy.
The year 1138 must be reckoned the turning-point in Stephen's for-
tunes. Left to his own devices in Normandy, Robert of Gloucester soon
formed a definite alliance with Count Geoffrey, and in May sent a formal
defiance to Stephen, declaring him a usurper and renouncing his allegiance.
This action almost immediately brought about in England the defection
of a number of west-country barons who were Gloucester's neighbours or
kinsmen, such as William Fitz Alan of Oswestry, Ralph Paganel of Dudley,
and several Somerset and Dorset landowners, headed by William de Mohun,
lord of Dunster. Nor were these the only malcontents whom Stephen
found himself called upon to meet. For quite early in the year Miles de
Beauchamp, a Bedfordshire knight, provoked by a decision to confer the
Beauchamp barony on a cadet of the house of Beaumont, had fortified
Bedford castle against him, while in the north King David once more
invaded Northumberland. As before, David's main object was to secure
Northumberland as an earldom for his son; but this time he was much
more bent on his scheme than in 1136, having gauged Stephen's character.
Foiled in his first attack in the spring, he renewed his inroads in the
summer, and having been joined by Eustace Fitz John of Alnwick pressed
forward through Durham into Yorkshire. By this time Stephen had too
many troubles to meet in the south to come north himself; but the
general alarm, coupled with the exhortations of Thurstan, the venerable
Archbishop of York, led nearly all the important northern barons, with
the exception of the Earl of Chester, to take the field and join their forces
to the levies of the archbishop in order to bar David's farther progress.
The battle which ensued in August near Northallerton, known as the
battle of the Standard because the English had in their midst a waggon
bearing the consecrated banners of the archbishop's three minster churches
-St Peter of York, St John of Beverley, and St Wilfrid of Ripon-ended
in a rout for the over-audacious Scots. But there was no pursuit. David
merely retreated to Carlisle, and in the following spring his niece, Queen
Matilda, negotiated a permanent peace with him, acting on her husband's
behalf, under which Henry, the heir to Scotland, who was already Earl
of Huntingdon, was created Earl of Northumberland as well and was
invested with the Crown lands in that county with the exception of the
castles of Bamburgh and Newcastle. Meanwhile Stephen had done his


## p. 545 (#591) ############################################

Arrest of the bishops. Matilda in England
545
best to cope with the risings in the south and west; but though he had
reduced Shrewsbury and several castles in Somerset, he had hesitated to
attack Bristol, which was the chief stronghold of the Empress' party.
His efforts were consequently ineffective; nor were his lieutenants in
Normandy any more successful in coping with the Earl of Gloucester,
who went so far as to invite Count Geoffrey to Caen and Bayeux. In fact
by December 1138 men could see that Stephen's initial luck was deserting
him, and that it was certain that the Empress would not abandon her
claims without a severe struggle.
In the spring of 1139 Stephen's position was still comparatively
advantageous. He had settled with the Scots. The wealthiest districts
of England and Normandy favoured his cause, and so did the Church,
whose liberty he had publicly confirmed by a charter granted in accordance
with his coronation promises. As for the control of the Church, he had
quite recently secured the archbishopric of Canterbury for Theobald,
Abbot of Bec, his own nominee, and he had obtained the still higher post
of legate for his brother Henry. He had control of the exchequer and the
judicial system. His revenues were still ample, and the Empress and
Gloucester had not ventured to cross the Channel. But in June Stephen
by his own act, perhaps to please the Beaumonts, forfeited the Church's
support by requiring the Bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln to surrender
their castles. Roger of Salisbury, the old justiciar, and his nephew Alex-
ander had no doubt grown exceedingly arrogant, and in time of peace
it
might have been politic to curtail their pretensions. But it was unwise
to attack them just when the real struggle for the throne was beginning,
and stupid to submit them to indignities and throw them into prison
when they refused to comply with the royal demands. It was in vain that
Stephen urged the familiar plea that they were arrested as barons and
not as bishops. Immediately all the English prelates were up in arms,
led by the Bishop of Winchester who, acting under his commission as
legate, called together a synod at which he denounced his brother's actions.
Stephen, however, would give no redress, and three months later, on the
death of Bishop Roger, seized all his plate and treasures.
It was in the midst of these dissensions that the Empress and the Earl
of Gloucester decided to come to England. They landed in the autumn
at Arundel, bringing 140 knights with them. This was the signal for civil
war to break out in earnest. At once Miles of Brecknock, who was also
constable of Gloucester, and Brian Fitz Count, the lord of the honour of
Wallingford, threw off the mask and joined the Earl of Gloucester at
Bristol, two adhesions which gave the Empress control of the upper
Thames region; and soon the whole south-west from Wiltshire to Corn-
wall was practically lost to Stephen, together with Herefordshire. But
elsewhere very few barons joined Matilda's standard openly, the most
notable man to do so being Nigel, Bishop of Ely, who had shared in the
indignities meted out to his uncle Bishop Roger and who was eager for
35
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. XVI.


## p. 546 (#592) ############################################

546
Matilda's weak position. Stephen creates earls
revenge. The main object of the Empress was to expand her influence
eastwards and get possession of London and Winchester, the acknow-
ledged seats of government; for it was idle to proclaim herself queen
until she could see her way to secure coronation at Westminster.
Events were to shew, however, that her military forces were too weak
for this purpose, unless she could win over one or more of the greater
maynates in the eastern counties and so undermine Stephen's hold on
that side of England. But this she never really accomplished, in spite of
some momentary successes; and so the struggle, after dragging on for
some eight years, was, in 1148, dropped without achieving anything
beyond a pitiful devastation of the countryside and the total disorgani-
sation of Henry I's elaborate system of government.