This charter contained a renunciation of the forests
made by his predecessor, a'grant to the ecclesiastics
of a jurisdiction over their own vassals, and to the
people in general an immunity from unjust tallages
and exactions.
made by his predecessor, a'grant to the ecclesiastics
of a jurisdiction over their own vassals, and to the
people in general an immunity from unjust tallages
and exactions.
Edmund Burke
?
376 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
his title to the crown in the most plausible manner
it could bear: he alleged that he was born after his
father had acquired his kingdom, and that he was
therefore natural heir of the crown; but that his
brother was, at best, only born to the inheritance
of a dukedom. The nobility heard the claim of
this prince; but they were more generally inclined
to Robert, whose birthright, less questionable in itself, had been also confirmed by a solemn treaty.
But whilst they retired to consult,, Henry, well apprised of their dispositions, -and who therefore was
little inclined to wait the result of their debates,
threw himself entirely upon the populace. To them
he said little concerning his title, as he knew such
an audience is little moved with a discussion of
rights, but much with the spirit and manner in
which they are claimed; for which reason he began by drawing his sword, and swearing, with a
bold and determined air, to persist in his pretensions to his last breath. Then turning to the crowd,
and remitting of his severity, he began to soothe
them with the promises of a milder government than
they had experienced either beneath his brother or
his father; the Church should enjoy her immunities,
the people their liberties, the nobles their pleasures;
the forest laws should cease; the distinction of Englishman and Norman be heard no more. Next he expatiated on the grievances of the former reigns, and promised to redress them all. Lastly, he spoke of his
brother Robert, whose dissoluteness, whose inactivity, whose unsteady temper, nay, whose very virtues,
threatened nothing but ruin to any country which
he should govern. The people received this popular
harangue, delivered by a prince whose person was
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 377
full of grace and majesty, with shouts of joy and
rapture. Immediately they rush to the house where
the council is held, which they surround, and with
clamor and menaces demand Henry for their king.
The nobility were terrified by the sedition; and remembering how little present Robert had been on
a former occasion to his own interests, or to those
who defended him, they joined their voice to that
of the people, and Henry was proclaimed without
opposition. The treasure which he seized he divided amongst those that seemed wavering in his
cause; and that he might secure his new and disputed right by every method, he proceeded without
delay to London to be crowned, and to sanctify by
the solemnity of the unction the choice of the people. As the churchmen in those days were the arbiters of everything, and as no churchman possessed more credit than Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury,
who had been persecuted and banished by his brother, he recalled that prelate, and by every mark of confidence confirmed him in his interests. Two other steps he took, equally prudent and politic: he confirmed and enlarged the privileges of the city of
London, and gave to the whole kingdom a charter
of liberties, which was the first of the kind, and laid
the foundation of those successive charters which at
last completed the freedom of the subject. In fine,
he cemented the whole fabric of his power by marrying Maud, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland,
by the sister of Edgar Atheling, - thus to insure the
affection of the English, and, as he flattered himself,
to have a sure succession to his children.
The Crusade being successfully finished by the taking of Jerusalem, Robert returned into Europe. He
? ? ? ? 378 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
had acquired great reputation in that war, in,hich
he had no interest; his real and valuable rights he
prosecuted with languor. Yet such was the respect
paid to his title, and such the attraction of his personal accomplishments, that, when he had at last
taken possession of his Norman territories,
a. D. 1101.
and entered England with an army to assert his birthright, he found most of the Norman
barons, and many of the English, in readiness to
join him. But the diligence of Anselm, who employed all his credit to keep the people firm to the
oath they had taken, prevented him from profiting
of the general inclination in his favor. His friends
began to fall off by degrees, so that he was induced,
as well by the situation of his affairs as the flexibility
of his temper, to submit to a treaty on the plan of
that he had formerly entered into with his brother
Rufus.
This treaty being made, Robert returned to his
dukedom, and gave himself over to his natural indolence and dissipation. Uncured by his misA. -D. 1103.
fortunes of a loose generosity that flowed
indiscriminately on all, he mortgaged every branch of
his revenue, and almost his whole domain. His. barons, despising his indigence, and secure in the benignity of his temper, began to assume the unhappy privilege of sovereigns. They made war on each other at pleasure, and, pursuing their hostilities with the most
scandalous license, they reduced that fine country
to a deplorable condition. In vain did the people,
ruined by the tyranny an'd divisions of the great,
apply to Robert for protection: neither from his
circumstances nor his character was he able to afford them any effectual relief; whilst Henry, who
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 379
by his bribes and artifices kept alive the disorder of
which he complained and profited, formed a party in
Normandy to call him over, and to put the dukedom under his protection. Accordingly, he prepared a considerable force for the expedition, and taxed
his own subjects, arbitrarily, and without mercy, fbr
the relief he pretended to afford those of his brother.
His preparations roused Robert from his indolence,
and united likewise the greater part of his barons
to his cause, unwilling to change a master whose
only fault was his indulgence of them for the severe
vigilance of Henry. The King of France espoused
the same side; and even in England some emotions
were excited in favor of the Duke by indignation for
the wrongs he had suffered and those he was going
to suffer. Henry was alarmed, but did not renounce
his design. He was to the last degree jealous of his
prerogative; but knowing what immense resources
kings may have in popularity, he called on this occasion a great council of his barons and prelates, and there, by his arts and his eloquence, in both
which he was powerful, he persuaded the assembly
to a hearty declaration in his favor, and to a large
supply. Thus secured at home, he lost no time to
pass' over to the continent, and to bring. . 0.
tile Norman army' to a speedy engagement. They fought under the walls of Tinchebrai,
where the bravery and military genius of Robert,
never more conspicuous than on that day, were
borne down by the superior fortune and numbers
of his ambitious brother. He was made prisoner;
and notwithstanding all the tender pleas of their
common blood, in spite of his virtues, and even of
his misfortunes, which. pleaded so strongly for mercy,
? ? ? ? 380 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
the rigid conqueror held him in various prisons until
his death, which did not happen until after a rigorous confinement of eighteen, some say twenty-seven, years. This was the end of a prince born with a
thousand excellent qualities, which served no other
purpose than to confirm, from the example of his
misfortunes, that a facility of disposition and a weak
beneficence are the greatest vices that can enter into the composition of a monarch, equally ruinous to himself and to his subjects.
A. D. 1. The success of this battle put Henry in
possession of Normandy, which he held ever
after with very little disturbance. He fortified his
new acquisition by demolishing the castles of those
turbulent barons who had wasted and afterwards enslaved their country by their dissensions. Order and justice took place, until everything was reduced to
obedience; then a severe and regular oppression succeeded the former disorderly tyranny. In England things took the same course. The king no
longer doubted his fortune, and therefore
no longer respected his promises or his charter.
The forests, the savage passion of the Norman
princes, for which both the prince and people paid
so dearly, were maintained, increased, and guarded
with laws more rigorous than before. Taxes were
largely and arbitrarily assessed. But all this tyranny did not weaken, though it vexed the nation, because the great men were kept in proper subjection, and justice was steadily administered.
The politics of this remarkable reign consisted of
three branches: to redress the gross abuses which
prevailed in the civil government and the revenue,
to humble the great barons, and keep the aspiring
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 381
spirit of the clergy within proper bounds. The introduction of a new law with a new people at the
Conquest had unsettled everything: for whilst some
adhered to the Conqueror's regulations, and others
contended for those of St. Edward, neither of them
were well executed or properly obeyed. The king,
therefore, with the assistance of his justiciaries, compiled a new body of laws, in order to find a temper
between both. The coin had been miserably debased,
but it was restored by the king's vigilance, and preserved by punishments, cruel, but terrifying in their
example. There was a savageness in all the judicial proceedings of those days, that gave even justice itself the complexion of tyranny: for whilst a number of men were seen in all parts of the kingdom, some castrated, some without hands, others with
their feet cut off, and in various ways cruelly mangled, the view of a perpetual punishment blotted out
the memory of the transient crime, and government
was the more odious, which, out of a cruel and mistaken mercy, to avoid punishing with death, devised
torments far more terrible than death itself.
But nothing called for redress more than the disorders in the king's own household. It was considered as an incident annexed to their tenure, that the socage vassals of the crown, and so of all the subordinate barons, should receive their lord and all his
followers, and supply them in their progresses and
journeys, which custom continued for some ages after in Ireland, under the name of coshering. But this
indefinite and ill-contrived charge on the tenant was
easily perverted to an instrument of much oppression by thle disorders of a rude and licentious court;
insomuch that the tenants, in fear for their substance,
? ? ? ? 382 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
for the honor of their women, and often for their
lives, deserted their habitations and fled into the
woods on the king's approach. No circumstance
could be more dishonorable to a prince; but happily,
like many other great abuses, it gave rise to a great
reform, which went much further than its immediate
purposes. This disorder, which the punishment of
offenders could only palliate, was entirely taken away
by commuting personal service for a rent in money;
which regulation, passing from the king to all the inferior lords, in a short time wrought a great change
in the state of the nation. To humble the great
men, more arbitrary methods were used. The adherence to the title of Robert was a cause, or a pretence, of depriving many of their vast possessions, which were split or parcelled out amongst the king's
creatures, with great injustice to particulars, but in
the consequences with general and lasting benefit.
The king held his courts, according to the custom,
at Christmas and Easter, but he seldom kept both
festivals in the same place. He made continual progresses into all parts of his kingdom, and brought
the royal authority and person home to the doors
of his haughty barons, which kept them in strict
obedience during his long and severe reign.
His contests with the Church, concerning the right
of investiture, were more obstinate and more dangerous. As this is an affair that troubled all Europe
as well as England, and holds deservedly a principal
place in the story of those times, it will not be impertinent to trace it up to its original. In the early
times of Christianity, when religion was only drawn
from its obscurity to be persecuted, when a bishop
was only a candidate for martyrdom, neither the pro
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 383
ferment, nor the right of bestowing it, were sought
with great ambition. Bishops were then elected, and
often against their desire, by their clergy and the
people: the subordinate ecclesiastical districts were
provided for in the same manner. After the Roman
Empire became Christian, this usage, so generally established, still maintained its ground. However, in
the principal cities, the Emperor frequently exercised
the privilege of giving a sanction to the choice, and
sometimes of appointing the bishop; though, for the
most part, the popular election still prevailed. But
when the Barbarians, after destroying the Empire,
had at length. submitted their necks to the Gospel,
their kings and great men, full of zeal and gratitude
-to their instructors, endowed the Church with large
territories and great privileges. In this case it was
but natural that they should be the patrons of those
dignities and nominate to that power which arose
from their own free bounty. Hence the bishoprics
in the greatest part of Europe became in effect, whatever some few might have been in appearance, merely donative. ' And as the bishoprics formed so many seigniories, when the feudal establishment was completed, they partook of the feudal nature, so far as
they were subjects capable of it; homage and fealty
were required on the part of the spiritual vassal;
the king, on his part, gave the bishop the investiture,
or livery and seizin of his temporalities, by the delivery of a ring and staff. This was the original manler
of granting feudal property, and something like it is
still practised in our base-courts. Pope Adrian confirmed this privilege to Charlemagne by an express
grant. The clergy of that time, ignorant, but inquisitive, were very ready at finding types and mysteries
? ? ? ? 384 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
in. every ceremony: they construed the staff into an
emblem of the pastoral care, and the ring into a type
of the bishop's allegorical marriage to his church,
and therefore supposed them designed as emblems of
a jurisdiction merely spiritual. The Papal pretensions increased with the general ignorance and superstition; and the better to support these pretensions, it was necessary at once to exalt the clergy extremely,
and, by breaking off all ties between them and their
natural sovereigns, to attach them wholly to the Roman see. In pursuance of this project, the Pope first
strictly forbade the clergy to receive investitures from
laymen, or to do them homage. A council held at
Rome entirely condemned this practice; and the condemnation was the less unpopular, because the investiture gave rise to frequent and flagrant abuses, especially in England, where the sees were on this
pretence with much scandal long held inll the king's
hands, and afterwards as scandalously and publicly
sold to the highest bidder. So it had been in the last
reign, and so it continued in this.
Henry, though vigorously attacked, with great res:
olution maintained the rights of his crown with regard to investitures, whilst he saw the Emperor, who
claimed a right of investing the Pope himself, subdued by the thunder of the Vatican. His chief
opposition was within his own kingdom. Anselm,
Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of unblamable life,
and of learning for his time, but blindly attached to
the rights of the Church, real or supposed, refused to
consecrate those who received investitures from tie
king. The parties appealed to Rome. Rome, unwilling either to recede from her pretensions or to
provoke a powerful monarch, gives a dubious an
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 385
swer. . Meanwhile the contest grows hotter. Anselm
is obliged to quit the kingdom, but is still inflexible.
At last, the king, who, from the delicate situation of
his affairs in the beginning of his reign, had been
obliged to temporize for a long time, by his usual
prudent mixture of management with force obliged
the Pope to a temperament which seemed extremely
judicious. The king received homage and fealty
from his vassal; the investiture, as it was generally
understood to relate to spiritual jurisdiction, was
given up, and on this equal bottom peace was established. The secret of the Pope's moderation was this:.
he was at that juncture close pressed by the Emperor,
and it might be highly dangerous to contend with two
such enemies at once; and he'was much more ready
to yield to Henry, who had no reciprocal demands on
him,: than to the Emperor, who had many and just
ones, and to whom he could not yield any one point
without' giving up an infinite number of others very
material and interesting.
As the king extricated himself happily from so
great an affair, so all the other difficulties of his
reign only exercised, without endangering him. The
efforts of France in favor of the son of Robert were
late, desultory, and therefore unsuccessful. That
youth, endued with equal virtue and more prudence
than his father, after exerting many useless acts of
unfortunate bravery, fell in battle, and freed Henry'from all disturbance on the side of France. The incursions of the Welsh in this reign only gave him all opportunity of confining that people within narrower
bounds. At home he was well obeyed by his subjects;
abroad he dignified his family by splendid alliances.
His daughter Matilda he married to the Emperor. .
VOL. VII. 25
? ? ? ? 386 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
But his private fortunes did not flow with so even a
course as his public affairs. His only son,
William, with a natural daughter, and many
of the flower of the young nobility, perished at sea
between Normandy and England. From that fatal
accident the king was never seen to smile. He
sought in vain from a second marriage to provide a
A. D. 1127. male successor; but when he saw all prospect of this at an end, he called a great
council of his barons and prelates. His daughter
Matilda, after the decease of the Emperor, he had
given in marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of
Anjou. As she was his only remaining issue, he
caused her to be acknowledged as his successor by
the great council; he enforced this acknowledgment
by solemn oaths of fealty, --a sanction which he
weakened rather than confirmed by frequent repetition: vainly imagining that on his death any ties would bind to the respect of a succession so little respected by himself, and by the violation of which he had procured his crown. Having taken these measures in favor of his daughter, he died in Normandy, but in a good old age, and in the thirty-sixth year of
a prosperous reign.
CHAPTER V.
REIGN OF STEPHEN.
ALTHOUGH the authority of the crown had
a. D. 1136.
been exercised with very little restraint during the three preceding reigns, the succession to it,
or even the principles of the succession, were but ill
ascertained: so that a doulbt might justly have arisen,
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 387
whether the crown was not in a great measure elective. This uncertainty exposed the nation, at the
death of every king, to all the calamities of a civil
war; but it was a circumstance favorable to the designs of Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, who was son of
Stephen, Earl of Blois, by a daughter of the Conqueror. The late king had raised him to great employments, and enriched'him by the grant of several
lordships. His brother had been made Bishop of
Winchester; and by adding to it the place of his
chief justiciary, the king gave him an opportunity of
becoming one of the richest subjects in Europe, and
of extending an unlimited influence over the clergy
and the people. Henry trusted, by the promotion of
two persons so near him in blood, and so bound by
benefits, that he had formed an impenetrable fence
about the succession; but he only inspired into Stephen the design of seizing on the crown by bringing him so near it. The opportunity was favorable. The king died abroad. ; Matilda was absent with her husband; and the Bishop of Winchester,
by his universal credit, disposed the churchmen to
elect his brother, with the concurrence of the greatest part of the nobility, who forgot their oaths, and
vainly hoped. that a bad title would necessarily produce a good government. Stephen, in the flower
of youth, bold, active, and courageous, full of generosity and a noble affability, that seemed to reproach
the state and avarice of the preceding kings, was not
wanting to his fortune. He seized immediately the
immense treasures of Henry, and by distributing
them with a judicious profusion removed all doubts
concerning his title to them. He did hot spare even
the royal demesne, but secured himself a vast number
? ? ? ? 888 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
of adherents by involving their guilt and interest in
his own. He raised a considerable army of Flemings, in order to strengthen himself against another
turn of the same instability which had raised him to
the throne; and, in imitation of the measures of the
late king, he concluded all by giving a charter of liberties as ample as the people at that time aspired to.
This charter contained a renunciation of the forests
made by his predecessor, a'grant to the ecclesiastics
of a jurisdiction over their own vassals, and to the
people in general an immunity from unjust tallages
and exactions. It is remarkable, that the oath of allegiance taken by the nobility on this occasion was
conditional: it was to be observed so long as the king
observed the terms of his charter,- a condition which
added no real security to the rights of the subject,
but which proved a fruitful source of dissension, tumult, and civil violence.
The measures which the king hitherto pursued
were dictated by sound policy; but he took another
step to secure his throne, which in fact took away allits security, and at the same time brought the country to extreme misery, and to the brink of utter ruin. At the Conquest there were very few fortifications
in the kingdom. William:found it necessary for his
security to erect several. During the struggles of the
English, the Norman nobility were permitted (as in
reason it could rot be refused) to fortify their own
houses. It was, however, still understood that no
new fortress could be erected without the king's special license. These private castles began very early
to embarrass the government. The royal castles were
scarcely less troublesome: for, as everything was then
in tenure, the governor held his place by the tenure
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF- ENGLISH HISTORY. 389
of castle-guard; and thus, instead of a simple officer,
subject to his pleasure, the king had to deal with a
feudal tenant, secure against him by law, if he performed his services, and by force, if he was unwilling to perform them. Every resolution of government required a sort of civil war to put it in execution. The two last kings had taken and demolished several of
these castles; but when they found the reduction of
any of them difficult, their custom frequently was, to
erect another close by it, tower against tower, ditch
against ditch: these were called Malvoisins, from
their purpose and situation. Thus, instead of removing, they in fact doubled the mischief. Stephen, perceiving the passion of the barons for these castles, among other popular acts in the beginning of his reign, gave a general license for erecting them. Then
was seen to arise in every corner of the kingdom, in
every petty seigniory, an inconceivable multitude of
strongholds, the seats of violence, and the receptacles
of murderers, felons, debasers of the coin, and all
manner of desperate and abandoned villains. Eleven
hundred and fifteen of these: castles were built in this
single reign. The barons, having thus shut out the.
law, made continual inroads upon each other, and
spread war, rapine, burning, and desolation throughout the whole kingdom. . They infested the high-: roads,- and put a stop to all trade by plundering the
merchants and travellers. :. Those who dwelt in the
open country they forced into their castles, and after
pillaging them of all their visible substance, these tyrants held them in dungeons, and tortured them with a thousand cruel inventions to extort a discovery of
their hidden wealth. The lamentable representation
given by history of those barbarous times justifies the:
? ? ? ? 390 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
pictures in the old romances of the castles of giants
and magicians. A great part of Europe was in the
same deplorable condition. It was then that some
gallant spirits, struck with a generous indignation at
the tyranny of these miscreants, blessed solemnly by
the bishop, and followed by the praises and vows of
the people, sallied forth to vindicate the chastity of
women and to redress the wrongs of travellers and
peaceable men. The adventurous humor inspired by
the Crusade heightened and extended this spirit; and
thus the idea of knight-errantry was formed.
A. D. 1138 Stephen felt personally these inconveniences; but because the evil was too stubborn to be redressed at once, he resolved to proceed gradually, and to begin with the castles of the bishops, - as they evidently held them, not only against
the interests of the crown, but against the canons
of the Church. From the nobles he expected no
opposition to this design: they beheld With envy the
pride of these ecclesiastical fortresses, whose battlements seemed to insult the poverty of the lay barons.
This disposition, and a want of unanimity among the
clergy themselves, enabled Stephen to succeed in his
attempt against the Bishop of Salisbury, one of the
first whom he attacked, and whose castles, from their
strength and situation, were of the greatest importance. But the affairs of this prince were so circumstanced that he could pursue no council that was not dangerous. His breach with the clergy let in the party of his rival, Matilda. This party was supported by
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son to the late king,
-a man powerful by his vast possessions, but more
formidable through his popularity, and the courage and
abilities by which he had acquired it. Several other
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 391
circumstances weakened the cause of Stephen. The
charter, and the other favorable acts, the scaffolding
of his ambitioni, when he saw the structure raised, he
threw down and contemned. In order to maintain
his troops, as well as to attach men to his cause,
where no principle bound them, vast and continual
largesses became necessary: all his legal revenue had
been dissipated; and he was therefore obliged to
have recourse to such methods of raising money as
were evidently illegal. These causes every day gave
some accession of strength to the party against him;
the friends of Matilda were encouraged to. 113
appear in arms; a civil war ensued, long
and bloody, prosecuted as chance or a blind rage directed, by mutual acts of cruelty and treachery, by
frequent surprisals and assaults of castles, and by a
number of battles and skirmishes fought to no determinate end, and in which nothing of the military
art appeared, but the destruction which it caused.
Various, on this occasion, were the reverses of fortune, while Stephen, though embarrassed by the weakness of his title, by the scantiness of his finances, and all the disorders which arose from both, supported
his tottering throne with wonderful activity and courage; but being at length defeated and made
prisoner under the walls of Lincoln, the
clergy openly declare for Matilda. The city of London, though unwillingly, follows the example of the
clergy. The defection from Stephen was growing universal.
But Matilda, puffed up with a greatness which as
yet had no solid foundation and stood merely in personal favor, shook it in the minds of all men by assuming, together with the insolence of conquest, the
? ? ? ? 892 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
haughty rigor of an established dominion. Her title
appeared but too good in the resemblance she bore
to the pride of the former kings. This made the first
illsuccess in her affairs fatal. Her great support,
the Earl of Gloucester, was in his turn made prisoner. In exchange for his liberty that of Stephen
was procured, who renewed the war with his usual
vigor. As he apprehended an attempt from Scotland in favor of Matilda, descended from the blood
royal of that nation, to balance this weight, he persuaded the King of France to declare in his favor,
alarmed as he was by the progress of Henry, the
son of Matilda, and Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. This
prince, no more than sixteen years of age, after receiving knighthood from David, King of Scotland,
began to display a courage and capacity destined to
the greatest things. Of a complexion which strongly
inclined to pleasure, he listened to nothing but, ambition; at an age which is usually given up to passion, he submitted delicacy to politics, and even in
his marriage only remembered the interests of a sovereign, - for, without examining too scrupulously into her character, he married Eleanor, the heiress of Guienne,'though divorced from her husband for her
supposed gallantries in the -Holy Land. He made use
of the accession of power which he acquired by this
match to assert his birthright to Normandy. This
he did with great success, because he was favored by
the general inclination of the people for the blood of
their ancient lords. Flushed with this prosperous
beginning, he aspired to greater things;;he obliged
the King of France to submit to a. truce; and then
he turned his arms to support the rights of his family
in England, from whence Matilda retired, unequal-to
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 393
the troublesome part she had long acted. Worn out
with age, and the clashing of furious factions, she
shut herself up in a monastery, and left to:her son the
succession of a civil war. . Stephen was now pressed
with renewed vigor. Henry had rather the advantage in the field; Stephen had the possession of the government. Their fortunes appearing nearly balallced, and the fuel of dissension being consumed by
a continual and bloody war of thirteen years, an
accommodation was proposed and accepted. Henry
found it dangerous to refuse his consent, as the bishops and barons, even of his own party, dreaded the consequences, if a prince, in the prime of an ambitious youth, should establish an hereditary title by
the force of foreign arms. This treaty, A. D1153.
signed at Wallingford, left the possession
of the crown for his life to Stephen, but secured
the succession to Henry, whom that prince adopted.
The castles erected in this reign were to be demolished; the exorbitant grants of the royal demesne to
be resumed. To the son of Stephen all his private
possessions were secured.
Thus ended this tedious and ruinous civil war.
Stephen survived it near two years; and now, finding himself more secure as the lawful tenant than he had been as the usurping proprietor of the crown, he
no longer governed on the maxims of necessity. He
made no new attempts in favor of his family, but
spent the remainder of his. reign in correcting the
disorders which arose from his steps in its commencement, and in healing the wounds of so long and cruel a war. Thus he left the kingdom in peace to his
successor, but his character, as it is usual where
party is concerned, greatly disputed. Wherever
? ? ? ? 394 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
his natural dispositions had room to exert themselves, they appeared virtuous and princely; but
the lust to reign, which often attends great virtues,
was fatal to his, frequently hid them, and always rendered them suspected.
CHAPTER VI.
REIGN OF HENRY II.
THE death of Stephen left an undisputed
succession for the first time since the death
of Edward the Confessor. Henry, descended equally
from the Norman Conqueror and the old English
kings, adopted by Stephen, acknowledged by the
barons, united in himself every kind of title. It
was grown into a custom for the king to grant a
charter of liberties on his accession to the crown.
Henry also granted a charter of that kind, confirming that of his grandfather; but as his situation was very different from that of his predecessors, his charter was different,- reserved, short, dry, conceived in general terms, - a gift, not a bargain. And, indeed,
there seems to have been at that juncture but little
occasion to limit a power which seemed not more
than sufficient to correct all the evils of an unlimited
liberty. Henry spent the beginning of his reign in
repairing the ruins of the royal authority, and in restoring to the kingdom peace and order, along with its ancient limits; and he may well be considered as
the restorer of the English monarchy. Stephen had
sacrificed the demesne of the crown, and many of its
rights, to his subjects; and the necessity of the times
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 395
obliged both that prince and the Empress Matilda to
purchase, in their turns, the precarious friendship of
the King of Scotland by a cession of almost all the
country north of the Humber. But'Henry obliged
the King of Scotland to restore his acquisitions, and
to renew his homage. He took the same methods
with his barons. Not sparing the grants of his
mother, he resumed what had been so lavishly
squandered by both of the contending parties, who,
to establish their claims, had given away almost
everything that made them valuable. There never
was a prince in Europe who better understood the
advantages to be derived from its peculiar constitution, in which greater acquisitions of dominion are made by judicious marriages than by success in war:
for, having added to his patrimonial territories of Anjou and Normandy the Duchy of Guienne by his own marriage, the male issue of the Dukes of Brittany
failing, he took the opportunity of marrying A. . 11m.
his third son, Geoffrey, then an infant,. to
the heiress of that important province, an infant also;
and thus uniting by so strong a link his northern to
his southern dominions, he possessed in his own name,
or in those of his wife and son, all that fine and extensive country that is washed by the Atlantic Ocean, from Picardy quite to the foot of the Pyrenees.
Henry, possessed of such extensive territories, and
aiming at further acquisitions, saw with indignation
that the sovereign authority in all of them, especially
in England, had been greatly diminished. By his
resumptions he had, indeed, lessened the greatness
of several of the nobility. He had by force of arms
reduced those who forcibly held the crown lands,
and deprived them of their own estates for their
? ? ? ? 396 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
rebellion. He demolished many castles, those perpetual resources of rebellion and disorder. ,But the great aim of his policy was to break the power of
the clergy, which each of his predecessors, since Edward, had alternately strove to raise and to depress, - at first in order to gain that potent body to their
interests, and then to preserve them in subjection
to the authority which they had conferred. The
clergy had elected Stephen; they had deposed Stephen, and. elected Matilda; and in the instruments which they used on these- occasions they affirmed
in themselves a general right of electing the kings
of England. Their share both in the elevation and
depression of that prince showed that they possessed
a power inconsistent with the safety and dignity
of the state. The immunities which they enjoyed
seemed no less prejudicial to the civil economy,and the rather, as, in the confusion of Stephen's
reign, many, to protect themselves from the prevailing violence of the time, or to sanctify their own disorders, had taken refuge in the clerical character.
The Church was never so full of scandalous persons, who, being accountable only in the ecclesiastical courts, where no crime is punished with death, were
guilty of every crime. A priest had about this time
committed a murder attended with very aggravating circumstances. The king, willing at once to
restore order and to depress the clergy, laid hold
of this favorable opportunity to convoke the cause to
his own court, when the atrociousness of the crime
made all men look with an evil eye upon the claim
of any privilege which might prevent the severest
justice. The nation in general seemed but little
inclined to controvert so useful a regulation with
so potent a prince.
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF. ENGLISH HISTORY. 397.
Amidst this general acquiescence one man was
found bold enough to oppose him, who for: eight
years together embroiled all his affairs, poisoned his
satisfactions, endangered his dominions, and at length
in his death triumphed over all the power and policy
of this wise and potent monarch. This was Thomas
a-Becket, a man memorable for the great glory and
the bitter reproaches he has met with from posterity.
This person was the son of a respectable citizen of
London. He was bred to the study of the civil and
canon law, the education then used to qualify a man
for. public affairs, in which he soon made a distinguished figure. By the royal favor and his own abilities, he rose, in a rapid succession through several considerable employments, from an office under the
sheriff of London, to be High Chancellor of the kingdom. In this high post. he showed a spirit as elevated; but it was rather a military spirit than that
of the. gownman, - magnificent to excess in his living and appearance, and. distinguishing himself in
the tournaments and other martial sports of that age
with much ostentation of courage and expense. The
king, who. favored him greatly, and expected a suitable return, on the vacancy, destined Becket, yet a
layman, to the see of. Canterbury, and hoped to find
in him. a warm promoter of the_ reformation he intended. Hardly a priest, he was made the
A. D. 1162.
first prelate in the kingdom. But no sooner. .
was he invested. with the clerical character than the
whole tenor of his conduct was seen to change all at
once: of his pompous retinue a. few plain servants
only remained; a monastic temperance regulated his
table; and his life, in all respects formed to the most
rigid austerity,- seemed. to prepare him for that supe
? ? ? ? 398 ABRIDGMENT OP ENGLISH HISTORY.
riority he was resolved to assume, and the conflicts he
foresaw he must. undergo in this attempt.
It will not be unpleasing to pause a moment at this
remarkable period, ill order to view in what consisted
that greatness of the clergy, which enabled them to
bear so very considerable a sway in all public affairs,
what foundations supported the weight of so vast a
power, - whence it had its origin, -- what was the
nature, and what the ground, of the immunities they
claimed, - that we may the more fully enter into this
important controversy, and- may not judge, as some
have inconsiderately done, of the affairs of those
times by ideas taken from the present manners and
opinions.
It is sufficiently known, that the first Christians,
avoiding the Pagan tribunals, tried most even of their
civil causes before the bishop, who, though he had
no direct coercive power, yet, wielding the sword
of excommunication, had wherewithal to enforce the
execution of his judgments. Thus the bishop had
a considerable sway in temporal affairs, even before
he was owned by the temporal power. But the Emperors no sooner became Christian than, the idea of profaneness being removed from the secular tribunals, the causes of the Christian laity naturally passed to that resort where those of the generality
had been before. But the reverence for the bishop
still remained, and the remembrance of his former
jurisdiction. It was not thought decent, that he,
who had been a judge in his own court, should become a suitor in the court of another. The body of the clergy likewise, who were supposed to have
no secular concerns for which they could litigate,
and removed by their character from all suspicion
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 399
of violence, were left to be tried by their own ecclesiastical superiors. This was, with a little variation, sometimes in extending, sometimes in restraining the
bishops' jurisdiction, the condition of things whilst
the Roman Empire subsisted. But though their immunities were great and their possessions ample, yet, living under an absolute form of government, they
were powerful only by influence. No jurisdictions
were annexed to their lands; they had no place in
the senate; they were no order in the state.
From the settlement of the Northern nations the
clergy must be considered in another light. The
Barbarians gave them large landed possessions; and
by giving them land, they gave them jurisdiction,
which, according to their notions, was inseparable
from it. They made them an order in the state;
and as all the orders had their privileges, the clergy
had theirs, and were no less steady to'preserve and
ambitious to extend them. Our ancestors, having
united the Church dignities to the secular dignities
of baronies, had so blended the ecclesiastical with
the temporal power in the same persons that it
became almost impossible to separate them. The
ecclesiastical was, however, prevalent in this composition, drew to it the other, supported it, and was supported by it. But it was not the devotion only,
but the necessity of the times, that raised the clergy
to the excess of this greatness. The' little learning
which then subsisted remained wholly in their hands.
Few among the laity could even read; consequently
the clergy alone were proper for public affairs. They
were the statesmen, they were the lawyers; from
them were often taken the bailiffs of the seigneurial
courts, sometimes the sheriffs of counties, and almost
?
his title to the crown in the most plausible manner
it could bear: he alleged that he was born after his
father had acquired his kingdom, and that he was
therefore natural heir of the crown; but that his
brother was, at best, only born to the inheritance
of a dukedom. The nobility heard the claim of
this prince; but they were more generally inclined
to Robert, whose birthright, less questionable in itself, had been also confirmed by a solemn treaty.
But whilst they retired to consult,, Henry, well apprised of their dispositions, -and who therefore was
little inclined to wait the result of their debates,
threw himself entirely upon the populace. To them
he said little concerning his title, as he knew such
an audience is little moved with a discussion of
rights, but much with the spirit and manner in
which they are claimed; for which reason he began by drawing his sword, and swearing, with a
bold and determined air, to persist in his pretensions to his last breath. Then turning to the crowd,
and remitting of his severity, he began to soothe
them with the promises of a milder government than
they had experienced either beneath his brother or
his father; the Church should enjoy her immunities,
the people their liberties, the nobles their pleasures;
the forest laws should cease; the distinction of Englishman and Norman be heard no more. Next he expatiated on the grievances of the former reigns, and promised to redress them all. Lastly, he spoke of his
brother Robert, whose dissoluteness, whose inactivity, whose unsteady temper, nay, whose very virtues,
threatened nothing but ruin to any country which
he should govern. The people received this popular
harangue, delivered by a prince whose person was
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 377
full of grace and majesty, with shouts of joy and
rapture. Immediately they rush to the house where
the council is held, which they surround, and with
clamor and menaces demand Henry for their king.
The nobility were terrified by the sedition; and remembering how little present Robert had been on
a former occasion to his own interests, or to those
who defended him, they joined their voice to that
of the people, and Henry was proclaimed without
opposition. The treasure which he seized he divided amongst those that seemed wavering in his
cause; and that he might secure his new and disputed right by every method, he proceeded without
delay to London to be crowned, and to sanctify by
the solemnity of the unction the choice of the people. As the churchmen in those days were the arbiters of everything, and as no churchman possessed more credit than Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury,
who had been persecuted and banished by his brother, he recalled that prelate, and by every mark of confidence confirmed him in his interests. Two other steps he took, equally prudent and politic: he confirmed and enlarged the privileges of the city of
London, and gave to the whole kingdom a charter
of liberties, which was the first of the kind, and laid
the foundation of those successive charters which at
last completed the freedom of the subject. In fine,
he cemented the whole fabric of his power by marrying Maud, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland,
by the sister of Edgar Atheling, - thus to insure the
affection of the English, and, as he flattered himself,
to have a sure succession to his children.
The Crusade being successfully finished by the taking of Jerusalem, Robert returned into Europe. He
? ? ? ? 378 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
had acquired great reputation in that war, in,hich
he had no interest; his real and valuable rights he
prosecuted with languor. Yet such was the respect
paid to his title, and such the attraction of his personal accomplishments, that, when he had at last
taken possession of his Norman territories,
a. D. 1101.
and entered England with an army to assert his birthright, he found most of the Norman
barons, and many of the English, in readiness to
join him. But the diligence of Anselm, who employed all his credit to keep the people firm to the
oath they had taken, prevented him from profiting
of the general inclination in his favor. His friends
began to fall off by degrees, so that he was induced,
as well by the situation of his affairs as the flexibility
of his temper, to submit to a treaty on the plan of
that he had formerly entered into with his brother
Rufus.
This treaty being made, Robert returned to his
dukedom, and gave himself over to his natural indolence and dissipation. Uncured by his misA. -D. 1103.
fortunes of a loose generosity that flowed
indiscriminately on all, he mortgaged every branch of
his revenue, and almost his whole domain. His. barons, despising his indigence, and secure in the benignity of his temper, began to assume the unhappy privilege of sovereigns. They made war on each other at pleasure, and, pursuing their hostilities with the most
scandalous license, they reduced that fine country
to a deplorable condition. In vain did the people,
ruined by the tyranny an'd divisions of the great,
apply to Robert for protection: neither from his
circumstances nor his character was he able to afford them any effectual relief; whilst Henry, who
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 379
by his bribes and artifices kept alive the disorder of
which he complained and profited, formed a party in
Normandy to call him over, and to put the dukedom under his protection. Accordingly, he prepared a considerable force for the expedition, and taxed
his own subjects, arbitrarily, and without mercy, fbr
the relief he pretended to afford those of his brother.
His preparations roused Robert from his indolence,
and united likewise the greater part of his barons
to his cause, unwilling to change a master whose
only fault was his indulgence of them for the severe
vigilance of Henry. The King of France espoused
the same side; and even in England some emotions
were excited in favor of the Duke by indignation for
the wrongs he had suffered and those he was going
to suffer. Henry was alarmed, but did not renounce
his design. He was to the last degree jealous of his
prerogative; but knowing what immense resources
kings may have in popularity, he called on this occasion a great council of his barons and prelates, and there, by his arts and his eloquence, in both
which he was powerful, he persuaded the assembly
to a hearty declaration in his favor, and to a large
supply. Thus secured at home, he lost no time to
pass' over to the continent, and to bring. . 0.
tile Norman army' to a speedy engagement. They fought under the walls of Tinchebrai,
where the bravery and military genius of Robert,
never more conspicuous than on that day, were
borne down by the superior fortune and numbers
of his ambitious brother. He was made prisoner;
and notwithstanding all the tender pleas of their
common blood, in spite of his virtues, and even of
his misfortunes, which. pleaded so strongly for mercy,
? ? ? ? 380 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
the rigid conqueror held him in various prisons until
his death, which did not happen until after a rigorous confinement of eighteen, some say twenty-seven, years. This was the end of a prince born with a
thousand excellent qualities, which served no other
purpose than to confirm, from the example of his
misfortunes, that a facility of disposition and a weak
beneficence are the greatest vices that can enter into the composition of a monarch, equally ruinous to himself and to his subjects.
A. D. 1. The success of this battle put Henry in
possession of Normandy, which he held ever
after with very little disturbance. He fortified his
new acquisition by demolishing the castles of those
turbulent barons who had wasted and afterwards enslaved their country by their dissensions. Order and justice took place, until everything was reduced to
obedience; then a severe and regular oppression succeeded the former disorderly tyranny. In England things took the same course. The king no
longer doubted his fortune, and therefore
no longer respected his promises or his charter.
The forests, the savage passion of the Norman
princes, for which both the prince and people paid
so dearly, were maintained, increased, and guarded
with laws more rigorous than before. Taxes were
largely and arbitrarily assessed. But all this tyranny did not weaken, though it vexed the nation, because the great men were kept in proper subjection, and justice was steadily administered.
The politics of this remarkable reign consisted of
three branches: to redress the gross abuses which
prevailed in the civil government and the revenue,
to humble the great barons, and keep the aspiring
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 381
spirit of the clergy within proper bounds. The introduction of a new law with a new people at the
Conquest had unsettled everything: for whilst some
adhered to the Conqueror's regulations, and others
contended for those of St. Edward, neither of them
were well executed or properly obeyed. The king,
therefore, with the assistance of his justiciaries, compiled a new body of laws, in order to find a temper
between both. The coin had been miserably debased,
but it was restored by the king's vigilance, and preserved by punishments, cruel, but terrifying in their
example. There was a savageness in all the judicial proceedings of those days, that gave even justice itself the complexion of tyranny: for whilst a number of men were seen in all parts of the kingdom, some castrated, some without hands, others with
their feet cut off, and in various ways cruelly mangled, the view of a perpetual punishment blotted out
the memory of the transient crime, and government
was the more odious, which, out of a cruel and mistaken mercy, to avoid punishing with death, devised
torments far more terrible than death itself.
But nothing called for redress more than the disorders in the king's own household. It was considered as an incident annexed to their tenure, that the socage vassals of the crown, and so of all the subordinate barons, should receive their lord and all his
followers, and supply them in their progresses and
journeys, which custom continued for some ages after in Ireland, under the name of coshering. But this
indefinite and ill-contrived charge on the tenant was
easily perverted to an instrument of much oppression by thle disorders of a rude and licentious court;
insomuch that the tenants, in fear for their substance,
? ? ? ? 382 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
for the honor of their women, and often for their
lives, deserted their habitations and fled into the
woods on the king's approach. No circumstance
could be more dishonorable to a prince; but happily,
like many other great abuses, it gave rise to a great
reform, which went much further than its immediate
purposes. This disorder, which the punishment of
offenders could only palliate, was entirely taken away
by commuting personal service for a rent in money;
which regulation, passing from the king to all the inferior lords, in a short time wrought a great change
in the state of the nation. To humble the great
men, more arbitrary methods were used. The adherence to the title of Robert was a cause, or a pretence, of depriving many of their vast possessions, which were split or parcelled out amongst the king's
creatures, with great injustice to particulars, but in
the consequences with general and lasting benefit.
The king held his courts, according to the custom,
at Christmas and Easter, but he seldom kept both
festivals in the same place. He made continual progresses into all parts of his kingdom, and brought
the royal authority and person home to the doors
of his haughty barons, which kept them in strict
obedience during his long and severe reign.
His contests with the Church, concerning the right
of investiture, were more obstinate and more dangerous. As this is an affair that troubled all Europe
as well as England, and holds deservedly a principal
place in the story of those times, it will not be impertinent to trace it up to its original. In the early
times of Christianity, when religion was only drawn
from its obscurity to be persecuted, when a bishop
was only a candidate for martyrdom, neither the pro
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 383
ferment, nor the right of bestowing it, were sought
with great ambition. Bishops were then elected, and
often against their desire, by their clergy and the
people: the subordinate ecclesiastical districts were
provided for in the same manner. After the Roman
Empire became Christian, this usage, so generally established, still maintained its ground. However, in
the principal cities, the Emperor frequently exercised
the privilege of giving a sanction to the choice, and
sometimes of appointing the bishop; though, for the
most part, the popular election still prevailed. But
when the Barbarians, after destroying the Empire,
had at length. submitted their necks to the Gospel,
their kings and great men, full of zeal and gratitude
-to their instructors, endowed the Church with large
territories and great privileges. In this case it was
but natural that they should be the patrons of those
dignities and nominate to that power which arose
from their own free bounty. Hence the bishoprics
in the greatest part of Europe became in effect, whatever some few might have been in appearance, merely donative. ' And as the bishoprics formed so many seigniories, when the feudal establishment was completed, they partook of the feudal nature, so far as
they were subjects capable of it; homage and fealty
were required on the part of the spiritual vassal;
the king, on his part, gave the bishop the investiture,
or livery and seizin of his temporalities, by the delivery of a ring and staff. This was the original manler
of granting feudal property, and something like it is
still practised in our base-courts. Pope Adrian confirmed this privilege to Charlemagne by an express
grant. The clergy of that time, ignorant, but inquisitive, were very ready at finding types and mysteries
? ? ? ? 384 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
in. every ceremony: they construed the staff into an
emblem of the pastoral care, and the ring into a type
of the bishop's allegorical marriage to his church,
and therefore supposed them designed as emblems of
a jurisdiction merely spiritual. The Papal pretensions increased with the general ignorance and superstition; and the better to support these pretensions, it was necessary at once to exalt the clergy extremely,
and, by breaking off all ties between them and their
natural sovereigns, to attach them wholly to the Roman see. In pursuance of this project, the Pope first
strictly forbade the clergy to receive investitures from
laymen, or to do them homage. A council held at
Rome entirely condemned this practice; and the condemnation was the less unpopular, because the investiture gave rise to frequent and flagrant abuses, especially in England, where the sees were on this
pretence with much scandal long held inll the king's
hands, and afterwards as scandalously and publicly
sold to the highest bidder. So it had been in the last
reign, and so it continued in this.
Henry, though vigorously attacked, with great res:
olution maintained the rights of his crown with regard to investitures, whilst he saw the Emperor, who
claimed a right of investing the Pope himself, subdued by the thunder of the Vatican. His chief
opposition was within his own kingdom. Anselm,
Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of unblamable life,
and of learning for his time, but blindly attached to
the rights of the Church, real or supposed, refused to
consecrate those who received investitures from tie
king. The parties appealed to Rome. Rome, unwilling either to recede from her pretensions or to
provoke a powerful monarch, gives a dubious an
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 385
swer. . Meanwhile the contest grows hotter. Anselm
is obliged to quit the kingdom, but is still inflexible.
At last, the king, who, from the delicate situation of
his affairs in the beginning of his reign, had been
obliged to temporize for a long time, by his usual
prudent mixture of management with force obliged
the Pope to a temperament which seemed extremely
judicious. The king received homage and fealty
from his vassal; the investiture, as it was generally
understood to relate to spiritual jurisdiction, was
given up, and on this equal bottom peace was established. The secret of the Pope's moderation was this:.
he was at that juncture close pressed by the Emperor,
and it might be highly dangerous to contend with two
such enemies at once; and he'was much more ready
to yield to Henry, who had no reciprocal demands on
him,: than to the Emperor, who had many and just
ones, and to whom he could not yield any one point
without' giving up an infinite number of others very
material and interesting.
As the king extricated himself happily from so
great an affair, so all the other difficulties of his
reign only exercised, without endangering him. The
efforts of France in favor of the son of Robert were
late, desultory, and therefore unsuccessful. That
youth, endued with equal virtue and more prudence
than his father, after exerting many useless acts of
unfortunate bravery, fell in battle, and freed Henry'from all disturbance on the side of France. The incursions of the Welsh in this reign only gave him all opportunity of confining that people within narrower
bounds. At home he was well obeyed by his subjects;
abroad he dignified his family by splendid alliances.
His daughter Matilda he married to the Emperor. .
VOL. VII. 25
? ? ? ? 386 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
But his private fortunes did not flow with so even a
course as his public affairs. His only son,
William, with a natural daughter, and many
of the flower of the young nobility, perished at sea
between Normandy and England. From that fatal
accident the king was never seen to smile. He
sought in vain from a second marriage to provide a
A. D. 1127. male successor; but when he saw all prospect of this at an end, he called a great
council of his barons and prelates. His daughter
Matilda, after the decease of the Emperor, he had
given in marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of
Anjou. As she was his only remaining issue, he
caused her to be acknowledged as his successor by
the great council; he enforced this acknowledgment
by solemn oaths of fealty, --a sanction which he
weakened rather than confirmed by frequent repetition: vainly imagining that on his death any ties would bind to the respect of a succession so little respected by himself, and by the violation of which he had procured his crown. Having taken these measures in favor of his daughter, he died in Normandy, but in a good old age, and in the thirty-sixth year of
a prosperous reign.
CHAPTER V.
REIGN OF STEPHEN.
ALTHOUGH the authority of the crown had
a. D. 1136.
been exercised with very little restraint during the three preceding reigns, the succession to it,
or even the principles of the succession, were but ill
ascertained: so that a doulbt might justly have arisen,
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 387
whether the crown was not in a great measure elective. This uncertainty exposed the nation, at the
death of every king, to all the calamities of a civil
war; but it was a circumstance favorable to the designs of Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, who was son of
Stephen, Earl of Blois, by a daughter of the Conqueror. The late king had raised him to great employments, and enriched'him by the grant of several
lordships. His brother had been made Bishop of
Winchester; and by adding to it the place of his
chief justiciary, the king gave him an opportunity of
becoming one of the richest subjects in Europe, and
of extending an unlimited influence over the clergy
and the people. Henry trusted, by the promotion of
two persons so near him in blood, and so bound by
benefits, that he had formed an impenetrable fence
about the succession; but he only inspired into Stephen the design of seizing on the crown by bringing him so near it. The opportunity was favorable. The king died abroad. ; Matilda was absent with her husband; and the Bishop of Winchester,
by his universal credit, disposed the churchmen to
elect his brother, with the concurrence of the greatest part of the nobility, who forgot their oaths, and
vainly hoped. that a bad title would necessarily produce a good government. Stephen, in the flower
of youth, bold, active, and courageous, full of generosity and a noble affability, that seemed to reproach
the state and avarice of the preceding kings, was not
wanting to his fortune. He seized immediately the
immense treasures of Henry, and by distributing
them with a judicious profusion removed all doubts
concerning his title to them. He did hot spare even
the royal demesne, but secured himself a vast number
? ? ? ? 888 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
of adherents by involving their guilt and interest in
his own. He raised a considerable army of Flemings, in order to strengthen himself against another
turn of the same instability which had raised him to
the throne; and, in imitation of the measures of the
late king, he concluded all by giving a charter of liberties as ample as the people at that time aspired to.
This charter contained a renunciation of the forests
made by his predecessor, a'grant to the ecclesiastics
of a jurisdiction over their own vassals, and to the
people in general an immunity from unjust tallages
and exactions. It is remarkable, that the oath of allegiance taken by the nobility on this occasion was
conditional: it was to be observed so long as the king
observed the terms of his charter,- a condition which
added no real security to the rights of the subject,
but which proved a fruitful source of dissension, tumult, and civil violence.
The measures which the king hitherto pursued
were dictated by sound policy; but he took another
step to secure his throne, which in fact took away allits security, and at the same time brought the country to extreme misery, and to the brink of utter ruin. At the Conquest there were very few fortifications
in the kingdom. William:found it necessary for his
security to erect several. During the struggles of the
English, the Norman nobility were permitted (as in
reason it could rot be refused) to fortify their own
houses. It was, however, still understood that no
new fortress could be erected without the king's special license. These private castles began very early
to embarrass the government. The royal castles were
scarcely less troublesome: for, as everything was then
in tenure, the governor held his place by the tenure
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF- ENGLISH HISTORY. 389
of castle-guard; and thus, instead of a simple officer,
subject to his pleasure, the king had to deal with a
feudal tenant, secure against him by law, if he performed his services, and by force, if he was unwilling to perform them. Every resolution of government required a sort of civil war to put it in execution. The two last kings had taken and demolished several of
these castles; but when they found the reduction of
any of them difficult, their custom frequently was, to
erect another close by it, tower against tower, ditch
against ditch: these were called Malvoisins, from
their purpose and situation. Thus, instead of removing, they in fact doubled the mischief. Stephen, perceiving the passion of the barons for these castles, among other popular acts in the beginning of his reign, gave a general license for erecting them. Then
was seen to arise in every corner of the kingdom, in
every petty seigniory, an inconceivable multitude of
strongholds, the seats of violence, and the receptacles
of murderers, felons, debasers of the coin, and all
manner of desperate and abandoned villains. Eleven
hundred and fifteen of these: castles were built in this
single reign. The barons, having thus shut out the.
law, made continual inroads upon each other, and
spread war, rapine, burning, and desolation throughout the whole kingdom. . They infested the high-: roads,- and put a stop to all trade by plundering the
merchants and travellers. :. Those who dwelt in the
open country they forced into their castles, and after
pillaging them of all their visible substance, these tyrants held them in dungeons, and tortured them with a thousand cruel inventions to extort a discovery of
their hidden wealth. The lamentable representation
given by history of those barbarous times justifies the:
? ? ? ? 390 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
pictures in the old romances of the castles of giants
and magicians. A great part of Europe was in the
same deplorable condition. It was then that some
gallant spirits, struck with a generous indignation at
the tyranny of these miscreants, blessed solemnly by
the bishop, and followed by the praises and vows of
the people, sallied forth to vindicate the chastity of
women and to redress the wrongs of travellers and
peaceable men. The adventurous humor inspired by
the Crusade heightened and extended this spirit; and
thus the idea of knight-errantry was formed.
A. D. 1138 Stephen felt personally these inconveniences; but because the evil was too stubborn to be redressed at once, he resolved to proceed gradually, and to begin with the castles of the bishops, - as they evidently held them, not only against
the interests of the crown, but against the canons
of the Church. From the nobles he expected no
opposition to this design: they beheld With envy the
pride of these ecclesiastical fortresses, whose battlements seemed to insult the poverty of the lay barons.
This disposition, and a want of unanimity among the
clergy themselves, enabled Stephen to succeed in his
attempt against the Bishop of Salisbury, one of the
first whom he attacked, and whose castles, from their
strength and situation, were of the greatest importance. But the affairs of this prince were so circumstanced that he could pursue no council that was not dangerous. His breach with the clergy let in the party of his rival, Matilda. This party was supported by
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son to the late king,
-a man powerful by his vast possessions, but more
formidable through his popularity, and the courage and
abilities by which he had acquired it. Several other
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 391
circumstances weakened the cause of Stephen. The
charter, and the other favorable acts, the scaffolding
of his ambitioni, when he saw the structure raised, he
threw down and contemned. In order to maintain
his troops, as well as to attach men to his cause,
where no principle bound them, vast and continual
largesses became necessary: all his legal revenue had
been dissipated; and he was therefore obliged to
have recourse to such methods of raising money as
were evidently illegal. These causes every day gave
some accession of strength to the party against him;
the friends of Matilda were encouraged to. 113
appear in arms; a civil war ensued, long
and bloody, prosecuted as chance or a blind rage directed, by mutual acts of cruelty and treachery, by
frequent surprisals and assaults of castles, and by a
number of battles and skirmishes fought to no determinate end, and in which nothing of the military
art appeared, but the destruction which it caused.
Various, on this occasion, were the reverses of fortune, while Stephen, though embarrassed by the weakness of his title, by the scantiness of his finances, and all the disorders which arose from both, supported
his tottering throne with wonderful activity and courage; but being at length defeated and made
prisoner under the walls of Lincoln, the
clergy openly declare for Matilda. The city of London, though unwillingly, follows the example of the
clergy. The defection from Stephen was growing universal.
But Matilda, puffed up with a greatness which as
yet had no solid foundation and stood merely in personal favor, shook it in the minds of all men by assuming, together with the insolence of conquest, the
? ? ? ? 892 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
haughty rigor of an established dominion. Her title
appeared but too good in the resemblance she bore
to the pride of the former kings. This made the first
illsuccess in her affairs fatal. Her great support,
the Earl of Gloucester, was in his turn made prisoner. In exchange for his liberty that of Stephen
was procured, who renewed the war with his usual
vigor. As he apprehended an attempt from Scotland in favor of Matilda, descended from the blood
royal of that nation, to balance this weight, he persuaded the King of France to declare in his favor,
alarmed as he was by the progress of Henry, the
son of Matilda, and Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. This
prince, no more than sixteen years of age, after receiving knighthood from David, King of Scotland,
began to display a courage and capacity destined to
the greatest things. Of a complexion which strongly
inclined to pleasure, he listened to nothing but, ambition; at an age which is usually given up to passion, he submitted delicacy to politics, and even in
his marriage only remembered the interests of a sovereign, - for, without examining too scrupulously into her character, he married Eleanor, the heiress of Guienne,'though divorced from her husband for her
supposed gallantries in the -Holy Land. He made use
of the accession of power which he acquired by this
match to assert his birthright to Normandy. This
he did with great success, because he was favored by
the general inclination of the people for the blood of
their ancient lords. Flushed with this prosperous
beginning, he aspired to greater things;;he obliged
the King of France to submit to a. truce; and then
he turned his arms to support the rights of his family
in England, from whence Matilda retired, unequal-to
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 393
the troublesome part she had long acted. Worn out
with age, and the clashing of furious factions, she
shut herself up in a monastery, and left to:her son the
succession of a civil war. . Stephen was now pressed
with renewed vigor. Henry had rather the advantage in the field; Stephen had the possession of the government. Their fortunes appearing nearly balallced, and the fuel of dissension being consumed by
a continual and bloody war of thirteen years, an
accommodation was proposed and accepted. Henry
found it dangerous to refuse his consent, as the bishops and barons, even of his own party, dreaded the consequences, if a prince, in the prime of an ambitious youth, should establish an hereditary title by
the force of foreign arms. This treaty, A. D1153.
signed at Wallingford, left the possession
of the crown for his life to Stephen, but secured
the succession to Henry, whom that prince adopted.
The castles erected in this reign were to be demolished; the exorbitant grants of the royal demesne to
be resumed. To the son of Stephen all his private
possessions were secured.
Thus ended this tedious and ruinous civil war.
Stephen survived it near two years; and now, finding himself more secure as the lawful tenant than he had been as the usurping proprietor of the crown, he
no longer governed on the maxims of necessity. He
made no new attempts in favor of his family, but
spent the remainder of his. reign in correcting the
disorders which arose from his steps in its commencement, and in healing the wounds of so long and cruel a war. Thus he left the kingdom in peace to his
successor, but his character, as it is usual where
party is concerned, greatly disputed. Wherever
? ? ? ? 394 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
his natural dispositions had room to exert themselves, they appeared virtuous and princely; but
the lust to reign, which often attends great virtues,
was fatal to his, frequently hid them, and always rendered them suspected.
CHAPTER VI.
REIGN OF HENRY II.
THE death of Stephen left an undisputed
succession for the first time since the death
of Edward the Confessor. Henry, descended equally
from the Norman Conqueror and the old English
kings, adopted by Stephen, acknowledged by the
barons, united in himself every kind of title. It
was grown into a custom for the king to grant a
charter of liberties on his accession to the crown.
Henry also granted a charter of that kind, confirming that of his grandfather; but as his situation was very different from that of his predecessors, his charter was different,- reserved, short, dry, conceived in general terms, - a gift, not a bargain. And, indeed,
there seems to have been at that juncture but little
occasion to limit a power which seemed not more
than sufficient to correct all the evils of an unlimited
liberty. Henry spent the beginning of his reign in
repairing the ruins of the royal authority, and in restoring to the kingdom peace and order, along with its ancient limits; and he may well be considered as
the restorer of the English monarchy. Stephen had
sacrificed the demesne of the crown, and many of its
rights, to his subjects; and the necessity of the times
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 395
obliged both that prince and the Empress Matilda to
purchase, in their turns, the precarious friendship of
the King of Scotland by a cession of almost all the
country north of the Humber. But'Henry obliged
the King of Scotland to restore his acquisitions, and
to renew his homage. He took the same methods
with his barons. Not sparing the grants of his
mother, he resumed what had been so lavishly
squandered by both of the contending parties, who,
to establish their claims, had given away almost
everything that made them valuable. There never
was a prince in Europe who better understood the
advantages to be derived from its peculiar constitution, in which greater acquisitions of dominion are made by judicious marriages than by success in war:
for, having added to his patrimonial territories of Anjou and Normandy the Duchy of Guienne by his own marriage, the male issue of the Dukes of Brittany
failing, he took the opportunity of marrying A. . 11m.
his third son, Geoffrey, then an infant,. to
the heiress of that important province, an infant also;
and thus uniting by so strong a link his northern to
his southern dominions, he possessed in his own name,
or in those of his wife and son, all that fine and extensive country that is washed by the Atlantic Ocean, from Picardy quite to the foot of the Pyrenees.
Henry, possessed of such extensive territories, and
aiming at further acquisitions, saw with indignation
that the sovereign authority in all of them, especially
in England, had been greatly diminished. By his
resumptions he had, indeed, lessened the greatness
of several of the nobility. He had by force of arms
reduced those who forcibly held the crown lands,
and deprived them of their own estates for their
? ? ? ? 396 ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.
rebellion. He demolished many castles, those perpetual resources of rebellion and disorder. ,But the great aim of his policy was to break the power of
the clergy, which each of his predecessors, since Edward, had alternately strove to raise and to depress, - at first in order to gain that potent body to their
interests, and then to preserve them in subjection
to the authority which they had conferred. The
clergy had elected Stephen; they had deposed Stephen, and. elected Matilda; and in the instruments which they used on these- occasions they affirmed
in themselves a general right of electing the kings
of England. Their share both in the elevation and
depression of that prince showed that they possessed
a power inconsistent with the safety and dignity
of the state. The immunities which they enjoyed
seemed no less prejudicial to the civil economy,and the rather, as, in the confusion of Stephen's
reign, many, to protect themselves from the prevailing violence of the time, or to sanctify their own disorders, had taken refuge in the clerical character.
The Church was never so full of scandalous persons, who, being accountable only in the ecclesiastical courts, where no crime is punished with death, were
guilty of every crime. A priest had about this time
committed a murder attended with very aggravating circumstances. The king, willing at once to
restore order and to depress the clergy, laid hold
of this favorable opportunity to convoke the cause to
his own court, when the atrociousness of the crime
made all men look with an evil eye upon the claim
of any privilege which might prevent the severest
justice. The nation in general seemed but little
inclined to controvert so useful a regulation with
so potent a prince.
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF. ENGLISH HISTORY. 397.
Amidst this general acquiescence one man was
found bold enough to oppose him, who for: eight
years together embroiled all his affairs, poisoned his
satisfactions, endangered his dominions, and at length
in his death triumphed over all the power and policy
of this wise and potent monarch. This was Thomas
a-Becket, a man memorable for the great glory and
the bitter reproaches he has met with from posterity.
This person was the son of a respectable citizen of
London. He was bred to the study of the civil and
canon law, the education then used to qualify a man
for. public affairs, in which he soon made a distinguished figure. By the royal favor and his own abilities, he rose, in a rapid succession through several considerable employments, from an office under the
sheriff of London, to be High Chancellor of the kingdom. In this high post. he showed a spirit as elevated; but it was rather a military spirit than that
of the. gownman, - magnificent to excess in his living and appearance, and. distinguishing himself in
the tournaments and other martial sports of that age
with much ostentation of courage and expense. The
king, who. favored him greatly, and expected a suitable return, on the vacancy, destined Becket, yet a
layman, to the see of. Canterbury, and hoped to find
in him. a warm promoter of the_ reformation he intended. Hardly a priest, he was made the
A. D. 1162.
first prelate in the kingdom. But no sooner. .
was he invested. with the clerical character than the
whole tenor of his conduct was seen to change all at
once: of his pompous retinue a. few plain servants
only remained; a monastic temperance regulated his
table; and his life, in all respects formed to the most
rigid austerity,- seemed. to prepare him for that supe
? ? ? ? 398 ABRIDGMENT OP ENGLISH HISTORY.
riority he was resolved to assume, and the conflicts he
foresaw he must. undergo in this attempt.
It will not be unpleasing to pause a moment at this
remarkable period, ill order to view in what consisted
that greatness of the clergy, which enabled them to
bear so very considerable a sway in all public affairs,
what foundations supported the weight of so vast a
power, - whence it had its origin, -- what was the
nature, and what the ground, of the immunities they
claimed, - that we may the more fully enter into this
important controversy, and- may not judge, as some
have inconsiderately done, of the affairs of those
times by ideas taken from the present manners and
opinions.
It is sufficiently known, that the first Christians,
avoiding the Pagan tribunals, tried most even of their
civil causes before the bishop, who, though he had
no direct coercive power, yet, wielding the sword
of excommunication, had wherewithal to enforce the
execution of his judgments. Thus the bishop had
a considerable sway in temporal affairs, even before
he was owned by the temporal power. But the Emperors no sooner became Christian than, the idea of profaneness being removed from the secular tribunals, the causes of the Christian laity naturally passed to that resort where those of the generality
had been before. But the reverence for the bishop
still remained, and the remembrance of his former
jurisdiction. It was not thought decent, that he,
who had been a judge in his own court, should become a suitor in the court of another. The body of the clergy likewise, who were supposed to have
no secular concerns for which they could litigate,
and removed by their character from all suspicion
? ? ? ? ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 399
of violence, were left to be tried by their own ecclesiastical superiors. This was, with a little variation, sometimes in extending, sometimes in restraining the
bishops' jurisdiction, the condition of things whilst
the Roman Empire subsisted. But though their immunities were great and their possessions ample, yet, living under an absolute form of government, they
were powerful only by influence. No jurisdictions
were annexed to their lands; they had no place in
the senate; they were no order in the state.
From the settlement of the Northern nations the
clergy must be considered in another light. The
Barbarians gave them large landed possessions; and
by giving them land, they gave them jurisdiction,
which, according to their notions, was inseparable
from it. They made them an order in the state;
and as all the orders had their privileges, the clergy
had theirs, and were no less steady to'preserve and
ambitious to extend them. Our ancestors, having
united the Church dignities to the secular dignities
of baronies, had so blended the ecclesiastical with
the temporal power in the same persons that it
became almost impossible to separate them. The
ecclesiastical was, however, prevalent in this composition, drew to it the other, supported it, and was supported by it. But it was not the devotion only,
but the necessity of the times, that raised the clergy
to the excess of this greatness. The' little learning
which then subsisted remained wholly in their hands.
Few among the laity could even read; consequently
the clergy alone were proper for public affairs. They
were the statesmen, they were the lawyers; from
them were often taken the bailiffs of the seigneurial
courts, sometimes the sheriffs of counties, and almost
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