The Accession of Henry I. 1100

Battle of Tinchebrai 1106

Death of Henry I. and Accession of Stephen 1135

The Civil War 1139

Treaty of Wallingford 1153

Death of Stephen 1154

Henry I. and his queen Matilda.

(From the west front of Rochester Cathedral.)

1. The Accession of Henry I. 1100.—When the news spread that the Red King had been slain in the New Forest, his younger brother, Henry, hastened to Winchester, where he was chosen king by the barons who happened to be there. At his coronation at Westminster he swore to undo all the evil of his brother's reign. The name by which he came to be known—the Lion of Justice—shows how well he kept his promise. He maintained order as his father had done, and his brother had not done. Flambard, the wicked minister of the Red King, was imprisoned in the Tower, and Anselm, the good archbishop, recalled to England. Henry's chief strength lay in the support of the English. To please them he married Eadgyth, the daughter of Malcolm and Margaret, the descendant through her mother of the old English kings. Through Eadgyth the blood of Alfred and Ecgberht was transmitted to the later kings. It was, however, necessary that she should take another name. Every one at Henry's court talked French, and 'Eadgyth' was unpronounceable in French. The new queen was therefore known as Matilda, or Maud. The English called her the good queen. The Normans mocked her husband and herself by giving them the English nicknames of Godric and Godgifu.

2. Invasion of Robert. 1101.—One danger at least Henry had to face. The Norman barons yearned after the weak rule of Robert, who was again in possession of Normandy. Once, we are told, he had to stay in bed till noon, because his favourites had carried off his clothes, and he had no others to put on. A duke who could not keep his own clothes was not likely to be able to rule his duchy, and Normandy was again the scene of fightings and plunderings which he made no effort to suppress. Flambard, having escaped from prison, fled to Normandy, and urged Robert to claim England as the heritage of the eldest son of the Conqueror. Robert listened to the tempter and sailed for England. When he landed at Porchester he found that the Church and the English had rallied to Henry. Robert's position was hopeless, and he made a treaty with his brother, abandoning all claim to the crown.

3. Revolt of Robert of Bellême. 1102.—Henry knew that the great barons wished well to Robert, and on one pretext or another he stripped most of them of power. Robert of Bellême, the strongest and wickedest of them all, rose in revolt. After capturing many of his castles, Henry laid siege to his great fortress at Bridgenorth. The barons who served under Henry urged him to spare a rebel who was one of their own class. The Englishmen and the inferior Norman knights thought otherwise. "Lord King Henry," they cried, "trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice.... Behold, we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to serve and help you in all things. Attack the castle vigorously; shut in the traitor on all sides, and make no peace with him till you have him alive or dead in your hands." Bridgenorth was taken, and Robert of Bellême, having been stripped of his English land, was sent off to Normandy. Henry was now, in very truth, king of the English. "Rejoice, King Henry," ran a popular song, "and give thanks to the Lord God, because thou art a free king since thou hast overthrown Robert of Bellême, and hast driven him from the borders of thy kingdom." Never again during Henry's reign did the great Norman lords dare to lift hand against him.

4. The Battle of Tinchebrai. 1106.—It was impossible for Henry to avoid interference in Normandy. Many of his vassals in England possessed lands in Normandy as well, where they were exposed to the violence of Robert of Bellême and of others who had been expelled from England. The Duke of the Normans would do nothing to keep the peace, and Henry crossed the sea to protect his own injured subjects. Duke Robert naturally resisted him, and at last, in 1106, a great battle was fought at Tinchebrai, in which Robert was utterly defeated. Duke Robert was kept for the remainder of his life a prisoner in Cardiff Castle, where he died after an imprisonment of twenty-eight years. Henry became Duke of the Normans as well as king of the English, and all Normandy was the better for the change. Robert of Bellême was thrown into prison, and the cruel oppressor thus shared the fate of the weak ruler whose remissness had made his oppressions possible.

Seal of Milo of Gloucester, showing mounted armed figure in the reign of Henry I.

5. Henry and Anselm. 1100—1107.—Though Anselm had done everything in his power to support Henry against Robert of Bellême, he was himself engaged in a dispute with the king which lasted for some years. A bishop in Anselm's time was not only a great Church officer, whose duty it was to maintain a high standard of religion and morality amongst the clergy. He was also one of the king's barons, because he was possessed of large estates, and was therefore bound like any other baron to send knights to the king when they were needed. Consequently, when Anselm became archbishop he had not only received investiture from William II. by accepting from him the ring and the staff which were the signs of ecclesiastical authority, but also did homage, thus acknowledging himself to be the king's man, and obliging himself, not indeed to fight for him in person, but to send knights to fight under his orders. When, however, Henry came to the throne, and asked Anselm to repeat the homage which he had done to William, Anselm not only refused himself to comply with the king's request, but also refused to consecrate newly-chosen bishops who had received investiture from Henry. During the time of his exile Anselm had taken part in a council of the Church, in which bishops and abbots had been forbidden by the Pope and the council either to receive investiture from laymen or to do homage to them. These decrees had not been issued merely to serve the purpose of papal ambition. At that time all zealous ecclesiastics thought that the only way to stop the violence of kings in their dealings with the Church was to make the Church entirely independent. Anselm's experience of the Red King's wickedness must have made him ready to concur with this new view, and there can be no doubt that it was from the most conscientious motives that he refused to do homage to Henry. On the other hand, Henry, wishing to rule justly, thought it very hard that the archbishop should insist upon the independence of the bishops, especially as in consequence of their large estates they had so many knights to send into the field. Though the dispute was a hot one, it was carried on without any of the violence which had characterised the dispute between Anselm and the Red King, and it ended in a compromise. Henry abandoned all claim to give the ring and the pastoral staff which were the signs of a bishop's or an abbot's spiritual jurisdiction, whilst Anselm consented to allow the new bishop or abbot to render the homage which was the sign of his readiness to employ all his temporal wealth and power on the king's behalf. The bishop was to be chosen by the chapter of his cathedral, the abbot by the monks of his abbey, but the election was to take place in the king's presence, thus giving him influence over their choice. Whether this settlement would work in favour of the king or the clergy depended on the character of the kings and the clergy. If the kings were as riotous as the Red King and the clergy as self-denying as Anselm, the clergy would grow strong in spite of these arrangements. If the kings were as just and wise as Henry, and the clergy as wicked as Ralph Flambard, all advantage would be on the side of the king.

Monument of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury (died 1139), in his cathedral church.

6. Roger of Salisbury.—After the defeat of the Norman barons the Great Council ceased for a time to have any important influence on the government. Henry was practically an absolute king, and it was well that he should be so, as the country wanted order more than discussion. Henry, however, loved to exercise absolute power in an orderly way, and he chose for his chief minister Roger, whom he made Bishop of Salisbury. Roger had first attracted his notice when he was going out hunting, by saying mass in a shorter time than any other priest, but he retained his favour by the order and system which he introduced into the government. A special body of officials and councillors was selected by the king—perhaps a similar body had been selected by his predecessor—to sit in judgment over cases in which tenants-in-chief were concerned, as well as over other cases which were, for one reason or another, transferred to it from the Baronial Courts. This council or committee was called the Curia Regis (the King's Court). The members of this Curia Regis met also in the Exchequer, so called from the chequered cloth which covered the table at which they sat. They were then known as Barons of the Exchequer, and controlled the receipts and outgoings of the treasury. The Justiciar presided in both the Curia Regis and the Exchequer. Amongst those who took part in these proceedings was the Chancellor, who was then a secretary and not a judge, as well as other superior officers of the king. A regular system of finance was introduced, and a regular system of justice accompanied it. At last the king determined to send some of the judges of his court to go on circuit into distant parts of the kingdom. These itinerant Justices (Justitiarii errantes) brought the royal power into connection with the local courts. Their business was of a very miscellaneous character. They not only heard the cases in which the king was concerned—the pleas of the crown, as they were called—but they made assessments for purposes of taxation, listened to complaints, and conveyed the king's wishes to his people.

7. Growth of Trade.—Though Henry's severe discipline was not liked, yet the law and order which he maintained told on the prosperity of the country, and the trade of London flourished so much as to attract citizens from Normandy to settle in it. Flemings too, trained in habits of industry, came in crowds, and with the view of providing a bulwark against the Welsh, Henry settled a colony of them in South Pembrokeshire, which has since been known as Little England beyond Wales. The foreigners were not popular, but the Jews, to whom Henry continued the protection which William had given them, were more unpopular still.

Porchester Church, Hampshire. Built about 1135.

8. The Benedictines.—In the midst of this busy life the Benedictine monasteries were still harbours of refuge for all who did not care to fight or trade. They were now indeed wealthier than they had once been, as gifts, usually of land, had been made to the monks by those who reverenced their piety. Sometimes these gifts took a shape which afterwards caused no little evil. Landowners who had churches on their lands often gave to a monastery the tithes which had hitherto been paid for the support of the parish priest, and the monastery stepped into the place of the parish priest, sending a vicar to act for it in the performance of its new duties. As the monks themselves grew richer they grew less ascetic. Their life, however, was not spent in idleness. They cared for the poor, kept a school for the children, and managed their own property. Some of their number studied and wrote, and our knowledge of the history of these times is mainly owing to monastic writers. When Henry I. came to the throne the Chronicle was still being written in the English tongue by the monks of Worcester, and for some years after his death was still carried on at Peterborough. The best historical compositions were, however, in Latin, the language understood by the clergy over all Western Europe. Amongst the authors of these Latin works, the foremost was William of Malmesbury.

9. The Cistercians.—Useful as the Benedictines were, there were some monks who complained that the extreme self-denial of their founder, St. Benedict, was no longer to be met with, and the complainants had lately originated a new order, called the Cistercian, from Cîteaux, in Burgundy, the site of their first abbey. The Cistercians made their appearance in England in 1128. Their buildings and churches were simpler than those of the Benedictines, and their life more austere. They refused to receive gifts of tithes lest they should impoverish the parish clergy. They loved to make their homes in solitary places far from the haunts of men, and some of the most beautiful of the abbeys which remain in ruins—those, for instance, of Fountains and Tintern—were Cistercian abbeys. They are beautiful, not because the Cistercians loved pleasant places, but because they loved solitude, whilst the Benedictines had either planted themselves in towns or had allowed towns to grow up round their monasteries.

Part of the nave of Durham Cathedral.

Built about 1130.

10. The White Ship.—Henry, in consequence of the possession of Normandy, had been frequently involved in war with France. Robert's son, William Clito, claimed Normandy, and his claim was supported by Louis VI. the Fat, who was styled king of France, though the territory which he actually ruled was no larger than Normandy. In these wars Henry was usually successful, and at last, in 1127, William was killed, and Henry freed from danger. His own son, also named William, had already been drowned on the voyage between Normandy and England in 1120. The ship in which he sailed ran upon a rock, and the young man was placed in a boat, and might have escaped if he had not returned to save his half-sister, the Countess of Perche, who was still on board. As soon as he approached the sailors and passengers crowded into the boat and swamped it. Only one man, a butcher, was saved, by clinging to the mast of the ship when it sank. The captain, who was with him on the mast, threw himself off as soon as he learned that the king's son had been drowned, and perished in the water. It is said that no man dared to tell Henry that his son was drowned, and that at last a little child was sent to inform him of his misfortune.

11. The Last Years of Henry I.—Henry had many illegitimate children, but after William's death the only lawful child left to him was Matilda. She had been married as a child to the Emperor Henry V., but her husband had died before she was grown up, and she then returned to her father, as the Empress Matilda. There had never been a queen in England, and it would have been very hard for a woman to rule in those times of constant war and bloodshed. Yet Henry persuaded the barons to swear to accept her as their future sovereign. He then married her to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, who came of a brave and active race, and whose lands, which lay to the south of Normandy, would enlarge the French possessions of Henry's descendants. In 1135 Henry died. The great merit of his English government was that he forsook his brother's evil ways of violence, and maintained peace by erecting a regular administrative system, which kept down the outrages of the barons. One of the English chroniclers in recording his death prayed that God might give him the peace that he loved.⁹

Keep of Rochester Castle. Built between 1126 and 1139.

12. Stephen's Accession. 1135.—Among the barons who had sworn to obey Matilda was Stephen of Blois, a son of the Conqueror's daughter Adela, and a nephew of Henry I. As soon as Henry's death was known Stephen made his way to London, where he was joyfully received as king. The London citizens felt that their chief interest lay in the maintenance of peace, and they thought that a man would be more likely than a woman to secure order. The barons chose Stephen king at Winchester, where his brother, Henry of Blois, was the bishop. Shortly afterwards some of these very barons rose against him, but their insurrection was soon repressed. More formidable was the hostility of David, king of the Scots. David was closely connected with the family of Henry I., his sister having been Henry's wife, the Empress Matilda being consequently his niece. He also held in right of his own wife the earldom of Huntingdon. Under the pretext of taking up Matilda's cause he broke into the north of England. Though he himself carried on the work of introducing English civilisation into Scotland, his Celtic followers were still savage, and massacred women and infants. In 1137 Stephen drove David back. In 1138 David reappeared, and this time the aged Thurstan, Archbishop of York, sent the levies of the North against him. In the midst of the English army was a cart bearing a standard, at the top of which the banners of the three great churches of St. Peter's of York, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, waved round the consecrated Host. The battle which ensued, near Northallerton, has consequently been known as the battle of the Standard. The Scots were completely defeated, but Stephen, in spite of the victory gained for him, found himself obliged to buy peace at a heavy price. He agreed that David's son, Henry, should hold Northumberland, with the exception of the fortresses of Bamborough and of Newcastle, as a fief of the English Crown. David himself was also allowed to keep Cumberland without doing homage.

Keep of Castle Rising. Built about 1140-50.

13. Civil War.—It would have been well for Stephen if he had learnt from the men of the North that his strength lay in rallying the English people round him against the great barons, as the Red King and Henry I. had done when their right to the crown had been challenged by Robert. Instead of this, he brought over mercenaries from Flanders, and squandered treasure and lands upon his favourites so as to have little left for the hour of need. He made friends easily, but he made enemies no less easily. One of the most powerful of the barons was Robert, Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I., who held the strong fortress of Bristol, and whose power extended over both sides of the lower course of the Severn. In 1138 Stephen, who distrusted him, ordered his castles to be seized. Robert at once declared his half-sister Matilda to be the lawful queen, and a terrible civil war began. Robert's garrison at Bristol was a terror to all the country round. He, too, gathered foreign mercenaries, who knew not what pity was. Other barons imitated Robert's example, fighting only for themselves whether they nominally took the part of Stephen or of Matilda, and the southern and midland counties of England were preyed upon by the garrisons of their castles.

14. Stephen's Quarrel with the Clergy. 1139.—Evil as were the men who fought on either side, it was to Stephen and not to Matilda and Robert that men as yet looked to restore order. The port towns, London, Yarmouth, and Lynn, clung to him to the last. Unfortunately Stephen did not know how to make good use of his advantages. The clergy, like the traders, had always been in favour of order. Some of them, with the Justiciar, Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, at their head, had organised the Exchequer of Henry I., had gathered in the payments due to the Crown, or had acted as judges. Yet with all their zeal in the service of the Crown, they had not omitted to provide for their own interests. Roger in particular had been insatiable in the pursuit of wealth for himself and of promotion for his family. One of his nephews, Nigel, Bishop of Ely, was Treasurer, whilst another, Alexander, was Bishop of Lincoln, and his own illegitimate son, Roger, was Chancellor. In 1139 Stephen, rightly or wrongly, threw him into prison with his son and Alexander of Lincoln. The other nephew, Nigel, escaped to his uncle's castle at Devizes, in which was the younger Roger's mother, Matilda of Ramsbury. Stephen brought her son before the castle, and put a rope round his neck to hang him unless the castle was surrendered. The unhappy mother could not bear the sight, and opened the gates to Stephen. It might have been wise to deprive a too ambitious bishop of his castle, but it was not wise personally to maltreat the clergy. Every priest in England turned against Stephen. His own brother, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, declared against him, and Stephen was obliged to do penance for his offence. The administration of the Exchequer was shattered, and though it was not altogether destroyed, and money was brought to it for the king's use even in the worst times, Stephen's financial resources were from henceforth sadly diminished.

15. Anarchy. 1139.—The war now lapsed into sheer anarchy. The barons on either side broke loose from all restraint. "They fought amongst themselves with deadly hatred; they spoiled the fairest lands with fire and rapine; in what had been the most fertile of counties they destroyed almost all the provision of bread." All goods and money they carried off, and if they suspected any man to have concealed treasure they tortured him to oblige him to confess where it was. "They hanged up men by the feet and smoked them with foul smoke; some were hanged up by their thumbs, others by their head, and coats of mail were hung on to their feet. They put knotted strings about men's heads, and twisted them till they went to the brain. They put men into prisons where adders and snakes and toads were crawling; and so they tormented them. Some they put into a chest, short and narrow and not deep, and that had sharp stones within; and forced men therein, so that they broke all their limbs. In many of the castles were hateful and grim things called neckties, which two or three men had enough to do to carry. This instrument of torture was thus made: it was fastened to a beam, and had a sharp iron to go about a man's neck and throat, so that he might no way sit or lie or sleep, but he bore all the iron. Many thousands they starved with hunger.... Men said openly that Christ and His saints were asleep."

16. The End of the War. 1141—1148.—In the autumn of 1139, Matilda appeared in England, and in 1141 there was a battle at Lincoln, in which Stephen was taken prisoner. Henry of Winchester (see p. 131) acknowledged Matilda as queen, and all England submitted to her, London giving way most reluctantly. Her rule did not last long. She was as much too harsh as Stephen was too good-natured. She seized the lands of the Church, and ordered the Londoners to pay a heavy fine for having supported Stephen. On this the Londoners rang their bells, and the citizens in arms swarmed out of their houses 'like bees out of a hive.' Matilda fled to Winchester before them. Bishop Henry then turned against her. Robert of Gloucester was taken prisoner, and after a while Matilda was obliged to set free King Stephen in exchange for her brother. Fighting continued for some time. On all sides men were longing for peace. The fields were untilled because no man could tell who would reap the harvest. Thousands perished of starvation. If peace there was to be, it could only come by Stephen's victory. It was now known that Matilda was even less fit to govern than Stephen. Stephen took one castle after another. In 1147 Earl Robert died, and in 1148 Matilda gave up the struggle and left England.

Tower of Castor Church, Northamptonshire.

Built about 1145. (The parapet and spire are later.)

17. Henry, Duke of the Normans. 1149.—Whilst Matilda had been losing England her husband had been conquering Normandy, and for a little while it seemed possible that England and Normandy would be separated; England remaining under Stephen and his heirs, and Normandy united with Anjou under the Angevin Geoffrey and his descendants. That the separation did not yet take place was partly owing to the different character of the two heirs. Stephen's son, Eustace, was rough and overbearing. Geoffrey's son, Henry, was shrewd and prudent. Henry had already been in England when he was still quite young, and had learnt something of English affairs from his uncle, Robert of Gloucester. He returned to his father in 1147, and in 1149 Geoffrey gave up to him the duchy of Normandy. He was then sent to try his fortune in England in his mother's stead, but he was only a boy of sixteen, and too young to cope with Stephen. In 1150 he abandoned the struggle for a time. In his absence Stephen had still rebels to put down and castles to besiege, but he had the greater part of the kingdom at his back, and if Henry had continued to leave him alone he would probably have reduced all his enemies to submission.

18. The Last Days of Stephen. 1153—1154.—In 1150 Geoffrey died, and Henry became Count of Anjou as well as Duke of Normandy. Before long he acquired a much wider territory than either Anjou or Normandy. Louis VII. of France had to wife Eleanor, the Duchess of Aquitaine, and through her had added to his own scanty dominions the whole of the lands between the Loire and the Pyrenees. Louis, believing that she was unfaithful to him, had divorced her on the pretext that she was too near of kin. Henry was not squeamish about the character of so great an heiress, and in 1152 married the Duchess of Aquitaine for the sake of her lands. Thus strengthened, he again returned to England. He was now a young man of nineteen; his vigour was as great as that of Stephen, and his skill greater. He won fortress after fortress. Before the end of 1153 Eustace died, and Stephen had no motive for prolonging the strife if his personal interests could be saved. It was arranged by the treaty of Wallingford that Stephen should retain the crown for life, and that Henry should be his heir. The castles which had sprung up during the civil war without the licence of the king—the 'adulterine castles,' as they were called—and there were no less than 365¹⁰ of them—were to be destroyed, and order and good government were to return. For five months Henry remained in England. The robber barons could not hold out against the two rivals now united. Many of the castles were demolished, and 'such good peace as never was here' was established. In 1154 Stephen died, and young Henry ruled England in his own name.

9. Genealogy of the Conqueror's sons and grandchildren:—

10. The number usually given, '1,115,' is probably an error.