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diff --git a/1066-0.txt b/1066-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b487d81 --- /dev/null +++ b/1066-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5413 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, William the Conqueror, by Edward Augustus +Freeman + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: William the Conqueror + + +Author: Edward Augustus Freeman + + + +Release Date: March 20, 2013 [eBook #1066] +[This file was first posted on February 12, 1998] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR*** + + +Transcribed from the 1913 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR + + + * * * * * + + BY + EDWARD A. FREEMAN + D.C.L., LL.D. + + REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD + + * * * * * + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + ST. MARTIN’S SQUARE, LONDON + + 1913 + + * * * * * + + COPYRIGHT + + _First Edition printed March_ 1888. + _Reprinted July_ 1888, 1890, 1894, 1898, 1903, 1907, 1913 + + + + +PREFACE + + +THIS small volume, written as the first of a series, is meant to fill +quite another place from the _Short History of the Norman Conquest_, by +the same author. That was a narrative of events reaching over a +considerable time. This is the portrait of a man in his personal +character, a man whose life takes up only a part of the time treated of +in the other work. We have now to look on William as one who, though +stranger and conqueror, is yet worthily entitled to a place on the list +of English statesmen. There is perhaps no man before or after him whose +personal character and personal will have had so direct an effect on the +course which the laws and constitution of England have taken since his +time. Norman as a Conqueror, as a statesman he is English, and, on this +side of him at least, he worthily begins the series. + +16 ST. GILES’, OXFORD, + 6_th_ _February_ 1888. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + CHAPTER I +INTRODUCTION 1 + CHAPTER II +THE EARLY YEARS OF WILLIAM 6 + CHAPTER III +WILLIAM’S FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND 26 + CHAPTER IV +THE REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY 34 + CHAPTER V +HAROLD’S OATH TO WILLIAM 51 + CHAPTER VI +THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM 63 + CHAPTER VII +WILLIAM’S INVASION OF ENGLAND 82 + CHAPTER VIII +THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND 100 + CHAPTER IX +THE SETTLEMENT OF ENGLAND 122 + CHAPTER X +THE REVOLTS AGAINST WILLIAM 147 + CHAPTER XI +THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM 181 + + + + +CHAPTER I. +INTRODUCTION. + + +THE history of England, like the land and its people, has been specially +insular, and yet no land has undergone deeper influences from without. +No land has owed more than England to the personal action of men not of +native birth. Britain was truly called another world, in opposition to +the world of the European mainland, the world of Rome. In every age the +history of Britain is the history of an island, of an island great enough +to form a world of itself. In speaking of Celts or Teutons in Britain, +we are speaking, not simply of Celts and Teutons, but of Celts and +Teutons parted from their kinsfolk on the mainland, and brought under the +common influences of an island world. The land has seen several +settlements from outside, but the settlers have always been brought under +the spell of their insular position. Whenever settlement has not meant +displacement, the new comers have been assimilated by the existing people +of the land. When it has meant displacement, they have still become +islanders, marked off from those whom they left behind by characteristics +which were the direct result of settlement in an island world. + +The history of Britain then, and specially the history of England, has +been largely a history of elements absorbed and assimilated from without. +But each of those elements has done somewhat to modify the mass into +which it was absorbed. The English land and nation are not as they might +have been if they had never in later times absorbed the Fleming, the +French Huguenot, the German Palatine. Still less are they as they might +have been, if they had not in earlier times absorbed the greater elements +of the Dane and the Norman. Both were assimilated; but both modified the +character and destiny of the people into whose substance they were +absorbed. The conquerors from Normandy were silently and peacefully lost +in the greater mass of the English people; still we can never be as if +the Norman had never come among us. We ever bear about us the signs of +his presence. Our colonists have carried those signs with them into +distant lands, to remind men that settlers in America and Australia came +from a land which the Norman once entered as a conqueror. But that those +signs of his presence hold the place which they do hold in our mixed +political being, that, badges of conquest as they are, no one feels them +to be badges of conquest—all this comes of the fact that, if the Norman +came as a conqueror, he came as a conqueror of a special, perhaps almost +of an unique kind. The Norman Conquest of England has, in its nature and +in its results, no exact parallel in history. And that it has no exact +parallel in history is largely owing to the character and position of the +man who wrought it. That the history of England for the last eight +hundred years has been what it has been has largely come of the personal +character of a single man. That we are what we are to this day largely +comes of the fact that there was a moment when our national destiny might +be said to hang on the will of a single man, and that that man was +William, surnamed at different stages of his life and memory, the +Bastard, the Conqueror, and the Great. + +With perfect fitness then does William the Norman, William the Norman +Conqueror of England, take his place in a series of English statesmen. +That so it should be is characteristic of English history. Our history +has been largely wrought for us by men who have come in from without, +sometimes as conquerors, sometimes as the opposite of conquerors; but in +whatever character they came, they had to put on the character of +Englishmen, and to make their work an English work. From whatever land +they came, on whatever mission they came, as statesmen they were English. +William, the greatest of his class, is still but a member of a class. +Along with him we must reckon a crowd of kings, bishops, and high +officials in many ages of our history. Theodore of Tarsus and Cnut of +Denmark, Lanfranc of Pavia and Anselm of Aosta, Randolf Flambard and +Roger of Salisbury, Henry of Anjou and Simon of Montfort, are all written +on a list of which William is but the foremost. The largest number come +in William’s own generation and in the generations just before and after +it. But the breed of England’s adopted children and rulers never died +out. The name of William the Deliverer stands, if not beside that of his +namesake the Conqueror, yet surely alongside of the lawgiver from Anjou. +And we count among the later worthies of England not a few men sprung +from other lands, who did and are doing their work among us, and who, as +statesmen at least, must count as English. As we look along the whole +line, even among the conquering kings and their immediate instruments, +their work never takes the shape of the rooting up of the earlier +institutions of the land. Those institutions are modified, sometimes +silently by the mere growth of events, sometimes formally and of set +purpose. Old institutions get new names; new institutions are set up +alongside of them. But the old ones are never swept away; they sometimes +die out; they are never abolished. This comes largely of the absorbing +and assimilating power of the island world. But it comes no less of +personal character and personal circumstances, and pre-eminently of the +personal character of the Norman Conqueror and of the circumstances in +which he found himself. + + * * * * * + +Our special business now is with the personal acts and character of +William, and above all with his acts and character as an English +statesman. But the English reign of William followed on his earlier +Norman reign, and its character was largely the result of his earlier +Norman reign. A man of the highest natural gifts, he had gone through +such a schooling from his childhood upwards as falls to the lot of few +princes. Before he undertook the conquest of England, he had in some +sort to work the conquest of Normandy. Of the ordinary work of a +sovereign in a warlike age, the defence of his own land, the annexation +of other lands, William had his full share. With the land of his +overlord he had dealings of the most opposite kinds. He had to call in +the help of the French king to put down rebellion in the Norman duchy, +and he had to drive back more than one invasion of the French king at the +head of an united Norman people. He added Domfront and Maine to his +dominions, and the conquest of Maine, the work as much of statesmanship +as of warfare, was the rehearsal of the conquest of England. There, +under circumstances strangely like those of England, he learned his trade +as conqueror, he learned to practise on a narrower field the same arts +which he afterwards practised on a wider. But after all, William’s own +duchy was his special school; it was his life in his own duchy which +specially helped to make him what he was. Surrounded by trials and +difficulties almost from his cradle, he early learned the art of enduring +trials and overcoming difficulties; he learned how to deal with men; he +learned when to smite and when to spare; and it is not a little to his +honour that, in the long course of such a reign as his, he almost always +showed himself far more ready to spare than to smite. + +Before then we can look at William as an English statesman, we must first +look on him in the land in which he learned the art of statesmanship. We +must see how one who started with all the disadvantages which are implied +in his earlier surname of the Bastard came to win and to deserve his +later surnames of the Conqueror and the Great. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE EARLY YEARS OF WILLIAM. +A.D. 1028–1051. + + +IF William’s early reign in Normandy was his time of schooling for his +later reign in England, his school was a stern one, and his schooling +began early. His nominal reign began at the age of seven years, and his +personal influence on events began long before he had reached the usual +years of discretion. And the events of his minority might well harden +him, while they could not corrupt him in the way in which so many princes +have been corrupted. His whole position, political and personal, could +not fail to have its effect in forming the man. He was Duke of the +Normans, sixth in succession from Rolf, the founder of the Norman state. +At the time of his accession, rather more than a hundred and ten years +had passed since plunderers, occasionally settlers, from Scandinavia, had +changed into acknowledged members of the Western or Karolingian kingdom. +The Northmen, changed, name and thing, into _Normans_, were now in all +things members of the Christian and French-speaking world. But French as +the Normans of William’s day had become, their relation to the kings and +people of France was not a friendly one. At the time of the settlement +of Rolf, the western kingdom of the Franks had not yet finally passed to +the _Duces Francorum_ at Paris; Rolf became the man of the Karolingian +king at Laon. France and Normandy were two great duchies, each owning a +precarious supremacy in the king of the West-Franks. On the one hand, +Normandy had been called into being by a frightful dismemberment of the +French duchy, from which the original Norman settlement had been cut off. +France had lost in Rouen one of her greatest cities, and she was cut off +from the sea and from the lower course of her own river. On the other +hand, the French and the Norman dukes had found their interest in a close +alliance; Norman support had done much to transfer the crown from Laon to +Paris, and to make the _Dux Francorum_ and the _Rex Francorum_ the same +person. It was the adoption of the French speech and manners by the +Normans, and their steady alliance with the French dukes, which finally +determined that the ruling element in Gaul should be Romance and not +Teutonic, and that, of its Romance elements, it should be French and not +Aquitanian. If the creation of Normandy had done much to weaken France +as a duchy, it had done not a little towards the making of France as a +kingdom. Laon and its crown, the undefined influence that went with the +crown, the prospect of future advance to the south, had been bought by +the loss of Rouen and of the mouth of the Seine. + +There was much therefore at the time of William’s accession to keep the +French kings and the Norman dukes on friendly terms. The old alliance +had been strengthened by recent good offices. The reigning king, Henry +the First, owed his crown to the help of William’s father Robert. On the +other hand, the original ground of the alliance, mutual support against +the Karolingian king, had passed away. A King of the French reigning at +Paris was more likely to remember what the Normans had cost him as duke +than what they had done for him as king. And the alliance was only an +alliance of princes. The mutual dislike between the people of the two +countries was strong. The Normans had learned French ways, but French +and Normans had not become countrymen. And, as the fame of Normandy +grew, jealousy was doubtless mingled with dislike. William, in short, +inherited a very doubtful and dangerous state of relations towards the +king who was at once his chief neighbour and his overlord. + +More doubtful and dangerous still were the relations which the young duke +inherited towards the people of his own duchy and the kinsfolk of his own +house. William was not as yet the Great or the Conqueror, but he was the +Bastard from the beginning. There was then no generally received +doctrine as to the succession to kingdoms and duchies. Everywhere a +single kingly or princely house supplied, as a rule, candidates for the +succession. Everywhere, even where the elective doctrine was strong, a +full-grown son was always likely to succeed his father. The growth of +feudal notions too had greatly strengthened the hereditary principle. +Still no rule had anywhere been laid down for cases where the late prince +had not left a full-grown son. The question as to legitimate birth was +equally unsettled. Irregular unions of all kinds, though condemned by +the Church, were tolerated in practice, and were nowhere more common than +among the Norman dukes. In truth the feeling of the kingliness of the +stock, the doctrine that the king should be the son of a king, is better +satisfied by the succession of the late king’s bastard son than by +sending for some distant kinsman, claiming perhaps only through females. +Still bastardy, if it was often convenient to forget it, could always be +turned against a man. The succession of a bastard was never likely to be +quite undisputed or his reign to be quite undisturbed. + +Now William succeeded to his duchy under the double disadvantage of being +at once bastard and minor. He was born at Falaise in 1027 or 1028, being +the son of Robert, afterwards duke, but then only Count of Hiesmois, by +Herleva, commonly called Arletta, the daughter of Fulbert the tanner. +There was no pretence of marriage between his parents; yet his father, +when he designed William to succeed him, might have made him legitimate, +as some of his predecessors had been made, by a marriage with his mother. +In 1028 Robert succeeded his brother Richard in the duchy. In 1034 or +1035 he determined to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He called on his +barons to swear allegiance to his bastard of seven years old as his +successor in case he never came back. Their wise counsel to stay at +home, to look after his dominions and to raise up lawful heirs, was +unheeded. Robert carried his point. The succession of young William was +accepted by the Norman nobles, and was confirmed by the overlord Henry +King of the French. The arrangement soon took effect. Robert died on +his way back before the year 1035 was out, and his son began, in name at +least, his reign of fifty-two years over the Norman duchy. + +The succession of one who was at once bastard and minor could happen only +when no one else had a distinctly better claim William could never have +held his ground for a moment against a brother of his father of full age +and undoubted legitimacy. But among the living descendants of former +dukes some were themselves of doubtful legitimacy, some were shut out by +their profession as churchmen, some claimed only through females. Robert +had indeed two half-brothers, but they were young and their legitimacy +was disputed; he had an uncle, Robert Archbishop of Rouen, who had been +legitimated by the later marriage of his parents. The rival who in the +end gave William most trouble was his cousin Guy of Burgundy, son of a +daughter of his grandfather Richard the Good. Though William’s +succession was not liked, no one of these candidates was generally +preferred to him. He therefore succeeded; but the first twelve years of +his reign were spent in the revolts and conspiracies of unruly nobles, +who hated the young duke as the one representative of law and order, and +who were not eager to set any one in his place who might be better able +to enforce them. + +Nobility, so variously defined in different lands, in Normandy took in +two classes of men. All were noble who had any kindred or affinity, +legitimate or otherwise, with the ducal house. The natural children of +Richard the Fearless were legitimated by his marriage with their mother +Gunnor, and many of the great houses of Normandy sprang from her brothers +and sisters. The mother of William received no such exaltation as this. +Besides her son, she had borne to Robert a daughter Adelaide, and, after +Robert’s death, she married a Norman knight named Herlwin of Conteville. +To him, besides a daughter, she bore two sons, Ode and Robert. They rose +to high posts in Church and State, and played an important part in their +half-brother’s history. Besides men whose nobility was of this kind, +there were also Norman houses whose privileges were older than the amours +or marriages of any duke, houses whose greatness was as old as the +settlement of Rolf, as old that is as the ducal power itself. The great +men of both these classes were alike hard to control. A Norman baron of +this age was well employed when he was merely rebelling against his +prince or waging private war against a fellow baron. What specially +marks the time is the frequency of treacherous murders wrought by men of +the highest rank, often on harmless neighbours or unsuspecting guests. +But victims were also found among those guardians of the young duke whose +faithful discharge of their duties shows that the Norman nobility was not +wholly corrupt. One indeed was a foreign prince, Alan Count of the +Bretons, a grandson of Richard the Fearless through a daughter. Two +others, the seneschal Osbern and Gilbert Count of Eu, were irregular +kinsmen of the duke. All these were murdered, the Breton count by +poison. Such a childhood as this made William play the man while he was +still a child. The helpless boy had to seek for support of some kind. +He got together the chief men of his duchy, and took a new guardian by +their advice. But it marks the state of things that the new guardian was +one of the murderers of those whom he succeeded. This was Ralph of +Wacey, son of William’s great-uncle, Archbishop Robert. Murderer as he +was, he seems to have discharged his duty faithfully. There are men who +are careless of general moral obligations, but who will strictly carry +out any charge which appeals to personal honour. Anyhow Ralph’s +guardianship brought with it a certain amount of calm. But men, high in +the young duke’s favour, were still plotting against him, and they +presently began to plot, not only against their prince but against their +country. The disaffected nobles of Normandy sought for a helper against +young William in his lord King Henry of Paris. + +The art of diplomacy had never altogether slumbered since much earlier +times. The king who owed his crown to William’s father, and who could +have no ground of offence against William himself, easily found good +pretexts for meddling in Norman affairs. It was not unnatural in the +King of the French to wish to win back a sea-board which had been given +up more than a hundred years before to an alien power, even though that +power had, for much more than half of that time, acted more than a +friendly part towards France. It was not unnatural that the French +people should cherish a strong national dislike to the Normans and a +strong wish that Rouen should again be a French city. But such motives +were not openly avowed then any more than now. The alleged ground was +quite different. The counts of Chartres were troublesome neighbours to +the duchy, and the castle of Tillières had been built as a defence +against them. An advance of the King’s dominions had made Tillières a +neighbour of France, and, as a neighbour, it was said to be a standing +menace. The King of the French, acting in concert with the disaffected +party in Normandy, was a dangerous enemy, and the young Duke and his +counsellors determined to give up Tillières. Now comes the first +distinct exercise of William’s personal will. We are without exact +dates, but the time can be hardly later than 1040, when William was from +twelve to thirteen years old. At his special request, the defender of +Tillières, Gilbert Crispin, who at first held out against French and +Normans alike, gave up the castle to Henry. The castle was burned; the +King promised not to repair it for four years. Yet he is said to have +entered Normandy, to have laid waste William’s native district of +Hiesmois, to have supplied a French garrison to a Norman rebel named +Thurstan, who held the castle of Falaise against the Duke, and to have +ended by restoring Tillières as a menace against Normandy. And now the +boy whose destiny had made him so early a leader of men had to bear his +first arms against the fortress which looked down on his birth-place. +Thurstan surrendered and went into banishment. William could set down +his own Falaise as the first of a long list of towns and castles which he +knew how to win without shedding of blood. + +When we next see William’s distinct personal action, he is still young, +but no longer a child or even a boy. At nineteen or thereabouts he is a +wise and valiant man, and his valour and wisdom are tried to the +uttermost. A few years of comparative quiet were chiefly occupied, as a +quiet time in those days commonly was, with ecclesiastical affairs. One +of these specially illustrates the state of things with which William had +to deal. In 1042, when the Duke was about fourteen, Normandy adopted the +Truce of God in its later shape. It no longer attempted to establish +universal peace; it satisfied itself with forbidding, under the strongest +ecclesiastical censures, all private war and violence of any kind on +certain days of the week. Legislation of this kind has two sides. It +was an immediate gain if peace was really enforced for four days in the +week; but that which was not forbidden on the other three could no longer +be denounced as in itself evil. We are told that in no land was the +Truce more strictly observed than in Normandy. But we may be sure that, +when William was in the fulness of his power, the stern weight of the +ducal arm was exerted to enforce peace on Mondays and Tuesdays as well as +on Thursdays and Fridays. + +It was in the year 1047 that William’s authority was most dangerously +threatened and that he was first called on to show in all their fulness +the powers that were in him. He who was to be conqueror of Maine and +conqueror of England was first to be conqueror of his own duchy. The +revolt of a large part of the country, contrasted with the firm loyalty +of another part, throws a most instructive light on the internal state of +the duchy. There was, as there still is, a line of severance between the +districts which formed the first grant to Rolf and those which were +afterwards added. In these last a lingering remnant of old Teutonic life +had been called into fresh strength by new settlements from Scandinavia. +At the beginning of the reign of Richard the Fearless, Rouen, the +French-speaking city, is emphatically contrasted with Bayeux, the once +Saxon city and land, now the headquarters of the Danish speech. At that +stage the Danish party was distinctly a heathen party. We are not told +whether Danish was still spoken so late as the time of William’s youth. +We can hardly believe that the Scandinavian gods still kept any avowed +worshippers. But the geographical limits of the revolt exactly fall in +with the boundary which had once divided French and Danish speech, +Christian and heathen worship. There was a wide difference in feeling on +the two sides of the Dive. The older Norman settlements, now thoroughly +French in tongue and manners, stuck faithfully to the Duke; the lands to +the west rose against him. Rouen and Evreux were firmly loyal to +William; Saxon Bayeux and Danish Coutances were the headquarters of his +enemies. + +When the geographical division took this shape, we are surprised at the +candidate for the duchy who was put forward by the rebels. William was a +Norman born and bred; his rival was in every sense a Frenchman. This was +William’s cousin Guy of Burgundy, whose connexion with the ducal house +was only by the spindle-side. But his descent was of uncontested +legitimacy, which gave him an excuse for claiming the duchy in opposition +to the bastard grandson of the tanner. By William he had been enriched +with great possessions, among which was the island fortress of Brionne in +the Risle. The real object of the revolt was the partition of the duchy. +William was to be dispossessed; Guy was to be duke in the lands east of +Dive; the great lords of Western Normandy were to be left independent. +To this end the lords of the Bessin and the Côtentin revolted, their +leader being Neal, Viscount of Saint-Sauveur in the Côtentin. We are +told that the mass of the people everywhere wished well to their duke; in +the common sovereign lay their only chance of protection against their +immediate lords. But the lords had armed force of the land at their +bidding. They first tried to slay or seize the Duke himself, who chanced +to be in the midst of them at Valognes. He escaped; we hear a stirring +tale of his headlong ride from Valognes to Falaise. Safe among his own +people, he planned his course of action. He first sought help of the man +who could give him most help, but who had most wronged him. He went into +France; he saw King Henry at Poissy, and the King engaged to bring a +French force to William’s help under his own command. + +This time Henry kept his promise. The dismemberment of Normandy might +have been profitable to France by weakening the power which had become so +special an object of French jealousy; but with a king the common interest +of princes against rebellious barons came first. Henry came with a +French army, and fought well for his ally on the field of Val-ès-dunes. +Now came the Conqueror’s first battle, a tourney of horsemen on an open +table-land just within the land of the rebels between Caen and Mezidon. +The young duke fought well and manfully; but the Norman writers allow +that it was French help that gained him the victory. Yet one of the many +anecdotes of the battle points to a source of strength which was always +ready to tell for any lord against rebellious vassals. One of the +leaders of the revolt, Ralph of Tesson, struck with remorse and stirred +by the prayers of his knights, joined the Duke just before the battle. +He had sworn to smite William wherever he found him, and he fulfilled his +oath by giving the Duke a harmless blow with his glove. How far an oath +to do an unlawful act is binding is a question which came up again at +another stage of William’s life. + +The victory at Val-ès-dunes was decisive, and the French King, whose help +had done so much to win it, left William to follow it up. He met with +but little resistance except at the stronghold of Brionne. Guy himself +vanishes from Norman history. William had now conquered his own duchy, +and conquered it by foreign help. For the rest of his Norman reign he +had often to strive with enemies at home, but he had never to put down +such a rebellion again as that of the lords of western Normandy. That +western Normandy, the truest Normandy, had to yield to the more +thoroughly Romanized lands to the east. The difference between them +never again takes a political shape. William was now lord of all +Normandy, and able to put down all later disturbers of the peace. His +real reign now begins; from the age of nineteen or twenty, his acts are +his own. According to his abiding practice, he showed himself a merciful +conqueror. Through his whole reign he shows a distinct unwillingness to +take human life except in fair fighting on the battle-field. No blood +was shed after the victory of Val-ès-dunes; one rebel died in bonds; the +others underwent no harder punishment than payment of fines, giving of +hostages, and destruction of their castles. These castles were not as +yet the vast and elaborate structures which arose in after days. A +single strong square tower, or even a defence of wood on a steep mound +surrounded by a ditch, was enough to make its owner dangerous. The +possession of these strongholds made every baron able at once to defy his +prince and to make himself a scourge to his neighbours. Every season of +anarchy is marked by the building of castles; every return of order +brings with it their overthrow as a necessary condition of peace. + + * * * * * + +Thus, in his lonely and troubled childhood, William had been schooled for +the rule of men. He had now, in the rule of a smaller dominion, in +warfare and conquest on a smaller scale, to be schooled for the conquest +and the rule of a greater dominion. William had the gifts of a born +ruler, and he was in no way disposed to abuse them. We know his rule in +Normandy only through the language of panegyric; but the facts speak for +themselves. He made Normandy peaceful and flourishing, more peaceful and +flourishing perhaps than any other state of the European mainland. He is +set before us as in everything a wise and beneficent ruler, the protector +of the poor and helpless, the patron of commerce and of all that might +profit his dominions. For defensive wars, for wars waged as the faithful +man of his overlord, we cannot blame him. But his main duty lay at home. +He still had revolts to put down, and he put them down. But to put them +down was the first of good works. He had to keep the peace of the land, +to put some cheek on the unruly wills of those turbulent barons on whom +only an arm like his could put any cheek. He had, in the language of his +day, to do justice, to visit wrong with sure and speedy punishment, +whoever was the wrong-doer. If a ruler did this first of duties well, +much was easily forgiven him in other ways. But William had as yet +little to be forgiven. Throughout life he steadily practised some +unusual virtues. His strict attention to religion was always marked. +And his religion was not that mere lavish bounty to the Church which was +consistent with any amount of cruelty or license. William’s religion +really influenced his life, public and private. He set an unusual +example of a princely household governed according to the rules of +morality, and he dealt with ecclesiastical matters in the spirit of a +true reformer. He did not, like so many princes of his age, make +ecclesiastical preferments a source of corrupt gain, but promoted good +men from all quarters. His own education is not likely to have received +much attention; it is not clear whether he had mastered the rarer art of +writing or the more usual one of reading; but both his promotion of +learned churchmen and the care given to the education of some of his +children show that he at least valued the best attainments of his time. +Had William’s whole life been spent in the duties of a Norman duke, +ruling his duchy wisely, defending it manfully, the world might never +have known him for one of its foremost men, but his life on that narrower +field would have been useful and honourable almost without a drawback. +It was the fatal temptation of princes, the temptation to territorial +aggrandizement, which enabled him fully to show the powers that were in +him, but which at the same time led to his moral degradation. The +defender of his own land became the invader of other lands, and the +invader could not fail often to sink into the oppressor. Each step in +his career as Conqueror was a step downwards. Maine was a neighbouring +land, a land of the same speech, a land which, if the feelings of the +time could have allowed a willing union, would certainly have lost +nothing by an union with Normandy. England, a land apart, a land of +speech, laws, and feelings, utterly unlike those of any part of Gaul, was +in another case. There the Conqueror was driven to be the oppressor. +Wrong, as ever, was punished by leading to further wrong. + +With the two fields, nearer and more distant, narrower and wider, on +which William was to appear as Conqueror he has as yet nothing to do. It +is vain to guess at what moment the thought of the English succession may +have entered his mind or that of his advisers. When William began his +real reign after Val-ès-dunes, Norman influence was high in England. +Edward the Confessor had spent his youth among his Norman kinsfolk; he +loved Norman ways and the company of Normans and other men of French +speech. Strangers from the favoured lands held endless posts in Church +and State; above all, Robert of Jumièges, first Bishop of London and then +Archbishop of Canterbury, was the King’s special favourite and adviser. +These men may have suggested the thought of William’s succession very +early. On the other hand, at this time it was by no means clear that +Edward might not leave a son of his own. He had been only a few years +married, and his alleged vow of chastity is very doubtful. William’s +claim was of the flimsiest kind. By English custom the king was chosen +out of a single kingly house, and only those who were descended from +kings in the male line were counted as members of that house. William +was not descended, even in the female line, from any English king; his +whole kindred with Edward was that Edward’s mother Emma, a daughter of +Richard the Fearless, was William’s great-aunt. Such a kindred, to say +nothing of William’s bastardy, could give no right to the crown according +to any doctrine of succession that ever was heard of. It could at most +point him out as a candidate for adoption, in case the reigning king +should be disposed and allowed to choose his successor. William or his +advisers may have begun to weigh this chance very early; but all that is +really certain is that William was a friend and favourite of his elder +kinsman, and that events finally brought his succession to the English +crown within the range of things that might be. + +But, before this, William was to show himself as a warrior beyond the +bounds of his own duchy, and to take seizin, as it were, of his great +continental conquest. William’s first war out of Normandy was waged in +common with King Henry against Geoffrey Martel Count of Anjou, and waged +on the side of Maine. William undoubtedly owed a debt of gratitude to +his overlord for good help given at Val-ès-dunes, and excuses were never +lacking for a quarrel between Anjou and Normandy. Both powers asserted +rights over the intermediate land of Maine. In 1048 we find William +giving help to Henry in a war with Anjou, and we hear wonderful but vague +tales of his exploits. The really instructive part of the story deals +with two border fortresses on the march of Normandy and Maine. Alençon +lay on the Norman side of the Sarthe; but it was disloyal to Normandy. +Brionne was still holding out for Guy of Burgundy. The town was a +lordship of the house of Bellême, a house renowned for power and +wickedness, and which, as holding great possessions alike of Normandy and +of France, ranked rather with princes than with ordinary nobles. The +story went that William Talvas, lord of Bellême, one of the fiercest of +his race, had cursed William in his cradle, as one by whom he and his +should be brought to shame. Such a tale set forth the noblest side of +William’s character, as the man who did something to put down such +enemies of mankind as he who cursed him. The possessions of William +Talvas passed through his daughter Mabel to Roger of Montgomery, a man +who plays a great part in William’s history; but it is the disloyalty of +the burghers, not of their lord, of which we hear just now. They +willingly admitted an Angevin garrison. William in return laid siege to +Domfront on the Varenne, a strong castle which was then an outpost of +Maine against Normandy. A long skirmishing warfare, in which William won +for himself a name by deeds of personal prowess, went on during the +autumn and winter (1048–49). One tale specially illustrates more than +one point in the feelings of the time. The two princes, William and +Geoffrey, give a mutual challenge; each gives the other notice of the +garb and shield that he will wear that he may not be mistaken. The +spirit of knight-errantry was coming in, and we see that William himself +in his younger days was touched by it. But we see also that coat-armour +was as yet unknown. Geoffrey and his host, so the Normans say, shrink +from the challenge and decamp in the night, leaving the way open for a +sudden march upon Alençon. The disloyal burghers received the duke with +mockery of his birth. They hung out skins, and shouted, “Hides for the +Tanner.” Personal insult is always hard for princes to bear, and the +wrath of William was stirred up to a pitch which made him for once depart +from his usual moderation towards conquered enemies. He swore that the +men who had jeered at him should be dealt with like a tree whose branches +are cut off with the pollarding-knife. The town was taken by assault, +and William kept his oath. The castle held out; the hands and feet of +thirty-two pollarded burghers of Alençon were thrown over its walls, and +the threat implied drove the garrison to surrender on promise of safety +for life and limb. The defenders of Domfront, struck with fear, +surrendered also, and kept their arms as well as their lives and limbs. +William had thus won back his own rebellious town, and had enlarged his +borders by his first conquest. He went farther south, and fortified +another castle at Ambrières; but Ambrières was only a temporary conquest. +Domfront has ever since been counted as part of Normandy. But, as +ecclesiastical divisions commonly preserve the secular divisions of an +earlier time, Domfront remained down to the great French Revolution in +the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops of Le Mans. + + * * * * * + +William had now shown himself in Maine as conqueror, and he was before +long to show himself in England, though not yet as conqueror. If our +chronology is to be trusted, he had still in this interval to complete +his conquest of his own duchy by securing the surrender of Brionne; and +two other events, both characteristic, one of them memorable, fill up the +same time. William now banished a kinsman of his own name, who held the +great county of Mortain, _Moretoliam_ or _Moretonium_, in the diocese of +Avranches, which must be carefully distinguished from Mortagne-en-Perche, +_Mauritania_ or _Moretonia_ in the diocese of Seez. This act, of +somewhat doubtful justice, is noteworthy on two grounds. First, the +accuser of the banished count was one who was then a poor serving-knight +of his own, but who became the forefather of a house which plays a great +part in English history, Robert surnamed the Bigod. Secondly, the vacant +county was granted by William to his own half-brother Robert. He had +already in 1048 bestowed the bishopric of Bayeux on his other +half-brother Odo, who cannot at that time have been more than twelve +years old. He must therefore have held the see for a good while without +consecration, and at no time of his fifty years’ holding of it did he +show any very episcopal merits. This was the last case in William’s +reign of an old abuse by which the chief church preferments in Normandy +had been turned into means of providing for members, often unworthy +members, of the ducal family; and it is the only one for which William +can have been personally responsible. Both his brothers were thus placed +very early in life among the chief men of Normandy, as they were in later +years to be placed among the chief men of England. But William’s +affection for his brothers, amiable as it may have been personally, was +assuredly not among the brighter parts of his character as a sovereign. + +The other chief event of this time also concerns the domestic side of +William’s life. The long story of his marriage now begins. The date is +fixed by one of the decrees of the council of Rheims held in 1049 by Pope +Leo the Ninth, in which Baldwin Count of Flanders is forbidden to give +his daughter to William the Norman. This implies that the marriage was +already thought of, and further that it was looked on as uncanonical. +The bride whom William sought, Matilda daughter of Baldwin the Fifth, was +connected with him by some tie of kindred or affinity which made a +marriage between them unlawful by the rules of the Church. But no +genealogist has yet been able to find out exactly what the canonical +hindrance was. It is hard to trace the descent of William and Matilda up +to any common forefather. But the light which the story throws on +William’s character is the same in any case. Whether he was seeking a +wife or a kingdom, he would have his will, but he could wait for it. In +William’s doubtful position, a marriage with the daughter of the Count of +Flanders would be useful to him in many ways; and Matilda won her +husband’s abiding love and trust. Strange tales are told of William’s +wooing. Tales are told also of Matilda’s earlier love for the Englishman +Brihtric, who is said to have found favour in her eyes when he came as +envoy from England to her father’s court. All that is certain is that +the marriage had been thought of and had been forbidden before the next +important event in William’s life that we have to record. + +Was William’s Flemish marriage in any way connected with his hopes of +succession to the English crown? Had there been any available bride for +him in England, it might have been for his interest to seek for her +there. But it should be noticed, though no ancient writer points out the +fact, that Matilda was actually descended from Alfred in the female line; +so that William’s children, though not William himself, had some few +drops of English blood in their veins. William or his advisers, in +weighing every chance which might help his interests in the direction of +England, may have reckoned this piece of rather ancient genealogy among +the advantages of a Flemish alliance. But it is far more certain that, +between the forbidding of the marriage and the marriage itself, a direct +hope of succession to the English crown had been opened to the Norman +duke. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +WILLIAM’S FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND. +A.D. 1051–1052. + + +WHILE William was strengthening himself in Normandy, Norman influence in +England had risen to its full height. The king was surrounded by foreign +favourites. The only foreign earl was his nephew Ralph of Mentes, the +son of his sister Godgifu. But three chief bishoprics were held by +Normans, Robert of Canterbury, William of London, and Ulf of Dorchester. +William bears a good character, and won the esteem of Englishmen; but the +unlearned Ulf is emphatically said to have done “nought bishoplike.” +Smaller preferments in Church and State, estates in all parts of the +kingdom, were lavishly granted to strangers. They built castles, and +otherwise gave offence to English feeling. Archbishop Robert, above all, +was ever plotting against Godwine, Earl of the West-Saxons, the head of +the national party. At last, in the autumn of 1051, the national +indignation burst forth. The immediate occasion was a visit paid to the +King by Count Eustace of Boulogne, who had just married the widowed +Countess Godgifu. The violent dealings of his followers towards the +burghers of Dover led to resistance on their part, and to a long series +of marches and negotiations, which ended in the banishment of Godwine and +his son, and the parting of his daughter Edith, the King’s wife, from her +husband. From October 1051 to September 1052, the Normans had their own +way in England. And during that time King Edward received a visitor of +greater fame than his brother-in-law from Boulogne in the person of his +cousin from Rouen. + +Of his visit we only read that “William Earl came from beyond sea with +mickle company of Frenchmen, and the king him received, and as many of +his comrades as to him seemed good, and let him go again.” Another +account adds that William received great gifts from the King. But +William himself in several documents speaks of Edward as his lord; he +must therefore at some time have done to Edward an act of homage, and +there is no time but this at which we can conceive such an act being +done. Now for what was the homage paid? Homage was often paid on very +trifling occasions, and strange conflicts of allegiance often followed. +No such conflict was likely to arise if the Duke of the Normans, already +the man of the King of the French for his duchy, became the man of the +King of the English on any other ground. Betwixt England and France +there was as yet no enmity or rivalry. England and France became enemies +afterwards because the King of the English and the Duke of the Normans +were one person. And this visit, this homage, was the first step towards +making the King of the English and the Duke of the Normans the same +person. The claim William had to the English crown rested mainly on an +alleged promise of the succession made by Edward. This claim is not +likely to have been a mere shameless falsehood. That Edward did make +some promise to William—as that Harold, at a later stage, did take some +oath to William—seems fully proved by the fact that, while such Norman +statements as could be denied were emphatically denied by the English +writers, on these two points the most patriotic Englishmen, the strongest +partisans of Harold, keep a marked silence. We may be sure therefore +that some promise was made; for that promise a time must be found, and no +time seems possible except this time of William’s visit to Edward. The +date rests on no direct authority, but it answers every requirement. +Those who spoke of the promise as being made earlier, when William and +Edward were boys together in Normandy, forgot that Edward was many years +older than William. The only possible moment earlier than the visit was +when Edward was elected king in 1042. Before that time he could hardly +have thought of disposing of a kingdom which was not his, and at that +time he might have looked forward to leaving sons to succeed him. Still +less could the promise have been made later than the visit. From 1053 to +the end of his life Edward was under English influences, which led him +first to send for his nephew Edward from Hungary as his successor, and in +the end to make a recommendation in favour of Harold. But in 1051–52 +Edward, whether under a vow or not, may well have given up the hope of +children; he was surrounded by Norman influences; and, for the only time +in the last twenty-four years of their joint lives, he and William met +face to face. The only difficulty is one to which no contemporary writer +makes any reference. If Edward wished to dispose of his crown in favour +of one of his French-speaking kinsmen, he had a nearer kinsman of whom he +might more naturally have thought. His own nephew Ralph was living in +England and holding an English earldom. He had the advantage over both +William and his own older brother Walter of Mantes, in not being a +reigning prince elsewhere. We can only say that there is evidence that +Edward did think of William, that there is no evidence that he ever +thought of Ralph. And, except the tie of nearer kindred, everything +would suggest William rather than Ralph. The personal comparison is +almost grotesque; and Edward’s early associations and the strongest +influences around him, were not vaguely French but specially Norman. +Archbishop Robert would plead for his own native sovereign only. In +short, we may be as nearly sure as we can be of any fact for which there +is no direct authority, that Edward’s promise to William was made at the +time of William’s visit to England, and that William’s homage to Edward +was done in the character of a destined successor to the English crown. + +William then came to England a mere duke and went back to Normandy a king +expectant. But the value of his hopes, to the value of the promise made +to him, are quite another matter. Most likely they were rated on both +sides far above their real value. King and duke may both have believed +that they were making a settlement which the English nation was bound to +respect. If so, Edward at least was undeceived within a few months. + + * * * * * + +The notion of a king disposing of his crown by his own act belongs to the +same range of ideas as the law of strict hereditary succession. It +implies that kingship is a possession and not an office. Neither the +heathen nor the Christian English had ever admitted that doctrine; but it +was fast growing on the continent. Our forefathers had always combined +respect for the kingly house with some measure of choice among the +members of that house. Edward himself was not the lawful heir according +to the notions of a modern lawyer; for he was chosen while the son of his +elder brother was living. Every English king held his crown by the gift +of the great assembly of the nation, though the choice of the nation was +usually limited to the descendants of former kings, and though the +full-grown son of the late king was seldom opposed. Christianity had +strengthened the election principle. The king lost his old sanctity as +the son of Woden; he gained a new sanctity as the Lord’s anointed. But +kingship thereby became more distinctly an office, a great post, like a +bishopric, to which its holder had to be lawfully chosen and admitted by +solemn rites. But of that office he could be lawfully deprived, nor +could he hand it on to a successor either according to his own will or +according to any strict law of succession. The wishes of the late king, +like the wishes of the late bishop, went for something with the electors. +But that was all. All that Edward could really do for his kinsmen was to +promise to make, when the time came, a recommendation to the Witan in his +favour. The Witan might then deal as they thought good with a +recommendation so unusual as to choose to the kingship of England a man +who was neither a native nor a conqueror of England nor the descendant of +any English king. + +When the time came, Edward did make a recommendation to the Witan, but it +was not in favour of William. The English influences under which he was +brought during his last fourteen years taught him better what the law of +England was and what was the duty of an English king. But at the time of +William’s visit Edward may well have believed that he could by his own +act settle his crown on his Norman kinsman as his undoubted successor in +case he died without a son. And it may be that Edward was bound by a vow +not to leave a son. And if Edward so thought, William naturally thought +so yet more; he would sincerely believe himself to be the lawful heir of +the crown of England, the sole lawful successor, except in one +contingency which was perhaps impossible and certainly unlikely. + +The memorials of these times, so full on some points, are meagre on +others. Of those writers who mention the bequest or promise none mention +it at any time when it is supposed to have happened; they mention it at +some later time when it began to be of practical importance. No English +writer speaks of William’s claim till the time when he was about +practically to assert it; no Norman writer speaks of it till he tells the +tale of Harold’s visit and oath to William. We therefore cannot say how +far the promise was known either in England or on the continent. But it +could not be kept altogether hid, even if either party wished it to be +hid. English statesmen must have known of it, and must have guided their +policy accordingly, whether it was generally known in the country or not. +William’s position, both in his own duchy and among neighbouring princes, +would be greatly improved if he could be looked upon as a future king. +As heir to the crown of England, he may have more earnestly wooed the +descendant of former wearers of the crown; and Matilda and her father may +have looked more favourably on a suitor to whom the crown of England was +promised. On the other hand, the existence of such a foreign claimant +made it more needful than ever for Englishmen to be ready with an English +successor, in the royal house or out of it, the moment the reigning king +should pass away. + + * * * * * + +It was only for a short time that William could have had any reasonable +hope of a peaceful succession. The time of Norman influence in England +was short. The revolution of September 1052 brought Godwine back, and +placed the rule of England again in English hands. Many Normans were +banished, above all Archbishop Robert and Bishop Ulf. The death of +Godwine the next year placed the chief power in the hands of his son +Harold. This change undoubtedly made Edward more disposed to the +national cause. Of Godwine, the man to whom he owed his crown, he was +clearly in awe; to Godwine’s sons he was personally attached. We know +not how Edward was led to look on his promise to William as void. That +he was so led is quite plain. He sent for his nephew the Ætheling Edward +from Hungary, clearly as his intended successor. When the Ætheling died +in 1057, leaving a son under age, men seem to have gradually come to look +to Harold as the probable successor. He clearly held a special position +above that of an ordinary earl; but there is no need to suppose any +formal act in his favour till the time of the King’s death, January 5, +1066. On his deathbed Edward did all that he legally could do on behalf +of Harold by recommending him to the Witan for election as the next king. +That he then either made a new or renewed an old nomination in favour of +William is a fable which is set aside by the witness of the contemporary +English writers. William’s claim rested wholly on that earlier +nomination which could hardly have been made at any other time than his +visit to England. + + * * * * * + +We have now to follow William back to Normandy, for the remaining years +of his purely ducal reign. The expectant king had doubtless thoughts and +hopes which he had not had before. But we can guess at them only: they +are not recorded. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +THE REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. +A.D. 1052–1063. + + +IF William came back from England looking forward to a future crown, the +thought might even then flash across his mind that he was not likely to +win that crown without fighting for it. As yet his business was still to +fight for the duchy of Normandy. But he had now to fight, not to win his +duchy, but only to keep it. For five years he had to strive both against +rebellious subjects and against invading enemies, among whom King Henry +of Paris is again the foremost. Whatever motives had led the French king +to help William at Val-ès-dunes had now passed away. He had fallen back +on his former state of abiding enmity towards Normandy and her duke. But +this short period definitely fixed the position of Normandy and her duke +in Gaul and in Europe. At its beginning William is still the Bastard of +Falaise, who may or may not be able to keep himself in the ducal chair, +his right to which is still disputed. At the end of it, if he is not yet +the Conqueror and the Great, he has shown all the gifts that were needed +to win him either name. He is the greatest vassal of the French crown, a +vassal more powerful than the overlord whose invasions of his duchy he +has had to drive back. + +These invasions of Normandy by the King of the French and his allies fall +into two periods. At first Henry appears in Normandy as the supporter of +Normans in open revolt against their duke. But revolts are personal and +local; there is no rebellion like that which was crushed at Val-ès-dunes, +spreading over a large part of the duchy. In the second period, the +invaders have no such starting-point. There are still traitors; there +are still rebels; but all that they can do is to join the invaders after +they have entered the land. William is still only making his way to the +universal good will of his duchy: but he is fast making it. + +There is, first of all, an obscure tale of a revolt of an unfixed date, +but which must have happened between 1048 and 1053. The rebel, William +Busac of the house of Eu, is said to have defended the castle of Eu +against the duke and to have gone into banishment in France. But the +year that followed William’s visit to England saw the far more memorable +revolt of William Count of Arques. He had drawn the Duke’s suspicions on +him, and he had to receive a ducal garrison in his great fortress by +Dieppe. But the garrison betrayed the castle to its own master. Open +revolt and havoc followed, in which Count William was supported by the +king and by several other princes. Among them was Ingelram Count of +Ponthieu, husband of the duke’s sister Adelaide. Another enemy was Guy +Count of Gascony, afterwards Duke William the Eighth of Aquitaine. What +quarrel a prince in the furthest corner of Gaul could have with the Duke +of the Normans does not appear; but neither Count William nor his allies +could withstand the loyal Normans and their prince. Count Ingelram was +killed; the other princes withdrew to devise greater efforts against +Normandy. Count William lost his castle and part of his estates, and +left the duchy of his free will. The Duke’s politic forbearance at last +won him the general good will of his subjects. We hear of no more open +revolts till that of William’s own son many years after. But the +assaults of foreign enemies, helped sometimes by Norman traitors, begin +again the next year on a greater scale. + + * * * * * + +William the ruler and warrior had now a short breathing-space. He had +doubtless come back from England more bent than ever on his marriage with +Matilda of Flanders. Notwithstanding the decree of a Pope and a Council +entitled to special respect, the marriage was celebrated, not very long +after William’s return to Normandy, in the year of the revolt of William +of Arques. In the course of the year 1053 Count Baldwin brought his +daughter to the Norman frontier at Eu, and there she became the bride of +William. We know not what emboldened William to risk so daring a step at +this particular time, or what led Baldwin to consent to it. If it was +suggested by the imprisonment of Pope Leo by William’s countrymen in +Italy, in the hope that a consent to the marriage would be wrung out of +the captive pontiff, that hope was disappointed. The marriage raised +much opposition in Normandy. It was denounced by Archbishop Malger of +Rouen, the brother of the dispossessed Count of Arques. His character +certainly added no weight to his censures; but the same act in a saint +would have been set down as a sign of holy boldness. Presently, whether +for his faults or for his merits, Malger was deposed in a synod of the +Norman Church, and William found him a worthier successor in the learned +and holy Maurilius. But a greater man than Malger also opposed the +marriage, and the controversy thus introduces us to one who fills a place +second only to that of William himself in the Norman and English history +of the time. + +This was Lanfranc of Pavia, the lawyer, the scholar, the model monk, the +ecclesiastical statesman, who, as prior of the newly founded abbey of +Bec, was already one of the innermost counsellors of the Duke. As duke +and king, as prior, abbot, and archbishop, William and Lanfranc ruled +side by side, each helping the work of the other till the end of their +joint lives. Once only, at this time, was their friendship broken for a +moment. Lanfranc spoke against the marriage, and ventured to rebuke the +Duke himself. William’s wrath was kindled; he ordered Lanfranc into +banishment and took a baser revenge by laying waste part of the lands of +the abbey. But the quarrel was soon made up. Lanfranc presently left +Normandy, not as a banished man, but as the envoy of its sovereign, +commissioned to work for the confirmation of the marriage at the papal +court. He worked, and his work was crowned with success, but not with +speedy success. It was not till six years after the marriage, not till +the year 1059, that Lanfranc obtained the wished for confirmation, not +from Leo, but from his remote successor Nicolas the Second. The sin of +those who had contracted the unlawful union was purged by various good +works, among which the foundation of the two stately abbeys of Caen was +conspicuous. + +This story illustrates many points in the character of William and of his +time. His will is not to be thwarted, whether in a matter of marriage or +of any other. But he does not hurry matters; he waits for a favourable +opportunity. Something, we know not what, must have made the year 1053 +more favourable than the year 1049. We mark also William’s relations to +the Church. He is at no time disposed to submit quietly to the bidding +of the spiritual power, when it interferes with his rights or even when +it crosses his will. Yet he is really anxious for ecclesiastical reform; +he promotes men like Maurilius and Lanfranc; perhaps he is not displeased +when the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, in the case of Malger, +frees him from a troublesome censor. But the worse side of him also +comes out. William could forgive rebels, but he could not bear the +personal rebuke even of his friend. Under this feeling he punishes a +whole body of men for the offence of one. To lay waste the lands of Bec +for the rebuke of Lanfranc was like an ordinary prince of the time; it +was unlike William, if he had not been stirred up by a censure which +touched his wife as well as himself. But above all, the bargain between +William and Lanfranc is characteristic of the man and the age. Lanfranc +goes to Rome to support a marriage which he had censured in Normandy. +But there is no formal inconsistency, no forsaking of any principle. +Lanfranc holds an uncanonical marriage to be a sin, and he denounces it. +He does not withdraw his judgement as to its sinfulness. He simply uses +his influence with a power that can forgive the sin to get it forgiven. + +While William’s marriage was debated at Rome, he had to fight hard in +Normandy. His warfare and his negotiations ended about the same time, +and the two things may have had their bearing on one another. William +had now to undergo a new form of trial. The King of the French had never +put forth his full strength when he was simply backing Norman rebels. +William had now, in two successive invasions, to withstand the whole +power of the King, and of as many of his vassals as the King could bring +to his standard. In the first invasion, in 1054, the Norman writers +speak rhetorically of warriors from Burgundy, Auvergne, and Gascony; but +it is hard to see any troops from a greater distance than Bourges. The +princes who followed Henry seem to have been only the nearer vassals of +the Crown. Chief among them are Theobald Count of Chartres, of a house +of old hostile to Normandy, and Guy the new Count of Ponthieu, to be +often heard of again. If not Geoffrey of Anjou himself, his subjects +from Tours were also there. Normandy was to be invaded on two sides, on +both banks of the Seine. The King and his allies sought to wrest from +William the western part of Normandy, the older and the more thoroughly +French part. No attack seems to have been designed on the Bessin or the +Côtentin. William was to be allowed to keep those parts of his duchy, +against which he had to fight when the King was his ally at Val-ès-dunes. + +The two armies entered Normandy; that which was to act on the left of the +Seine was led by the King, the other by his brother Odo. Against the +King William made ready to act himself; eastern Normandy was left to its +own loyal nobles. But all Normandy was now loyal; the men of the Saxon +and Danish lands were as ready to fight for their duke against the King +as they had been to fight against King and Duke together. But William +avoided pitched battles; indeed pitched battles are rare in the +continental warfare of the time. War consists largely in surprises, and +still more in the attack and defence of fortified places. The plan of +William’s present campaign was wholly defensive; provisions and cattle +were to be carried out of the French line of march; the Duke on his side, +the other Norman leaders on the other side, were to watch the enemy and +attack them at any favourable moment. The commanders east of the Seine, +Count Robert of Eu, Hugh of Gournay, William Crispin, and Walter Giffard, +found their opportunity when the French had entered the unfortified town +of Mortemer and had given themselves up to revelry. Fire and sword did +the work. The whole French army was slain, scattered, or taken +prisoners. Ode escaped; Guy of Ponthieu was taken. The Duke’s success +was still easier. The tale runs that the news from Mortemer, suddenly +announced to the King’s army in the dead of the night, struck them with +panic, and led to a hasty retreat out of the land. + +This campaign is truly Norman; it is wholly unlike the simple warfare of +England. A traitorous Englishman did nothing or helped the enemy; a +patriotic Englishman gave battle to the enemy the first time he had a +chance. But no English commander of the eleventh century was likely to +lay so subtle a plan as this, and, if he had laid such a plan, he would +hardly have found an English army able to carry it out. Harold, who +refused to lay waste a rood of English ground, would hardly have looked +quietly on while many roods of English ground were wasted by the enemy. +With all the valour of the Normans, what before all things distinguished +them from other nations was their craft. William could indeed fight a +pitched battle when a pitched battle served his purpose; but he could +control himself, he could control his followers, even to the point of +enduring to look quietly on the havoc of their own land till the right +moment. He who could do this was indeed practising for his calling as +Conqueror. And if the details of the story, details specially +characteristic, are to be believed, William showed something also of that +grim pleasantry which was another marked feature in the Norman character. +The startling message which struck the French army with panic was +deliberately sent with that end. The messenger sent climbs a tree or a +rock, and, with a voice as from another world, bids the French awake; +they are sleeping too long; let them go and bury their friends who are +lying dead at Mortemer. These touches bring home to us the character of +the man and the people with whom our forefathers had presently to deal. +William was the greatest of his race, but he was essentially of his race; +he was Norman to the backbone. + +Of the French army one division had been surprised and cut to pieces, the +other had left Normandy without striking a blow. The war was not yet +quite over; the French still kept Tillières; William accordingly +fortified the stronghold of Breteuil as a cheek upon it. And he +entrusted the command to a man who will soon be memorable, his personal +friend William, son of his old guardian Osbern. King Henry was now glad +to conclude a peace on somewhat remarkable terms. William had the king’s +leave to take what he could from Count Geoffrey of Anjou. He now annexed +Cenomannian—that is just now Angevin—territory at more points than one, +but chiefly on the line of his earlier advances to Domfront and +Ambrières. Ambrières had perhaps been lost; for William now sent +Geoffrey a challenge to come on the fortieth day. He came on the +fortieth day, and found Ambrières strongly fortified and occupied by a +Norman garrison. With Geoffrey came the Breton prince Ode, and William +or Peter Duke of Aquitaine. They besieged the castle; but Norman +accounts add that they all fled on William’s approach to relieve it. + + * * * * * + +Three years of peace now followed, but in 1058 King Henry, this time in +partnership with Geoffrey of Anjou, ventured another invasion of +Normandy. He might say that he had never been fairly beaten in his +former campaign, but that he had been simply cheated out of the land by +Norman wiles. This time he had a second experience of Norman wiles and +of Norman strength too. King and Count entered the land and ravaged far +and wide. William, as before, allowed the enemy to waste the land. He +watched and followed them till he found a favourable moment for attack. +The people in general zealously helped the Duke’s schemes, but some +traitors of rank were still leagued with the Count of Anjou. While +William bided his time, the invaders burned Caen. This place, so famous +in Norman history, was not one of the ancient cities of the land. It was +now merely growing into importance, and it was as yet undefended by walls +or castle. But when the ravagers turned eastward, William found the +opportunity that he had waited for. As the French were crossing the ford +of Varaville on the Dive, near the mouth of that river, he came suddenly +on them, and slaughtered a large part of the army under the eyes of the +king who had already crossed. The remnant marched out of Normandy. + +Henry now made peace, and restored Tillières. Not long after, in 1060, +the King died, leaving his young son Philip, who had been already +crowned, as his successor, under the guardianship of William’s +father-in-law Baldwin. Geoffrey of Anjou and William of Aquitaine also +died, and the Angevin power was weakened by the division of Geoffrey’s +dominions between his nephews. William’s position was greatly +strengthened, now that France, under the new regent, had become friendly, +while Anjou was no longer able to do mischief. William had now nothing +to fear from his neighbours, and the way was soon opened for his great +continental conquest. But what effect had these events on William’s +views on England? About the time of the second French invasion of +Normandy Earl Harold became beyond doubt the first man in England, and +for the first time a chance of the royal succession was opened to him. +In 1057, the year before Varaville, the Ætheling Edward, the King’s +selected successor, died soon after his coming to England; in the same +year died the King’s nephew Earl Ralph and Leofric Earl of the Mercians, +the only Englishmen whose influence could at all compare with that of +Harold. Harold’s succession now became possible; it became even likely, +if Edward should die while Edgar the son of the Ætheling was still under +age. William had no shadow of excuse for interfering, but he doubtless +was watching the internal affairs of England. Harold was certainly +watching the affairs of Gaul. About this time, most likely in the year +1058, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and on his way back he looked +diligently into the state of things among the various vassals of the +French crown. His exact purpose is veiled in ambiguous language; but we +can hardly doubt that his object was to contract alliances with the +continental enemies of Normandy. Such views looked to the distant +future, as William had as yet been guilty of no unfriendly act towards +England. But it was well to come to an understanding with King Henry, +Count Geoffrey, and Duke William of Aquitaine, in case a time should come +when their interests and those of England would be the same. But the +deaths of all those princes must have put an end to all hopes of common +action between England and any Gaulish power. The Emperor Henry also, +the firm ally of England, was dead. It was now clear that, if England +should ever have to withstand a Norman attack, she would have to +withstand it wholly by her own strength, or with such help as she might +find among the kindred powers of the North. + + * * * * * + +William’s great continental conquest is drawing nigh; but between the +campaign of Varaville and the campaign of Le Mans came the tardy papal +confirmation of William’s marriage. The Duke and Duchess, now at last +man and wife in the eye of the Church, began to carry out the works of +penance which were allotted to them. The abbeys of Caen, William’s Saint +Stephen’s, Matilda’s Holy Trinity, now began to arise. Yet, at this +moment of reparation, one or two facts seem to place William’s government +of his duchy in a less favourable light than usual. The last French +invasion was followed by confiscations and banishments among the chief +men of Normandy. Roger of Montgomery and his wife Mabel, who certainly +was capable of any deed of blood or treachery, are charged with acting as +false accusers. We see also that, as late as the day of Varaville, there +were Norman traitors. Robert of Escalfoy had taken the Angevin side, and +had defended his castle against the Duke. He died in a strange way, +after snatching an apple from the hand of his own wife. His nephew +Arnold remained in rebellion three years, and was simply required to go +to the wars in Apulia. It is hard to believe that the Duke had poisoned +the apple, if poisoned it was; but finding treason still at work among +his nobles, he may have too hastily listened to charges against men who +had done him good service, and who were to do him good service again. + +Five years after the combat at Varaville, William really began to +deserve, though not as yet to receive, the name of Conqueror. For he now +did a work second only to the conquest of England. He won the city of Le +Mans and the whole land of Maine. Between the tale of Maine and the tale +of England there is much of direct likeness. Both lands were won against +the will of their inhabitants; but both conquests were made with an +elaborate show of legal right. William’s earlier conquests in Maine had +been won, not from any count of Maine, but from Geoffrey of Anjou, who +had occupied the country to the prejudice of two successive counts, Hugh +and Herbert. He had further imprisoned the Bishop of Le Mans, Gervase of +the house of Bellême, though the King of the French had at his request +granted to the Count of Anjou for life royal rights over the bishopric of +Le Mans. The bishops of Le Mans, who thus, unlike the bishops of +Normandy, held their temporalities of the distant king and not of the +local count, held a very independent position. The citizens of Le Mans +too had large privileges and a high spirit to defend them; the city was +in a marked way the head of the district. Thus it commonly carried with +it the action of the whole country. In Maine there were three rival +powers, the prince, the Church, and the people. The position of the +counts was further weakened by the claims to their homage made by the +princes on either side of them in Normandy and Anjou; the position of the +Bishop, vassal, till Gervase’s late act, of the King only, was really a +higher one. Geoffrey had been received at Le Mans with the good will of +the citizens, and both Bishop and Count sought shelter with William. +Gervase was removed from the strife by promotion to the highest place in +the French kingdom, the archbishopric of Rheims. The young Count +Herbert, driven from his county, commended himself to William. He became +his man; he agreed to hold his dominions of him, and to marry one of his +daughters. If he died childless, his father-in-law was to take the fief +into his own hands. But to unite the old and new dynasties, Herbert’s +youngest sister Margaret was to marry William’s eldest son Robert. If +female descent went for anything, it is not clear why Herbert passed by +the rights of his two elder sisters, Gersendis, wife of Azo Marquess of +Liguria, and Paula, wife of John of La Flèche on the borders of Maine and +Anjou. And sons both of Gersendis and of Paula did actually reign at Le +Mans, while no child either of Herbert or of Margaret ever came into +being. + +If Herbert ever actually got possession of his country, his possession of +it was short. He died in 1063 before either of the contemplated +marriages had been carried out. William therefore stood towards Maine as +he expected to stand with regard to England. The sovereign of each +country had made a formal settlement of his dominions in his favour. It +was to be seen whether those who were most immediately concerned would +accept that settlement. Was the rule either of Maine or of England to be +handed over in this way, like a mere property, without the people who +were to be ruled speaking their minds on the matter? What the people of +England said to this question in 1066 we shall hear presently; what the +people of Maine said in 1063 we hear now. We know not why they had +submitted to the Angevin count; they had now no mind to merge their +country in the dominions of the Norman duke. The Bishop was neutral; but +the nobles and the citizens of Le Mans were of one mind in refusing +William’s demand to be received as count by virtue of the agreement with +Herbert. They chose rulers for themselves. Passing by Gersendis and +Paula and their sons, they sent for Herbert’s aunt Biota and her husband +Walter Count of Mantes. Strangely enough, Walter, son of Godgifu +daughter of Æthelred, was a possible, though not a likely, candidate for +the rule of England as well as of Maine. The people of Maine are not +likely to have thought of this bit of genealogy. But it was doubtless +present to the minds alike of William and of Harold. + +William thus, for the first but not for the last time, claimed the rule +of a people who had no mind to have him as their ruler. Yet, morally +worthless as were his claims over Maine, in the merely technical way of +looking at things, he had more to say than most princes have who annex +the lands of their neighbours. He had a perfectly good right by the +terms of the agreement with Herbert. And it might be argued by any who +admitted the Norman claim to the homage of Maine, that on the failure of +male heirs the country reverted to the overlord. Yet female succession +was now coming in. Anjou had passed to the sons of Geoffrey’s sister; it +had not fallen back to the French king. There was thus a twofold answer +to William’s claim, that Herbert could not grant away even the rights of +his sisters, still less the rights of his people. Still it was +characteristic of William that he had a case that might be plausibly +argued. The people of Maine had fallen back on the old Teutonic right. +They had chosen a prince connected with the old stock, but who was not +the next heir according to any rule of succession. Walter was hardly +worthy of such an exceptional honour; he showed no more energy in Maine +than his brother Ralph had shown in England. The city was defended by +Geoffrey, lord of Mayenne, a valiant man who fills a large place in the +local history. But no valour or skill could withstand William’s plan of +warfare. He invaded Maine in much the same sort in which he had defended +Normandy. He gave out that he wished to win Maine without shedding man’s +blood. He fought no battles; he did not attack the city, which he left +to be the last spot that should be devoured. He harried the open +country, he occupied the smaller posts, till the citizens were driven, +against Geoffrey’s will, to surrender. William entered Le Mans; he was +received, we are told, with joy. When men make the best of a bad +bargain, they sometimes persuade themselves that they are really pleased. +William, as ever, shed no blood; he harmed none of the men who had become +his subjects; but Le Mans was to be bridled; its citizens needed a castle +and a Norman garrison to keep them in their new allegiance. Walter and +Biota surrendered their claims on Maine and became William’s guests at +Falaise. Meanwhile Geoffrey of Mayenne refused to submit, and withstood +the new Count of Maine in his stronghold. William laid siege to Mayenne, +and took it by the favoured Norman argument of fire. All Maine was now +in the hands of the Conqueror. + +William had now made a greater conquest than any Norman duke had made +before him. He had won a county and a noble city, and he had won them, +in the ideas of his own age, with honour. Are we to believe that he +sullied his conquest by putting his late competitors, his present guests, +to death by poison? They died conveniently for him, and they died in his +own house. Such a death was strange; but strange things do happen. +William gradually came to shrink from no crime for which he could find a +technical defence; but no advocate could have said anything on behalf of +the poisoning of Walter and Biota. Another member of the house of Maine, +Margaret the betrothed of his son Robert, died about the same time; and +her at least William had every motive to keep alive. One who was more +dangerous than Walter, if he suffered anything, only suffered banishment. +Of Geoffrey of Mayenne we hear no more till William had again to fight +for the possession of Maine. + + * * * * * + +William had thus, in the year 1063, reached the height of his power and +fame as a continental prince. In a conquest on Gaulish soil he had +rehearsed the greater conquest which he was before long to make beyond +sea. Three years, eventful in England, outwardly uneventful in Normandy, +still part us from William’s second visit to our shores. But in the +course of these three years one event must have happened, which, without +a blow being struck or a treaty being signed, did more for his hopes than +any battle or any treaty. At some unrecorded time, but at a time which +must come within these years, Harold Earl of the West-Saxons became the +guest and the man of William Duke of the Normans. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +HAROLD’S OATH TO WILLIAM. +A.D. 1064? + + +THE lord of Normandy and Maine could now stop and reckon his chances of +becoming lord of England also. While our authorities enable us to put +together a fairly full account of both Norman and English events, they +throw no light on the way in which men in either land looked at events in +the other. Yet we might give much to know what William and Harold at +this time thought of one another. Nothing had as yet happened to make +the two great rivals either national or personal enemies. England and +Normandy were at peace, and the great duke and the great earl had most +likely had no personal dealings with one another. They were rivals in +the sense that each looked forward to succeed to the English crown +whenever the reigning king should die. But neither had as yet put +forward his claim in any shape that the other could look on as any formal +wrong to himself. If William and Harold had ever met, it could have been +only during Harold’s journey in Gaul. Whatever negotiations Harold made +during that journey were negotiations unfriendly to William; still he +may, in the course of that journey, have visited Normandy as well as +France or Anjou. It is hard to avoid the thought that the tale of +Harold’s visit to William, of his oath to William, arose out of something +that happened on Harold’s way back from his Roman pilgrimage. To that +journey we can give an approximate date. Of any other journey we have no +date and no certain detail. We can say only that the fact that no +English writer makes any mention of any such visit, of any such oath, is, +under the circumstances, the strongest proof that the story of the visit +and the oath has some kind of foundation. Yet if we grant thus much, the +story reads on the whole as if it happened a few years later than the +English earl’s return from Rome. + +It is therefore most likely that Harold did pay a second visit to Gaul, +whether a first or a second visit to Normandy, at some time nearer to +Edward’s death than the year 1058. The English writers are silent; the +Norman writers give no date or impossible dates; they connect the visit +with a war in Britanny; but that war is without a date. We are driven to +choose the year which is least rich in events in the English annals. +Harold could not have paid a visit of several months to Normandy either +in 1063 or in 1065. Of those years the first was the year of Harold’s +great war in Wales, when he found how the Britons might be overcome by +their own arms, when he broke the power of Gruffydd, and granted the +Welsh kingdom to princes who became the men of Earl Harold as well as of +King Edward. Harold’s visit to Normandy is said to have taken place in +the summer and autumn mouths; but the summer and autumn of 1065 were +taken up by the building and destruction of Harold’s hunting-seat in +Wales and by the greater events of the revolt and pacification of +Northumberland. But the year 1064 is a blank in the English annals till +the last days of December, and no action of Harold’s in that year is +recorded. It is therefore the only possible year among those just before +Edward’s death. Harold’s visit and oath to William may very well have +taken place in that year; but that is all. + +We know as little for certain as to the circumstances of the visit or the +nature of the oath. We can say only that Harold did something which +enabled William to charge him with perjury and breach of the duty of a +vassal. It is inconceivable in itself, and unlike the formal +scrupulousness of William’s character, to fancy that he made his appeal +to all Christendom without any ground at all. The Norman writers +contradict one another so thoroughly in every detail of the story that we +can look on no part of it as trustworthy. Yet such a story can hardly +have grown up so near to the alleged time without some kernel of truth in +it. And herein comes the strong corroborative witness that the English +writers, denying every other charge against Harold, pass this one by +without notice. We can hardly doubt that Harold swore some oath to +William which he did not keep. More than this it would be rash to say +except as an avowed guess. + +As our nearest approach to fixing the date is to take that year which is +not impossible, so, to fix the occasion of the visit, we can only take +that one among the Norman versions which is also not impossible. All the +main versions represent Harold as wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, as +imprisoned, according to the barbarous law of wreck, by Count Guy, and as +delivered by the intervention of William. If any part of the story is +true, this is. But as to the circumstances which led to the shipwreck +there is no agreement. Harold assuredly was not sent to announce to +William a devise of the crown in his favour made with the consent of the +Witan of England and confirmed by the oaths of Stigand, Godwine, Siward, +and Leofric. Stigand became Archbishop in September 1052: Godwine died +at Easter 1053. The devise must therefore have taken place, and Harold’s +journey must have taken place, within those few most unlikely months, the +very time when Norman influence was overthrown. Another version makes +Harold go, against the King’s warnings, to bring back his brother +Wulfnoth and his nephew Hakon, who had been given as hostages on the +return of Godwine, and had been entrusted by the King to the keeping of +Duke William. This version is one degree less absurd; but no such +hostages are known to have been given, and if they were, the patriotic +party, in the full swing of triumph, would hardly have allowed them to be +sent to Normandy. A third version makes Harold’s presence the result of +mere accident. He is sailing to Wales or Flanders, or simply taking his +pleasure in the Channel, when he is cast by a storm on the coast of +Ponthieu. Of these three accounts we may choose the third as the only +one that is possible. It is also one out of which the others may have +grown, while it is hard to see how the third could have arisen out of +either of the others. Harold then, we may suppose, fell accidentally +into the clutches of Guy, and was rescued from them, at some cost in +ransom and in grants of land, by Guy’s overlord Duke William. + +The whole story is eminently characteristic of William. He would be +honestly indignant at Guy’s base treatment of Harold, and he would feel +it his part as Guy’s overlord to redress the wrong. But he would also be +alive to the advantage of getting his rival into his power on so +honourable a pretext. Simply to establish a claim to gratitude on the +part of Harold would be something. But he might easily do more, and, +according to all accounts, he did more. Harold, we are told, as the +Duke’s friend and guest, returns the obligation under which the Duke has +laid him by joining him in one or more expeditions against the Bretons. +The man who had just smitten the Bret-Welsh of the island might well be +asked to fight, and might well be ready to fight, against the Bret-Welsh +of the mainland. The services of Harold won him high honour; he was +admitted into the ranks of Norman knighthood, and engaged to marry one of +William’s daughters. Now, at any time to which we can fix Harold’s +visit, all William’s daughters must have been mere children. Harold, on +the other hand, seems to have been a little older than William. Yet +there is nothing unlikely in the engagement, and it is the one point in +which all the different versions, contradicting each other on every other +point, agree without exception. Whatever else Harold promises, he +promises this, and in some versions he does not promise anything else. + +Here then we surely have the kernel of truth round which a mass of fable, +varying in different reports, has gathered. On no other point is there +any agreement. The place is unfixed; half a dozen Norman towns and +castles are made the scene of the oath. The form of the oath is unfixed; +in some accounts it is the ordinary oath of homage; in others it is an +oath of fearful solemnity, taken on the holiest relics. In one +well-known account, Harold is even made to swear on hidden relics, not +knowing on what he is swearing. Here is matter for much thought. To +hold that one form of oath or promise is more binding than another upsets +all true confidence between man and man. The notion of the specially +binding nature of the oath by relies assumes that, in case of breach of +the oath, every holy person to whose relies despite has been done will +become the personal enemy of the perjurer. But the last story of all is +the most instructive. William’s formal, and more than formal, religion +abhorred a false oath, in himself or in another man. But, so long as he +keeps himself personally clear from the guilt, he does not scruple to put +another man under special temptation, and, while believing in the power +of the holy relics, he does not scruple to abuse them to a purpose of +fraud. Surely, if Harold did break his oath, the wrath of the saints +would fall more justly on William. Whether the tale be true or false, it +equally illustrates the feelings of the time, and assuredly its truth or +falsehood concerns the character of William far more than that of Harold. + +What it was that Harold swore, whether in this specially solemn fashion +or in any other, is left equally uncertain. In any case he engages to +marry a daughter of William—as to which daughter the statements are +endless—and in most versions he engages to do something more. He becomes +the man of William, much as William had become the man of Edward. He +promises to give his sister in marriage to an unnamed Norman baron. +Moreover he promises to secure the kingdom of England for William at +Edward’s death. Perhaps he is himself to hold the kingdom or part of it +under William; in any case William is to be the overlord; in the more +usual story, William is to be himself the immediate king, with Harold as +his highest and most favoured subject. Meanwhile Harold is to act in +William’s interest, to receive a Norman garrison in Dover castle, and to +build other castles at other points. But no two stories agree, and not a +few know nothing of anything beyond the promise of marriage. + +Now if William really required Harold to swear to all these things, it +must have been simply in order to have an occasion against him. If +Harold really swore to all of them, it must have been simply because he +felt that he was practically in William’s power, without any serious +intention of keeping the oath. If Harold took any such oath, he +undoubtedly broke it; but we may safely say that any guilt on his part +lay wholly in taking the oath, not in breaking it. For he swore to do +what he could not do, and what it would have been a crime to do, if he +could. If the King himself could not dispose of the crown, still less +could the most powerful subject. Harold could at most promise William +his “vote and interest,” whenever the election came. But no one can +believe that even Harold’s influence could have obtained the crown for +William. His influence lay in his being the embodiment of the national +feeling; for him to appear as the supporter of William would have been to +lose the crown for himself without gaining it for William. Others in +England and in Scandinavia would have been glad of it. And the +engagements to surrender Dover castle and the like were simply +engagements on the part of an English earl to play the traitor against +England. If William really called on Harold to swear to all this, he did +so, not with any hope that the oath would be kept, but simply to put his +competitor as far as possible in the wrong. But most likely Harold swore +only to something much simpler. Next to the universal agreement about +the marriage comes the very general agreement that Harold became +William’s man. In these two statements we have probably the whole truth. +In those days men took the obligation of homage upon themselves very +easily. Homage was no degradation, even in the highest; a man often did +homage to any one from whom he had received any great benefit, and Harold +had received a very great benefit from William. Nor did homage to a new +lord imply treason to the old one. Harold, delivered by William from +Guy’s dungeon, would be eager to do for William any act of friendship. +The homage would be little more than binding himself in the strongest +form so to do. The relation of homage could be made to mean anything or +nothing, as might be convenient. The man might often understand it in +one sense and the lord in another. If Harold became the man of William, +he would look on the act as little more than an expression of good will +and gratitude towards his benefactor, his future father-in-law, his +commander in the Breton war. He would not look on it as forbidding him +to accept the English crown if it were offered to him. Harold, the man +of Duke William, might become a king, if he could, just as William, the +man of King Philip, might become a king, if he could. As things went in +those days, both the homage and the promise of marriage were capable of +being looked on very lightly. + +But it was not in the temper or in the circumstances of William to put +any such easy meaning on either promise. The oath might, if needful, be +construed very strictly, and William was disposed to construe it very +strictly. Harold had not promised William a crown, which was not his to +promise; but he had promised to do that which might be held to forbid him +to take a crown which William held to be his own. If the man owed his +lord any duty at all, it was surely his duty not to thwart his lord’s +wishes in such a matter. If therefore, when the vacancy of the throne +came, Harold took the crown himself, or even failed to promote William’s +claim to it, William might argue that he had not rightly discharged the +duty of a man to his lord. He could make an appeal to the world against +the new king, as a perjured man, who had failed to help his lord in the +matter where his lord most needed his help. And, if the oath really had +been taken on relics of special holiness, he could further appeal to the +religious feelings of the time against the man who had done despite to +the saints. If he should be driven to claim the crown by arms, he could +give the war the character of a crusade. All this in the end William +did, and all this, we may be sure, he looked forward to doing, when he +caused Harold to become his man. The mere obligation of homage would, in +the skilful hands of William and Lanfranc, be quite enough to work on +men’s minds, as William wished to work on them. To Harold meanwhile and +to those in England who heard the story, the engagement would not seem to +carry any of these consequences. The mere homage then, which Harold +could hardly refuse, would answer William’s purpose nearly as well as any +of these fuller obligations which Harold would surely have refused. And +when a man older than William engaged to marry William’s child-daughter, +we must bear in mind the lightness with which such promises were made. +William could not seriously expect that this engagement would be kept, if +anything should lead Harold to another marriage. The promise was meant +simply to add another count to the charges against Harold when the time +should come. Yet on this point it is not clear that the oath was broken. +Harold undoubtedly married Ealdgyth, daughter of Ælfgar and widow of +Gruffydd, and not any daughter of William. But in one version Harold is +made to say that the daughter of William whom he had engaged to marry was +dead. And that one of William’s daughters did die very early there seems +little doubt. + + * * * * * + +Whatever William did Lanfranc no doubt at least helped to plan. The +Norman duke was subtle, but the Italian churchman was subtler still. In +this long series of schemes and negotiations which led to the conquest of +England, we are dealing with two of the greatest recorded masters of +statecraft. We may call their policy dishonest and immoral, and so it +was. But it was hardly more dishonest and immoral than most of the +diplomacy of later times. William’s object was, without any formal +breach of faith on his own part, to entrap Harold into an engagement +which might be understood in different senses, and which, in the sense +which William chose to put upon it, Harold was sure to break. Two men, +themselves of virtuous life, a rigid churchman and a layman of unusual +religious strictness, do not scruple to throw temptation in the way of a +fellow man in the hope that he will yield to that temptation. They exact +a promise, because the promise is likely to be broken, and because its +breach would suit their purposes. Through all William’s policy a strong +regard for formal right as he chose to understand formal right, is not +only found in company with much practical wrong, but is made the direct +instrument of carrying out that wrong. Never was trap more cunningly +laid than that in which William now entangled Harold. Never was greater +wrong done without the breach of any formal precept of right. William +and Lanfranc broke no oath themselves, and that was enough for them. But +it was no sin in their eyes to beguile another into engagements which he +would understand in one way and they in another; they even, as their +admirers tell the story, beguile him into engagements at once unlawful +and impossible, because their interests would be promoted by his breach +of those engagements. William, in short, under the spiritual guidance of +Lanfranc, made Harold swear because he himself would gain by being able +to denounce Harold as perjured. + +The moral question need not be further discussed; but we should greatly +like to know how far the fact of Harold’s oath, whatever its nature, was +known in England? On this point we have no trustworthy authority. The +English writers say nothing about the whole matter; to the Norman writers +this point was of no interest. No one mentions this point, except +Harold’s romantic biographer at the beginning of the thirteenth century. +His statements are of no value, except as showing how long Harold’s +memory was cherished. According to him, Harold formally laid the matter +before the Witan, and they unanimously voted that the oath—more, in his +version, than a mere oath of homage—was not binding. It is not likely +that such a vote was ever formally passed, but its terms would only +express what every Englishman would feel. The oath, whatever its terms, +had given William a great advantage; but every Englishman would argue +both that the oath, whatever its terms, could not hinder the English +nation from offering Harold the crown, and that it could not bind Harold +to refuse the crown if it should be so offered. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. +JANUARY-OCTOBER 1066. + + +IF the time that has been suggested was the real time of Harold’s oath to +William, its fulfilment became a practical question in little more than a +year. How the year 1065 passed in Normandy we have no record; in England +its later months saw the revolt of Northumberland against Harold’s +brother Tostig, and the reconciliation which Harold made between the +revolters and the king to the damage of his brother’s interests. Then +came Edward’s sickness, of which he died on January 5, 1066. He had on +his deathbed recommended Harold to the assembled Witan as his successor +in the kingdom. The candidate was at once elected. Whether William, +Edgar, or any other, was spoken of we know not; but as to the +recommendation of Edward and the consequent election of Harold the +English writers are express. The next day Edward was buried, and Harold +was crowned in regular form by Ealdred Archbishop of York in Edward’s new +church at Westminster. Northumberland refused to acknowledge him; but +the malcontents were won over by the coming of the king and his friend +Saint Wulfstan Bishop of Worcester. It was most likely now, as a seal of +this reconciliation, that Harold married Ealdgyth, the sister of the two +northern earls Edwin and Morkere, and the widow of the Welsh king +Gruffydd. He doubtless hoped in this way to win the loyalty of the earls +and their followers. + +The accession of Harold was perfectly regular according to English law. +In later times endless fables arose; but the Norman writers of the time +do not deny the facts of the recommendation, election, and coronation. +They slur them over, or, while admitting the mere facts, they represent +each act as in some way invalid. No writer near the time asserts a +deathbed nomination of William; they speak only of a nomination at some +earlier time. But some Norman writers represent Harold as crowned by +Stigand Archbishop of Canterbury. This was not, in the ideas of those +times, a trifling question. A coronation was then not a mere pageant; it +was the actual admission to the kingly office. Till his crowning and +anointing, the claimant of the crown was like a bishop-elect before his +consecration. He had, by birth or election, the sole right to become +king; it was the coronation that made him king. And as the ceremony took +the form of an ecclesiastical sacrament, its validity might seem to +depend on the lawful position of the officiating bishop. In England to +perform that ceremony was the right and duty of the Archbishop of +Canterbury; but the canonical position of Stigand was doubtful. He had +been appointed on the flight of Robert; he had received the _pallium_, +the badge of arch-episcopal rank, only from the usurping Benedict the +Tenth. It was therefore good policy in Harold to be crowned by Ealdred, +to whose position there was no objection. This is the only difference of +fact between the English and Norman versions at this stage. And the +difference is easily explained. At William’s coronation the king walked +to the altar between the two archbishops, but it was Ealdred who actually +performed the ceremony. Harold’s coronation doubtless followed the same +order. But if Stigand took any part in that coronation, it was easy to +give out that he took that special part on which the validity of the rite +depended. + +Still, if Harold’s accession was perfectly lawful, it was none the less +strange and unusual. Except the Danish kings chosen under more or less +of compulsion, he was the first king who did not belong to the West-Saxon +kingly house. Such a choice could be justified only on the ground that +that house contained no qualified candidate. Its only known members were +the children of the Ætheling Edward, young Edgar and his sisters. Now +Edgar would certainly have been passed by in favour of any better +qualified member of the kingly house, as his father had been passed by in +favour of King Edward. And the same principle would, as things stood, +justify passing him by in favour of a qualified candidate not of the +kingly house. But Edgar’s right to the crown is never spoken of till a +generation or two later, when the doctrines of hereditary right had +gained much greater strength, and when Henry the Second, great-grandson +through his mother of Edgar’s sister Margaret, insisted on his descent +from the old kings. This distinction is important, because Harold is +often called an usurper, as keeping out Edgar the heir by birth. But +those who called him an usurper at the time called him so as keeping out +William the heir by bequest. William’s own election was out of the +question. He was no more of the English kingly house than Harold; he was +a foreigner and an utter stranger. Had Englishmen been minded to choose +a foreigner, they doubtless would have chosen Swegen of Denmark. He had +found supporters when Edward was chosen; he was afterwards appealed to to +deliver England from William. He was no more of the English kingly house +than Harold or William; but he was grandson of a man who had reigned over +England, Northumberland might have preferred him to Harold; any part of +England would have preferred him to William. In fact any choice that +could have been made must have had something strange about it. Edgar +himself, the one surviving male of the old stock, besides his youth, was +neither born in the land nor the son of a crowned king. Those two +qualifications had always been deemed of great moment; an elaborate +pedigree went for little; actual royal birth went for a great deal. +There was now no son of a king to choose. Had there been even a child +who was at once a son of Edward and a sister’s son of Harold, he might +have reigned with his uncle as his guardian and counsellor. As it was, +there was nothing to do but to choose the man who, though not of kingly +blood, had ruled England well for thirteen years. + +The case thus put seemed plain to every Englishman, at all events to +every man in Wessex, East-Anglia, and southern Mercia. But it would not +seem so plain in _other_ lands. To the greater part of Western Europe +William’s claim might really seem the better. William himself doubtless +thought his own claim the better; he deluded himself as he deluded +others. But we are more concerned with William as a statesman; and if it +be statesmanship to adapt means to ends, whatever the ends may be, if it +be statesmanship to make men believe that the worse cause is the better, +then no man ever showed higher statesmanship than William showed in his +great pleading before all Western Christendom. It is a sign of the times +that it was a pleading before all Western Christendom. Others had +claimed crowns; none had taken such pains to convince all mankind that +the claim was a good one. Such an appeal to public opinion marks on one +side a great advance. It was a great step towards the ideas of +International Law and even of European concert. It showed that the days +of mere force were over, that the days of subtle diplomacy had begun. +Possibly the change was not without its dark side; it may be doubted +whether a change from force to fraud is wholly a gain. Still it was an +appeal from the mere argument of the sword to something which at least +professed to be right and reason. William does not draw the sword till +he has convinced himself and everybody else that he is drawing it in a +just cause. In that age the appeal naturally took a religious shape. +Herein lay its immediate strength; herein lay its weakness as regarded +the times to come. William appealed to Emperor, kings, princes, +Christian men great and small, in every Christian land. He would +persuade all; he would ask help of all. But above all he appealed to the +head of Christendom, the Bishop of Rome. William in his own person could +afford to do so; where he reigned, in Normandy or in England, there was +no fear of Roman encroachments; he was fully minded to be in all causes +and over all persons within his dominions supreme. While he lived, no +Pope ventured to dispute his right. But by acknowledging the right of +the Pope to dispose of crowns, or at least to judge as to the right to +crowns, he prepared many days of humiliation for kings in general and +specially for his own successors. One man in Western Europe could see +further than William, perhaps even further than Lanfranc. The chief +counsellor of Pope Alexander the Second was the Archdeacon Hildebrand, +the future Gregory the Seventh. If William outwitted the world, +Hildebrand outwitted William. William’s appeal to the Pope to decide +between two claimants for the English crown strengthened Gregory not a +little in his daring claim to dispose of the crowns of Rome, of Italy, +and of Germany. Still this recognition of Roman claims led more directly +to the humiliation of William’s successor in his own kingdom. Moreover +William’s successful attempt to represent his enterprise as a holy war, a +crusade before crusades were heard of, did much to suggest and to make +ready the way for the real crusades a generation later. It was not till +after William’s death that Urban preached the crusade, but it was during +William’s life that Gregory planned it. + +The appeal was strangely successful. William convinced, or seemed to +convince, all men out of England and Scandinavia that his claim to the +English crown was just and holy, and that it was a good work to help him +to assert it in arms. He persuaded his own subjects; he certainly did +not constrain them. He persuaded some foreign princes to give him actual +help, some to join his muster in person; he persuaded all to help him so +far as not to hinder their subjects from joining him as volunteers. And +all this was done by sheer persuasion, by argument good or bad. In +adapting of means to ends, in applying to each class of men that kind of +argument which best suited it, the diplomacy, the statesmanship, of +William was perfect. Again we ask, How far was it the statesmanship of +William, how far of Lanfranc? But a prince need not do everything with +his own hands and say everything with his own tongue. It was no small +part of the statesmanship of William to find out Lanfranc, to appreciate +him and to trust him. And when two subtle brains were at work, more +could be done by the two working in partnership than by either working +alone. + +By what arguments did the Duke of the Normans and the Prior of Bec +convince mankind that the worse cause was the better? We must always +remember the transitional character of the age. England was in political +matters in advance of other Western lands; that is, it lagged behind +other Western lands. It had not gone so far on the downward course. It +kept far more than Gaul or even Germany of the old Teutonic institutions, +the substance of which later ages have won back under new shapes. Many +things were understood in England which are now again understood +everywhere, but which were no longer understood in France or in the lands +held of the French crown. The popular election of kings comes foremost. +Hugh Capet was an elective king as much as Harold; but the French kings +had made their crown the most strictly hereditary of all crowns. They +avoided any interregnum by having their sons crowned in their lifetime. +So with the great fiefs of the crown. The notion of kingship as an +office conferred by the nation, of a duchy or county as an office held +under the king, was still fully alive in England; in Gaul it was +forgotten. Kingdom, duchies, counties, had all become possessions +instead of offices, possessions passing by hereditary succession of some +kind. But no rule of hereditary succession was universally or generally +accepted. To this day the kingdoms of Europe differ as to the question +of female succession, and it is but slowly that the doctrine of +representation has ousted the more obvious doctrine of nearness of kin. +All these points were then utterly unsettled; crowns, save of course that +of the Empire, were to pass by hereditary right; only what was hereditary +right? At such a time claims would be pressed which would have seemed +absurd either earlier or later. To Englishmen, if it seemed strange to +elect one who was not of the stock of Cerdic, it seemed much more strange +to be called on to accept without election, or to elect as a matter of +course, one who was not of the stock of Cerdic and who was a stranger +into the bargain. Out of England it would not seem strange when William +set forth that Edward, having no direct heirs, had chosen his near +kinsman William as his successor. Put by itself, that statement had a +plausible sound. The transmission of a crown by bequest belongs to the +same range of ideas as its transmission by hereditary right; both assume +the crown to be a property and not an office. Edward’s nomination of +Harold, the election of Harold, the fact that William’s kindred to Edward +lay outside the royal line of England, the fact that there was, in the +person of Edgar, a nearer kinsman within that royal line, could all be +slurred over or explained away or even turned to William’s profit. Let +it be that Edward on his death-bed had recommended Harold, and that the +Witan had elected Harold. The recommendation was wrung from a dying man +in opposition to an earlier act done when he was able to act freely. The +election was brought about by force or fraud; if it was free, it was of +no force against William’s earlier claim of kindred and bequest. As for +Edgar, as few people in England thought of him, still fewer out of +England would have ever heard of him. It is more strange that the +bastardy of William did not tell against him, as it had once told in his +own duchy. But this fact again marks the transitional age. Altogether +the tale that a man who was no kinsman of the late king had taken to +himself the crown which the king had bequeathed to a kinsman, might, even +without further aggravation, be easily made to sound like a tale of +wrong. + +But the case gained tenfold strength when William added that the doer of +the wrong was of all men the one most specially bound not to do it. The +usurper was in any case William’s man, bound to act in all things for his +lord. Perhaps he was more; perhaps he had directly sworn to receive +William as king. Perhaps he had promised all this with an oath of +special solemnity. It would be easy to enlarge on all these further +counts as making up an amount of guilt which William not only had the +right to chastise, but which he would be lacking in duty if he failed to +chastise. He had to punish the perjurer, to avenge the wrongs of the +saints. Surely all who should help him in so doing would be helping in a +righteous work. + +The answer to all this was obvious. Putting the case at the very worst, +assuming that Harold had sworn all that he is ever said to have sworn, +assuming that he swore it in the most solemn way in which he is ever said +to have sworn it, William’s claim was not thereby made one whit better. +Whatever Harold’s own guilt might be, the people of England had no share +in it. Nothing that Harold had done could bar their right to choose +their king freely. Even if Harold declined the crown, that would not +bind the electors to choose William. But when the notion of choosing +kings had begun to sound strange, all this would go for nothing. There +would be no need even to urge that in any case the wrong done by Harold +to William gave William a _casus belli_ against Harold, and that William, +if victorious, might claim the crown of England, as a possession of +Harold’s, by right of conquest. In fact William never claimed the crown +by conquest, as conquest is commonly understood. He always represented +himself as the lawful heir, unhappily driven to use force to obtain his +rights. The other pleas were quite enough to satisfy most men out of +England and Scandinavia. William’s work was to claim the crown of which +he was unjustly deprived, and withal to deal out a righteous chastisement +on the unrighteous and ungodly man by whom he had been deprived of it. + +In the hands of diplomatists like William and Lanfranc, all these +arguments, none of which had in itself the slightest strength, were +enough to turn the great mass of continental opinion in William’s favour. +But he could add further arguments specially adapted to different classes +of minds. He could hold out the prospect of plunder, the prospect of +lands and honours in a land whose wealth was already proverbial. It +might of course be answered that the enterprise against England was +hazardous and its success unlikely. But in such matters, men listen +rather to their hopes than to their fears. To the Normans it would be +easy, not only to make out a case against Harold, but to rake up old +grudges against the English nation. Under Harold the son of Cnut, +Alfred, a prince half Norman by birth, wholly Norman by education, the +brother of the late king, the lawful heir to the crown, had been betrayed +and murdered by somebody. A widespread belief laid the deed to the +charge of the father of the new king. This story might easily be made a +ground of national complaint by Normandy against England, and it was easy +to infer that Harold had some share in the alleged crime of Godwine. It +was easy to dwell on later events, on the driving of so many Normans out +of England, with Archbishop Robert at their head. Nay, not only had the +lawful primate been driven out, but an usurper had been set in his place, +and this usurping archbishop had been made to bestow a mockery of +consecration on the usurping king. The proposed aggression on England +was even represented as a missionary work, undertaken for the good of the +souls of the benighted islanders. For, though the English were +undoubtedly devout after their own fashion, there was much in the +ecclesiastical state of England which displeased strict churchmen beyond +sea, much that William, when he had the power, deemed it his duty to +reform. The insular position of England naturally parted it in many +things from the usages and feelings of the mainland, and it was not hard +to get up a feeling against the nation as well as against its king. All +this could not really strengthen William’s claim; but it made men look +more favourably on his enterprise. + + * * * * * + +The fact that the Witan were actually in session at Edward’s death had +made it possible to carry out Harold’s election and coronation with +extreme speed. The electors had made their choice before William had any +opportunity of formally laying his claim before them. This was really an +advantage to him; he could the better represent the election and +coronation as invalid. His first step was of course to send an embassy +to Harold to call on him even now to fulfil his oath. The accounts of +this embassy, of which we have no English account, differ as much as the +different accounts of the oath. Each version of course makes William +demand and Harold refuse whatever it had made Harold swear. These +demands and refusals range from the resignation of the kingdom to a +marriage with William’s daughter. And it is hard to separate this +embassy from later messages between the rivals. In all William demands, +Harold refuses; the arguments on each side are likely to be genuine. +Harold is called on to give up the crown to William, to hold it of +William, to hold part of the kingdom of William, to submit the question +to the judgement of the Pope, lastly, if he will do nothing else, at +least to marry William’s daughter. Different writers place these demands +at different times, immediately after Harold’s election or immediately +before the battle. The last challenge to a single combat between Harold +and William of course appears only on the eve of the battle. Now none of +these accounts come from contemporary partisans of Harold; every one is +touched by hostile feeling towards him. Thus the constitutional language +that is put into his mouth, almost startling from its modern sound, has +greater value. A King of the English can do nothing without the consent +of his Witan. They gave him the kingdom; without their consent, he +cannot resign it or dismember it or agree to hold it of any man; without +their consent, he cannot even marry a foreign wife. Or he answers that +the daughter of William whom he promised to marry is dead, and that the +sister whom he promised to give to a Norman is dead also. Harold does +not deny the fact of his oath—whatever its nature; he justifies its +breach because it was taken against is will, and because it was in itself +of no strength, as binding him to do impossible things. He does not deny +Edward’s earlier promise to William; but, as a testament is of no force +while the testator liveth, he argues that it is cancelled by Edward’s +later nomination of himself. In truth there is hardly any difference +between the disputants as to matters of fact. One side admits at least a +plighting of homage on the part of Harold; the other side admits Harold’s +nomination and election. The real difference is as to the legal effect +of either. Herein comes William’s policy. The question was one of +English law and of nothing else, a matter for the Witan of England and +for no other judges. William, by ingeniously mixing all kinds of +irrelevant issues, contrived to remove the dispute from the region of +municipal into that of international law, a law whose chief +representative was the Bishop of Rome. By winning the Pope to his side, +William could give his aggression the air of a religious war; but in so +doing, he unwittingly undermined the throne that he was seeking and the +thrones of all other princes. + +The answers which Harold either made, or which writers of his time +thought that he ought to have made, are of the greatest moment in our +constitutional history. The King is the doer of everything; but he can +do nothing of moment without the consent of his Witan. They can say Yea +or Nay to every proposal of the King. An energetic and popular king +would get no answer but Yea to whatever he chose to ask. A king who +often got the answer of Nay, Nay, was in great danger of losing his +kingdom. The statesmanship of William knew how to turn this +constitutional system, without making any change in the letter, into a +despotism like that of Constantinople or Cordova. But the letter lived, +to come to light again on occasion. The Revolution of 1399 was a falling +back on the doctrines of 1066, and the Revolution of 1688 was a falling +back on the doctrines of 1399. The principle at all three periods is +that the power of the King is strictly limited by law, but that, within +the limits which the law sets to his power, he acts according to his own +discretion. King and Witan stand out as distinct powers, each of which +needs the assent of the other to its acts, and which may always refuse +that assent. The political work of the last two hundred years has been +to hinder these direct collisions between King and Parliament by the +ingenious conventional device of a body of men who shall be in name the +ministers of the Crown, but in truth the ministers of one House of +Parliament. We do not understand our own political history, still less +can we understand the position and the statesmanship of the Conqueror, +unless we fully take in what the English constitution in the eleventh +century really was, how very modern-sounding are some of its doctrines, +some of its forms. Statesmen of our own day might do well to study the +meagre records of the Gemót of 1047. There is the earliest recorded +instance of a debate on a question of foreign policy. Earl Godwine +proposes to give help to Denmark, then at war with Norway. He is +outvoted on the motion of Earl Leofric, the man of moderate politics, who +appears as leader of the party of non-intervention. It may be that in +some things we have not always advanced in the space of eight hundred +years. + + * * * * * + +The negotiations of William with his own subjects, with foreign powers, +and with the Pope, are hard to arrange in order. Several negotiations +were doubtless going on at the same time. The embassy to Harold would of +course come first of all. Till his demand had been made and refused, +William could make no appeal elsewhere. We know not whether the embassy +was sent before or after Harold’s journey to Northumberland, before or +after his marriage with Ealdgyth. If Harold was already married, the +demand that he should marry William’s daughter could have been meant only +in mockery. Indeed, the whole embassy was so far meant in mockery that +it was sent without any expectation that its demands would be listened +to. It was sent to put Harold, from William’s point of view, more +thoroughly in the wrong, and to strengthen William’s case against him. +It would therefore be sent at the first moment; the only statement, from +a very poor authority certainly, makes the embassy come on the tenth day +after Edward’s death. Next after the embassy would come William’s appeal +to his own subjects, though Lanfranc might well be pleading at Rome while +William was pleading at Lillebonne. The Duke first consulted a select +company, who promised their own services, but declined to pledge any one +else. It was held that no Norman was bound to follow the Duke in an +attempt to win for himself a crown beyond the sea. But voluntary help +was soon ready. A meeting of the whole baronage of Normandy was held at +Lillebonne. The assembly declined any obligation which could be turned +into a precedent, and passed no general vote at all. But the barons were +won over one by one, and each promised help in men and ships according to +his means. + +William had thus, with some difficulty, gained the support of his own +subjects; but when he had once gained it, it was a zealous support. And +as the flame spread from one part of Europe to another, the zeal of +Normandy would wax keener and keener. The dealings of William with +foreign powers are told us in a confused, piecemeal, and sometimes +contradictory way. We hear that embassies went to the young King Henry +of Germany, son of the great Emperor, the friend of England, and also to +Swegen of Denmark. The Norman story runs that both princes promised +William their active support. Yet Swegen, the near kinsman of Harold, +was a friend of England, and the same writer who puts this promise into +his mouth makes him send troops to help his English cousin. Young Henry +or his advisers could have no motive for helping William; but subjects of +the Empire were at least not hindered from joining his banner. To the +French king William perhaps offered the bait of holding the crown of +England of him; but Philip is said to have discouraged William’s +enterprise as much as he could. Still he did not hinder French subjects +from taking a part in it. Of the princes who held of the French crown, +Eustace of Boulogne, who joined the muster in person, and Guy of +Ponthieu, William’s own vassal, who sent his son, seem to have been the +only ones who did more than allow the levying of volunteers in their +dominions. A strange tale is told that Conan of Britanny took this +moment for bringing up his own forgotten pretensions to the Norman duchy. +If William was going to win England, let him give up Normandy to him. He +presently, the tale goes, died of a strange form of poisoning, in which +it is implied that William had a hand. This is the story of Walter and +Biota over again. It is perhaps enough to say that the Breton writers +know nothing of the tale. + +But the great negotiation of all was with the Papal court. We might have +thought that the envoy would be Lanfranc, so well skilled in Roman ways; +but William perhaps needed him as a constant adviser by his own person. +Gilbert, Archdeacon of Lisieux, was sent to Pope Alexander. No +application could better suit papal interests than the one that was now +made; but there were some moral difficulties. Not a few of the +cardinals, Hildebrand tells us himself, argued, not without strong +language towards Hildebrand, that the Church had nothing to do with such +matters, and that it was sinful to encourage a claim which could not be +enforced without bloodshed. But with many, with Hildebrand among them, +the notion of the Church as a party or a power came before all thoughts +of its higher duties. One side was carefully heard; the other seems not +to have been heard at all. We hear of no summons to Harold, and the King +of the English could not have pleaded at the Pope’s bar without +acknowledging that his case was at least doubtful. The judgement of +Alexander or of Hildebrand was given for William. Harold was declared to +be an usurper, perhaps declared excommunicated. The right to the English +crown was declared to be in the Duke of the Normans, and William was +solemnly blessed in the enterprise in which he was at once to win his own +rights, to chastise the wrong-doer, to reform the spiritual state of the +misguided islanders, to teach them fuller obedience to the Roman See and +more regular payment of its temporal dues. William gained his immediate +point; but his successors on the English throne paid the penalty. +Hildebrand gained his point for ever, or for as long a time as men might +be willing to accept the Bishop of Rome as a judge in any matters. The +precedent by which Hildebrand, under another name, took on him to dispose +of a higher crown than that of England was now fully established. + +As an outward sign of papal favour, William received a consecrated banner +and a ring containing a hair of Saint Peter. Here was something for men +to fight for. The war was now a holy one. All who were ready to promote +their souls’ health by slaughter and plunder might flock to William’s +standard, to the standard of Saint Peter. Men came from most +French-speaking lands, the Normans of Apulia and Sicily being of course +not slow to take up the quarrel of their kinsfolk. But, next to his own +Normandy, the lands which sent most help were Flanders, the land of +Matilda, and Britanny, where the name of the Saxon might still be +hateful. We must never forget that the host of William, the men who won +England, the men who settled in England, were not an exclusively Norman +body. Not Norman, but _French_, is the name most commonly opposed to +_English_, as the name of the conquering people. Each Norman severally +would have scorned that name for himself personally; but it was the only +name that could mark the whole of which he and his countrymen formed a +part. Yet, if the Normans were but a part, they were the greatest and +the noblest part; their presence alone redeemed the enterprise from being +a simple enterprise of brigandage. The Norman Conquest was after all a +Norman Conquest; men of other lands were merely helpers. So far as it +was not Norman, it was Italian; the subtle wit of Lombard Lanfranc and +Tuscan Hildebrand did as much to overthrow us as the lance and bow of +Normandy. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +WILLIAM’S INVASION OF ENGLAND. +AUGUST-DECEMBER 1066. + + +THE statesmanship of William had triumphed. The people of England had +chosen their king, and a large part of the world had been won over by the +arts of a foreign prince to believe that it was a righteous and holy work +to set him on the throne to which the English people had chosen the +foremost man among themselves. No diplomatic success was ever more +thorough. Unluckily we know nothing of the state of feeling in England +while William was plotting and pleading beyond the sea. Nor do we know +how much men in England knew of what was going on in other lands, or what +they thought when they heard of it. We know only that, after Harold had +won over Northumberland, he came back and held the Easter Gemót at +Westminster. Then in the words of the Chronicler, “it was known to him +that William Bastard, King Edward’s kinsman, would come hither and win +this land.” This is all that our own writers tell us about William +Bastard, between his peaceful visit to England in 1052 and his warlike +visit in 1066. But we know that King Harold did all that man could do to +defeat his purposes, and that he was therein loyally supported by the +great mass of the English nation, we may safely say by all, save his two +brothers-in-law and so many as they could influence. + +William’s doings we know more fully. The military events of this +wonderful year there is no need to tell in detail. But we see that +William’s generalship was equal to his statesmanship, and that it was met +by equal generalship on the side of Harold. Moreover, the luck of +William is as clear as either his statesmanship or his generalship. When +Harold was crowned on the day of the Epiphany, he must have felt sure +that he would have to withstand an invasion of England before the year +was out. But it could not have come into the mind of Harold, William, or +Lanfranc, or any other man, that he would have to withstand two invasions +of England at the same moment. + +It was the invasion of Harold of Norway, at the same time as the invasion +of William, which decided the fate of England. The issue of the struggle +might have gone against England, had she had to strive against one enemy +only; as it was, it was the attack made by two enemies at once which +divided her strength, and enabled the Normans to land without resistance. +The two invasions came as nearly as possible at the same moment. Harold +Hardrada can hardly have reached the Yorkshire coast before September; +the battle of Fulford was fought on September 20th and that of +Stamfordbridge on September 25th. William landed on September 28th, and +the battle of Senlac was fought on October 14th. Moreover William’s +fleet was ready by August 12th; his delay in crossing was owing to his +waiting for a favourable wind. When William landed, the event of the +struggle in the North could not have been known in Sussex. He might have +had to strive, not with Harold of England, but with Harold of Norway as +his conqueror. + +At what time of the year Harold Hardrada first planned his invasion of +England is quite uncertain. We can say nothing of his doings till he is +actually afloat. And with the three mighty forms of William and the two +Harolds on the scene, there is something at once grotesque and perplexing +in the way in which an English traitor flits about among them. The +banished Tostig, deprived of his earldom in the autumn of 1065, had then +taken refuge in Flanders. He now plays a busy part, the details of which +are lost in contradictory accounts. But it is certain that in May 1066 +he made an ineffectual attack on England. And this attack was most +likely made with the connivance of William. It suited William to use +Tostig as an instrument, and to encourage so restless a spirit in +annoying the common enemy. It is also certain that Tostig was with the +Norwegian fleet in September, and that he died at Stamfordbridge. We +know also that he was in Scotland between May and September. It is +therefore hard to believe that Tostig had so great a hand in stirring up +Harold Hardrada to his expedition as the Norwegian story makes out. Most +likely Tostig simply joined the expedition which Harold Hardrada +independently planned. One thing is certain, that, when Harold of +England was attacked by two enemies at once, it was not by two enemies +acting in concert. The interests of William and of Harold of Norway were +as much opposed to one another as either of them was to the interests of +Harold of England. + +One great difficulty beset Harold and William alike. Either in Normandy +or in England it was easy to get together an army ready to fight a +battle; it was not easy to keep a large body of men under arms for any +long time without fighting. It was still harder to keep them at once +without fighting and without plundering. What William had done in this +way in two invasions of Normandy, he was now called on to do on a greater +scale. His great and motley army was kept during a great part of August +and September, first at the Dive, then at Saint Valery, waiting for the +wind that was to take it to England. And it was kept without doing any +serious damage to the lands where they were encamped. In a holy war, +this time was of course largely spent in appeals to the religious +feelings of the army. Then came the wonderful luck of William, which +enabled him to cross at the particular moment when he did cross. A +little earlier or later, he would have found his landing stoutly +disputed; as it was, he landed without resistance. Harold of England, +not being able, in his own words, to be everywhere at once, had done what +he could. He and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine undertook the defence +of southern England against the Norman; the earls of the North, his +brothers-in-law Edwin and Morkere, were to defend their own land against +the Norwegians. His own preparations were looked on with wonder. To +guard the long line of coast against the invader, he got together such a +force both by sea and land as no king had ever got together before, and +he kept it together for a longer time than William did, through four +months of inaction, save perhaps some small encounters by sea. At last, +early in September, provisions failed; men were no doubt clamouring to go +back for the harvest, and the great host had to be disbanded. Could +William have sailed as soon as his fleet was ready, he would have found +southern England thoroughly prepared to meet him. Meanwhile the northern +earls had clearly not kept so good watch as the king. Harold Hardrada +harried the Yorkshire coast; he sailed up the Ouse, and landed without +resistance. At last the earls met him in arms and were defeated by the +Northmen at Fulford near York. Four days later York capitulated, and +agreed to receive Harold Hardrada as king. Meanwhile the news reached +Harold of England; he got together his housecarls and such other troops +as could be mustered at the moment, and by a march of almost incredible +speed he was able to save the city and all northern England. The fight +of Stamfordbridge, the defeat and death of the most famous warrior of the +North, was the last and greatest success of Harold of England. But his +northward march had left southern England utterly unprotected. Had the +south wind delayed a little longer, he might, before the second enemy +came, have been again on the South-Saxon coast. As it was, three days +after Stamfordbridge, while Harold of England was still at York, William +of Normandy landed without opposition at Pevensey. + +Thus wonderfully had an easy path into England been opened for William. +The Norwegian invasion had come at the best moment for his purposes, and +the result had been what he must have wished. With one Harold he must +fight, and to fight with Harold of England was clearly best for his ends. +His work would not have been done, if another had stepped in to chastise +the perjurer. Now that he was in England, it became a trial of +generalship between him and Harold. William’s policy was to provoke +Harold to fight at once. It was perhaps Harold’s policy—so at least +thought Gyrth—to follow yet more thoroughly William’s own example in the +French invasions. Let him watch and follow the enemy, let him avoid all +action, and even lay waste the land between London and the south coast, +and the strength of the invaders would gradually be worn out. But it +might have been hard to enforce such a policy on men whose hearts were +stirred by the invasion, and one part of whom, the King’s own thegns and +housecarls, were eager to follow up their victory over the Northern with +a yet mightier victory over the Norman. And Harold spoke as an English +king should speak, when he answered that he would never lay waste a +single rood of English ground, that he would never harm the lands or the +goods of the men who had chosen him to be their king. In the trial of +skill between the two commanders, each to some extent carried his point. +William’s havoc of a large part of Sussex compelled Harold to march at +once to give battle. But Harold was able to give battle at a place of +his own choosing, thoroughly suited for the kind of warfare which he had +to wage. + +Harold was blamed, as defeated generals are blamed, for being too eager +to fight and not waiting for more troops. But to any one who studies the +ground it is plain that Harold needed, not more troops, but to some +extent better troops, and that he would not have got those better troops +by waiting. From York Harold had marched to London, as the meeting-place +for southern and eastern England, as well as for the few who actually +followed him from the North and those who joined him on the march. Edwin +and Morkere were bidden to follow with the full force of their earldoms. +This they took care not to do. Harold and his West-Saxons had saved +them, but they would not strike a blow back again. Both now and earlier +in the year they doubtless aimed at a division of the kingdom, such as +had been twice made within fifty years. Either Harold or William might +reign in Wessex and East-Anglia; Edwin should reign in Northumberland and +Mercia. William, the enemy of Harold but no enemy of theirs, might be +satisfied with the part of England which was under the immediate rule of +Harold and his brothers, and might allow the house of Leofric to keep at +least an under-kingship in the North. That the brother earls held back +from the King’s muster is undoubted, and this explanation fits in with +their whole conduct both before and after. Harold had thus at his +command the picked men of part of England only, and he had to supply the +place of those who were lacking with such forces as he could get. The +lack of discipline on the part of these inferior troops lost Harold the +battle. But matters would hardly have been mended by waiting for men who +had made up their minds not to come. + +The messages exchanged between King and Duke immediately before the +battle, as well as at an earlier time, have been spoken of already. The +challenge to single combat at least comes now. When Harold refused every +demand, William called on Harold to spare the blood of his followers, and +decide his claims by battle in his own person. Such a challenge was in +the spirit of Norman jurisprudence, which in doubtful cases looked for +the judgement of God, not, as the English did, by the ordeal, but by the +personal combat of the two parties. Yet this challenge too was surely +given in the hope that Harold would refuse it, and would thereby put +himself, in Norman eyes, yet more thoroughly in the wrong. For the +challenge was one which Harold could not but refuse. William looked on +himself as one who claimed his own from one who wrongfully kept him out +of it. He was plaintiff in a suit in which Harold was defendant; that +plaintiff and defendant were both accompanied by armies was an accident +for which the defendant, who had refused all peaceful means of +settlement, was to blame. But Harold and his people could not look on +the matter as a mere question between two men. The crown was Harold’s by +the gift of the nation, and he could not sever his own cause from the +cause of the nation. The crown was his; but it was not his to stake on +the issue of a single combat. If Harold were killed, the nation might +give the crown to whom they thought good; Harold’s death could not make +William’s claim one jot better. The cause was not personal, but +national. The Norman duke had, by a wanton invasion, wronged, not the +King only, but every man in England, and every man might claim to help in +driving him out. Again, in an ordinary wager of battle, the judgement +can be enforced; here, whether William slew Harold or Harold slew +William, there was no means of enforcing the judgement except by the +strength of the two armies. If Harold fell, the English army were not +likely to receive William as king; if William fell, the Norman army was +still less likely to go quietly out of England. The challenge was meant +as a mere blind; it would raise the spirit of William’s followers; it +would be something for his poets and chroniclers to record in his honour; +that was all. + + * * * * * + +The actual battle, fought on Senlac, on Saint Calixtus’ day, was more +than a trial of skill and courage between two captains and two armies. +It was, like the old battles of Macedonian and Roman, a trial between two +modes of warfare. The English clave to the old Teutonic tactics. They +fought on foot in the close array of the shield-wall. Those who rode to +the field dismounted when the fight began. They first hurled their +javelins, and then took to the weapons of close combat. Among these the +Danish axe, brought in by Cnut, had nearly displaced the older English +broadsword. Such was the array of the housecarls and of the thegns who +had followed Harold from York or joined him on his march. But the +treason of Edwin and Morkere had made it needful to supply the place of +the picked men of Northumberland with irregular levies, armed almost +anyhow. Of their weapons of various kinds the bow was the rarest. The +strength of the Normans lay in the arms in which the English were +lacking, in horsemen and archers. These last seem to have been a force +of William’s training; we first hear of the Norman bowmen at Varaville. +These two ways of fighting were brought each one to perfection by the +leaders on each side. They had not yet been tried against one another. +At Stamfordbridge Harold had defeated an enemy whose tactics were the +same as his own. William had not fought a pitched battle since +Val-ès-dunes in his youth. Indeed pitched battles, such as English and +Scandinavian warriors were used to in the wars of Edmund and Cnut, were +rare in continental warfare. That warfare mainly consisted in the attack +and defence of strong places, and in skirmishes fought under their walls. +But William knew how to make use of troops of different kinds and to +adapt them to any emergency. Harold too was a man of resources; he had +gained his Welsh successes by adapting his men to the enemy’s way of +fighting. To withstand the charge of the Norman horsemen, Harold clave +to the national tactics, but he chose for the place of battle a spot +where those tactics would have the advantage. A battle on the low ground +would have been favourable to cavalry; Harold therefore occupied and +fenced in a hill, the hill of Senlac, the site in after days of the abbey +and town of Battle, and there awaited the Norman attack. The Norman +horsemen had thus to make their way up the hill under the shower of the +English javelins, and to meet the axes as soon as they reached the +barricade. And these tactics were thoroughly successful, till the +inferior troops were tempted to come down from the hill and chase the +Bretons whom they had driven back. This suggested to William the device +of the feigned flight; the English line of defence was broken, and the +advantage of ground was lost. Thus was the great battle lost. And the +war too was lost by the deaths of Harold and his brothers, which left +England without leaders, and by the unyielding valour of Harold’s +immediate following. They were slain to a man, and south-eastern England +was left defenceless. + + * * * * * + +William, now truly the Conqueror in the vulgar sense, was still far from +having full possession of his conquest. He had military possession of +part of one shire only; he had to look for further resistance, and he met +with not a little. But his combined luck and policy served him well. He +could put on the form of full possession before he had the reality; he +could treat all further resistance as rebellion against an established +authority; he could make resistance desultory and isolated. William had +to subdue England in detail; he had never again to fight what the English +Chroniclers call a _folk-fight_. His policy after his victory was +obvious. Still uncrowned, he was not, even in his own view, king, but he +alone had the right to become king. He had thus far been driven to +maintain his rights by force; he was not disposed to use force any +further, if peaceful possession was to be had. His course was therefore +to show himself stern to all who withstood him, but to take all who +submitted into his protection and favour. He seems however to have +looked for a speedier submission than really happened. He waited a while +in his camp for men to come in and acknowledge him. As none came, he set +forth to win by the strong arm the land which he claimed of right. + +Thus to look for an immediate submission was not unnatural; fully +believing in the justice of his own cause, William would believe in it +all the more after the issue of the battle. God, Harold had said, should +judge between himself and William, and God had judged in William’s +favour. With all his clear-sightedness, he would hardly understand how +differently things looked in English eyes. Some indeed, specially +churchmen, specially foreign churchmen, now began to doubt whether to +fight against William was not to fight against God. But to the nation at +large William was simply as Hubba, Swegen, and Cnut in past times. +England had before now been conquered, but never in a single fight. +Alfred and Edmund had fought battle after battle with the Dane, and men +had no mind to submit to the Norman because he had been once victorious. +But Alfred and Edmund, in alternate defeat and victory, lived to fight +again; their people had not to choose a new king; the King had merely to +gather a new army. But Harold was slain, and the first question was how +to fill his place. The Witan, so many as could be got together, met to +choose a king, whose first duty would be to meet William the Conqueror in +arms. The choice was not easy. Harold’s sons were young, and not born +Æthelings. His brothers, of whom Gyrth at least must have been fit to +reign, had fallen with him. Edwin and Morkere were not at the battle, +but they were at the election. But schemes for winning the crown for the +house of Leofric would find no favour in an assembly held in London. For +lack of any better candidate, the hereditary sentiment prevailed. Young +Edgar was chosen. But the bishops, it is said, did not agree; they must +have held that God had declared in favour of William. Edwin and Morkere +did agree; but they withdrew to their earldoms, still perhaps cherishing +hopes of a divided kingdom. Edgar, as king-elect, did at least one act +of kingship by confirming the election of an abbot of Peterborough; but +of any general preparation for warfare there is not a sign. The local +resistance which William met with shows that, with any combined action, +the case was not hopeless. But with Edgar for king, with the northern +earls withdrawing their forces, with the bishops at least lukewarm, +nothing could be done. The Londoners were eager to fight; so doubtless +were others; but there was no leader. So far from there being another +Harold or Edmund to risk another battle, there was not even a leader to +carry out the policy of Fabius and Gyrth. + +Meanwhile the Conqueror was advancing, by his own road and after his own +fashion. We must remember the effect of the mere slaughter of the great +battle. William’s own army had suffered severely: he did not leave +Hastings till he had received reinforcements from Normandy. But to +England the battle meant the loss of the whole force of the south-eastern +shires. A large part of England was left helpless. William followed +much the same course as he had followed in Maine. A legal claimant of +the crown, it was his interest as soon as possible to become a crowned +king, and that in his kinsman’s church at Westminster. But it was not +his interest to march straight on London and demand the crown, sword in +hand. He saw that, without the support of the northern earls, Edgar +could not possibly stand, and that submission to himself was only a +question of time. He therefore chose a roundabout course through those +south-eastern shires which were wholly without means of resisting him. +He marched from Sussex into Kent, harrying the land as he went, to +frighten the people into submission. The men of Romney had before the +battle cut in pieces a party of Normans who had fallen into their hands, +most likely by sea. William took some undescribed vengeance for their +slaughter. Dover and its castle, the castle which, in some accounts, +Harold had sworn to surrender to William, yielded without a blow. Here +then he was gracious. When some of his unruly followers set fire to the +houses of the town, William made good the losses of their owners. +Canterbury submitted; from thence, by a bold stroke, he sent messengers +who received the submission of Winchester. He marched on, ravaging as he +went, to the immediate neighbourhood of London, but keeping ever on the +right bank of the Thames. But a gallant sally of the citizens was +repulsed by the Normans, and the suburb of Southwark was burned. William +marched along the river to Wallingford. Here he crossed, receiving for +the first time the active support of an Englishman of high rank, Wiggod +of Wallingford, sheriff of Oxfordshire. He became one of a small class +of Englishmen who were received to William’s fullest favour, and kept at +least as high a position under him as they had held before. William +still kept on, marching and harrying, to the north of London, as he had +before done to the south. The city was to be isolated within a cordon of +wasted lands. His policy succeeded. As no succours came from the North, +the hearts of those who had chosen them a king failed at the approach of +his rival. At Berkhampstead Edgar himself, with several bishops and +chief men, came to make their submission. They offered the crown to +William, and, after some debate, he accepted it. But before he came in +person, he took means to secure the city. The beginnings of the fortress +were now laid which, in the course of William’s reign, grew into the +mighty Tower of London. + +It may seem strange that when his great object was at last within his +grasp, William should have made his acceptance of it a matter of debate. +He claims the crown as his right; the crown is offered to him; and yet he +doubts about taking it. Ought he, he asks, to take the crown of a +kingdom of which he has not as yet full possession? At that time the +territory of which William had even military possession could not have +stretched much to the north-west of a line drawn from Winchester to +Norwich. Outside that line men were, as William is made to say, still in +rebellion. His scruples were come over by an orator who was neither +Norman nor English, but one of his foreign followers, Haimer Viscount of +Thouars. The debate was most likely got up at William’s bidding, but it +was not got up without a motive. William, ever seeking outward legality, +seeking to do things peaceably when they could be done peaceably, seeking +for means to put every possible enemy in the wrong, wished to make his +acceptance of the English crown as formally regular as might be. Strong +as he held his claim to be by the gift of Edward, it would be better to +be, if not strictly chosen, at least peacefully accepted, by the chief +men of England. It might some day serve his purpose to say that the +crown had been offered to him, and that he had accepted it only after a +debate in which the chief speaker was an impartial stranger. Having +gained this point more, William set out from Berkhampstead, already, in +outward form, King-elect of the English. + +The rite which was to change him from king-elect into full king took +place in Eadward’s church of Westminster on Christmas day, 1066, somewhat +more than two months after the great battle, somewhat less than twelve +months after the death of Edward and the coronation of Harold. Nothing +that was needed for a lawful crowning was lacking. The consent of the +people, the oath of the king, the anointing by the hands of a lawful +metropolitan, all were there. Ealdred acted as the actual celebrant, +while Stigand took the second place in the ceremony. But this outward +harmony between the nation and its new king was marred by an unhappy +accident. Norman horsemen stationed outside the church mistook the shout +with which the people accepted the new king for the shout of men who were +doing him damage. But instead of going to his help, they began, in true +Norman fashion, to set fire to the neighbouring houses. The havoc and +plunder that followed disturbed the solemnities of the day and were a bad +omen for the new reign. It was no personal fault of William’s; in +putting himself in the hands of subjects of such new and doubtful +loyalty, he needed men near at hand whom he could trust. But then it was +his doing that England had to receive a king who needed foreign soldiers +to guard him. + + * * * * * + +William was now lawful King of the English, so far as outward ceremonies +could make him so. But he knew well how far he was from having won real +kingly authority over the whole kingdom. Hardly a third part of the land +was in his obedience. He had still, as he doubtless knew, to win his +realm with the edge of the sword. But he could now go forth to further +conquests, not as a foreign invader, but as the king of the land, putting +down rebellion among his own subjects. If the men of Northumberland +should refuse to receive him, he could tell them that he was their lawful +king, anointed by their own archbishop. It was sound policy to act as +king of the whole land, to exercise a semblance of authority where he had +none in fact. And in truth he was king of the whole land, so far as +there was no other king. The unconquered parts of the land were in no +mood to submit; but they could not agree on any common plan of resistance +under any common leader. Some were still for Edgar, some for Harold’s +sons, some for Swegen of Denmark. Edwin and Morkere doubtless were for +themselves. If one common leader could have been found even now, the +throne of the foreign king would have been in no small danger. But no +such leader came: men stood still, or resisted piecemeal, so the land was +conquered piecemeal, and that under cover of being brought under the +obedience of its lawful king. + + * * * * * + +Now that the Norman duke has become an English king, his career as an +English statesman strictly begins, and a wonderful career it is. Its +main principle was to respect formal legality wherever he could. All +William’s purposes were to be carried out, as far as possible, under +cover of strict adherence to the law of the land of which he had become +the lawful ruler. He had sworn at his crowning to keep the laws of the +land, and to rule his kingdom as well as any king that had gone before +him. And assuredly he meant to keep his oath. But a foreign king, at +the head of a foreign army, and who had his foreign followers to reward, +could keep that oath only in its letter and not in its spirit. But it is +wonderful how nearly he came to keep it in the letter. He contrived to +do his most oppressive acts, to deprive Englishmen of their lands and +offices, and to part them out among strangers, under cover of English +law. He could do this. A smaller man would either have failed to carry +out his purposes at all, or he could have carried them out only by +reckless violence. When we examine the administration of William more in +detail, we shall see that its effects in the long run were rather to +preserve than to destroy our ancient institutions. He knew the strength +of legal fictions; by legal fictions he conquered and he ruled. But +every legal fiction is outward homage to the principle of law, an outward +protest against unlawful violence. That England underwent a Norman +Conquest did in the end only make her the more truly England. But that +this could be was because that conquest was wrought by the Bastard of +Falaise and by none other. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. +DECEMBER 1066-MARCH 1070. + + +THE coronation of William had its effect in a moment. It made him really +king over part of England; it put him into a new position with regard to +the rest. As soon as there was a king, men flocked to swear oaths to him +and become his men. They came from shires where he had no real +authority. It was most likely now, rather than at Berkhampstead, that +Edwin and Morkere at last made up their minds to acknowledge some king. +They became William’s men and received again their lands and earldoms as +his grant. Other chief men from the North also submitted and received +their lands and honours again. But Edwin and Morkere were not allowed to +go back to their earldoms. William thought it safer to keep them near +himself, under the guise of honour—Edwin was even promised one of his +daughters in marriage—but really half as prisoners, half as hostages. Of +the two other earls, Waltheof son of Siward, who held the shires of +Northampton and Huntingdon, and Oswulf who held the earldom of Bernicia +or modern Northumberland, we hear nothing at this moment. As for +Waltheof, it is strange if he were not at Senlac; it is strange if he +were there and came away alive. But we only know that he was in +William’s allegiance a few months later. Oswulf must have held out in +some marked way. It was William’s policy to act as king even where he +had no means of carrying out his kingly orders. He therefore in February +1067 granted the Bernician earldom to an Englishman named Copsige, who +had acted as Tostig’s lieutenant. This implies the formal deprivation of +Oswulf. But William sent no force with the new earl, who had to take +possession as he could. That is to say, of two parties in a local +quarrel, one hoped to strengthen itself by making use of William’s name. +And William thought that it would strengthen his position to let at least +his name be heard in every corner of the kingdom. The rest of the story +stands rather aloof from the main history. Copsige got possession of the +earldom for a moment. He was then killed by Oswulf and his partisans, +and Oswulf himself was killed in the course of the year by a common +robber. At Christmas, 1067, William again granted or sold the earldom to +another of the local chiefs, Gospatric. But he made no attempt to +exercise direct authority in those parts till the beginning of the year +1069. + +All this illustrates William’s general course. Crowned king over the +land, he would first strengthen himself in that part of the kingdom which +he actually held. Of the passive disobedience of other parts he would +take no present notice. In northern and central England William could +exercise no authority; but those lands were not in arms against him, nor +did they acknowledge any other king. Their earls, now his earls, were +his favoured courtiers. He could afford to be satisfied with this +nominal kingship, till a fit opportunity came to make it real. He could +afford to lend his name to the local enterprise of Copsige. It would at +least be another count against the men of Bernicia that they had killed +the earl whom King William gave them. + +Meanwhile William was taking very practical possession in the shires +where late events had given him real authority. His policy was to assert +his rights in the strongest form, but to show his mildness and good will +by refraining from carrying them out to the uttermost. By right of +conquest William claimed nothing. He had come to take his crown, and he +had unluckily met with some opposition in taking it. The crown lands of +King Edward passed of course to his successor. As for the lands of other +men, in William’s theory all was forfeited to the crown. The lawful heir +had been driven to seek his kingdom in arms; no Englishman had helped +him; many Englishmen had fought against him. All then were directly or +indirectly traitors. The King might lawfully deal with the lands of all +as his own. But in the greater part of the kingdom it was impossible, in +no part was it prudent, to carry out this doctrine in its fulness. A +passage in Domesday, compared with a passage in the English Chronicles, +shows that, soon after William’s coronation, the English as a body, +within the lands already conquered, redeemed their lands. They bought +them back at a price, and held them as a fresh grant from King William. +Some special offenders, living and dead, were exempted from this favour. +The King took to himself the estates of the house of Godwine, save those +of Edith, the widow of his revered predecessor, whom it was his policy to +treat with all honour. The lands too of those who had died on Senlac +were granted back to their heirs only of special favour, sometimes under +the name of alms. Thus, from the beginning of his reign, William began +to make himself richer than any king that had been before him in England +or than any other Western king of his day. He could both punish his +enemies and reward his friends. Much of what he took he kept; much he +granted away, mainly to his foreign followers, but sometimes also to +Englishmen who had in any way won his favour. Wiggod of Wallingford was +one of the very few Englishmen who kept and received estates which put +them alongside of the great Norman landowners. The doctrine that all +land was held of the King was now put into a practical shape. All, +Englishmen and strangers, not only became William’s subjects, but his men +and his grantees. Thus he went on during his whole reign. There was no +sudden change from the old state of things to the new. After the general +redemption of lands, gradually carried out as William’s power advanced, +no general blow was dealt at Englishmen as such. They were not, like +some conquered nations, formally degraded or put under any legal +incapacities in their own land. William simply distinguished between his +loyal and his disloyal subjects, and used his opportunities for punishing +the disloyal and rewarding the loyal. Such punishments and rewards +naturally took the shape of confiscations and grants of land. If +punishment was commonly the lot of the Englishman, and reward was the lot +of the stranger, that was only because King William treated all men as +they deserved. Most Englishmen were disloyal; most strangers were loyal. +But disloyal strangers and loyal Englishmen fared according to their +deserts. The final result of this process, begun now and steadily +carried on, was that, by the end of William’s reign, the foreign king was +surrounded by a body of foreign landowners and office-bearers of foreign +birth. When, in the early days of his conquest, he gathered round him +the great men of his realm, it was still an English assembly with a +sprinkling of strangers. By the end of his reign it had changed, step by +step, into an assembly of strangers with a sprinkling of Englishmen. + +This revolution, which practically transferred the greater part of the +soil of England to the hands of strangers, was great indeed. But it must +not be mistaken for a sudden blow, for an irregular scramble, for a +formal proscription of Englishmen as such. William, according to his +character and practice, was able to do all this gradually, according to +legal forms, and without drawing any formal distinction between natives +and strangers. All land was held of the King of the English, according +to the law of England. It may seem strange how such a process of +spoliation, veiled under a legal fiction, could have been carried out +without resistance. It was easier because it was gradual and piecemeal. +The whole country was not touched at once, nor even the whole of any one +district. One man lost his land while his neighbour kept his, and he who +kept his land was not likely to join in the possible plots of the other. +And though the land had never seen so great a confiscation, or one so +largely for the behoof of foreigners, yet there was nothing new in the +thing itself. Danes had settled under Cnut, and Normans and other +Frenchmen under Edward. Confiscation of land was the everyday punishment +for various public and private crimes. In any change, such as we should +call a change of ministry, as at the fall and the return of Godwine, +outlawry and forfeiture of lands was the usual doom of the weaker party, +a milder doom than the judicial massacres of later ages. Even a conquest +of England was nothing new, and William at this stage contrasted +favourably with Cnut, whose early days were marked by the death of not a +few. William, at any rate since his crowning, had shed the blood of no +man. Men perhaps thought that things might have been much worse, and +that they were not unlikely to mend. Anyhow, weakened, cowed, isolated, +the people of the conquered shires submitted humbly to the Conqueror’s +will. It needed a kind of oppression of which William himself was never +guilty to stir them into actual revolt. + + * * * * * + +The provocation was not long in coming. Within three months after his +coronation, William paid a visit to his native duchy. The ruler of two +states could not be always in either; he owed it to his old subjects to +show himself among them in his new character; and his absence might pass +as a sign of the trust he put in his new subjects. But the means which +he took to secure their obedience brought out his one weak point. We +cannot believe that he really wished to goad the people into rebellion; +yet the choice of his lieutenants might seem almost like it. He was led +astray by partiality for his brother and for his dearest friend. To +Bishop Ode of Bayeux, and to William Fitz-Osbern, the son of his early +guardian, he gave earldoms, that of Kent to Odo, that of Hereford to +William. The Conqueror was determined before all things that his kingdom +should be united and obedient; England should not be split up like Gaul +and Germany; he would have no man in England whose formal homage should +carry with it as little of practical obedience as his own homage to the +King of the French. A Norman earl of all Wessex or all Mercia might +strive after such a position. William therefore forsook the old practice +of dividing the whole kingdom into earldoms. In the peaceful central +shires he would himself rule through his sheriffs and other immediate +officers; he would appoint earls only in dangerous border districts where +they were needed as military commanders. All William’s earls were in +fact _marquesses_, guardians of a march or frontier. Ode had to keep +Kent against attacks from the continent; William Fitz-Osbern had to keep +Herefordshire against the Welsh and the independent English. This last +shire had its own local warfare. William’s authority did not yet reach +over all the shires beyond London and Hereford; but Harold had allowed +some of Edward’s Norman favourites to keep power there. Hereford then +and part of its shire formed an isolated part of William’s dominions, +while the lands around remained unsubdued. William Fitz-Osbern had to +guard this dangerous land as earl. But during the King’s absence both he +and Ode received larger commissions as viceroys over the whole kingdom. +Ode guarded the South and William the North and North-East. Norwich, a +town dangerous from its easy communication with Denmark, was specially +under his care. The nominal earls of the rest of the land, Edwin, +Morkere, and Waltheof, with Edgar, King of a moment, Archbishop Stigand, +and a number of other chief men, William took with him to Normandy. +Nominally his cherished friends and guests, they went in truth, as one of +the English Chroniclers calls them, as hostages. + +William’s stay in Normandy lasted about six months. It was chiefly +devoted to rejoicings and religious ceremonies, but partly to Norman +legislation. Rich gifts from the spoils of England were given to the +churches of Normandy; gifts richer still were sent to the Church of Rome +whose favour had wrought so much for William. In exchange for the banner +of Saint Peter, Harold’s standard of the Fighting-man was sent as an +offering to the head of all churches. While William was in Normandy, +Archbishop Maurilius of Rouen died. The whole duchy named Lanfranc as +his successor; but he declined the post, and was himself sent to Rome to +bring the pallium for the new archbishop John, a kinsman of the ducal +house. Lanfranc doubtless refused the see of Rouen only because he was +designed for a yet greater post in England; the subtlest diplomatist in +Europe was not sent to Rome merely to ask for the pallium for Archbishop +John. + +Meanwhile William’s choice of lieutenants bore its fruit in England. +They wrought such oppression as William himself never wrought. The +inferior leaders did as they thought good, and the two earls restrained +them not. The earls meanwhile were in one point there faithfully +carrying out the policy of their master in the building of castles; a +work, which specially when the work of Ode and William Fitz-Osbern, is +always spoken of by the native writers with marked horror. The castles +were the badges and the instruments of the Conquest, the special means of +holding the land in bondage. Meanwhile tumults broke forth in various +parts. The slaughter of Copsige, William’s earl in Northumberland, took +place about the time of the King’s sailing for Normandy. In independent +Herefordshire the leading Englishman in those parts, Eadric, whom the +Normans called the _Wild_, allied himself with the Welsh, harried the +obedient lands, and threatened the castle of Hereford. Nothing was done +on either side beyond harrying and skirmishes; but Eadric’s corner of the +land remained unsubdued. The men of Kent made a strange foreign alliance +with Eustace of Boulogne, the brother-in-law of Edward, the man whose +deeds had led to the great movement of Edward’s reign, to the banishment +and the return of Godwine. He had fought against England on Senlac, and +was one of four who had dealt the last blow to the wounded Harold. But +the oppression of Ode made the Kentishmen glad to seek any help against +him. Eustace, now William’s enemy, came over, and gave help in an +unsuccessful attack on Dover castle. Meanwhile in the obedient shires +men were making ready for revolt; in the unsubdued lands they were making +ready for more active defence. Many went beyond sea to ask for foreign +help, specially in the kindred lands of Denmark and Northern Germany. +Against this threatening movement William’s strength lay in the +incapacity of his enemies for combined action. The whole land never rose +at once, and Danish help did not come at the times or in the shape when +it could have done most good. + + * * * * * + +The news of these movements brought William back to England in December. +He kept the Midwinter feast and assembly at Westminster; there the absent +Eustace was, by a characteristic stroke of policy, arraigned as a +traitor. He was a foreign prince against whom the Duke of the Normans +might have led a Norman army. But he had also become an English +landowner, and in that character he was accountable to the King and Witan +of England. He suffered the traitor’s punishment of confiscation of +lands. Afterwards he contrived to win back William’s favour, and he left +great English possessions to his second wife and his son. Another stroke +of policy was to send an embassy to Denmark, to ward off the hostile +purposes of Swegen, and to choose as ambassador an English prelate who +had been in high favour with both Edward and Harold, Æthelsige, Abbot of +Ramsey. It came perhaps of his mission that Swegen practically did +nothing for two years. The envoy’s own life was a chequered one. He +lost William’s favour, and sought shelter in Denmark. He again regained +William’s favour—perhaps by some service at the Danish court—and died in +possession of his abbey. + +It is instructive to see how in this same assembly William bestowed +several great offices. The earldom of Northumberland was vacant by the +slaughter of two earls, the bishopric of Dorchester by the peaceful death +of its bishop. William had no real authority in any part of +Northumberland, or in more than a small part of the diocese of +Dorchester. But he dealt with both earldom and bishopric as in his own +power. It was now that he granted Northumberland to Gospatric. The +appointment to the bishopric was the beginning of a new system. +Englishmen were now to give way step by step to strangers in the highest +offices and greatest estates of the land. He had already made two Norman +earls, but they were to act as military commanders. He now made an +English earl, whose earldom was likely to be either nominal or fatal. +The appointment of Remigius of Fécamp to the see of Dorchester was of +more real importance. It is the beginning of William’s ecclesiastical +reign, the first step in William’s scheme of making the Church his +instrument in keeping down the conquered. While William lived, no +Englishman was appointed to a bishopric. As bishoprics became vacant by +death, foreigners were nominated, and excuses were often found for +hastening a vacancy by deprivation. At the end of William’s reign one +English bishop only was left. With abbots, as having less temporal power +than bishops, the rule was less strict. Foreigners were preferred, but +Englishmen were not wholly shut out. And the general process of +confiscation and regrant of lands was vigorously carried out. The +Kentish revolt and the general movement must have led to many forfeitures +and to further grants to loyal men of either nation. As the English +Chronicles pithily puts it, “the King gave away every man’s land.” + + * * * * * + +William could soon grant lands in new parts of England. In February 1068 +he for the first time went forth to warfare with those whom he called his +subjects, but who had never submitted to him. In the course of the year +a large part of England was in arms against him. But there was no +concert; the West rose and the North rose; but the West rose first, and +the North did not rise till the West had been subdued. Western England +threw off the purely passive state which had lasted through the year +1067. Hitherto each side had left the other alone. But now the men of +the West made ready for a more direct opposition to the foreign +government. If they could not drive William out of what he had already +won, they would at least keep him from coming any further. Exeter, the +greatest city of the West, was the natural centre of resistance; the +smaller towns, at least of Devonshire and Dorset entered into a league +with the capital. They seem to have aimed, like Italian cities in the +like case, at the formation of a civic confederation, which might perhaps +find it expedient to acknowledge William as an external lord, but which +would maintain perfect internal independence. Still, as Gytha, widow of +Godwine, mother of Harold, was within the walls of Exeter, the movement +was doubtless also in some sort on behalf of the House of Godwine. In +any case, Exeter and the lands and towns in its alliance with Exeter +strengthened themselves in every way against attack. + +Things were not now as on the day of Senlac, when Englishmen on their own +soil withstood one who, however he might cloke his enterprise, was to +them simply a foreign invader. But William was not yet, as he was in +some later struggles, the _de facto_ king of the whole land, whom all had +acknowledged, and opposition to whom was in form rebellion. He now held +an intermediate position. He was still an invader; for Exeter had never +submitted to him; but the crowned King of the English, peacefully ruling +over many shires, was hardly a mere invader; resistance to him would have +the air of rebellion in the eyes of many besides William and his +flatterers. And they could not see, what we plainly see, what William +perhaps dimly saw, that it was in the long run better for Exeter, or any +other part of England, to share, even in conquest, the fate of the whole +land, rather than to keep on a precarious independence to the aggravation +of the common bondage. This we feel throughout; William, with whatever +motive, is fighting for the unity of England. We therefore cannot +seriously regret his successes. But none the less honour is due to the +men whom the duty of the moment bade to withstand him. They could not +see things as we see them by the light of eight hundred years. + +The movement evidently stirred several shires; but it is only of Exeter +that we hear any details. William never used force till he had tried +negotiation. He sent messengers demanding that the citizens should take +oaths to him and receive him within their walls. The choice lay now +between unconditional submission and valiant resistance. But the chief +men of the city chose a middle course which could gain nothing. They +answered as an Italian city might have answered a Swabian Emperor. They +would not receive the King within their walls; they would take no oaths +to him; but they would pay him the tribute which they had paid to earlier +kings. That is, they would not have him as king, but only as overlord +over a commonwealth otherwise independent. William’s answer was short; +“It is not my custom to take subjects on those conditions.” He set out +on his march; his policy was to overcome the rebellious English by the +arms of the loyal English. He called out the _fyrd_, the militia, of all +or some of the shires under his obedience. They answered his call; to +disobey it would have needed greater courage than to wield the axe on +Senlac. This use of English troops became William’s custom in all his +later wars, in England and on the mainland; but of course he did not +trust to English troops only. The plan of the campaign was that which +had won Le Mans and London. The towns of Dorset were frightfully harried +on the march to the capital of the West. Disunion at once broke out; the +leading men in Exeter sent to offer unconditional submission and to give +hostages. But the commonalty disowned the agreement; notwithstanding the +blinding of one of the hostages before the walls, they defended the city +valiantly for eighteen days. It was only when the walls began to crumble +away beneath William’s mining-engines that the men of Exeter at last +submitted to his mercy. And William’s mercy could be trusted. No man +was harmed in life, limb, or goods. But, to hinder further revolts, a +castle was at once begun, and the payments made by the city to the King +were largely raised. + +Gytha, when the city yielded, withdrew to the Steep Holm, and thence to +Flanders. Her grandsons fled to Ireland; from thence, in the course of +the same year and the next, they twice landed in Somerset and Devonshire. +The Irish Danes who followed them could not be kept back from plunder. +Englishmen as well as Normans withstood them, and the hopes of the House +of Godwine came to an end. + + * * * * * + +On the conquest of Exeter followed the submission of the whole West. All +the land south of the Thames was now in William’s obedience. +Gloucestershire seems to have submitted at the same time; the submission +of Worcestershire is without date. A vast confiscation of lands +followed, most likely by slow degrees. Its most memorable feature is +that nearly all Cornwall was granted to William’s brother Robert Count of +Mortain. His vast estate grew into the famous Cornish earldom and duchy +of later times. Southern England was now conquered, and, as the North +had not stirred during the stirring of the West, the whole land was +outwardly at peace. William now deemed it safe to bring his wife to +share his new greatness. The Duchess Matilda came over to England, and +was hallowed to Queen at Westminster by Archbishop Ealdred. We may +believe that no part of his success gave William truer pleasure. But the +presence of the Lady was important in another way. It was doubtless by +design that she gave birth on English soil to her youngest son, +afterwards the renowned King Henry the First. He alone of William’s +children was in any sense an Englishman. Born on English ground, son of +a crowned King and his Lady, Englishmen looked on him as a countryman. +And his father saw the wisdom of encouraging such a feeling. Henry, +surnamed in after days the Clerk, was brought up with special care; he +was trained in many branches of learning unusual among the princes of his +age, among them in a thorough knowledge of the tongue of his native land. + + * * * * * + +The campaign of Exeter is of all William’s English campaigns the richest +in political teaching. We see how near the cities of England came for a +moment—as we shall presently see a chief city of northern Gaul—to running +the same course as the cities of Italy and Provence. Signs of the same +tendency may sometimes be suspected elsewhere, but they are not so +clearly revealed. William’s later campaigns are of the deepest +importance in English history; they are far richer in recorded personal +actors than the siege of Exeter; but they hardly throw so much light on +the character of William and his statesmanship. William is throughout +ever ready, but never hasty—always willing to wait when waiting seems the +best policy—always ready to accept a nominal success when there is a +chance of turning it into a real one, but never accepting nominal success +as a cover for defeat, never losing an inch of ground without at once +taking measures to recover it. By this means, he has in the former part +of 1068 extended his dominion to the Land’s End; before the end of the +year he extends it to the Tees. In the next year he has indeed to win it +back again; but he does win it back and more also. Early in 1070 he was +at last, in deed as well as in name, full King over all England. + +The North was making ready for war while the war in the West went on, but +one part of England did nothing to help the other. In the summer the +movement in the North took shape. The nominal earls Edwin, Morkere, and +Gospatric, with the Ætheling Edgar and others, left William’s court to +put themselves at the head of the movement. Edwin was specially +aggrieved, because the king had promised him one of his daughters in +marriage, but had delayed giving her to him. The English formed +alliances with the dependent princes of Wales and Scotland, and stood +ready to withstand any attack. William set forth; as he had taken +Exeter, he took Warwick, perhaps Leicester. This was enough for Edwin +and Morkere. They submitted, and were again received to favour. More +valiant spirits withdrew northward, ready to defend Durham as the last +shelter of independence, while Edgar and Gospatric fled to the court of +Malcolm of Scotland. William went on, receiving the submission of +Nottingham and York; thence he turned southward, receiving on his way the +submission of Lincoln, Cambridge, and Huntingdon. Again he deemed it his +policy to establish his power in the lands which he had already won +rather than to jeopard matters by at once pressing farther. In the +conquered towns he built castles, and he placed permanent garrisons in +each district by granting estates to his Norman and other followers. +Different towns and districts suffered in different degrees, according +doubtless to the measure of resistance met with in each. Lincoln and +Lincolnshire were on the whole favourably treated. An unusual number of +Englishmen kept lands and offices in city and shire. At Leicester and +Northampton, and in their shires, the wide confiscations and great +destruction of houses point to a stout resistance. And though Durham was +still untouched, and though William had assuredly no present purpose of +attacking Scotland, he found it expedient to receive with all favour a +nominal submission brought from the King of Scots by the hands of the +Bishop of Durham. + +If William’s policy ever seems less prudent than usual, it was at the +beginning of the next year, 1069. The extreme North still stood out. +William had twice commissioned English earls of Northumberland to take +possession if they could. He now risked the dangerous step of sending a +stranger. Robert of Comines was appointed to the earldom forfeited by +the flight of Gospatric. While it was still winter, he went with his +force to Durham. By help of the Bishop, he was admitted into the city, +but he and his whole force were cut off by the people of Durham and its +neighbourhood. Robert’s expedition in short led only to a revolt of +York, where Edgar was received and siege was laid to the castle. William +marched in person with all speed; he relieved the castle; he recovered +the city and strengthened it by a second castle on the other side of the +river. Still he thought it prudent to take no present steps against +Durham. Soon after this came the second attempt of Harold’s sons in the +West. + +Later in this year William’s final warfare for the kingdom began. In +August, 1069 the long-promised help from Denmark came. Swegen sent his +brother Osbeorn and his sons Harold and Cnut, at the head of the whole +strength of Denmark and of other Northern lands. If the two enterprises +of Harold’s sons had been planned in concert with their Danish kinsmen, +the invaders or deliverers from opposite sides had failed to act +together. Nor are Swegen’s own objects quite clear. He sought to +deliver England from William and his Normans, but it is not so plain in +whose interest he acted. He would naturally seek the English crown for +himself or for one of his sons; the sons of Harold he would rather make +earls than kings. But he could feel no interest in the kingship of +Edgar. Yet, when the Danish fleet entered the Humber, and the whole +force of the North came to meet it, the English host had the heir of +Cerdic at its head. It is now that Waltheof the son of Siward, Earl of +Northampton and Huntingdon, first stands out as a leading actor. +Gospatric too was there; but this time not Edwin and Morkere. Danes and +English joined and marched upon York; the city was occupied; the castles +were taken; the Norman commanders were made prisoners, but not till they +had set fire to the city and burned the greater part of it, along with +the metropolitan minster. It is amazing to read that, after breaking +down the castles, the English host dispersed, and the Danish fleet +withdrew into the Humber. + +England was again ruined by lack of concert. The news of the coming of +the Danes led only to isolated movements which were put down piecemeal. +The men of Somerset and Dorset and the men of Devonshire and Cornwall +were put down separately, and the movement in Somerset was largely put +down by English troops. The citizens of Exeter, as well as the Norman +garrison of the castle, stood a siege on behalf of William. A rising on +the Welsh border under Eadric led only to the burning of Shrewsbury; a +rising in Staffordshire was held by William to call for his own presence. +But he first marched into Lindesey, and drove the crews of the Danish +ships across into Holderness; there he left two Norman leaders, one of +them his brother Robert of Mortain and Cornwall; he then went westward +and subdued Staffordshire, and marched towards York by way of Nottingham. +A constrained delay by the Aire gave him an opportunity for negotiation +with the Danish leaders. Osbeorn took bribes to forsake the English +cause, and William reached and entered York without resistance. He +restored the castles and kept his Christmas in the half-burned city. And +now William forsook his usual policy of clemency. The Northern shires +had been too hard to win. To weaken them, he decreed a merciless +harrying of the whole land, the direct effects of which were seen for +many years, and which left its mark on English history for ages. Till +the growth of modern industry reversed the relative position of Northern +and Southern England, the old Northumbrian kingdom never fully recovered +from the blow dealt by William, and remained the most backward part of +the land. Herein comes one of the most remarkable results of William’s +coming. His greatest work was to make England a kingdom which no man +henceforth thought of dividing. But the circumstances of his conquest of +Northern England ruled that for several centuries the unity of England +should take the form of a distinct preponderance of Southern England over +Northern. William’s reign strengthened every tendency that way, chiefly +by the fearful blow now dealt to the physical strength and well-being of +the Northern shires. From one side indeed the Norman Conquest was truly +a Saxon conquest. The King of London and Winchester became more fully +than ever king over the whole land. + + * * * * * + +The Conqueror had now only to gather in what was still left to conquer. +But, as military exploits, none are more memorable than the winter +marches which put William into full possession of England. The lands +beyond Tees still held out; in January 1070 he set forth to subdue them. +The Earls Waltheof and Gospatric made their submission, Waltheof in +person, Gospatric by proxy. William restored both of them to their +earldoms, and received Waltheof to his highest favour, giving him his +niece Judith in marriage. But he systematically wasted the land, as he +had wasted Yorkshire. He then returned to York, and thence set forth to +subdue the last city and shire that held out. A fearful march led him to +the one remaining fragment of free England, the unconquered land of +Chester. We know not how Chester fell; but the land was not won without +fighting, and a frightful harrying was the punishment. In all this we +see a distinct stage of moral downfall in the character of the Conqueror. +Yet it is thoroughly characteristic. All is calm, deliberate, politic. +William will have no more revolts, and he will at any cost make the land +incapable of revolt. Yet, as ever, there is no blood shed save in +battle. If men died of hunger, that was not William’s doing; nay, +charitable people like Abbot Æthelwig of Evesham might do what they could +to help the sufferers. But the lawful king, kept so long out of his +kingdom, would, at whatever price, be king over the whole land. And the +great harrying of the northern shires was the price paid for William’s +kingship over them. + +At Chester the work was ended which had begun at Pevensey. Less than +three years and a half, with intervals of peace, had made the Norman +invader king over all England. He had won the kingdom; he had now to +keep it. He had for seventeen years to deal with revolts on both sides +of the sea, with revolts both of Englishmen and of his own followers. +But in England his power was never shaken; in England he never knew +defeat. His English enemies he had subdued; the Danes were allowed to +remain and in some sort to help in his work by plundering during the +winter. The King now marched to the Salisbury of that day, the deeply +fenced hill of Old Sarum. The men who had conquered England were +reviewed in the great plain, and received their rewards. Some among them +had by failures of duty during the winter marches lost their right to +reward. Their punishment was to remain under arms forty days longer than +their comrades. William could trust himself to the very mutineers whom +he had picked out for punishment. He had now to begin his real reign; +and the champion of the Church had before all things to reform the evil +customs of the benighted islanders, and to give them shepherds of their +souls who might guide them in the right way. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +THE SETTLEMENT OF ENGLAND. +1070–1086. + + +ENGLAND was now fully conquered, and William could for a moment sit down +quietly to the rule of the kingdom that he had won. The time that +immediately followed is spoken of as a time of comparative quiet, and of +less oppression than the times either before or after. Before and after, +warfare, on one side of the sea or the other, was the main business. +Hitherto William has been winning his kingdom in arms. Afterwards he was +more constantly called away to his foreign dominions, and his absence +always led to greater oppression in England. Just now he had a moment of +repose, when he could give his mind to the affairs of Church and State in +England. Peace indeed was not quite unbroken. Events were tending to +that famous revolt in the Fenland which is perhaps the best remembered +part of William’s reign. But even this movement was merely local, and +did not seriously interfere with William’s government. He was now +striving to settle the land in peace, and to make his rule as little +grievous to the conquered as might be. The harrying of Northumberland +showed that he now shrank from no harshness that would serve his ends; +but from mere purposeless oppression he was still free. Nor was he ever +inclined to needless change or to that scorn of the conquered which +meaner conquerors have often shown. He clearly wished both to change and +to oppress as little as he could. This is a side of him which has been +greatly misunderstood, largely through the book that passes for the +History of Ingulf Abbot of Crowland. Ingulf was William’s English +secretary; a real history of his writing would be most precious. But the +book that goes by his name is a forgery not older than the fourteenth +century, and is in all points contradicted by the genuine documents of +the time. Thus the forger makes William try to abolish the English +language and order the use of French in legal writings. This is pure +fiction. The truth is that, from the time of William’s coming, English +goes out of use in legal writings, but only gradually, and not in favour +of French. Ever since the coming of Augustine, English and Latin had +been alternative tongues; after the coming of William English becomes +less usual, and in the course of the twelfth century it goes out of use +in favour of Latin. There are no French documents till the thirteenth +century, and in that century English begins again. Instead of abolishing +the English tongue, William took care that his English-born son should +learn it, and he even began to learn it himself. A king of those days +held it for his duty to hear and redress his subjects’ complaints; he had +to go through the land and see for himself that those who acted in his +name did right among his people. This earlier kings had done; this +William wished to do; but he found his ignorance of English a hindrance. +Cares of other kinds checked his English studies, but he may have learned +enough to understand the meaning of his own English charters. Nor did +William try, as he is often imagined to have done, to root out the +ancient institutions of England, and to set up in their stead either the +existing institutions of Normandy or some new institutions of his own +devising. The truth is that with William began a gradual change in the +laws and customs of England, undoubtedly great, but far less than is +commonly thought. French names have often supplanted English, and have +made the amount of change seem greater than it really was. Still much +change did follow on the Norman Conquest, and the Norman Conquest was so +completely William’s own act that all that came of it was in some sort +his act also. But these changes were mainly the gradual results of the +state of things which followed William’s coming; they were but very +slightly the results of any formal acts of his. With a foreign king and +foreigners in all high places, much practical change could not fail to +follow, even where the letter of the law was unchanged. Still the +practical change was less than if the letter of the law had been changed +as well. English law was administered by foreign judges; the foreign +grantees of William held English land according to English law. The +Norman had no special position as a Norman; in every rank except perhaps +the very highest and the very lowest, he had Englishmen to his fellows. +All this helped to give the Norman Conquest of England its peculiar +character, to give it an air of having swept away everything English, +while its real work was to turn strangers into Englishmen. And that +character was impressed on William’s work by William himself. The king +claiming by legal right, but driven to assert his right by the sword, was +unlike both the foreign king who comes in by peaceful succession and the +foreign king who comes in without even the pretext of law. The Normans +too, if born soldiers, were also born lawyers, and no man was more deeply +impressed with the legal spirit than William himself. He loved neither +to change the law nor to transgress the law, and he had little need to do +either. He knew how to make the law his instrument, and, without either +changing or transgressing it, to use it to make himself all-powerful. He +thoroughly enjoyed that system of legal fictions and official euphemisms +which marks his reign. William himself became in some sort an +Englishman, and those to whom he granted English lands had in some sort +to become Englishmen in order to hold them. The Norman stepped into the +exact place of the Englishman whose land he held; he took his rights and +his burthens, and disputes about those rights and burthens were judged +according to English law by the witness of Englishmen. Reigning over two +races in one land, William would be lord of both alike, able to use +either against the other in case of need. He would make the most of +everything in the feelings and customs of either that tended to +strengthen his own hands. And, in the state of things in which men then +found themselves, whatever strengthened William’s hands strengthened law +and order in his kingdom. + +There was therefore nothing to lead William to make any large changes in +the letter of the English law. The powers of a King of the English, +wielded as he knew how to wield them, made him as great as he could wish +to be. Once granting the original wrong of his coming at all and +bringing a host of strangers with him, there is singularly little to +blame in the acts of the Conqueror. Of bloodshed, of wanton interference +with law and usage, there is wonderfully little. Englishmen and Normans +were held to have settled down in peace under the equal protection of +King William. The two races were drawing together; the process was +beginning which, a hundred years later, made it impossible, in any rank +but the highest and the lowest, to distinguish Norman from Englishman. +Among the smaller landowners and the townsfolk this intermingling had +already begun, while earls and bishops were not yet so exclusively +Norman, nor had the free churls of England as yet sunk so low as at a +later stage. Still some legislation was needed to settle the relations +of the two races. King William proclaimed the “renewal of the law of +King Edward.” This phrase has often been misunderstood; it is a common +form when peace and good order are restored after a period of +disturbance. The last reign which is looked back to as to a time of good +government becomes the standard of good government, and it is agreed +between king and people, between contending races or parties, that things +shall be as they were in the days of the model ruler. So we hear in +Normandy of the renewal of the law of Rolf, and in England of the renewal +of the law of Cnut. So at an earlier time Danes and Englishmen agreed in +the renewal of the law of Edgar. So now Normans and Englishmen agreed in +the renewal of the law of Edward. There was no code either of Edward’s +or of William’s making. William simply bound himself to rule as Edward +had ruled. But in restoring the law of King Edward, he added, “with the +additions which I have decreed for the advantage of the people of the +English.” + +These few words are indeed weighty. The little legislation of William’s +reign takes throughout the shape of additions. Nothing old is repealed; +a few new enactments are set up by the side of the old ones. And these +words describe, not only William’s actual legislation, but the widest +general effect of his coming. The Norman Conquest did little towards any +direct abolition of the older English laws or institutions. But it set +up some new institutions alongside of old ones; and it brought in not a +few names, habits, and ways of looking at things, which gradually did +their work. In England no man has pulled down; many have added and +modified. Our law is still the law of King Edward with the additions of +King William. Some old institutions took new names; some new +institutions with new names sprang up by the side of old ones. Sometimes +the old has lasted, sometimes the new. We still have a _king_ and not a +_roy_; but he gathers round him a _parliament_ and not a _vitenagemót_. +We have a _sheriff_ and not a _viscount_; but his district is more +commonly called a _county_ than a _shire_. But _county_ and _shire_ are +French and English for the same thing, and “parliament” is simply French +for the “deep speech” which King William had with his Witan. The +National Assembly of England has changed its name and its constitution +more than once; but it has never been changed by any sudden revolution, +never till later times by any formal enactment. There was no moment when +one kind of assembly supplanted another. And this has come because our +Conqueror was, both by his disposition and his circumstances, led to act +as a preserver and not as a destroyer. + +The greatest recorded acts of William, administrative and legislative, +come in the last days of his reign. But there are several enactments of +William belonging to various periods of his reign, and some of them to +this first moment of peace. Here we distinctly see William as an English +statesman, as a statesman who knew how to work a radical change under +conservative forms. One enactment, perhaps the earliest of all, provided +for the safety of the strangers who had come with him to subdue and to +settle in the land. The murder of a Norman by an Englishman, especially +of a Norman intruder by a dispossessed Englishman, was a thing that +doubtless often happened. William therefore provides for the safety of +those whom he calls “the men whom I brought with me or who have come +after me;” that is, the warriors of Senlac, Exeter, and York. These men +are put within his own peace; wrong done to them is wrong done to the +King, his crown and dignity. If the murderer cannot be found, the lord +and, failing him, the hundred, must make payment to the King. Of this +grew the presentment of _Englishry_, one of the few formal badges of +distinction between the conquering and the conquered race. Its practical +need could not have lasted beyond a generation or two, but it went on as +a form ages after it had lost all meaning. An unknown corpse, unless it +could be proved that the dead man was English, was assumed to be that of +a man who had come with King William, and the fine was levied. Some +other enactments were needed when two nations lived side by side in the +same land. As in earlier times, Roman and barbarian each kept his own +law, so now for some purposes the Frenchman—“Francigena”—and the +Englishman kept their own law. This is chiefly with regard to the modes +of appealing to God’s judgement in doubtful cases. The English did this +by ordeal, the Normans by wager of battle. When a man of one nation +appealed a man of the other, the accused chose the mode of trial. If an +Englishman appealed a Frenchman and declined to prove his charge either +way, the Frenchman might clear himself by oath. But these privileges +were strictly confined to Frenchmen who had come with William and after +him. Frenchmen who had in Edward’s time settled in England as the land +of their own choice, reckoned as Englishmen. Other enactments, fresh +enactments of older laws, touched both races. The slave trade was rife +in its worst form; men were sold out of the land, chiefly to the Danes of +Ireland. Earlier kings had denounced the crime, and earlier bishops had +preached against it. William denounced it again under the penalty of +forfeiture of all lands and goods, and Saint Wulfstan, the Bishop of +Worcester, persuaded the chief offenders, Englishmen of Bristol, to give +up their darling sin for a season. Yet in the next reign Anselm and his +synod had once more to denounce the crime under spiritual penalties, when +they had no longer the strong arm of William to enforce them. + +Another law bears more than all the personal impress of William. In it +he at once, on one side, forestalls the most humane theories of modern +times, and on the other sins most directly against them. His remarkable +unwillingness to put any man to death, except among the chances of the +battle-field, was to some extent the feeling of his age. With him the +feeling takes the shape of a formal law. He forbids the infliction of +death for any crime whatever. But those who may on this score be +disposed to claim the Conqueror as a sympathizer will be shocked at the +next enactment. Those crimes which kings less merciful than William +would have punished with death are to be punished with loss of eyes or +other foul and cruel mutilations. Punishments of this kind now seem more +revolting than death, though possibly, now as then, the sufferer himself +might think otherwise. But in those days to substitute mutilation for +death, in the case of crimes which were held to deserve death, was +universally deemed an act of mercy. Grave men shrank from sending their +fellow-creatures out of the world, perhaps without time for repentance; +but physical sympathy with physical suffering had little place in their +minds. In the next century a feeling against bodily mutilation gradually +comes in; but as yet the mildest and most thoughtful men, Anselm himself, +make no protest against it when it is believed to be really deserved. +There is no sign of any general complaint on this score. The English +Chronicler applauds the strict police of which mutilation formed a part, +and in one case he deliberately holds it to be the fitting punishment of +the offence. In fact, when penal settlements were unknown and legal +prisons were few and loathsome, there was something to be said for a +punishment which disabled the criminal from repeating his offence. In +William’s jurisprudence mutilation became the ordinary sentence of the +murderer, the robber, the ravisher, sometimes also of English revolters +against William’s power. We must in short balance his mercy against the +mercy of Kirk and Jeffreys. + +The ground on which the English Chronicler does raise his wail on behalf +of his countrymen is the special jurisprudence of the forests and the +extortions of money with which he charges the Conqueror. In both these +points the royal hand became far heavier under the Norman rule. In both +William’s character grew darker as he grew older. He is charged with +unlawful exactions of money, in his character alike of sovereign and of +landlord. We read of his sharp practice in dealing with the profits of +the royal demesnes. He would turn out the tenant to whom he had just let +the land, if another offered a higher rent. But with regard to taxation, +we must remember that William’s exactions, however heavy at the time, +were a step in the direction of regular government. In those days all +taxation was disliked. Direct taking of the subject’s money by the King +was deemed an extraordinary resource to be justified only by some +extraordinary emergency, to buy off the Danes or to hire soldiers against +them. Men long after still dreamed that the King could “live of his +own,” that he could pay all expenses of his court and government out of +the rents and services due to him as a landowner, without asking his +people for anything in the character of sovereign. Demands of money on +behalf of the King now became both heavier and more frequent. And +another change which had long been gradually working now came to a head. +When, centuries later, the King was bidden to “live of his own,” men had +forgotten that the land of the King had once been the land of the nation. +In all Teutonic communities, great and small, just as in the city +communities of Greece and Italy, the community itself was a chief +landowner. The nation had its _folkland_, its _ager publicus_, the +property of no one man but of the whole state. Out of this, by the +common consent, portions might be cut off and _booked_—granted by a +written document—to particular men as their own _bookland_. The King +might have his private estate, to be dealt with at his own pleasure, but +of the _folkland_, the land of the nation, he was only the chief +administrator, bound to act by the advice of his Witan. But in this case +more than in others, the advice of the Witan could not fail to become +formal; the _folkland_, ever growing through confiscations, ever +lessening through grants, gradually came to be looked on as the land of +the King, to be dealt with as he thought good. We must not look for any +change formally enacted; but in Edward’s day the notion of _folkland_, as +the possession of the nation and not of the King, could have been only a +survival, and in William’s day even the survival passed away. The land +which was practically the land of King Edward became, as a matter of +course, _Terra Regis_, the land of King William. That land was now +enlarged by greater confiscations and lessened by greater grants than +ever. For a moment, every lay estate had been part of the land of +William. And far more than had been the land of the nation remained the +land of the King, to be dealt with as he thought good. + +In the tenure of land William seems to have made no formal change. But +the circumstances of his reign gave increased strength to certain +tendencies which had been long afloat. And out of them, in the next +reign, the malignant genius of Randolf Flambard devised a systematic code +of oppression. Yet even in his work there is little of formal change. +There are no laws of William Rufus. The so called feudal incidents, the +claims of marriage, wardship, and the like, on the part of the lord, the +ancient _heriot_ developed into the later _relief_, all these things were +in the germ under William, as they had been in the germ long before him. +In the hands of Randolf Flambard they stiffen into established custom; +their legal acknowledgement comes from the charter of Henry the First +which promises to reform their abuses. Thus the Conqueror clearly +claimed the right to interfere with the marriages of his nobles, at any +rate to forbid a marriage to which he objected on grounds of policy. +Under Randolf Flambard this became a regular claim, which of course was +made a means of extorting money. Under Henry the claim is regulated and +modified, but by being regulated and modified, it is legally established. + +The ordinary administration of the kingdom went on under William, greatly +modified by the circumstances of his reign, but hardly at all changed in +outward form. Like the kings that were before him, he “wore his crown” +at the three great feasts, at Easter at Winchester, at Pentecost at +Westminster, at Christmas at Gloucester. Like the kings that were before +him, he gathered together the great men of the realm, and when need was, +the small men also. Nothing seems to have been changed in the +constitution or the powers of the assembly; but its spirit must have been +utterly changed. The innermost circle, earls, bishops, great officers of +state and household, gradually changed from a body of Englishmen with a +few strangers among them into a body of strangers among whom two or three +Englishmen still kept their places. The result of their “deep speech” +with William was not likely to be other than an assent to William’s will. +The ordinary freeman did not lose his abstract right to come and shout +“Yea, yea,” to any addition that King William made to the law of King +Edward. But there would be nothing to tempt him to come, unless King +William thought fit to bid him. But once at least William did gather +together, if not every freeman, at least all freeholders of the smallest +account. On one point the Conqueror had fully made up his mind; on one +point he was to be a benefactor to his kingdom through all succeeding +ages. The realm of England was to be one and indivisible. No ruler or +subject in the kingdom of England should again dream that that kingdom +could be split asunder. When he offered Harold the underkingship of the +realm or of some part of it, he did so doubtless only in the full +conviction that the offer would be refused. No such offer should be +heard of again. There should be no such division as had been between +Cnut and Edmund, between Harthacnut and the first Harold, such as Edwin +and Morkere had dreamed of in later times. Nor should the kingdom be +split asunder in that subtler way which William of all men best +understood, the way in which the Frankish kingdoms, East and West, had +split asunder. He would have no dukes or earls who might become kings in +all but name, each in his own duchy or earldom. No man in his realm +should be to him as he was to his overlord at Paris. No man in his realm +should plead duty towards an immediate lord as an excuse for breach of +duty towards the lord of that immediate lord. Hence William’s policy +with regard to earldoms. There was to be nothing like the great +governments which had been held by Godwine, Leofric, and Siward; an Earl +of the West-Saxons or the Northumbrians was too like a Duke of the +Normans to be endured by one who was Duke of the Normans himself. The +earl, even of the king’s appointment, still represented the separate +being of the district over which he was set. He was the king’s +representative rather than merely his officer; if he was a magistrate and +not a prince, he often sat in the seat of former princes, and might +easily grow into a prince. And at last, at the very end of his reign, as +the finishing of his work, he took the final step that made England for +ever one. In 1086 every landowner in England swore to be faithful to +King William within and without England and to defend him against his +enemies. The subject’s duty to the King was to any duty which the vassal +might owe to any inferior lord. When the King was the embodiment of +national unity and orderly government, this was the greatest of all steps +in the direction of both. Never did William or any other man act more +distinctly as an English statesman, never did any one act tell more +directly towards the later making of England, than this memorable act of +the Conqueror. Here indeed is an addition which William made to the law +of Edward for the truest good of the English folk. And yet no enactment +has ever been more thoroughly misunderstood. Lawyer after lawyer has set +down in his book that, at the assembly of Salisbury in 1086, William +introduced “the feudal system.” If the words “feudal system” have any +meaning, the object of the law now made was to hinder any “feudal system” +from coming into England. William would be king of a kingdom, head of a +commonwealth, personal lord of every man in his realm, not merely, like a +King of the French, external lord of princes whose subjects owed him no +allegiance. This greatest monument of the Conqueror’s statesmanship was +carried into effect in a special assembly of the English nation gathered +on the first day of August 1086 on the great plain of Salisbury. Now, +perhaps for the first time, we get a distinct foreshadowing of Lords and +Commons. The Witan, the great men of the realm, and “the landsitting +men,” the whole body of landowners, are now distinguished. The point is +that William required the personal presence of every man whose personal +allegiance he thought worth having. Every man in the mixed assembly, +mixed indeed in race and speech, the King’s own men and the men of other +lords, took the oath and became the man of King William. On that day +England became for ever a kingdom one and indivisible, which since that +day no man has dreamed of parting asunder. + + * * * * * + +The great assembly of 1086 will come again among the events of William’s +later reign; it comes here as the last act of that general settlement +which began in 1070. That settlement, besides its secular side, has also +an ecclesiastical side of a somewhat different character. In both +William’s coming brought the island kingdom into a closer connexion with +the continent; and brought a large displacement of Englishmen and a large +promotion of strangers. But on the ecclesiastical side, though the +changes were less violent, there was a more marked beginning of a new +state of things. The religious missionary was more inclined to innovate +than the military conqueror. Here William not only added but changed; on +one point he even proclaimed that the existing law of England was bad. +Certainly the religious state of England was likely to displease +churchmen from the mainland. The English Church, so directly the child +of the Roman, was, for that very reason, less dependent on her parent. +She was a free colony, not a conquered province. The English Church too +was most distinctly national; no land came so near to that ideal state of +things in which the Church is the nation on its religious side. Papal +authority therefore was weaker in England than elsewhere, and a less +careful line was drawn between spiritual and temporal things and +jurisdictions. Two friendly powers could take liberties with each other. +The national assemblies dealt with ecclesiastical as well as with +temporal matters; one indeed among our ancient laws blames any assembly +that did otherwise. Bishop and earl sat together in the local _Gemót_, +to deal with many matters which, according to continental ideas, should +have been dealt with in separate courts. And, by what in continental +eyes seemed a strange laxity of discipline, priests, bishops, members of +capitular bodies, were often married. The English diocesan arrangements +were unlike continental models. In Gaul, by a tradition of Roman date, +the bishop was bishop of the city. His diocese was marked by the extent +of the civil jurisdiction of the city. His home, his head church, his +_bishopstool_ in the head church, were all in the city. In Teutonic +England the bishop was commonly bishop, not of a city but of a tribe or +district; his style was that of a tribe; his home, his head church, his +bishopstool, might be anywhere within the territory of that tribe. +Still, on the greatest point of all, matters in England were thoroughly +to William’s liking; nowhere did the King stand forth more distinctly as +the Supreme Governor of the Church. In England, as in Normandy, the +right of the sovereign to the investiture of ecclesiastical benefices was +ancient and undisputed. What Edward had freely done, William went on +freely doing, and Hildebrand himself never ventured on a word of +remonstrance against a power which he deemed so wrongful in the hands of +his own sovereign. William had but to stand on the rights of his +predecessors. When Gregory asked for homage for the crown which he had +in some sort given, William answered indeed as an English king. What the +kings before him had done for or paid to the Roman see, that would he do +and pay; but this no king before him had ever done, nor would he be the +first to do it. But while William thus maintained the rights of his +crown, he was willing and eager to do all that seemed needful for +ecclesiastical reform. And the general result of his reform was to +weaken the insular independence of England, to make her Church more like +the other Churches of the West, and to increase the power of the Roman +Bishop. + +William had now a fellow-worker in his taste. The subtle spirit which +had helped to win his kingdom was now at his side to help him to rule it. +Within a few months after the taking of Chester Lanfranc sat on the +throne of Augustine. As soon as the actual Conquest was over, William +began to give his mind to ecclesiastical matters. It might look like +sacrilege when he caused all the monasteries of England to be harried. +But no harm was done to the monks or to their possessions. The holy +houses were searched for the hoards which the rich men of England, +fearing the new king, had laid up in the monastic treasuries. William +looked on these hoards as part of the forfeited goods of rebels, and +carried them off during the Lent of 1070. This done, he sat steadily +down to the reform of the English Church. + +He had three papal legates to guide him, one of whom, Ermenfrid, Bishop +of Sitten, had come in on a like errand in the time of Edward. It was a +kind of solemn confirmation of the Conquest, when, at the assembly held +at Winchester in 1070, the King’s crown was placed on his head by +Ermenfrid. The work of deposing English prelates and appointing foreign +successors now began. The primacy of York was regularly vacant; Ealdred +had died as the Danes sailed up the Humber to assault or to deliver his +city. The primacy of Canterbury was to be made vacant by the deposition +of Stigand. His canonical position had always been doubtful; neither +Harold nor William had been crowned by him; yet William had treated him +hitherto with marked courtesy, and he had consecrated at least one Norman +bishop, Remigius of Dorchester. He was now deprived both of the +archbishopric and of the bishopric of Winchester which he held with it, +and was kept under restraint for the rest of his life. According to +foreign canonical rules the sentence may pass as just; but it marked a +stage in the conquest of England when a stout-hearted Englishman was +removed from the highest place in the English Church to make way for the +innermost counsellor of the Conqueror. In the Pentecostal assembly, held +at Windsor, Lanfranc was appointed archbishop; his excuses were overcome +by his old master Herlwin of Bec; he came to England, and on August 15, +1070 he was consecrated to the primacy. + +Other deprivations and appointments took place in these assemblies. The +see of York was given to Thomas, a canon of Bayeux, a man of high +character and memorable in the local history of his see. The abbey of +Peterborough was vacant by the death of Brand, who had received the staff +from the uncrowned Eadgar. It was only by rich gifts that he had turned +away the wrath of William from his house. The Fenland was perhaps +already stirring, and the Abbot of Peterborough might have to act as a +military commander. In this case the prelate appointed, a Norman named +Turold, was accordingly more of a soldier than of a monk. From these +assemblies of 1070 the series of William’s ecclesiastical changes goes +on. As the English bishops die or are deprived, strangers take their +place. They are commonly Normans, but Walcher, who became Bishop of +Durham in 1071, was one of those natives of Lorraine who had been largely +favoured in Edward’s day. At the time of William’s death Wulfstan was +the only Englishman who kept a bishopric. Even his deprivation had once +been thought of. The story takes a legendary shape, but it throws an +important light on the relations of Church and State in England. In an +assembly held in the West Minster Wulfstan is called on by William and +Lanfranc to give up his staff. He refuses; he will give it back to him +who gave it, and places it on the tomb of his dead master Edward. No of +his enemies can move it. The sentence is recalled, and the staff yields +to his touch. Edward was not yet a canonized saint; the appeal is simply +from the living and foreign king to the dead and native king. This +legend, growing up when Western Europe was torn in pieces by the struggle +about investitures, proves better than the most authentic documents how +the right which Popes denied to Emperors was taken for granted in the +case of an English king. But, while the spoils of England, temporal and +spiritual, were thus scattered abroad among men of the conquering race, +two men at least among them refused all share in plunder which they +deemed unrighteous. One gallant Norman knight, Gulbert of Hugleville, +followed William through all his campaigns, but when English estates were +offered as his reward, he refused to share in unrighteous gains, and went +back to the lands of his fathers which he could hold with a good +conscience. And one monk, Wimund of Saint-Leutfried, not only refused +bishoprics and abbeys, but rebuked the Conqueror for wrong and robbery. +And William bore no grudge against his censor, but, when the +archbishopric of Rouen became vacant, he offered it to the man who had +rebuked him. Among the worthies of England Gulbert and Wimund can hardly +claim a place, but a place should surely be theirs among the men whom +England honours. + + * * * * * + +The primacy of Lanfranc is one of the most memorable in our history. In +the words of the parable put forth by Anselm in the next reign, the +plough of the English Church was for seventeen years drawn by two oxen of +equal strength. By ancient English custom the Archbishop of Canterbury +was the King’s special counsellor, the special representative of his +Church and people. Lanfranc cannot be charged with any direct +oppression; yet in the hands of a stranger who had his spiritual conquest +to make, the tribunitian office of former archbishops was lost in that of +chief minister of the sovereign. In the first action of their joint +rule, the interest of king and primate was the same. Lanfranc sought for +a more distinct acknowledgement of the superiority of Canterbury over the +rival metropolis of York. And this fell in with William’s schemes for +the consolidation of the kingdom. The political motive is avowed. +Northumberland, which had been so hard to subdue and which still lay open +to Danish invaders or deliverers, was still dangerous. An independent +Archbishop of York might consecrate a King of the Northumbrians, native +or Danish, who might grow into a King of the English. The Northern +metropolitan had unwillingly to admit the superiority, and something +more, of the Southern. The caution of William and his ecclesiastical +adviser reckoned it among possible chances that even Thomas of Bayeux +might crown an invading Cnut or Harold in opposition to his native +sovereign and benefactor. + +For some of his own purposes, William had perhaps chosen his minister too +wisely. The objects of the two colleagues were not always the same. +Lanfranc, sprung from Imperialist Pavia, was no zealot for extravagant +papal claims. The caution with which he bore himself during the schism +which followed the strife between Gregory and Henry brought on him more +than one papal censure. Yet the general tendency of his administration +was towards the growth of ecclesiastical, and even of papal, claims. +William never dreamed of giving up his ecclesiastical supremacy or of +exempting churchmen from the ordinary power of the law. But the division +of the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the increased frequency of +synods distinct from the general assemblies of the realm—even though the +acts of those synods needed the royal assent—were steps towards that +exemption of churchmen from the civil power which was asserted in one +memorable saying towards the end of William’s own reign. William could +hold his own against Hildebrand himself; yet the increased intercourse +with Rome, the more frequent presence of Roman Legates, all tended to +increase the papal claims and the deference yielded to them. William +refused homage to Gregory; but it is significant that Gregory asked for +it. It was a step towards the day when a King of England was glad to +offer it. The increased strictness as to the marriage of the clergy +tended the same way. Lanfranc did not at once enforce the full rigour of +Hildebrand’s decrees. Marriage was forbidden for the future; the +capitular clergy had to part from their wives; but the vested interest of +the parish priest was respected. In another point William directly +helped to undermine his own authority and the independence of his +kingdom. He exempted his abbey of the Battle from the authority of the +diocesan bishop. With this began a crowd of such exemptions, which, by +weakening local authority, strengthened the power of the Roman see. All +these things helped on Hildebrand’s great scheme which made the clergy +everywhere members of one distinct and exclusive body, with the Roman +Bishop at their head. Whatever tended to part the clergy from other men +tended to weaken the throne of every king. While William reigned with +Lanfranc at his side, these things were not felt; but the seed was sown +for the controversy between Henry and Thomas and for the humiliation of +John. + +Even those changes of Lanfranc’s primacy which seem of purely +ecclesiastical concern all helped, in some way to increase the +intercourse between England and the continent or to break down some +insular peculiarity. And whatever did this increased the power of Rome. +Even the decree of 1075 that bishoprics should be removed to the chief +cities of their dioceses helped to make England more like Gaul or Italy. +So did the fancy of William’s bishops and abbots for rebuilding their +churches on a greater scale and in the last devised continental style. +All tended to make England less of another world. On the other hand, one +insular peculiarity well served the purposes of the new primate. +Monastic chapters in episcopal churches were almost unknown out of +England. Lanfranc, himself a monk, favoured monks in this matter also. +In several churches the secular canons were displaced by monks. The +corporate spirit of the regulars, and their dependence on Rome, was far +stronger than that of the secular clergy. The secular chapters could be +refractory, but the disputes between them and their bishops were mainly +of local importance; they form no such part of the general story of +ecclesiastical and papal advance as the long tale of the quarrel between +the archbishops and the monks of Christ Church. + +Lanfranc survived William, and placed the crown on the head of his +successor. The friendship between king and archbishop remained unbroken +through their joint lives. Lanfranc’s acts were William’s acts; what the +Primate did must have been approved by the King. How far William’s acts +were Lanfranc’s acts it is less easy to say. But the Archbishop was ever +a trusted minister, and a trusted counsellor, and in the King’s frequent +absences from England, he often acted as his lieutenant. We do not find +him actually taking a part in warfare, but he duly reports military +successes to his sovereign. It was William’s combined wisdom and good +luck to provide himself with a counsellor than whom for his immediate +purposes none could be better. A man either of a higher or a lower moral +level than Lanfranc, a saint like Anselm or one of the mere worldly +bishops of the time, would not have done his work so well. William +needed an ecclesiastical statesman, neither unscrupulous nor +over-scrupulous, and he found him in the lawyer of Pavia, the doctor of +Avranches, the monk of Bec, the abbot of Saint Stephen’s. If Lanfranc +sometimes unwittingly outwitted both his master and himself, if his +policy served the purposes of Rome more than suited the purposes of +either, that is the common course of human affairs. Great men are apt to +forget that systems which they can work themselves cannot be worked by +smaller men. From this error neither William nor Lanfranc was free. +But, from their own point of view, it was their only error. Their work +was to subdue England, soul and body; and they subdued it. That work +could not be done without great wrong: but no other two men of that day +could have done it with so little wrong. The shrinking from needless and +violent change which is so strongly characteristic of William, and less +strongly of Lanfranc also, made their work at the time easier to be done; +in the course of ages it made it easier to be undone. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +THE REVOLTS AGAINST WILLIAM. +1070–1086. + + +THE years which saw the settlement of England, though not years of +constant fighting like the two years between the march to Exeter and the +fall of Chester, were not years of perfect peace. William had to +withstand foes on both sides of the sea, to withstand foes in his own +household, to undergo his first defeat, to receive his first wound in +personal conflict. Nothing shook his firm hold either on duchy or +kingdom; but in his later years his good luck forsook him. And men did +not fail to connect this change in his future with a change in himself, +above all with one deed of blood which stands out as utterly unlike all +his other recorded acts. + +But the amount of warfare which William had to go through in these later +years was small compared with the great struggles of his earlier days. +There is no tale to tell like the war of Val-ès-dunes, like the French +invasions of Normandy, like the campaigns that won England. One event +only of the earlier time is repeated almost as exactly as an event can be +repeated. William had won Maine once; he had now to win it again, and +less thoroughly. As Conqueror his work is done; a single expedition into +Wales is the only campaign of this part of his life that led to any +increase of territory. + +When William sat down to the settlement of his kingdom after the fall of +Chester, he was in the strictest sense full king over all England. For +the moment the whole land obeyed him; at no later moment did any large +part of the land fail to obey him. All opposition was now revolt. Men +were no longer keeping out an invader; when they rose, they rose against +a power which, however wrongfully, was the established government of the +land. Two such movements took place. One was a real revolt of +Englishmen against foreign rule. The other was a rebellion of William’s +own earls in their own interests, in which English feeling went with the +King. Both were short sharp struggles which stand out boldly in the +tale. More important in the general story, though less striking in +detail, are the relations of William to the other powers in and near the +isle of Britain. With the crown of the West-Saxon kings, he had taken up +their claims to supremacy over the whole island, and probably beyond it. +And even without such claims, border warfare with his Welsh and Scottish +neighbours could not be avoided. Counting from the completion of the +real conquest of England in 1070, there were in William’s reign three +distinct sources of disturbance. There were revolts within the kingdom +of England. There was border warfare in Britain. There were revolts in +William’s continental dominions. And we may add actual foreign warfare +or threats of foreign warfare, affecting William, sometimes in his +Norman, sometimes in his English character. + +With the affairs of Wales William had little personally to do. In this +he is unlike those who came immediately before and after him. In the +lives of Harold and of William Rufus personal warfare against the Welsh +forms an important part. William the Great commonly left this kind of +work to the earls of the frontier, to Hugh of Chester, Roger of +Shrewsbury, and to his early friend William of Hereford, so long as that +fierce warrior’s life lasted. These earls were ever at war with the +Welsh princes, and they extended the English kingdom at their cost. Once +only did the King take a personal share in the work, when he entered +South Wales, in 1081. We hear vaguely of his subduing the land and +founding castles; we see more distinctly that he released many subjects +who were in British bondage, and that he went on a religious pilgrimage +to Saint David’s. This last journey is in some accounts connected with +schemes for the conquest of Ireland. And in one most remarkable passage +of the English Chronicle, the writer for once speculates as to what might +have happened but did not. Had William lived two years longer, he would +have won Ireland by his wisdom without weapons. And if William had won +Ireland either by wisdom or by weapons, he would assuredly have known +better how to deal with it than most of those who have come after him. +If any man could have joined together the lands which God has put +asunder, surely it was he. This mysterious saying must have a reference +to some definite act or plan of which we have no other record. And some +slight approach to the process of winning Ireland without weapons does +appear in the ecclesiastical intercourse between England and Ireland +which now begins. Both the native Irish princes and the Danes of the +east coast begin to treat Lanfranc as their metropolitan, and to send +bishops to him for consecration. The name of the King of the English is +never mentioned in the letters which passed between the English primate +and the kings and bishops of Ireland. It may be that William was biding +his time for some act of special wisdom; but our speculations cannot go +any further than those of the Peterborough Chronicler. + +Revolt within the kingdom and invasion from without both began in the +year in which the Conquest was brought to an end. William’s +ecclesiastical reforms were interrupted by the revolt of the Fenland. +William’s authority had never been fully acknowledged in that corner of +England, while he wore his crown and held his councils elsewhere. But +the place where disturbances began, the abbey of Peterborough, was +certainly in William’s obedience. The warfare made memorable by the name +of Hereward began in June 1070, and a Scottish harrying of Northern +England, the second of five which are laid to the charge of Malcolm, took +place in the same year, and most likely about the same time. The English +movement is connected alike with the course of the Danish fleet and with +the appointment of Turold to the abbey of Peterborough. William had +bribed the Danish commanders to forsake their English allies, and he +allowed them to ravage the coast. A later bribe took them back to +Denmark; but not till they had shown themselves in the waters of Ely. +The people, largely of Danish descent, flocked to them, thinking, as the +Chronicler says, that they would win the whole land. The movement was +doubtless in favour of the kingship of Swegen. But nothing was done by +Danes and English together save to plunder Peterborough abbey. Hereward, +said to have been the nephew of Turold’s English predecessor, doubtless +looked on the holy place, under a Norman abbot, as part of the enemy’s +country. + +The name of Hereward has gathered round it such a mass of fiction, old +and new, that it is hard to disentangle the few details of his real +history. His descent and birth-place are uncertain; but he was assuredly +a man of Lincolnshire, and assuredly not the son of Earl Leofric. For +some unknown cause, he had been banished in the days of Edward or of +Harold. He now came back to lead his countrymen against William. He was +the soul of the movement of which the abbey of Ely became the centre. +The isle, then easily defensible, was the last English ground on which +the Conqueror was defied by Englishmen fighting for England. The men of +the Fenland were zealous; the monks of Ely were zealous; helpers came in +from other parts of England. English leaders left their shelter in +Scotland to share the dangers of their countrymen; even Edwin and Morkere +at last plucked up heart to leave William’s court and join the patriotic +movement. Edwin was pursued; he was betrayed by traitors; he was +overtaken and slain, to William’s deep grief, we are told. His brother +reached the isle, and helped in its defence. William now felt that the +revolt called for his own presence and his full energies. The isle was +stoutly attacked and stoutly defended, till, according to one version, +the monks betrayed the stronghold to the King. According to another, +Morkere was induced to surrender by promises of mercy which William +failed to fulfil. In any case, before the year 1071 was ended, the isle +of Ely was in William’s hands. Hereward alone with a few companions made +their way out by sea. William was less merciful than usual; still no man +was put to death. Some were mutilated, some imprisoned; Morkere and +other chief men spent the rest of their days in bonds. The temper of the +Conqueror had now fearfully hardened. Still he could honour a valiant +enemy; those who resisted to the last fared best. All the legends of +Hereward’s later days speak of him as admitted to William’s peace and +favour. One makes him die quietly, another kills him at the hands of +Norman enemies, but not at William’s bidding or with William’s knowledge. +Evidence a little better suggests that he bore arms for his new sovereign +beyond the sea; and an entry in Domesday also suggests that he held lands +under Count Robert of Mortain in Warwickshire. It would suit William’s +policy, when he received Hereward to his favour, to make him exchange +lands near to the scene of his exploits for lands in a distant shire held +under the lordship of the King’s brother. + +Meanwhile, most likely in the summer months of 1070, Malcolm ravaged +Cleveland, Durham, and other districts where there must have been little +left to ravage. Meanwhile the Ætheling Edgar and his sisters, with other +English exiles, sought shelter in Scotland, and were hospitably received. +At the same time Gospatric, now William’s earl in Northumberland, +retaliated by a harrying of Scottish Cumberland, which provoked Malcolm +to greater cruelties. It was said that there was no house in Scotland so +poor that it had not an English bondman. Presently some of Malcolm’s +English guests joined the defenders of Ely; those of highest birth stayed +in Scotland, and Malcolm, after much striving, persuaded Margaret the +sister of Edgar to become his wife. Her praises are written in Scottish +history, and the marriage had no small share in the process which made +the Scottish kings and the lands which formed their real kingdom +practically English. The sons and grandsons of Margaret, sprung of the +Old-English kingly house, were far more English within their own realm +than the Norman and Angevin kings of Southern England. But within the +English border men looked at things with other eyes. Thrice again did +Malcolm ravage England; two and twenty years later he was slain in his +last visit of havoc. William meanwhile and his earls at least drew to +themselves some measure of loyalty from the men of Northern England as +the guardians of the land against the Scot. + +For the present however Malcolm’s invasion was only avenged by +Gospatric’s harrying in Cumberland. The year 1071 called William to Ely; +in the early part of 1072 his presence was still needed on the mainland; +in August he found leisure for a march against Scotland. He went as an +English king, to assert the rights of the English crown, to avenge wrongs +done to the English land; and on such an errand Englishmen followed him +gladly. Eadric, the defender of Herefordshire, had made his peace with +the King, and he now held a place of high honour in his army. But if +William met with any armed resistance on his Scottish expedition, it did +not amount to a pitched battle. He passed through Lothian into Scotland; +he crossed Forth and drew near to Tay, and there, by the round tower of +Abernethy, the King of Scots swore oaths and gave hostages and became the +man of the King of the English. William might now call himself, like his +West-Saxon predecessors, _Bretwalda_ and _Basileus_ of the isle of +Britain. This was the highest point of his fortune. Duke of the +Normans, King of the English, he was undisputed lord from the march of +Anjou to the narrow sea between Caithness and Orkney. + +The exact terms of the treaty between William’s royal vassal and his +overlord are unknown. But one of them was clearly the removal of Edgar +from Scotland. Before long he was on the continent. William had not yet +learned that Edgar was less dangerous in Britain than in any other part +of the world, and that he was safest of all in William’s own court. +Homage done and hostages received, the Lord of all Britain returned to +his immediate kingdom. His march is connected with many legendary +stories. In real history it is marked by the foundation of the castle of +Durham, and by the Conqueror’s confirmation of the privileges of the +palatine bishops. If all the earls of England had been like the earls of +Chester, and all the bishops like the bishops of Durham, England would +assuredly have split up, like Germany, into a loose federation of +temporal and spiritual princes. This it was William’s special work to +hinder; but he doubtless saw that the exceptional privileges of one or +two favoured lordships, standing in marked contrast to the rest, would +not really interfere with his great plan of union. And William would +hardly have confirmed the sees of London or Winchester in the privileges +which he allowed to the distant see of Durham. He now also made a grant +of earldoms, the object of which is less clear than that of most of his +actions. It is not easy to say why Gospatric was deprived of his +earldom. His former acts of hostility to William had been covered by his +pardon and reappointment in 1069; and since then he had acted as a loyal, +if perhaps an indiscreet, guardian of the land. Two greater earldoms +than his had become vacant by the revolt, the death, the imprisonment, of +Edwin and Morkere. But these William had no intention of filling. He +would not have in his realm anything so dangerous as an earl of the +Mercian’s or the Northumbrians in the old sense, whether English or +Norman. But the defence of the northern frontier needed an earl to rule +Northumberland in the later sense, the land north of the Tyne. And after +the fate of Robert of Comines, William could not as yet put a Norman earl +in so perilous a post. But the Englishman whom he chose was open to the +same charges as the deposed Gospatric. For he was Waltheof the son of +Siward, the hero of the storm of York in 1069. Already Earl of +Northampton and Huntingdon, he was at this time high in the King’s +personal favour, perhaps already the husband of the King’s niece. One +side of William’s policy comes out here. Union was sometimes helped by +division. There were men whom William loved to make great, but whom he +had no mind to make dangerous. He gave them vast estates, but estates +for the most part scattered over different parts of the kingdom. It was +only in the border earldoms and in Cornwall that he allowed anything at +all near to the lordship of a whole shire to be put in the hands of a +single man. One Norman and one Englishman held two earldoms together; +but they were earldoms far apart. Roger of Montgomery held the earldoms +of Shrewsbury and Sussex, and Waltheof to his midland earldom of +Northampton and Huntingdon now added the rule of distant Northumberland. +The men who had fought most stoutly against William were the men whom he +most willingly received to favour. Eadric and Hereward were honoured; +Waltheof was honoured more highly. He ranked along with the greatest +Normans; his position was perhaps higher than any but the King’s born +kinsmen. But the whole tale of Waltheof is a problem that touches the +character of the king under whom he rose and fell. Lifted up higher than +any other man among the conquered, he was the one man whom William put to +death on a political charge. It is hard to see the reasons for either +his rise or his fall. It was doubtless mainly his end which won him the +abiding reverence of his countrymen. His valour and his piety are loudly +praised. But his valour we know only from his one personal exploit at +York; his piety was consistent with a base murder. In other matters, he +seems amiable, irresolute, and of a scrupulous conscience, and +Northumbrian morality perhaps saw no great crime in a murder committed +under the traditions of a Northumbrian deadly feud. Long before Waltheof +was born, his grandfather Earl Ealdred had been killed by a certain Carl. +The sons of Carl had fought by his side at York; but, notwithstanding +this comradeship, the first act of Waltheof’s rule in Northumberland was +to send men to slay them beyond the bounds of his earldom. A crime that +was perhaps admired in Northumberland and unheard of elsewhere did not +lose him either the favour of the King or the friendship of his neighbour +Bishop Walcher, a reforming prelate with whom Waltheof acted in concert. +And when he was chosen as the single exception to William’s merciful +rule, it was not for this undoubted crime, but on charges of which, even +if guilty, he might well have been forgiven. + + * * * * * + +The sojourn of William on the continent in 1072 carries us out of England +and Normandy into the general affairs of Europe. Signs may have already +showed themselves of what was coming to the south of Normandy; but the +interest of the moment lay in the country of Matilda. Flanders, long the +firm ally of Normandy, was now to change into a bitter enemy. Count +Baldwin died in 1067; his successor of the same name died three years +later, and a war followed between his widow Richildis, the guardian of +his young son Arnulf, and his brother Robert the Frisian. Robert had won +fame in the East; he had received the sovereignty of Friesland—a name +which takes in Holland and Zealand—and he was now invited to deliver +Flanders from the oppressions of Richildis. Meanwhile, Matilda was +acting as regent of Normandy, with Earl William of Hereford as her +counsellor. Richildis sought help of her son’s two overlords, King Henry +of Germany and King Philip of France. Philip came in person; the German +succours were too late. From Normandy came Earl William with a small +party of knights. The kings had been asked for armies; to the Earl she +offered herself, and he came to fight for his bride. But early in 1071 +Philip, Arnulf, and William, were all overthrown by Robert the Frisian in +the battle of Cassel. Arnulf and Earl William were killed; Philip made +peace with Robert, henceforth undisputed Count of Flanders. + +All this brought King William to the continent, while the invasion of +Malcolm was still unavenged. No open war followed between Normandy and +Flanders; but for the rest of their lives Robert and William were +enemies, and each helped the enemies of the other. William gave his +support to Baldwin brother of the slain Arnulf, who strove to win +Flanders from Robert. But the real interest of this episode lies in the +impression which was made in the lands east of Flanders. In the troubled +state of Germany, when Henry the Fourth was striving with the Saxons, +both sides seem to have looked to the Conqueror of England with hope and +with fear. On this matter our English and Norman authorities are silent, +and the notices in the contemporary German writers are strangely unlike +one another. But they show at least that the prince who ruled on both +sides of the sea was largely in men’s thoughts. The Saxon enemy of Henry +describes him in his despair as seeking help in Denmark, France, +Aquitaine, and also of the King of the English, promising him the like +help, if he should ever need it. William and Henry had both to guard +against Saxon enmity, but the throne at Winchester stood firmer than the +throne at Goslar. But the historian of the continental Saxons puts into +William’s mouth an answer utterly unsuited to his position. He is made, +when in Normandy, to answer that, having won his kingdom by force, he +fears to leave it, lest he might not find his way back again. Far more +striking is the story told three years later by Lambert of Herzfeld. +Henry, when engaged in an Hungarian war, heard that the famous Archbishop +Hanno of Köln had leagued with William _Bostar_—so is his earliest +surname written—King of the English, and that a vast army was coming to +set the island monarch on the German throne. The host never came; but +Henry hastened back to guard his frontier against _barbarians_. By that +phrase a Teutonic writer can hardly mean the insular part of William’s +subjects. + +Now assuredly William never cherished, as his successor probably did, so +wild a dream as that of a kingly crowning at Aachen, to be followed +perhaps by an imperial crowning at Rome. But that such schemes were +looked on as a practical danger against which the actual German King had +to guard, at least shows the place which the Conqueror of England held in +European imagination. + +For the three or four years immediately following the surrender of Ely, +William’s journeys to and fro between his kingdom and his duchy were +specially frequent. Matilda seems to have always stayed in Normandy; she +is never mentioned in England after the year of her coronation and the +birth of her youngest son, and she commonly acted as regent of the duchy. +In the course of 1072 we see William in England, in Normandy, again in +England, and in Scotland. In 1073 he was called beyond sea by a +formidable movement. His great continental conquest had risen against +him; Le Mans and all Maine were again independent. City and land chose +for them a prince who came by female descent from the stock of their +ancient counts. This was Hugh the son of Azo Marquess of Liguria and of +Gersendis the sister of the last Count Herbert. The Normans were driven +out of Le Mans; Azo came to take possession in the name of his son, but +he and the citizens did not long agree. He went back, leaving his wife +and son under the guardianship of Geoffrey of Mayenne. Presently the men +of Le Mans threw off princely rule altogether and proclaimed the earliest +_commune_ in Northern Gaul. Here then, as at Exeter, William had to +strive against an armed commonwealth, and, as at Exeter, we specially +wish to know what were to be the relations between the capital and the +county at large. The mass of the people throughout Maine threw +themselves zealously into the cause of the commonwealth. But their zeal +might not have lasted long, if, according to the usual run of things in +such cases, they had simply exchanged the lordship of their hereditary +masters for the corporate lordship of the citizens of Le Mans. To the +nobles the change was naturally distasteful. They had to swear to the +_commune_, but many of them, Geoffrey for one, had no thought of keeping +their oaths. Dissensions arose; Hugh went back to Italy; Geoffrey +occupied the castle of Le Mans, and the citizens dislodged him only by +the dangerous help of the other prince who claimed the overlordship of +Maine, Count Fulk of Anjou. + +If Maine was to have a master from outside, the lord of Anjou hardly +promised better than the lord of Normandy. But men in despair grasp at +anything. The strange thing is that Fulk disappears now from the story; +William steps in instead. And it was at least as much in his English as +in his Norman character that the Duke and King won back the revolted +land. A place in his army was held by English warriors, seemingly under +the command of Hereward himself. Men who had fought for freedom in their +own land now fought at the bidding of their Conqueror to put down freedom +in another land. They went willingly; the English Chronicler describes +the campaign with glee, and breaks into verse—or incorporates a +contemporary ballad—at the tale of English victory. Few men of that day +would see that the cause of Maine was in truth the cause of England. If +York and Exeter could not act in concert with one another, still less +could either act in concert with Le Mans. Englishmen serving in Maine +would fancy that they were avenging their own wrongs by laying waste the +lands of any man who spoke the French tongue. On William’s part, the +employment of Englishmen, the employment of Hereward, was another stroke +of policy. It was more fully following out the system which led +Englishmen against Exeter, which led Eadric and his comrades into +Scotland. For in every English soldier whom William carried into Maine +he won a loyal English subject. To men who had fought under his banners +beyond the sea he would be no longer the Conqueror but the victorious +captain; they would need some very special oppression at home to make +them revolt against the chief whose laurels they had helped to win. As +our own gleeman tells the tale, they did little beyond harrying the +helpless land; but in continental writers we can trace a regular +campaign, in which we hear of no battles, but of many sieges. William, +as before, subdued the land piecemeal, keeping the city for the last. +When he drew near to Le Mans, its defenders surrendered at his summons, +to escape fire and slaughter by speedy submission. The new _commune_ was +abolished, but the Conqueror swore to observe all the ancient rights of +the city. + +All this time we have heard nothing of Count Fulk. Presently we find him +warring against nobles of Maine who had taken William’s part, and +leaguing with the Bretons against William himself. The King set forth +with his whole force, Norman and English; but peace was made by the +mediation of an unnamed Roman cardinal, abetted, we are told, by the +chief Norman nobles. Success against confederated Anjou and Britanny +might be doubtful, with Maine and England wavering in their allegiance, +and France, Scotland, and Flanders, possible enemies in the distance. +The rights of the Count of Anjou over Maine were formally acknowledged, +and William’s eldest son Robert did homage to Fulk for the county. Each +prince stipulated for the safety and favour of all subjects of the other +who had taken his side. Between Normandy and Anjou there was peace +during the rest of the days of William; in Maine we shall see yet another +revolt, though only a partial one. + +William went back to England in 1073. In 1074 he went to the continent +for a longer absence. As the time just after the first completion of the +Conquest is spoken of as a time when Normans and English were beginning +to sit down side by side in peace, so the years which followed the +submission of Ely are spoken of as a time of special oppression. This +fact is not unconnected with the King’s frequent absences from England. +Whatever we say of William’s own position, he was a check on smaller +oppressors. Things were always worse when the eye of the great master +was no longer watching. William’s one weakness was that of putting +overmuch trust in his immediate kinsfolk and friends. Of the two special +oppressors, William Fitz-Osbern had thrown away his life in Flanders; but +Bishop Ode was still at work, till several years later his king and +brother struck him down with a truly righteous blow. + +The year 1074, not a year of fighting, was pro-eminently a year of +intrigue. William’s enemies on the continent strove to turn the +representative of the West-Saxon kings to help their ends. Edgar flits +to and fro between Scotland and Flanders, and the King of the French +tempts him with the offer of a convenient settlement on the march of +France, Normandy, and Flanders. Edgar sets forth from Scotland, but is +driven back by a storm; Malcolm and Margaret then change their minds, and +bid him make his peace with King William. William gladly accepts his +submission; an embassy is sent to bring him with all worship to the King +in Normandy. He abides for several years in William’s court contented +and despised, receiving a daily pension and the profits of estates in +England of no great extent which the King of a moment held by the grant +of a rival who could afford to be magnanimous. + + * * * * * + +Edgar’s after-life showed that he belonged to that class of men who, as a +rule slothful and listless, can yet on occasion act with energy, and who +act most creditably on behalf of others. But William had no need to fear +him, and he was easily turned into a friend and a dependant. Edgar, +first of Englishmen by descent, was hardly an Englishman by birth. +William had now to deal with the Englishman who stood next to Edgar in +dignity and far above him in personal estimation. We have reached the +great turning-point in William’s reign and character, the black and +mysterious tale of the fate of Waltheof. The Earl of Northumberland, +Northampton, and Huntingdon, was not the only earl in England of English +birth. The earldom of the East-Angles was held by a born Englishman who +was more hateful than any stranger. Ralph of Wader was the one +Englishman who had fought at William’s side against England. He often +passes for a native of Britanny, and he certainly held lands and castles +in that country; but he was Breton only by the mother’s side. For +Domesday and the Chronicles show that he was the son of an elder Earl +Ralph, who had been _staller_ or master of the horse in Edward’s days, +and who is expressly said to have been born in Norfolk. The unusual name +suggests that the elder Ralph was not of English descent. He survived +the coming of William, and his son fought on Senlac among the countrymen +of his mother. This treason implies an unrecorded banishment in the days +of Edward or Harold. Already earl in 1069, he had in that year acted +vigorously for William against the Danes. But he now conspired against +him along with Roger, the younger son of William Fitz-Osbern, who had +succeeded his father in the earldom of Hereford, while his Norman estates +had passed to his elder brother William. What grounds of complaint +either Ralph or Roger had against William we know not; but that the +loyalty of the Earl of Hereford was doubtful throughout the year 1074 +appears from several letters of rebuke and counsel sent to him by the +Regent Lanfranc. At last the wielder of both swords took to his +spiritual arms, and pronounced the Earl excommunicate, till he should +submit to the King’s mercy and make restitution to the King and to all +men whom he had wronged. Roger remained stiff-necked under the Primate’s +censure, and presently committed an act of direct disobedience. The next +year, 1075, he gave his sister Emma in marriage to Earl Ralph. This +marriage the King had forbidden, on some unrecorded ground of state +policy. Most likely he already suspected both earls, and thought any tie +between them dangerous. The notice shows William stepping in to do, as +an act of policy, what under his successors became a matter of course, +done with the sole object of making money. The _bride-ale_—the name that +lurks in the modern shape of _bridal_—was held at Exning in +Cambridgeshire; bishops and abbots were guests of the excommunicated +Roger; Waltheof was there, and many Breton comrades of Ralph. In their +cups they began to plot how they might drive the King out of the kingdom. +Charges, both true and false, were brought against William; in a mixed +gathering of Normans, English, and Bretons, almost every act of William’s +life might pass as a wrong done to some part of the company, even though +some others of the company were his accomplices. Above all, the two +earls Ralph and Roger made a distinct proposal to their fellow-earl +Waltheof. King William should be driven out of the land; one of the +three should be King; the other two should remain earls, ruling each over +a third of the kingdom. Such a scheme might attract earls, but no one +else; it would undo William’s best and greatest work; it would throw back +the growing unity of the kingdom by all the steps that it had taken +during several generations. + +Now what amount of favour did Waltheof give to these schemes? Weighing +the accounts, it would seem that, in the excitement of the bride-ale, he +consented to the treason, but that he thought better of it the next +morning. He went to Lanfranc, at once regent and ghostly father, and +confessed to him whatever he had to confess. The Primate assigned his +penitent some ecclesiastical penances; the Regent bade the Earl go into +Normandy and tell the whole tale to the King. Waltheof went, with gifts +in hand; he told his story and craved forgiveness. William made light of +the matter, and kept Waltheof with him, but seemingly not under +restraint, till he came back to England. + +Meanwhile the other two earls were in open rebellion. Ralph, half Breton +by birth and earl of a Danish land, asked help in Britanny and Denmark. +Bretons from Britanny and Bretons settled in England flocked to him. +King Swegen, now almost at the end of his reign and life, listened to the +call of the rebels, and sent a fleet under the command of his son Cnut, +the future saint, together with an earl named Hakon. The revolt in +England was soon put down, both in East and West. The rebel earls met +with no support save from those who were under their immediate influence. +The country acted zealously for the King. Lanfranc could report that +Earl Ralph and his army were fleeing, and that the King’s men, French and +English, were chasing them. In another letter he could add, with some +strength of language, that the kingdom was cleansed from the filth of the +Bretons. At Norwich only the castle was valiantly defended by the newly +married Countess Emma. Roger was taken prisoner; Ralph fled to Britanny; +their followers were punished with various mutilations, save the +defenders of Norwich, who were admitted to terms. The Countess joined +her husband in Britanny, and in days to come Ralph did something to +redeem so many treasons by dying as an armed pilgrim in the first +crusade. + +The main point of this story is that the revolt met with no English +support whatever. Not only did Bishop Wulfstan march along with his +fierce Norman brethren Ode and Geoffrey; the English people everywhere +were against the rebels. For this revolt offered no attraction to +English feeling; had the undertaking been less hopeless, nothing could +have been gained by exchanging the rule of William for that of Ralph or +Roger. It might have been different if the Danes had played their part +better. The rebellion broke out while William was in Normandy; it was +the sailing of the Danish fleet which brought him back to England. But +never did enterprise bring less honour on its leaders than this last +Danish voyage up the Humber. All that the holy Cnut did was to plunder +the minster of Saint Peter at York and to sail away. + +His coming however seems to have altogether changed the King’s feelings +with regard to Waltheof. As yet he had not been dealt with as a prisoner +or an enemy. He now came back to England with the King, and William’s +first act was to imprison both Waltheof and Roger. The imprisonment of +Roger, a rebel taken in arms, was a matter of course. As for Waltheof, +whatever he had promised at the bride-ale, he had done no disloyal act; +he had had no share in the rebellion, and he had told the King all that +he knew. But he had listened to traitors, and it might be dangerous to +leave him at large when a Danish fleet, led by his old comrade Cnut, was +actually afloat. Still what followed is strange indeed, specially +strange with William as its chief doer. + +At the Midwinter Gemót of 1075–1076 Roger and Waltheof were brought to +trial. Ralph was condemned in absence, like Eustace of Boulogne. Roger +was sentenced to forfeiture and imprisonment for life. Waltheof made his +defence; his sentence was deferred; he was kept at Winchester in a +straiter imprisonment than before. At the Pentecostal Gemót of 1076, +held at Westminster, his case was again argued, and he was sentenced to +death. On the last day of May the last English earl was beheaded on the +hills above Winchester. + +Such a sentence and execution, strange at any time, is specially strange +under William. Whatever Waltheof had done, his offence was lighter than +that of Roger; yet Waltheof has the heavier and Roger the lighter +punishment. With Scroggs or Jeffreys on the bench, it might have been +argued that Waltheof’s confession to the King did not, in strictness of +law, wipe out the guilt of his original promise to the conspirators; but +William the Great did not commonly act after the fashion of Scroggs and +Jeffreys. To deprive Waltheof of his earldom might doubtless be prudent; +a man who had even listened to traitors might be deemed unfit for such a +trust. It might be wise to keep him safe under the King’s eye, like +Edwin, Morkere, and Edgar. But why should he be picked out for death, +when the far more guilty Roger was allowed to live? Why should he be +chosen as the one victim of a prince who never before or after, in +Normandy or in England, doomed any man to die on a political charge? +These are questions hard to answer. It is not enough to say that +Waltheof was an Englishman, that it was William’s policy gradually to get +rid of Englishmen in high places, and that the time was now come to get +rid of the last. For such a policy forfeiture, or at most imprisonment, +would have been enough. While other Englishmen lost lands, honours, at +most liberty, Waltheof alone lost his life by a judicial sentence. It is +likely enough that many Normans hungered for the lands and honours of the +one Englishman who still held the highest rank in England. Still +forfeiture without death might have satisfied even them. But Waltheof +was not only earl of three shires; he was husband of the King’s near +kinswoman. We are told that Judith was the enemy and accuser of her +husband. This may have touched William’s one weak point. Yet he would +hardly have swerved from the practice of his whole life to please the +bloody caprice of a niece who longed for the death of her husband. And +if Judith longed for Waltheof’s death, it was not from a wish to supply +his place with another. Legend says that she refused a second husband +offered her by the King; it is certain that she remained a widow. + +Waltheof’s death must thus remain a mystery, an isolated deed of blood +unlike anything else in William’s life. It seems to have been impolitic; +it led to no revolt, but it called forth a new burst of English feeling. +Waltheof was deemed the martyr of his people; he received the same +popular canonization as more than one English patriot. Signs and wonders +were wrought at his tomb at Crowland, till displays of miraculous power +which were so inconsistent with loyalty and good order were straitly +forbidden. The act itself marks a stage in the downward course of +William’s character. In itself, the harrying of Northumberland, the very +invasion of England, with all the bloodshed that they caused, might be +deemed blacker crimes than the unjust death of a single man. But as +human nature stands, the less crime needs a worse man to do it. Crime, +as ever, led to further crime and was itself the punishment of crime. In +the eyes of William’s contemporaries the death of Waltheof, the blackest +act of William’s life, was also its turning-point. From the day of the +martyrdom on Saint Giles’ hill the magic of William’s name and William’s +arms passed away. Unfailing luck no longer waited on him; after +Waltheof’s death he never, till his last campaign of all, won a battle or +took a town. In this change of William’s fortunes the men of his own day +saw the judgement of God upon his crime. And in the fact at least they +were undoubtedly right. Henceforth, though William’s real power abides +unshaken, the tale of his warfare is chiefly a tale of petty defeats. +The last eleven years of his life would never have won him the name of +Conqueror. But in the higher walk of policy and legislation never was +his nobler surname more truly deserved. Never did William the Great show +himself so truly great as in these later years. + + * * * * * + +The death of Waltheof and the popular judgement on it suggest another act +of William’s which cannot have been far from it in point of time, and +about which men spoke in his own day in the same spirit. If the +judgement of God came on William for the beheading of Waltheof, it came +on him also for the making of the New Forest. As to that forest there is +a good deal of ancient exaggeration and a good deal of modern +misconception. The word _forest_ is often misunderstood. In its older +meaning, a meaning which it still keeps in some parts, a forest has +nothing to do with trees. It is a tract of land put outside the common +law and subject to a stricter law of its own, and that commonly, probably +always, to secure for the King the freer enjoyment of the pleasure of +hunting. Such a forest William made in Hampshire; the impression which +it made on men’s minds at the time is shown by its having kept the name +of the New Forest for eight hundred years. There is no reason to think +that William laid waste any large tract of specially fruitful country, +least of all that he laid waste a land thickly inhabited; for most of the +Forest land never can have been such. But it is certain from Domesday +and the Chronicle that William did _afforest_ a considerable tract of +land in Hampshire; he set it apart for the purposes of hunting; he fenced +it in by special and cruel laws—stopping indeed short of death—for the +protection of his pleasures, and in this process some men lost their +lands, and were driven from their homes. Some destruction of houses is +here implied; some destruction of churches is not unlikely. The popular +belief, which hardly differs from the account of writers one degree later +than Domesday and the Chronicle, simply exaggerates the extent of +destruction. There was no such wide-spread laying waste as is often +supposed, because no such wide-spread laying waste was needed. But +whatever was needed for William’s purpose was done; and Domesday gives us +the record. And the act surely makes, like the death of Waltheof, a +downward stage in William’s character. The harrying of Northumberland +was in itself a far greater crime, and involved far more of human +wretchedness. But it is not remembered in the same way, because it has +left no such abiding memorial. But here again the lesser crime needed a +worse man to do it. The harrying of Northumberland was a crime done with +a political object; it was the extreme form of military severity; it was +not vulgar robbery done with no higher motive than to secure the fuller +enjoyment of a brutal sport. To this level William had now sunk. It was +in truth now that hunting in England finally took the character of a mere +sport. Hunting was no new thing; in an early state of society it is +often a necessary thing. The hunting of Alfred is spoken of as a grave +matter of business, as part of his kingly duty. He had to make war on +the wild beasts, as he had to make war on the Danes. The hunting of +William is simply a sport, not his duty or his business, but merely his +pleasure. And to this pleasure, the pleasure of inflicting pain and +slaughter, he did not scruple to sacrifice the rights of other men, and +to guard his enjoyment by ruthless laws at which even in that rough age +men shuddered. + +For this crime the men of his day saw the punishment in the strange and +frightful deaths of his offspring, two sons and a grandson, on the scene +of his crime. One of these himself he saw, the death of his second son +Richard, a youth of great promise, whose prolonged life might have saved +England from the rule of William Rufus. He died in the Forest, about the +year 1081, to the deep grief of his parents. And Domesday contains a +touching entry, how William gave back his land to a despoiled Englishman +as an offering for Richard’s soul. + + * * * * * + +The forfeiture of three earls, the death of one, threw their honours and +estates into the King’s hands. Another fresh source of wealth came by +the death of the Lady Edith, who had kept her royal rank and her great +estates, and who died while the proceedings against Waltheof were going +on. It was not now so important for William as it had been in the first +years of the Conquest to reward his followers; he could now think of the +royal hoard in the first place. Of the estates which now fell in to the +Crown large parts were granted out. The house of Bigod, afterwards so +renowned as Earls of Norfolk, owe their rise to their forefather’s share +in the forfeited lands of Earl Ralph. But William kept the greater part +to himself; one lordship in Somerset, part of the lands of the Lady, he +gave to the church of Saint Peter at Rome. Of the three earldoms, those +of Hereford and East-Anglia were not filled up; the later earldoms of +those lands have no connexion with the earls of William’s day. +Waltheof’s southern earldoms of Northampton and Huntingdon became the +dowry of his daughter Matilda; that of Huntingdon passed to his +descendants the Kings of Scots. But Northumberland, close on the +Scottish border, still needed an earl; but there is something strange in +the choice of Bishop Walcher of Durham. It is possible that this +appointment was a concession to English feeling stirred to wrath at the +death of Waltheof. The days of English earls were over, and a Norman +would have been looked on as Waltheof’s murderer. The Lotharingian +bishop was a stranger; but he was not a Norman, and he was no oppressor +of Englishmen. But he was strangely unfit for the place. Not a fighting +bishop like Ode and Geoffrey, he was chiefly devoted to spiritual +affairs, specially to the revival of the monastic life, which had died +out in Northern England since the Danish invasions. But his weak trust +in unworthy favourites, English and foreign, led him to a fearful and +memorable end. The Bishop was on terms of close friendship with Ligulf, +an Englishman of the highest birth and uncle by marriage to Earl +Waltheof. He had kept his estates; but the insolence of his Norman +neighbours had caused him to come and live in the city of Durham near his +friend the Bishop. His favour with Walcher roused the envy of some of +the Bishop’s favourites, who presently contrived his death. The Bishop +lamented, and rebuked them; but he failed to “do justice,” to punish the +offenders sternly and speedily. He was therefore believed to be himself +guilty of Ligulf’s death. One of the most striking and instructive +events of the time followed. On May 14, 1080, a full Gemót of the +earldom was held at Gateshead to deal with the murder of Ligulf. This +was one of those rare occasions when a strong feeling led every man to +the assembly. The local Parliament took its ancient shape of an armed +crowd, headed by the noblest Englishmen left in the earldom. There was +no vote, no debate; the shout was “Short rede good rede, slay ye the +Bishop.” And to that cry, Walcher himself and his companions, the +murderers of Ligulf among them, were slaughtered by the raging multitude +who had gathered to avenge him. + +The riot in which Walcher died was no real revolt against William’s +government. Such a local rising against a local wrong might have +happened in the like case under Edward or Harold. No government could +leave such a deed unpunished; but William’s own ideas of justice would +have been fully satisfied by the blinding or mutilation of a few +ringleaders. But William was in Normandy in the midst of domestic and +political cares. He sent his brother Ode to restore order, and his +vengeance was frightful. The land was harried; innocent men were +mutilated and put to death; others saved their lives by bribes. Earl +after earl was set over a land so hard to rule. A certain Alberie was +appointed, but he was removed as unfit. The fierce Bishop Geoffrey of +Coutances tried his hand and resigned. At the time of William’s death +the earldom was held by Geoffrey’s nephew Robert of Mowbray, a stern and +gloomy stranger, but whom Englishmen reckoned among “good men,” when he +guarded the marches of England against the Scot. + + * * * * * + +After the death of Waltheof William seems to have stayed in Normandy for +several years. His ill luck now began. Before the year 1076 was out, he +entered, we know not why, on a Breton campaign. But he was driven from +Dol by the combined forces of Britanny and France; Philip was ready to +help any enemy of William. The Conqueror had now for the first time +suffered defeat in his own person. He made peace with both enemies, +promising his daughter Constance to Alan of Britanny. But the marriage +did not follow till ten years later. The peace with France, as the +English Chronicle says, “held little while;” Philip could not resist the +temptation of helping William’s eldest son Robert when the reckless young +man rebelled against his father. With most of the qualities of an +accomplished knight, Robert had few of those which make either a wise +ruler or an honest man. A brave soldier, even a skilful captain, he was +no general; ready of speech and free of hand, he was lavish rather than +bountiful. He did not lack generous and noble feelings; but of a steady +course, even in evil, he was incapable. As a ruler, he was no oppressor +in his own person; but sloth, carelessness, love of pleasure, incapacity +to say No, failure to do justice, caused more wretchedness than the +oppression of those tyrants who hinder the oppressions of others. +William would not set such an one over any part of his dominions before +his time, and it was his policy to keep his children dependent on him. +While he enriched his brothers, he did not give the smallest scrap of the +spoils of England to his sons. But Robert deemed that he had a right to +something greater than private estates. The nobles of Normandy had done +homage to him as William’s successor; he had done homage to Fulk for +Maine, as if he were himself its count. He was now stirred up by evil +companions to demand that, if his father would not give him part of his +kingdom—the spirit of Edwin and Morkere had crossed the sea—he would at +least give him Normandy and Maine. William refused with many pithy +sayings. It was not his manner to take off his clothes till he went to +bed. Robert now, with a band of discontented young nobles, plunged into +border warfare against his father. He then wandered over a large part of +Europe, begging and receiving money and squandering all that he got. His +mother too sent him money, which led to the first quarrel between William +and Matilda after so many years of faithful union. William rebuked his +wife for helping his enemy in breach of his orders: she pleaded the +mother’s love for her first-born. The mother was forgiven, but her +messenger, sentenced to loss of eyes, found shelter in a monastery. + +At last in 1079 Philip gave Robert a settled dwelling-place in the +border-fortress of Gerberoi. The strife between father and son became +dangerous. William besieged the castle, to undergo before its walls his +second defeat, to receive his first wound, and that at the hands of his +own son. Pierced in the hand by the lance of Robert, his horse smitten +by an arrow, the Conqueror fell to the ground, and was saved only by an +Englishman, Tokig, son of Wiggod of Wallingford, who gave his life for +his king. It seems an early softening of the tale which says that Robert +dismounted and craved his father’s pardon; it seems a later hardening +which says that William pronounced a curse on his son. William Rufus +too, known as yet only as the dutiful son of his father, was wounded in +his defence. The blow was not only grievous to William’s feelings as a +father; it was a serious military defeat. The two wounded Williams and +the rest of the besiegers escaped how they might, and the siege of +Gerberoi was raised. + +We next find the wise men of Normandy debating how to make peace between +father and son. In the course of the year 1080 a peace was patched up, +and a more honourable sphere was found for Robert’s energies in an +expedition into Scotland. In the autumn of the year of Gerberoi Malcolm +had made another wasting inroad into Northumberland. With the King +absent and Northumberland in confusion through the death of Walcher, this +wrong went unavenged till the autumn of 1080. Robert gained no special +glory in Scotland; a second quarrel with his father followed, and Robert +remained a banished man during the last seven years of William’s reign. + +In this same year 1080 a synod of the Norman Church was held, the Truce +of God again renewed which we heard of years ago. The forms of outrage +on which the Truce was meant to put a cheek, and which the strong hand of +William had put down more thoroughly than the Truce would do, had clearly +begun again during the confusions caused by the rebellion of Robert. + +The two next years, 1081–1082, William was in England. His home sorrows +were now pressing heavily on him. His eldest son was a rebel and an +exile; about this time his second son died in the New Forest; according +to one version, his daughter, the betrothed of Edwin, who had never +forgotten her English lover, was now promised to the Spanish King +Alfonso, and died—in answer to her own prayers—before the marriage was +celebrated. And now the partner of William’s life was taken from him +four years after his one difference with her. On November 3, 1083, +Matilda died after a long sickness, to her husband’s lasting grief. She +was buried in her own church at Caen, and churches in England received +gifts from William on behalf of her soul. + +The mourner had soon again to play the warrior. Nearly the whole of +William’s few remaining years were spent in a struggle which in earlier +times he would surely have ended in a day. Maine, city and county, did +not call for a third conquest; but a single baron of Maine defied +William’s power, and a single castle of Maine held out against him for +three years. Hubert, Viscount of Beaumont and Fresnay, revolted on some +slight quarrel. The siege of his castle of Sainte-Susanne went on from +the death of Matilda till the last year but one of William’s reign. The +tale is full of picturesque detail; but William had little personal share +in it. The best captains of Normandy tried their strength in vain +against this one donjon on its rock. William at last made peace with the +subject who was too strong for him. Hubert came to England and received +the King’s pardon. Practically the pardon was the other way. + +Thus for the last eleven years of his life William ceased to be the +Conqueror. Engaged only in small enterprises, he was unsuccessful in +all. One last success was indeed in store for him; but that was to be +purchased with his own life. As he turned away in defeat from this +castle and that, as he felt the full bitterness of domestic sorrow, he +may have thought, as others thought for him, that the curse of Waltheof, +the curse of the New Forest, was ever tracking his steps. If so, his +crimes were done in England, and their vengeance came in Normandy. In +England there was no further room for his mission as Conqueror; he had no +longer foes to overcome. He had an act of justice to do, and he did it. +He had his kingdom to guard, and he guarded it. He had to take the great +step which should make his kingdom one for ever; and he had, perhaps +without fully knowing what he did, to bid the picture of his reign be +painted for all time as no reign before or after has been painted. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM. +1081–1087. + + +OF two events of these last years of the Conqueror’s reign, events of +very different degrees of importance, we have already spoken. The Welsh +expedition of William was the only recorded fighting on British ground, +and that lay without the bounds of the kingdom of England. William now +made Normandy his chief dwelling-place, but he was constantly called over +to England. The Welsh campaign proves his presence in England in 1081; +he was again in England in 1082, but he went back to Normandy between the +two visits. The visit of 1082 was a memorable one; there is no more +characteristic act of the Conqueror than the deed which marks it. The +cruelty and insolence of his brother Ode, whom he had trusted so much +more than he deserved, had passed all bounds. In avenging the death of +Walcher he had done deeds such as William never did himself or allowed +any other man to do. And now, beguiled by a soothsayer who said that one +of his name should be the next Pope, he dreamed of succeeding to the +throne of Gregory the Seventh. He made all kinds of preparations to +secure his succession, and he was at last about to set forth for Italy at +the head of something like an army. His schemes were by no means to the +liking of his brother. William came suddenly over from Normandy, and met +Ode in the Isle of Wight. There the King got together as many as he +could of the great men of the realm. Before them he arraigned Ode for +all his crimes. He had left him as the lieutenant of his kingdom, and he +had shown himself the common oppressor of every class of men in the +realm. Last of all, he had beguiled the warriors who were needed for the +defence of England against the Danes and Irish to follow him on his wild +schemes in Italy. How was he to deal with such a brother, William asked +of his wise men. + +He had to answer himself; no other man dared to speak. William then gave +his judgement. The common enemy of the whole realm should not be spared +because he was the King’s brother. He should be seized and put in ward. +As none dared to seize him, the King seized him with his own hands. And +now, for the first time in England, we hear words which were often heard +again. The bishop stained with blood and sacrilege appealed to the +privileges of his order. He was a clerk, a bishop; no man might judge +him but the Pope. William, taught, so men said, by Lanfranc, had his +answer ready. “I do not seize a clerk or a bishop; I seize my earl whom +I set over my kingdom.” So the Earl of Kent was carried off to a prison +in Normandy, and Pope Gregory himself pleaded in vain for the release of +the Bishop of Bayeux. + +The mind of William was just now mainly given to the affairs of his +island kingdom. In the winter of 1083 he hastened from the death-bed of +his wife to the siege of Sainte-Susanne, and thence to the Midwinter +Gemót in England. The chief object of the assembly was the specially +distasteful one of laying on of a tax. In the course of the next year, +six shillings was levied on every hide of land to meet a pressing need. +The powers of the North were again threatening; the danger, if it was +danger, was greater than when Waltheof smote the Normans in the gate at +York. Swegen and his successor Harold were dead. Cnut the Saint reigned +in Denmark, the son-in-law of Robert of Flanders. This alliance with +William’s enemy joined with his remembrance of his own two failures to +stir up the Danish king to a yearning for some exploit in England. +English exiles were still found to urge him to the enterprise. William’s +conquest had scattered banished or discontented Englishmen over all +Europe. Many had made their way to the Eastern Rome; they had joined the +Warangian guard, the surest support of the Imperial throne, and at +Dyrrhachion, as on Senlac, the axe of England had met the lance of +Normandy in battle. Others had fled to the North; they prayed Cnut to +avenge the death of his kinsman Harold and to deliver England from the +yoke of men—so an English writer living in Denmark spoke of them—of Roman +speech. Thus the Greek at one end of Europe, the Norman at the other, +still kept on the name of Rome. The fleet of Denmark was joined by the +fleet of Flanders; a smaller contingent was promised by the devout and +peaceful Olaf of Norway, who himself felt no call to take a share in the +work of war. + +Against this danger William strengthened himself by the help of the tax +that he had just levied. He could hardly have dreamed of defending +England against Danish invaders by English weapons only. But he thought +as little of trusting the work to his own Normans. With the money of +England he hired a host of mercenaries, horse and foot, from France and +Britanny, even from Maine where Hubert was still defying him at +Sainte-Susanne. He gathered this force on the mainland, and came back at +its head, a force such as England had never before seen; men wondered how +the land might feed them all. The King’s men, French and English, had to +feed them, each man according to the amount of his land. And now William +did what Harold had refused to do; he laid waste the whole coast that lay +open to attack from Denmark and Flanders. But no Danes, no Flemings, +came. Disputes arose between Cnut and his brother Olaf, and the great +enterprise came to nothing. William kept part of his mercenaries in +England, and part he sent to their homes. Cnut was murdered in a church +by his own subjects, and was canonized as _Sanctus Canutus_ by a Pope who +could not speak the Scandinavian name. + +Meanwhile, at the Midwinter Gemót of 1085–1086, held in due form at +Gloucester, William did one of his greatest acts. “The King had mickle +thought and sooth deep speech with his Witan about his land, how it were +set and with whilk men.” In that “deep speech,” so called in our own +tongue, lurks a name well known and dear to every Englishman. The result +of that famous parliament is set forth at length by the Chronicler. The +King sent his men into each shire, men who did indeed set down in their +writ how the land was set and of what men. In that writ we have a record +in the Roman tongue no less precious than the Chronicles in our own. For +that writ became the Book of Winchester, the book to which our fathers +gave the name of Domesday, the book of judgement that spared no man. + +The Great Survey was made in the course of the first seven months of the +year 1086. Commissioners were sent into every shire, who inquired by the +oaths of the men of the hundreds by whom the land had been held in King +Edward’s days and what it was worth then, by whom it was held at the time +of the survey and what it was worth then; and lastly, whether its worth +could be raised. Nothing was to be left out. “So sooth narrowly did he +let spear it out, that there was not a hide or a yard of land, nor +further—it is shame to tell, and it thought him no shame to do—an ox nor +a cow nor a swine was left that was not set in his writ.” This kind of +searching inquiry, never liked at any time, would be specially grievous +then. The taking of the survey led to disturbances in many places, in +which not a few lives were lost. While the work was going on, William +went to and fro till he knew thoroughly how this land was set and of what +men. He had now a list of all men, French and English, who held land in +his kingdom. And it was not enough to have their names in a writ; he +would see them face to face. On the making of the survey followed that +great assembly, that great work of legislation, which was the crown of +William’s life as a ruler and lawgiver of England. The usual assemblies +of the year had been held at Winchester and Westminster. An +extraordinary assembly was held in the plain of Salisbury on the first +day of August. The work of that assembly has been already spoken of. It +was now that all the owners of land in the kingdom became the men of the +King; it was now that England became one, with no fear of being again +parted asunder. + + * * * * * + +The close connexion between the Great Survey and the law and the oath of +Salisbury is plain. It was a great matter for the King to get in the +gold certainly and, we may add, fairly. William would deal with no man +otherwise than according to law as he understood the law. But he sought +for more than this. He would not only know what this land could be made +to pay; he would know the state of his kingdom in every detail; he would +know its military strength; he would know whether his own will, in the +long process of taking from this man and giving to that, had been really +carried out. Domesday is before all things a record of the great +confiscation, a record of that gradual change by which, in less than +twenty years, the greater part of the land of England had been +transferred from native to foreign owners. And nothing shows like +Domesday in what a formally legal fashion that transfer was carried out. +What were the principles on which it was carried out, we have already +seen. All private property in land came only from the grant of King +William. It had all passed into his hands by lawful forfeiture; he might +keep it himself; he might give it back to its old owner or grant it to a +new one. So it was at the general redemption of lands; so it was +whenever fresh conquests or fresh revolts threw fresh lands into the +King’s hands. The principle is so thoroughly taken for granted, that we +are a little startled to find it incidentally set forth in so many words +in a case of no special importance. A priest named Robert held a single +yardland in alms of the King; he became a monk in the monastery of +Stow-in-Lindesey, and his yardland became the property of the house. One +hardly sees why this case should have been picked out for a solemn +declaration of the general law. Yet, as “the day on which the English +redeemed their lands” is spoken of only casually in the case of a +particular estate, so the principle that no man could hold lands except +by the King’s grant (“Non licet terram alicui habere nisi regis +concessu”) is brought in only to illustrate the wrongful dealing of +Robert and the monks of Stow in the case of a very small holding indeed. + +All this is a vast system of legal fictions; for William’s whole +position, the whole scheme of his government, rested on a system of legal +fictions. Domesday is full of them; one might almost say that there is +nothing else there. A very attentive study of Domesday might bring out +the fact that William was a foreign conqueror, and that the book itself +was a record of the process by which he took the lands of the natives who +had fought against him to reward the strangers who had fought for him. +But nothing of this kind appears on the surface of the record. The great +facts of the Conquest are put out of sight. William is taken for +granted, not only as the lawful king, but as the immediate successor of +Edward. The “time of King Edward” and the “time of King William” are the +two times that the law knows of. The compilers of the record are put to +some curious shifts to describe the time between “the day when King +Edward was alive and dead” and the day “when King William came into +England.” That coming might have been as peaceful as the coming of James +the First or George the First. The two great battles are more than once +referred to, but only casually in the mention of particular persons. A +very sharp critic might guess that one of them had something to do with +King William’s coming into England; but that is all. Harold appears only +as Earl; it is only in two or three places that we hear of a “time of +Harold,” and even of Harold “seizing the kingdom” and “reigning.” These +two or three places stand out in such contrast to the general language of +the record that we are led to think that the scribe must have copied some +earlier record or taken down the words of some witness, and must have +forgotten to translate them into more loyal formulæ. So in recording who +held the land in King Edward’s day and who in King William’s, there is +nothing to show that in so many cases the holder under Edward had been +turned out to make room for the holder under William. The former holder +is marked by the perfectly colourless word “ancestor” (“antecessor”), a +word as yet meaning, not “forefather,” but “predecessor” of any kind. In +Domesday the word is most commonly an euphemism for “dispossessed +Englishman.” It is a still more distinct euphemism where the Norman +holder is in more than one place called the “heir” of the dispossessed +Englishmen. + +The formulæ of Domesday are the most speaking witness to the spirit of +outward legality which ruled every act of William. In this way they are +wonderfully instructive; but from the formulæ alone no one could ever +make the real facts of William’s coming and reign. It is the incidental +notices which make us more at home in the local and personal life of this +reign than of any reign before or for a long time after. The +Commissioners had to report whether the King’s will had been everywhere +carried out, whether every man, great and small, French and English, had +what the King meant him to have, neither more nor less. And they had +often to report a state of things different from what the King had meant +to be. Many men had not all that King William had meant them to have, +and many others had much more. Normans had taken both from Englishmen +and from other Normans. Englishmen had taken from Englishmen; some had +taken from ecclesiastical bodies; some had taken from King William +himself; nay King William himself holds lands which he ought to give up +to another man. This last entry at least shows that William was fully +ready to do right, according to his notions of right. So also the King’s +two brothers are set down among the chief offenders. Of these unlawful +holdings of land, marked in the technical language of the Survey as +_invasiones_ and _occupationes_, many were doubtless real cases of +violent seizure, without excuse even according to William’s reading of +the law. But this does not always follow, even when the language of the +Survey would seem to imply it. Words implying violence, _per vim_ and +the like, are used in the legal language of all ages, where no force has +been used, merely to mark a possession as illegal. We are startled at +finding the Apostle Paul set down as one of the offenders; but the words +“sanctus Paulus invasit” mean no more than that the canons of Saint +Paul’s church in London held lands to which the Commissioners held that +they had no good title. It is these cases where one man held land which +another claimed that gave opportunity for those personal details, +stories, notices of tenures and customs, which make Domesday the most +precious store of knowledge of the time. + +One fruitful and instructive source of dispute comes from the way in +which the lands in this or that district were commonly granted out. The +in-comer, commonly a foreigner, received all the lands which such and +such a man, commonly a dispossessed Englishman, held in that shire or +district. The grantee stepped exactly into the place of the +_antecessor_; he inherited all his rights and all his burthens. He +inherited therewith any disputes as to the extent of the lands of the +_antecessor_ or as to the nature of his tenure. And new disputes arose +in the process of transfer. One common source of dispute was when the +former owner, besides lands which were strictly his own, held lands on +lease, subject to a reversionary interest on the part of the Crown or the +Church. The lease or sale—_emere_ is the usual word—of Church lands for +three lives to return to the Church at the end of the third life was very +common. If the _antecessor_ was himself the third life, the grantee, his +_heir_, had no claim to the land; and in any case he could take in only +with all its existing liabilities. But the grantee often took possession +of the whole of the land held by the _antecessor_, as if it were all +alike his own. A crowd of complaints followed from all manner of injured +persons and bodies, great and small, French and English, lay and +clerical. The Commissioners seem to have fairly heard all, and to have +fairly reported all for the King to judge of. It is their care to do +right to all men which has given us such strange glimpses of the inner +life of an age which had none like it before or after. + + * * * * * + +The general Survey followed by the general homage might seem to mark +William’s work in England, his work as an English statesman, as done. He +could hardly have had time to redress the many cases of wrong which the +Survey laid before him; but he was able to wring yet another tax out of +the nation according to his new and more certain register. He then, for +the last time, crossed to Normandy with his new hoard. The Chronicler +and other writers of the time dwell on the physical portents of these two +years, the storms, the fires, the plagues, the sharp hunger, the deaths +of famous men on both sides of the sea. Of the year 1087, the last year +of the Conqueror, it needs the full strength of our ancient tongue to set +forth the signs and wonders. The King had left England safe, peaceful, +thoroughly bowed down under the yoke, cursing the ruler who taxed her and +granted away her lands, yet half blessing him for the “good frith” that +he made against the murderer, the robber, and the ravisher. But the land +that he had won was neither to see his end nor to shelter his dust. One +last gleam of success was, after so many reverses, to crown his arms; but +it was success which was indeed unworthy of the Conqueror who had entered +Exeter and Le Mans in peaceful triumph. And the death-blow was now to +come to him who, after so many years of warfare, stooped at last for the +first time to cruel and petty havoc without an object. + +The border-land of France and Normandy, the French Vexin, the land of +which Mantes is the capital, had always been disputed between kingdom and +duchy. Border wars had been common; just at this time the inroads of the +French commanders at Mantes are said to have been specially destructive. +William not only demanded redress from the King, but called for the +surrender of the whole Vexin. What followed is a familiar story. Philip +makes a foolish jest on the bodily state of his great rival, unable just +then to carry out his threats. “The King of the English lies in at +Rouen; there will be a great show of candles at his churching.” As at +Alençon in his youth, so now, William, who could pass by real injuries, +was stung to the uttermost by personal mockery. By the splendour of God, +when he rose up again, he would light a hundred thousand candles at +Philip’s cost. He kept his word at the cost of Philip’s subjects. The +ballads of the day told how he went forth and gathered the fruits of +autumn in the fields and orchards and vineyards of the enemy. But he did +more than gather fruits; the candles of his churching were indeed lighted +in the burning streets of Mantes. The picture of William the Great +directing in person mere brutal havoc like this is strange even after the +harrying of Northumberland and the making of the New Forest. Riding to +and fro among the flames, bidding his men with glee to heap on the fuel, +gladdened at the sight of burning houses and churches, a false step of +his horse gave him his death-blow. Carried to Rouen, to the priory of +Saint Gervase near the city, he lingered from August 15 to September 7, +and then the reign and life of the Conqueror came to an end. Forsaken by +his children, his body stripped and well nigh forgotten, the loyalty of +one honest knight, Herlwin of Conteville, bears his body to his grave in +his own church at Caen. His very grave is disputed—a dispossessed +_antecessor_ claims the ground as his own, and the dead body of the +Conqueror has to wait while its last resting-place is bought with money. +Into that resting-place force alone can thrust his bulky frame, and the +rites of his burial are as wildly cut short as were the rites of his +crowning. With much striving he had at last won his seven feet of +ground; but he was not to keep it for ever. Religious warfare broke down +his tomb and scattered his bones, save one treasured relic. Civil +revolution swept away the one remaining fragment. And now, while we seek +in vain beneath the open sky for the rifled tombs of Harold and of +Waltheof, a stone beneath the vault of Saint Stephen’s still tells us +where the bones of William once lay but where they lie no longer. + + * * * * * + +There is no need to doubt the striking details of the death and burial of +the Conqueror. We shrink from giving the same trust to the long tale of +penitence which is put into the mouth of the dying King. He may, in that +awful hour, have seen the wrong-doing of the last one-and-twenty years of +his life; he hardly threw his repentance into the shape of a detailed +autobiographical confession. But the more authentic sayings and doings +of William’s death-bed enable us to follow his course as an English +statesman almost to his last moments. His end was one of devotion, of +prayers and almsgiving, and of opening of the prison to them that were +bound. All save one of his political prisoners, English and Norman, he +willingly set free. Morkere and his companions from Ely, Walfnoth son of +Godwine, hostage for Harold’s faith, Wulf son of Harold and Ealdgyth, +taken, we can hardly doubt, as a babe when Chester opened its gates to +William, were all set free; some indeed were put in bonds again by the +King’s successor. But Ode William would not set free; he knew too well +how many would suffer if he were again let loose upon the world. But +love of kindred was still strong; at last he yielded, sorely against his +will, to the prayers and pledges of his other brother. Ode went forth +from his prison, again Bishop of Bayeux, soon again to be Earl of Kent, +and soon to prove William’s foresight by his deeds. + +William’s disposal of his dominions on his death-bed carries on his +political history almost to his last breath. Robert, the banished rebel, +might seem to have forfeited all claims to the succession. But the +doctrine of hereditary right had strengthened during the sixty years of +William’s life. He is made to say that, though he foresees the +wretchedness of any land over which Robert should be the ruler, still he +cannot keep him out of the duchy of Normandy which is his birthright. Of +England he will not dare to dispose; he leaves the decision to God, +seemingly to Archbishop Lanfranc as the vicar of God. He will only say +that his wish is for his son William to succeed him in his kingdom, and +he prays Lanfranc to crown him king, if he deem such a course to be +right. Such a message was a virtual nomination, and William the Red +succeeded his father in England, but kept his crown only by the help of +loyal Englishmen against Norman rebels. William Rufus, it must be +remembered, still under the tutelage of his father and Lanfranc, had not +yet shown his bad qualities; he was known as yet only as the dutiful son +who fought for his father against the rebel Robert. By ancient English +law, that strong preference which was all that any man could claim of +right belonged beyond doubt to the youngest of William’s sons, the +English Ætheling Henry. He alone was born in the land; he alone was the +son of a crowned King and his Lady. It is perhaps with a knowledge of +what followed that William is made to bid his youngest son wait while his +eldest go before him; that he left him landless, but master of a hoard of +silver, there is no reason to doubt. English feeling, which welcomed +Henry thirteen years later, would doubtless have gladly seen his +immediate accession; but it might have been hard, in dividing William’s +dominions, to have shut out the second son in favour of the third. And +in the scheme of events by which conquered England was to rise again, the +reign of Rufus, at the moment the darkest time of all, had its appointed +share. + + * * * * * + +That England could rise again, that she could rise with a new life, +strengthened by her momentary overthrow, was before all things owing to +the lucky destiny which, if she was to be conquered, gave her William the +Great as her Conqueror. It is as it is in all human affairs. William +himself could not have done all that he did, wittingly and unwittingly, +unless circumstances had been favourable to him; but favourable +circumstances would have been useless, unless there had been a man like +William to take advantage of them. What he did, wittingly or +unwittingly, he did by virtue of his special position, the position of a +foreign conqueror veiling his conquest under a legal claim. The hour and +the man were alike needed. The man in his own hour wrought a work, +partly conscious, partly unconscious. The more clearly any man +understands his conscious work, the more sure is that conscious work to +lead to further results of which he dreams not. So it was with the +Conqueror of England. His purpose was to win and to keep the kingdom of +England, and to hand it on to those who should come after him more firmly +united than it had ever been before. In this work his spirit of formal +legality, his shrinking from needless change, stood him in good stead. +He saw that as the kingdom of England could best be won by putting forth +a legal claim to it, so it could best be kept by putting on the character +of a legal ruler, and reigning as the successor of the old kings seeking +the unity of the kingdom; he saw, from the example both of England and of +other lands, the dangers which threatened that unity; he saw what +measures were needed to preserve it in his own day, measures which have +preserved it ever since. Here is a work, a conscious work, which +entitles the foreign Conqueror to a place among English statesmen, and to +a place in their highest rank. Further than this we cannot conceive +William himself to have looked. All that was to come of his work in +future ages was of necessity hidden from his eyes, no less than from the +eyes of smaller men. He had assuredly no formal purpose to make England +Norman; but still less had he any thought that the final outcome of his +work would make England on one side more truly English than if he had +never crossed the sea. In his ecclesiastical work he saw the future +still less clearly. He designed to reform what he deemed abuses, to +bring the English Church into closer conformity with the other Churches +of the West; he assuredly never dreamed that the issue of his reform +would be the strife between Henry and Thomas and the humiliation of John. +His error was that of forgetting that he himself could wield powers, that +he could hold forces in check, which would be too strong for those who +should come after him. At his purposes with regard to the relations of +England and Normandy it would be vain to guess. The mere leaving of +kingdom and duchy to different sons would not necessarily imply that he +designed a complete or lasting separation. But assuredly William did not +foresee that England, dragged into wars with France as the ally of +Normandy, would remain the lasting rival of France after Normandy had +been swallowed up in the French kingdom. If rivalry between England and +France had not come in this way, it would doubtless have come in some +other way; but this is the way in which it did come about. As a result +of the union of Normandy and England under one ruler, it was part of +William’s work, but a work of which William had no thought. So it was +with the increased connexion of every kind between England and the +continent of Europe which followed on William’s coming. With one part of +Europe indeed the connexion of England was lessened. For three centuries +before William’s coming, dealings in war and peace with the Scandinavian +kingdoms had made up a large part of English history. Since the baffled +enterprise of the holy Cnut, our dealings with that part of Europe have +been of only secondary account. + +But in our view of William as an English statesman, the main feature of +all is that spirit of formal legality of which we have so often spoken. +Its direct effects, partly designed, partly undesigned, have affected our +whole history to this day. It was his policy to disguise the fact of +conquest, to cause all the spoils of conquest to be held, in outward +form, according to the ancient law of England. The fiction became a +fact, and the fact greatly helped in the process of fusion between +Normans and English. The conquering race could not keep itself distinct +from the conquered, and the form which the fusion took was for the +conquerors to be lost in the greater mass of the conquered. William +founded no new state, no new nation, no new constitution; he simply kept +what he found, with such modifications as his position made needful. But +without any formal change in the nature of English kingship, his position +enabled him to clothe the crown with a practical power such as it had +never held before, to make his rule, in short, a virtual despotism. +These two facts determined the later course of English history, and they +determined it to the lasting good of the English nation. The +conservative instincts of William allowed our national life and our +national institutions to live on unbroken through his conquest. But it +was before all things the despotism of William, his despotism under legal +forms, which preserved our national institutions to all time. As a less +discerning conqueror might have swept our ancient laws and liberties +away, so under a series of native kings those laws and liberties might +have died out, as they died out in so many continental lands. But the +despotism of the crown called forth the national spirit in a conscious +and antagonistic shape; it called forth that spirit in men of both races +alike, and made Normans and English one people. The old institutions +lived on, to be clothed with a fresh life, to be modified as changed +circumstances might make needful. The despotism of the Norman kings, the +peculiar character of that despotism, enabled the great revolution of the +thirteenth century to take the forms, which it took, at once conservative +and progressive. So it was when, more than four centuries after +William’s day, England again saw a despotism carried on under the forms +of law. Henry the Eighth reigned as William had reigned; he did not +reign like his brother despots on the continent; the forms of law and +freedom lived on. In the seventeenth century therefore, as in the +thirteenth, the forms stood ready to be again clothed with a new life, to +supply the means for another revolution, again at once conservative and +progressive. It has been remarked a thousand times that, while other +nations have been driven to destroy and to rebuild the political fabric, +in England we have never had to destroy and to rebuild, but have found it +enough to repair, to enlarge, and to improve. This characteristic of +English history is mainly owing to the events of the eleventh century, +and owing above all to the personal agency of William. As far as mortal +man can guide the course of things when he is gone, the course of our +national history since William’s day has been the result of William’s +character and of William’s acts. Well may we restore to him the surname +that men gave him in his own day. He may worthily take his place as +William the Great alongside of Alexander, Constantine, and Charles. They +may have wrought in some sort a greater work, because they had a wider +stage to work it on. But no man ever wrought a greater and more abiding +work on the stage that fortune gave him than he + + “Qui dux Normannis, qui Cæsar præfuit Anglis.” + +Stranger and conqueror, his deeds won him a right to a place on the roll +of English statesmen, and no man that came after him has won a right to a +higher place. + + * * * * * + + THE END. + + * * * * * + + _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARKE, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR*** + + +******* This file should be named 1066-0.txt or 1066-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/6/1066 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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