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diff --git a/old/wlmcn10h.htm b/old/wlmcn10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21938b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wlmcn10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5274 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>William the Conqueror</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">William the Conqueror, by E. A. Freeman</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of William the Conqueror, by E. A. Freeman + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: William the Conqueror + +Author: E. A. Freeman + +Release Date: October, 1997 [EBook #1066] +[This file was first posted on February 12, 1998] +[Most recently updated: June 28, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>William the Conqueror</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Contents</p> +<p>Introduction<br />The Early Years of William<br />William’s +First Visit to England<br />The Reign of William in Normandy<br />Harold’s +Oat to William<br />The Negotiations of Duke William<br />William’s +Invasion of England<br />The Conquest of England<br />The Settlement +of England<br />The Revolts against William<br />The Last Years of William</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER I—INTRODUCTION</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER II—THE EARLY YEARS OF WILLIAM—A.D. 1028-1051</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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 <i>Normans</i>, 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 <i>Duces Francorum</i> 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 <i>Dux +Francorum</i> and the <i>Rex Francorum</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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, <i>Moretoliam</i> or <i>Moretonium</i>, +in the diocese of Avranches, which must be carefully distinguished from +Mortagne-en-Perche, <i>Mauritania</i> or <i>Moretonia</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER III—WILLIAM’S FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND—A.D. +1051-1052</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IV—THE REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY—A.D. 1052-1063</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER V—HAROLD’S OATH TO WILLIAM—A.D. 1064?</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VI—THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM—JANUARY-OCTOBER +1066</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>pallium</i>, +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>other</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>casus belli</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>French</i>, is the +name most commonly opposed to <i>English</i>, 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VII—WILLIAM’S INVASION OF ENGLAND—AUGUST-DECEMBER +1066</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 <i>folk-fight</i>. +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII—THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND—DECEMBER 1066-MARCH +1070</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 <i>marquesses</i>, +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Wild</i>, 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>de facto</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>fyrd</i>, +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IX—THE SETTLEMENT OF ENGLAND—1070-1086</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <i>king</i> and not +a <i>roy</i>; but he gathers round him a <i>parliament</i> and not a +<i>vitenagemót</i>. We have a <i>sheriff</i> and not a +<i>viscount</i>; but his district is more commonly called a <i>county</i> +than a <i>shire</i>. But <i>county</i> and <i>shire</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>Englishry</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>folkland</i>, +its <i>ager publicus</i>, the property of no one man but of the whole +state. Out of this, by the common consent, portions might be cut +off and <i>booked—</i>granted by a written document—to particular +men as their own <i>bookland</i>. The King might have his private +estate, to be dealt with at his own pleasure, but of the <i>folkland</i>, +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 +<i>folkland</i>, 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 <i>folkland</i>, +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, <i>Terra Regis</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>heriot</i> developed into the later +<i>relief</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 land-owner 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 <i>Gemót</i>, +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 <i>bishopstool</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER X—THE REVOLTS AGAINST WILLIAM—1070-1086</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, +<i>Bretwalda</i> and <i>Basileus</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Bostar</i>—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 +<i>barbarians</i>. By that phrase a Teutonic writer can hardly +mean the insular part of William’s subjects.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>commune</i> 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 <i>commune</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>commune</i> was abolished, but the +Conqueror swore to observe all the ancient rights of the city.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 <i>staller</i> +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 <i>bride-ale</i>—the name that lurks +in the modern shape of <i>bridal</i>—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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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 <i>forest</i> 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 <i>afforest</i> +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XI—THE LAST YEARS OF WILLIAM—1081-1087</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Sanctus Canutus</i> by a Pope +who could not speak the Scandinavian name.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 formulae. +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.</p> +<p>The formulae 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 formulae 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 <i>invasiones</i> +and <i>occupationes</i>, 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, <i>per vim</i> +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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>antecessor</i>; he inherited all his rights and all his burthens. +He inherited therewith any disputes as to the extent of the lands of +the <i>antecessor</i> 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—<i>emere</i> +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 +<i>antecessor</i> was himself the third life, the grantee, his <i>heir</i>, +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 <i>antecessor</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>antecessor</i> 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Qui dux Normannis, qui Caesar praefuit Anglis.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named wlmcn10h.htm or wlmcn10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, wlmcn11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, wlmcn10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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