Part 13

Geoffrey was but just entering his thirty-ninth year, and one can hardly help speculating for a moment as to his plans for his own future. For him, now that his work in the west was done, there was no such brilliant opening in the east as there had been for Fulk V. when he, too, in the prime of manhood, had chosen to make way for a younger generation. But Geoffrey had begun public life at an earlier age than either his father or his son; and he seems to have had neither the moral nor the physical strength which had enabled one Angevin count to carry on for half a century, without break and without slackening, the work upon which he had entered before he was fifteen, and to die in harness at the very crowning-point of his activity and his success. Geoffrey Plantagenet was no Fulk Nerra; he was not even a Fulk of Jerusalem; and he may well have been weary of a political career which must always have been embittered by a feeling that he was the mere representative of others, labouring not for himself, hardly even for his country or his race, but only that the one might be swallowed up in the vast dominions and the other merged in the royal line of his ancestors’ Norman foe. He may have seriously intended to pass the rest of his days among his books; or he may have felt an inner warning that those days were to be very few. With a perversity which may after all have been partly the effect of secretly failing health, although he had now set Gerald at liberty he still refused to acknowledge that he had treated him with unjust severity, or to seek absolution from the Pope’s censure; and he even answered with blasphemous words to the gentle remonstrances of S. Bernard. “With what measure thou hast meted it shall be meted to thee again” said the saint at last as he turned away; one of his followers, more impetuous, boldly prophesied that Geoffrey would die within a year. He did die within a fortnight.[1140] On his way home from the king’s court,[1141] overcome with the heat, he plunged into a river to cool himself;[1142] a fever was the consequence; he was borne to Château-du-Loir, and there on September 7 he passed away.[1143] His last legacy to his son was a piece of good advice, given almost with his dying breath:--not to change the old customs of the lands over which he was called to rule, whether by bringing those of Normandy and England into Anjou, or by seeking to transfer those of the Angevin dominions into the territories which he inherited from his mother.[1144] Dying in the little border-fortress whence his grandfather Elias had gone forth to liberate Maine, Geoffrey was buried, by his own desire, not among his Angevin forefathers at Tours or at Angers, but in his mother’s home at Le Mans.[1145] A splendid tomb, bearing his effigy adorned with gold and gems, was raised over his remains in the cathedral church,[1146] whence it has disappeared to become a mere antiquarian curiosity in a museum. Geoffrey’s sole surviving monument is the one which he made for himself--the ruined, blackened fragment of his great ancestor’s keep at Montreuil.

[1140] Geoff. Clairv., _Vita S. Bern._, l. iv. c. 3 (_S. Bern. Opp._, Mabillon, vol. ii. col. 1135).

[1141] At Paris, says Rob. Torigni, a. 1151; on the frontier of Normandy and France, say the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 156. But if it was the assembly at which Henry received his investiture, that was certainly in Paris; and there does not seem time enough for another.

[1142] _Gesta Cons._ as above.

[1143] _Ibid._ _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (_ibid._), p. 292. Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1151 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 36, 37, 147). Rob. Torigni, a. 1151; etc.

[1144] “Ne Normanniæ vel Angliæ consuetudines in consulatûs sui terram, vel e converso, variæ vicissitudinis altercatione permutaret.” _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), pp. 292, 293.

[1145] Chron. S. Serg. a. 1151 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 147); _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p. 292. “Inque solo materno sibi locum eligens sepulturæ.” R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 16 (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 341).

[1146] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p. 293. “Hic solus omnium mortalium intra muros civitatis Cinomannicæ sepultus est,” says Rob. Torigni, a. 1151.

Stephen could not do what Geoffrey had done. His kingdom was no mere fief to be passed from hand to hand by a formal ceremony of surrender and investiture; the crowned and anointed king of England could not so easily abdicate in favour of his son. He might however do something to counterbalance Henry’s advancement by obtaining a public recognition of Eustace as his heir. In Lent 1152, therefore, he summoned a great council in London, at which all the earls and barons swore fealty to Eustace.[1147] Still the king felt that his object was far from being secured. He himself was a living proof how slight was the worth of such an oath when the sovereign who had exacted it was gone. There was, however, one further step possible, a step without precedent in England, but one which the kings of France had taken with complete success for several generations past: the solemn coronation and unction of the heir to the throne during his father’s lifetime. It was at this that Stephen had aimed when he sent Archbishop Henry of York to Rome. He took an unusually wise as well as a characteristically generous measure in intrusting his cause to a reconciled enemy; nevertheless the attempt failed. Pope Eugene by his letters absolutely forbade the primate to make Eustace king; therefore, when Stephen called upon Theobald and the other bishops to anoint and crown the youth, they one and all refused. Father and son were both equally vexed and angry. They shut up all the bishops in one house and tried to tease them into submission. A few, remembering that “King Stephen never had loved clerks,” and that it was not the first time he had cast bishops into prison,[1148] were so frightened that they gave way; the majority stood firm, and the primate himself escaped down the Thames in a fishing-boat, made his way to Dover, and thence retreated beyond sea.[1149] Without him there was nothing to be done, and of his yielding there was no chance whatever; for close at his side stood the real fount and source of the papal opposition--Thomas of London.[1150]

[1147] Ann. Waverl. a. 1152 (Luard, _Ann. Monast_., vol. ii. p. 234). Ann. Winton. Contin. a. 1152 (Liebermann, _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 82).

[1148] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 32 (Arnold, p. 284).

[1149] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 151. _Vita Theobald._ (Giles, _Lanfranc_, vol. i.), p. 338.

[1150] Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 150.

Some of Henry’s partizans in England now thought it time for him to interfere, and despatched his uncle Reginald earl of Cornwall to urge him to come over at once.[1151] Soon after Easter a meeting of the Norman barons--already summoned by Henry in the previous autumn,[1152] but delayed by the unexpected catastrophe of his father’s death--was held at Lisieux to consider the matter.[1153] But whatever the result of their deliberations may have been, Henry found something else to do before he could cross the sea. King Louis VII. had been meditating a divorce from his wife, the Aquitanian duchess Eleanor, ever since their return from the crusade. The great obstacle to his scheme was his father’s and his own old friend and minister Suger, who saw the grave political danger of such a measure and opposed it with all the influence he possessed.[1154] But Suger was dying; and the king had made up his mind. He took the first step at Christmas 1151 by going with Eleanor into Aquitaine and withdrawing all his own garrisons from her territories.[1155] Suger’s death on January 13 recalled him to Paris,[1156] and at the same time set him free to accomplish his desire unopposed. A Church council was held under the presidency of Archbishop Hugh of Sens at Beaugency on the Tuesday before Palm Sunday;[1157] the king and queen were made out to be akin, and their union was dissolved.[1158] Eleanor set out for her own dominions; she had however some trouble in reaching them. She was young and beautiful; her personal charms were more than equalled by those of her two great duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony; and more than one ambitious feudatary was eager to seize the prize which his sovereign had thrown away. At her first halting-place, Blois, the young count Theobald--son and successor of Theobald the Great who had died two months before[1159]--sought to take her by force and make her his wife. She fled by night to Tours, and there narrowly escaped being captured with the same intention by a still more youthful admirer, Geoffrey of Anjou, Henry’s brother. The audacious boy laid a plot to catch her at Port-de-Piles, on the frontier of Touraine and Poitou; but she was warned in time and made her escape by another road safe into her own territory.[1160] Thence she at once wrote to offer herself and her lands to the husband of her own choice--Henry duke of the Normans. He set out to join her immediately, and at Whitsuntide they were married at Poitiers.[1161]

[1151] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

[1152] _Ibid._ a. 1151.

[1153] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

[1154] _Vita Suger._, l. i. c. 5 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 104).

[1155] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1152 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, p. 135). Cf. Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 53 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 307; _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 437).

[1156] _Vita Suger._, l. iii. cc. 11, 13 (as above, pp. 111, 113).

[1157] _Gesta Ludov._, c. 29 (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 411). The _Hist. Ludov._ (_ib._ p. 415) makes it Friday (March 21) instead of Tuesday.

[1158] _Gesta Ludov._ and _Hist. Ludov._ as above. Chron. Turon. Magn. as above, etc.

[1159] In January 1152. See Arbois de Jubainville, _Comtes de Champagne_, vol. ii. p. 398, note 12.

[1160] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1152 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, p. 135).

[1161] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 149. See also Will. Newb., l. i. c. 31 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 93); Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1152 (as above); _Hist. Ludov._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 413, and _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 127); _Fragm. Chron. Com. Pictav._ (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 410). This last gives the place; Rob. Torigni, a. 1152, gives the season. Whit-Sunday was May 18; and a charter referred to by M. Delisle in a note to Rob. Torigni _ad ann._ (vol. i. p. 260), proves that they were married before May 27. Gervase’s story is the fullest; according to him, they married for love, and Eleanor had herself procured the divorce for that object--such, at least, was the story which she wrote to her young lover. As to the question of consanguinity, that of Louis and Eleanor is not very clear; it was at any rate more remote than that of Eleanor and Henry, who certainly were within the forbidden degrees. One would like to know what S. Bernard, who had put a stop to a proposal of marriage between Henry and Eleanor’s daughter (S. Bern. Ep. ccclxxi., _Opp._, Mabillon, vol. i. col. 333), thought of the matter; a saint of the next generation, Hugh of Lincoln, thought and said plainly that it was the fatal sin which was visited upon the children of the guilty couple in the downfall of the Angevin empire. _Magna Vita S. Hugonis_, l. v. c. 16 (Dimock, p. 332). In his eyes, however, the sin lay in the fact not of the kindred between the parties, but of Eleanor’s divorce; and it is noteworthy that William of Newburgh, who did not live to see the final catastrophe or to know the worst crimes of Eleanor’s youngest son, took exactly the same view; l. iii. c. 26 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 281).

Suger’s worst fears were now realized. Aquitaine was lost to the king of France; it had gone to swell the forces of the prince who was already the mightiest feudatary of the realm, and who would probably be king of England ere long; and as Louis and Eleanor had no son, there was very little hope that even in the next generation it would revert to the French Crown. In feudal law, an heiress had no right to marry without the consent of her overlord. It seems that Louis accordingly summoned Henry to appear before the royal court and answer for his conduct in thus hastily accepting Eleanor’s hand. But Henry Fitz-Empress, duke of Normandy, count of Anjou, Touraine and Maine, and duke of Aquitaine--for, rightly or wrongly, he was married, and in full possession of his wife’s territories--master of more than half Gaul, from the Flemish to the Spanish March and from the Rhône to the ocean--could venture to defy a mere king of the French. He therefore refused to appear before the court or to acknowledge its jurisdiction in any way.[1162] Eustace seized the favourable moment to regain the French alliance; he came over to visit King Louis; his long-standing betrothal with Constance of France ended at last in marriage;[1163] and Henry, on the point of sailing from Barfleur, just after midsummer, was stopped by the discovery that Louis, Eustace, Robert of Dreux, Henry of Champagne,[1164] and his own brother Geoffrey had made a league to drive him out of all his possessions and divide them among themselves.[1165]

[1162] “Qui citatus ad Curiam, venire noluit ad jus faciendum, vel capiendum in Regis præsentiâ Palatii judicium omnino respuit et contempsit.” _Gesta Ludov._, c. 28 (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. iv. p. 411). “Ante dominum suum Regem Ludovicum defecit a justitiâ.” _Hist. Ludov._ (_ib._ p. 414). This is related as a piece of shameful ingratitude for Louis’s supposed help towards the conquest of Normandy. The story then proceeds to relate that Louis in wrath besieged and took Vernon and Neufmarché, whereupon Henry humbly promised to be more obedient for the future, and Louis, accepting his assurances, restored the two castles. We are not told on what charge Henry had been cited to the court, and no hint is given that the quarrel was in any way connected with his marriage, which indeed is not mentioned till some time after. Yet I can find no indication of any ground for such a citation, except the marriage; and that, indeed, would be a most obvious pretext.

[1163] Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

[1164] Second son of Theobald the Great of Blois, and betrothed husband of the infant princess Mary, eldest child of Louis and Eleanor.

[1165] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152. See also Chron. S. Albin. a. 1152 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 37).

Geoffrey by his father’s will had inherited Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau;[1166] with this vantage-ground he began operations against his brother’s authority in Anjou, while the other four princes crossed the Norman border and laid siege to Neufmarché. Henry set out from Barfleur on July 16 to relieve Neufmarché, but arrived too late to save it from surrender;[1167] Louis handed it over to Eustace,[1168] and proceeded to muster his forces near Chaumont in the French Vexin. Henry did the like on the banks of the Andelle, and began ravaging the country between that river and the Epte--the old Norman Vexin, so lately ceded to Louis as the price of his alliance. In August Louis brought his host across the Seine at Meulan; Henry crossed lower down, by the bridge of Vernon, and thinking that the king intended to attack Verneuil, was hurrying to reach it before him when a message from the lord of Pacy told him that this last place was the one really threatened. He turned and proceeded thither at such a pace that several of his horses fell dead on the road; Louis, finding himself outwitted, gave up the expedition and returned to Meulan. Henry next invaded the county of Dreux, burned Brézolles and Marcouville, took hostages from Richer de l’Aigle--Thomas Becket’s old friend--whose fidelity was doubtful, and burned his castle of Bonmoulins, which was said to be “a den of thieves”; he then planted a line of garrisons all along the Norman frontier, and at the end of August went down into Anjou. There he blockaded the rebel leaders congregated in the castle of Montsoreau on the Loire till most of them fell into his hands, and his brother gave up the useless struggle.[1169] Louis meanwhile profited by his absence to burn part of the town of Tillières and a village near Verneuil, and to make an attempt upon Nonancourt, in which however he failed.[1170] Immediately afterwards he fell sick of a fever; his army dissolved, and he was obliged to retire into his own domains[1171] and make proposals for a truce.[1172] Henry was ready enough to accept them; for he had just received another urgent summons from England, and he felt that this time it must be answered in person.

[1166] Chron. Turon. Magn. a. 1152 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, p. 136).

[1167] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

[1168] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 31 (Arnold, p. 283).

[1169] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152. See also a shorter account in Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 149, 150, and a general summing-up of the result in Chron. S. Albin. a. 1152 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 37).

[1170] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

[1171] Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 150.

[1172] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152.

Since the Empress’s departure, Stephen had made but little progress in reducing the castles of those barons who still, either in her name or in their own, chose to defy his authority. A revolt of Ralf of Chester and Gilbert of Pembroke in 1149 and two unsuccessful attempts made by the king to recover Worcester from Waleran of Meulan, to whom he had himself intrusted it in the days when Waleran was one of his best supporters,[1173] make up almost the whole military history of the last four years. Ralf of Chester’s obstinate claim upon Lincoln was at last disposed of by a compromise.[1174] There was however one fortress which throughout the whole course of the war had been, almost more than any other, a special object of Stephen’s jealousy. This was Wallingford, a castle of great strength seated on the right bank of the Thames some twelve miles south of Oxford, and held as a perpetual thorn in the king’s side by a Breton adventurer, Brian Fitz-Count, one of the most able and energetic as well as most faithful and persevering members of the Angevin party in England. Hitherto all Stephen’s attempts against Wallingford--even the erection of a rival fortress, Crowmarsh, directly over against it--had produced no effect at all. At last, in the winter of 1152, he built a strong wooden tower at the foot of the bridge over the Thames whereby alone the garrison of Wallingford obtained their supplies. Brian and his men saw their convoys hopelessly shut out; they knew that none of their friends in England were strong enough to relieve them; they therefore sent to their lord the young duke of the Normans, and begged that he would either give them leave to surrender with honour, or send help to deliver them out of their strait.[1175]

[1173] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 30 (Arnold, p. 282).

[1174] See the terms in Dugdale, _Baronage_, vol. i. p. 39.

[1175] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 32 (Arnold, p. 284). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 153.

Henry did not send; he came. Landing with a small force on the morning of the Epiphany,[1176] he entered a church to honour the festival with such brief devotion as a soldier could spare time for, and the first words that fell on his ear sounded like an omen of success: “Behold, the Lord the ruler cometh, and the kingdom is in his hand.”[1177] Before the week was out he had taken the town of Malmesbury and the outworks of the castle, and was blockading Bishop Roger’s impregnable keep. Stephen, warned by its commandant, hastened to its relief. On a bitter January morning king and duke, each at the head of his troops, met for the first time face to face, divided only by the river Avon--here at Malmesbury a mere streamlet in itself, but so swollen by the winter’s rains that neither party dared venture to cross it. A torrent of rain, sleet and hail was pouring down, drifting before a violent west wind, striking the Angevins in their backs, but beating hard in the faces of the king and his host; drenched, blinded, scarce able to hold their weapons, they stood shivering with cold and terror, feeling as if Heaven itself had taken up arms against them, till Stephen turned away in despair and led his dispirited forces back to London. Malmesbury surrendered as soon as he was gone.[1178] The young duke marched straight upon Wallingford, demolished Stephen’s wooden tower at the first assault, and revictualled the castle. He then laid siege to Crowmarsh. Stephen advanced to relieve it; again the two armies fronted each other in battle array, but again no battle took place. The barons, who were only anxious to maintain both the rival sovereigns as a check upon each other, and dreaded nothing so much as the complete triumph of either, took advantage of a supposed bad omen which befell the king[1179] to insist upon a parley, and proposed that Stephen and Henry in person should arrange terms with each other, subject to ratification by their respective followers.[1180] Yielding to necessity, and both fully aware of their advisers’ disloyal motives, the two leaders held a colloquy across a narrow reach of the Thames.[1181] For the moment a truce was arranged, on condition that Stephen should raze Crowmarsh at the end of five days.[1182] As the barons doubtless expected, however, no solution was reached on the main question at issue between the rivals, and with mutual complaints of the treason of their followers they separated once again.[1183]

[1176] Rob. Torigni, a. 1153, says he came with thirty-six ships. Will. Newb., l. i. c. 29 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 88), gives the force as one hundred and forty horse and three thousand foot. From the sequel it seems that he landed on the Hampshire or Dorset coast.

[1177] “Ecce advenit dominator Dominus, et regnum in manu ejus:”--first words of the introit for Epiphany. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 151, 152.

[1178] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 34 (Arnold, pp. 285–287). See also Rob. Torigni, a. 1153.

[1179] His horse reared and nearly threw him three times while he was marshalling his troops. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 154.

[1180] _Ibid._ Hen. Hunt. as above (p. 287).

[1181] Gerv. Cant. as above. Cf. Hen. Hunt. as above (p. 288).

[1182] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 34 (Arnold, p. 288). Rob. Torigni, a. 1153.

[1183] Hen. Hunt. as above.

But there were others who, in all sincerity, were labouring hard for peace. Archbishop Theobald was in constant communication with the king in person and with the duke through trusty envoys, endeavouring to establish a basis for negotiations between them. He found an ally in Henry of Winchester, now eager to help in putting an end to troubles which he at last perceived had been partly fostered by his own errors.[1184] The once rival prelates, thus united in their best work, saw their chief obstacle in Eustace.[1185] Not only was it the hope of his son’s succession which made Stephen cling so obstinately to every jot and tittle of his regal claims; but Eustace’s character was such that the mere possibility of his rule could not be contemplated without dread; and to look for any self-renunciation on his part was far more hopeless than to expect it from Stephen. Eustace was in fact a most degenerate son, unworthy not only of his high-souled mother but even of his weak, amiable father. He had one merit--he was an excellent soldier;[1186] for the rest, his character was that of the house of Blois in its most vicious phase, unredeemed by a spark of the generous warmth and winning graciousness for which so much had been forgiven to Stephen.[1187] Even with his own party and his own father he could not keep at peace. The issue of the Crowmarsh expedition threw him into a fury; after loading his father with reproaches, he deserted him altogether and rode away to Canterbury, vowing to ravage the whole country from end to end, sparing neither the property of the churches nor the holy places themselves. He began with S. Edmund’s abbey. He was hospitably received there, but his demand for money was refused, and he ordered the crops to be destroyed. A century and a half before, the heathen Danish conqueror Swein had in like manner insulted East Anglia’s patron saint, and had been stricken down by a sudden and mysterious death. So too it was with Eustace. As he sat at table in the abbey, the first morsel of food choked him, and in the convulsions of raging madness he expired.[1188]

[1184] _Ib._ c. 37 (p. 289).

[1185] Will. Newb., l. i. c. 30 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 90).

[1186] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 35 (Arnold, p. 288).

[1187] _Ibid._ Eng. Chron. a. 1140, and all the contemporary writers are unanimous in their accounts of him--except the _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell, p. 130).

[1188] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 155. Rob. Torigni, a. 1153, says the sacrilege was committed on S. Laurence’s day, and the punishment followed “circa octavas.” Cf. Joh. Salisb., _Polycrat._, l. viii. c. 21 (Giles, vol. iv. pp. 354, 355).

Eustace’s death was only one of a striking series. The roll had opened with Geoffrey of Anjou in September 1151. Suger and Theobald of Blois both died in January 1152. Politically as well as personally, the death of the good and wise brother who had stood by him so faithfully and so unselfishly through all his difficulties in Normandy and at Rome must have been a heavy blow to Stephen; but heavier still was the blow that fell upon him three months later, when on May 3 he lost the wisest, probably, of his counsellors as well as the truest and bravest of all his partizans in England--his queen, Matilda of Boulogne.[1189] She was followed in little more than a month by her cousin Henry of Scotland.[1190] Next year the list of remarkable deaths was longer still. On this side of the sea it included, besides Eustace, Ralf earl of Chester,[1191] Walter Lespec,[1192] and David king of Scots.[1193] Another person who had made some figure in the history of northern England, William bishop of Durham, had died in the previous November.[1194] The appointment of Hugh of Puiset to his vacant chair,[1195] being strongly opposed by Archbishop Murdac, nearly caused another schism in the province; the southern primate, however, doubtless feeling that it was no time now for ecclesiastical squabbles, took the case into his own hands and sent the elect of Durham to be consecrated at Rome by the Pope.[1196] But the Pope was no longer Eugene III. Rome lost her Cistercian bishop on July 9, 1153. Six weeks later Clairvaux itself became a valley of the shadow of death, as its light passed away with S. Bernard;[1197] and two months later still the metropolitan chair of York was again vacated, and the three great Cistercian fellow-workers were reunited in their rest, by the death of Henry Murdac.[1198] The generation which had been young with Stephen seemed to be rapidly passing away; the primate, the bishop of Winchester and the king himself were left almost alone, like survivors of a past age, in presence of the younger race represented by Henry of Anjou.

[1189] Rob. Torigni, a. 1152. Chron. S. Crucis Edinb. a. 1152. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 151.

[1190] Chron. S. Cruc. Edinb. a. 1152.

[1191] _Ibid._ a. 1153. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 171. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 155.

[1192] Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. v. p. 280.

[1193] Chron. S. Cruc. Edinb. as above. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 168.

[1194] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 166.

[1195] On January 22, 1153; _ib._ p. 167.

[1196] See details in Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 167, and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 157, where the date is wrong.

[1197] Rob. Torigni, a. 1153.

[1198] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 171. Walbran, _Memor. of Fountains_, vol. i. p. 109.

With the life of Eustace ended the resistance of Stephen. He had other sons, but they were mere boys; it was hopeless to think of setting up even the eldest of them as a rival to Henry. The young duke was carrying all before him; Stamford, Nottingham,[1199] Reading, Barkwell, had yielded to him already, when Countess Gundrada of Warwick surrendered Warwick castle,[1200] and the adhesion of Earl Robert of Leicester placed more than thirty fortresses all at once at the young conqueror’s disposal.[1201] Henry was, however, fully alive to the wisdom of securing his kingdom by a legal settlement rather than by the mere power of the sword. At last a treaty was made, on November 6, in the place where it had been first projected--Wallingford.[1202] It was agreed that Stephen and Henry should adopt each other as father and son; that Stephen should keep his regal dignity for the rest of his life, Henry acting as justiciar and practical ruler of the kingdom under him; and that after his death Henry should be king.[1203] The details of the settlement have come down to us only in a poetical shape which expresses not so much what the contracting parties actually undertook to do as what needed to be done--what was the ideal at which the peace-makers aimed, and how far removed from it was the actual condition of the country. The rights of the Crown, which the nobles had everywhere usurped, were to be resumed; the “adulterine castles”--castles built during the anarchy and without the king’s leave, to the number of eleven hundred and fifteen--were to be destroyed; all property was to be restored to the lawful owners who had held it in King Henry’s time. The farms were again to be supplied with husbandmen; the houses which had been burnt down were to be rebuilt and filled with inhabitants; the woods were to be provided with foresters, the coverts replenished with game, the hill-sides covered with flocks of sheep and the meadows with herds of cattle. The clergy were to enjoy tranquillity and peace, and to be relieved from all extraordinary and exorbitant demands. The sheriffs were to be regularly appointed in accustomed places, and held strictly to their duties; they were not to indulge their greed, nor to prosecute any one out of malice, nor shew undue favour to their own friends, nor condone crimes, but to render to every man his due; some they were to influence by the threat of punishment, others by the promise of reward. Thieves and robbers were to be punished with death. Soldiers were to beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; the Flemings were to quit the camp for the farm, the tent for the workshop, and render to their own masters the service which they had so long forced upon the English people; the country-folk were to dwell in undisturbed security, the merchants to grow rich through the revival of trade. Finally, one standard of money was to be current throughout the realm.[1204]

[1199] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 36 (Arnold, p. 288).

[1200] Rob. Torigni, a. 1153.

[1201] Gerv. Cant. (as above), pp. 152, 153.

[1202] The date is given by Rob. Torigni and Chron. S. Cruc. Edinb. a. 1153; the place by Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. ii. p. 255.

[1203] “ ... Ferden te ærceb. and te wise men betwux heom and makede th. sahte th. te king sculde ben lauerd and king wile he liuede, and æfter his dæi ware Henri king; and he helde him for fader and he him for sune; and sib and sæhte sculde ben betwyx heom and on al Engleland. This and te othre forwuuardes thet hi makeden suoren to halden the king and te eorl and te b. and te eorles and rice men alle.” Eng. Chron., a. 1140. The accounts of Will. Newb., l. i. c. 30 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 90, 91), R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 296, and Chron. Mailros, a. 1153, are to much the same effect. Rog. Howden (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 212) adds: “Rex vero constituit ducem justitiarium Angliæ sub ipso, et omnia regni negotia per ipsum terminabantur.” Stephen’s proclamation of the treaty is in Rymer’s _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 18. Its date is Westminster, 1153, and it is in form of a writ addressed to the archbishops, bishops, barons, and all faithful subjects, proclaiming and notifying to them the treaty just made. The primary article, concerning the adoption of Henry as heir, is stated exactly as by the chroniclers. The remainder of the document relates entirely to details of homage done by prelates and barons to Henry, stipulations in behalf of Stephen’s son William, and arrangements for surrender of royal castles to Henry on Stephen’s death. Finally: “In negotiis autem regni ego consilio ducis operabor. Ego vero in toto regno Angliæ, tam in parte ducis quam in meâ, regalem justiciam exercebo.” By “the duke’s part” and “my part” Stephen probably meant simply the parts which each held at the moment; the whole clause seems to mean that the regal justice was to be exercised in his name and for his profit, but by Henry’s wisdom--which agrees very well with Rog. Howden’s statement.

[1204] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 297. Concerning the coinage, Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 211, says: “Fecit [Henricus] monetam novam, quam vocabant monetam ducis; et non tantum ipse, sed omnes potentes, tam episcopi quam comites et barones, suam faciebant monetam. Sed ex quo dux ille venit, plurimorum monetam cassavit.” This however is placed under the year 1149.

The treaty was ratified in an assembly of bishops, earls and barons, held at Winchester at the end of the month.[1205] Stephen afterwards accompanied his adoptive son to London, where he was joyfully welcomed by the citizens.[1206] King and duke seem to have kept Christmas apart; Henry indeed set himself to his task of reform in such earnest that he could have little time to spare for mere festivities. On the octave of Epiphany another assembly was held at Oxford, where the nobles of England swore homage and fealty to the duke as to their lord, reserving only the faith due to Stephen as long as he lived. The next meeting, at Dunstable, was not quite so satisfactory. Henry, doing his share of the public work with true Angevin thoroughness, was irritated at finding that some of the builders of unlicensed castles had gained the king’s ear and persuaded him to exempt their fortresses from the sentence of universal destruction. Against this breach of faith the duke earnestly remonstrated; but he found it impossible to enforce his wishes without a quarrel which he was too prudent to risk.[1207] He therefore let the matter rest, and in Lent he accompanied Stephen to Canterbury and thence to a meeting with the count and countess of Flanders at Dover.[1208] There it was discovered that some of the Flemish mercenaries, to whom Henry and his good peace were equally hateful,[1209] were conspiring to kill him on his return to Canterbury. The shock of this discovery, added to that of an accident which befell Stephen’s eldest surviving son William, who is said to have been aware of the plot,[1210] was too much for the king’s overwrought nerves, and with a last benediction he hurried his adoptive son out of the country at once.[1211] Henry passed through Canterbury before the conspirators were ready for him, made his way to Rochester and London, and thence safe over sea to Normandy,[1212] where he landed soon after Easter.[1213]

[1205] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 156. See also Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 37 (Arnold, p. 289).

[1206] Hen. Hunt. as above. Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

[1207] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 38 (Arnold, pp. 289, 290).

[1208] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158. The countess was Henry’s aunt, Sibyl of Anjou, once the bride of William the Clito, now the wife of his rival Theodoric.

[1209] “Qui duci simul ac paci invidebant.” _Ibid._

[1210] _Ibid._

[1211] Will. Newb., l. i. c. 30 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 91, 92).

[1212] Gerv. Cant. as above.

[1213] Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

Only fifteen months had passed since his arrival in England; only five had passed since the treaty of Wallingford; yet in that short time Henry had made, as the contemporary English chronicler says, “such good peace as never was here”[1214]--never, that is, since peace and order were buried with his grandfather, eighteen years before. So well was the work begun that even when he was thus obliged to leave it for a while in the weak hands of Stephen, it did not fall to pieces again. Stephen indeed, as was remarked by the writers of the day, seemed now at length for the first time to be really king.[1215] For eighteen years he had been king only in name; his regal dignity had never been truly respected, his regal authority had never been fully obeyed, till the last twelve months of his life, when he was avowedly only holding them in trust for the future sovereign whom “all folk loved,” because he did what Stephen had failed to do--“he did good justice and made peace.”[1216] After Henry was gone Stephen gathered up his failing strength for a campaign against some of the rebellious castles in the north. Sick and weary as he was, his youthful valour and prowess were even yet not altogether departed; castle after castle fell into his hands, the last and most important being that of Drax in Yorkshire.[1217] He then went southward again to hold another meeting with the count of Flanders at Dover.[1218] There his health finally gave way; and eight days before the feast of All Saints his nineteen years’ reign, with all its troubles and disappointments, its blunders and failures, its useless labours and hopeless cares, was ended by a quiet death.[1219]

[1214] “And hit ward sone suythe god pais, sua th. neure was here.” Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

[1215] Will. Newb. as above (p. 91). Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 39 (Arnold, p. 290). R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 297.

[1216] Eng. Chron. a. 1140.

[1217] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 39 (Arnold, p. 291). Will. Newb., l. i. c. 32 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 94). Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 213.

[1218] Hen. Hunt. as above. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 159.

[1219] Hen. Hunt. and Gerv. Cant. as above. The Ann. Winton. Contin. a. 1154 (Liebermann, _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 82) dates it a day later.

The primate and the nobles, while they laid him in Feversham abbey beside his wife and son,[1220] sent the news to the king-elect, begging him to come and take his crown without delay.[1221] The message reached Henry just as he was completing the suppression of a disturbance in Normandy. A series of desultory attacks made by the French king upon the duchy during Henry’s absence in 1153 had led to no direct result, but they probably helped to foster the turbulence of the Norman barons, who were fast getting into their old condition of lawless independence when at Easter 1154 the duke re-appeared in their midst. He began to assert his authority by resuming--not all at once, but gradually and cautiously--the demesne lands of the duchy, which his father had been compelled to alienate for a time in order to purchase the support of the nobles. A hurried visit to Aquitaine was followed in August by peace with the king of France; for Louis had at last come to see that his opposition was as vain as Stephen’s. Immediately afterwards the young duke was struck down by a severe illness. In October he was sufficiently recovered to join Louis in a campaign for the settlement of some disturbances in the Vexin; thence he went once more to besiege his rebellious cousin and vassal Richard Fitz-Count at Torigni. The place had apparently just surrendered when the tidings of Stephen’s death arrived. Henry took counsel first of all with his mother; then he summoned his brothers and the barons of Normandy to meet him at Barfleur; but when he arrived there with Eleanor the wind was so unfavourable that a whole month elapsed before they could venture to cross.[1222] Henry, however, could afford to wait; and England could wait for him. Three weeks without a king had been enough to throw the whole country into disorder when Henry I. had died leaving only a woman and an infant as his heirs; six weeks passed away without any disturbance now while Archbishop Theobald was guarding the rights of the Crown[1223] for one who had already proved himself King Henry’s worthy grandson. “No man durst do other than good, for the mickle awe of him.”[1224] At last, on December 8,[1225] he landed in Hampshire;[1226] first at Winchester, then in London, he received a rapturous welcome;[1227] and on the Sunday before Christmas Henry Fitz-Empress, duke of the Normans, count of Anjou and duke of Aquitaine, was crowned king of England in Westminster abbey.[1228]

[1220] Hen. Hunt. as above. Eng. Chron. a. 1154. Will. Newb., l. i. c. 32 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 95).

[1221] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 40 (Arnold, p. 291).

[1222] Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

[1223] “Nutu divino et cooperante Theodbaldo Cantuariensi archiepiscopo.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 159.

[1224] Eng. Chron. a. 1154. Cf. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 40 (Arnold, p. 291).

[1225] Gerv. Cant. as above. Rob. Torigni, a. 1154, gives the date as December 7. Most likely the crossing was made, as seems to have been the usual practice with Henry at least, in the night.

[1226] “Hostreham,” Gerv. Cant. as above. “Apud Noveforest,” Hen. Hunt. as above; which Mr. Arnold glosses in the margin “Lymington.”

[1227] Hen. Hunt. and Gerv. Cant. as above.

[1228] The Chron. S. Albin. a. 1154 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 38) says: “xiv kalendas januarii apud Wintoniam rex consecratur, et Natale Domini celebrans Londoniæ, cum uxore coronatur.” But the English writers mention only one crowning, at Westminster. The Eng. Chron. a. 1154, says Henry was “to king blessed in London on the Sunday before Midwinter-day.” Rob. Torigni _ad ann._, R. Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 299), Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 72), Ann. S. Aug. Cant. _ad ann._ (Liebermann, _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 82), all give the same date; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 159) makes it December 17, but as he also calls it the Sunday before Christmas, he evidently means 19. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 40 (Arnold, pp. 291, 292), greets the new king with some hexameter verses, and then adds: “Et jam regi novo novus liber donandus est.” But the book, if it was ever written, is lost.

CHAPTER IX.

HENRY AND ENGLAND.

1154–1157.

The Christmas-tide of the year 1154 was an epoch in English history almost as marked as that of 1066. The crowning of Henry Fitz-Empress was, scarcely less than that of William the Conqueror, the beginning of a new era; and--unlike many historical events whose importance is only realized long after they are past--it was distinctly recognized as such by the men of the period. For the first time since the Norman conquest, the new king succeeded to his throne without a competitor, and with the unanimous goodwill of all ranks and all races throughout his kingdom. Normans and English, high and low, cleric and lay, welcomed the young Angevin king as the herald of a bright new day which was to dispel the darkness that had settled down upon the land during the nineteen winters of anarchy, and to bring back all, or more than all, the peace and prosperity of England’s happiest ages. But if Henry’s subjects looked forward to the year which was just beginning with a hope such as no new year had brought them since his grandfather’s death, Henry himself may well have contemplated with an anxiety little short of despair the task which lay before him. It was nothing less than the resuscitation of the body politic from a state of utter decay. The legal, constitutional and administrative machinery of the state was at a deadlock; the national resources, material and moral, were exhausted. To bring under subjection, once for all, the remnant of the disturbing forces which had caused the catastrophe, and render them powerless for future harm:--to disinter from the mass of ruin the fragments of the old foundations of social and political organization, and build up on them a secure and lasting fabric of administration and law;--to bring order out of chaos, life out of decay:--this was the work which a youth who had not yet completed his twenty-second year now found himself called to undertake, and to undertake almost single-handed.

The call did not indeed take him by surprise. The last year which he had spent in England must have given him some knowledge of the state of things with which as king he would have to deal; and the prospect of having so to deal with it sooner or later had been constantly before his eyes from his very infancy. His qualifications for the work must however have been chiefly innate. The first nine years of his life spent under the care of mother and father alternately in Anjou; the next four, under his uncle Earl Robert at Bristol; then two years in Anjou again, followed by a year with King David of Scotland, three more spent in securing his continental heritage and that of his bride, a year occupied in securing England, and another busied with self-defence in Normandy:--such a training was too desultory to have furnished Henry with the knowledge or the experience necessary for the formation of anything like a matured theory of government; and he could have had no time to think out one for himself in a life so busy and so short. Yet in his very youth and inexperience there was an element of strength. He came trammelled by no preconceived political theories, no party-pledges, no local and personal ties; he came simply with his own young intellect unwarped by prejudice, unruffled by passion, unclouded by care; fresh with the untried vigour and elasticity of youth, and ready, whatever his hand should find to do, fearlessly to do it with his might.

Thus much, at least, those who crowded to welcome the new sovereign might read in his very face and figure. Henry of Anjou had no claim to the personal epithet universally bestowed upon his father; and yet, as one of his courtiers expressively said, his was a form which a soldier, having once seen, would hasten to look upon again.[1229] He was of moderate height,[1230] appearing neither gigantic among small men nor insignificant among tall ones;[1231] in later days it was remarked that he had hit the golden mean of stature which his sons had all either overshot or failed to attain.[1232] His frame was made for strength, endurance and activity;[1233] thick-set, square-shouldered, broad-chested:--with arms muscular as those of a gladiator;[1234] highly-arched feet which looked made for the stirrup;[1235]--a large, but not disproportionate head, round and well-shaped, and covered with close-cropped hair of the tawny hue which Fulk the Red seems to have transmitted to so many of his descendants:[1236] a face which one of his courtiers describes as “lion-like”[1237] and another as “a countenance of fire”[1238]--a face, as we can see even in its sculptured effigy on his tomb, full of animation, energy and vigour;--a freckled skin;[1239] somewhat prominent grey eyes, clear and soft when he was in a peaceable mood, but bloodshot and flashing like balls of fire when the demon-spirit of his race was aroused within him:--[1240] Henry, his people might guess almost at a glance, was no mirror of courtly chivalry and elegance, but a man of practical, vigorous and rapid action. He inherited as little of Geoffrey’s personal refinement as of his physical grace. When the young duke of the Normans had first appeared in England, his shoulders covered with a little short cape such as was then usually worn in Anjou, the English knights, who since his grandfather’s time had been accustomed to wear long cloaks hanging down to the ground, were struck by the novelty of his attire and nicknamed him “Henry Curtmantel.”[1241] When once the Angevin fashion was transferred to the English court, however, there was nothing in Henry’s dress to distinguish him from his servants, unless it were its very lack of display and elegance; his clothing and headgear were of the plainest kind; and how little care he took of his person was shewn by his rough coarse hands, never gloved except when he went hawking.[1242] In his later years he was accused of extreme parsimony;[1243] even as a young man, he clearly had no pleasure in pomp or luxury of any kind. He was very temperate in meat and drink;[1244] over-indulgence in that respect seems indeed never to have been one of the habitual sins of the house of Anjou; and whatever complex elements may have had a part in his innermost moral constitution, in temper and tastes Henry was an Angevin of the Angevins. His restlessness seems to have outdone that of Fulk Nerra himself. He was always up and doing; if a dream of ease crossed him even in sleep, he spurned it angrily from him;[1245] he gave himself no peace, and as a natural consequence, he gave none to those around him. When not at war, he was constantly practising its mimicry with hawk and hound; his passion for the chase--a double inheritance, from his father and from his mother’s Norman ancestors--was so great as to be an acknowledged scandal in all eyes.[1246] He would mount his horse at the first streak of dawn, come back in the evening after a day’s hard riding across hill, moor and forest, and then tire out his companions by keeping them on their feet until nightfall.[1247] His own feet were always swollen and bruised from his violent riding; yet except at meals and on horseback, he was never known to be seated.[1248] In public or in private, in council or in church, he stood or walked from morning till night.[1249] At church, indeed, he was especially restless; unmindful of the sacred unction which had made him king, he evidently grudged the time taken from secular occupations for attendance upon religious duties, and would either discuss affairs of state in a whisper[1250] or relieve his impatience by drawing little pictures all through the most solemn of holy rites.[1251] His English or Norman courtiers, unaccustomed to deal with the demon-blood of Anjou, vainly endeavoured to account for an activity which remained undiminished when they were all half dead with exhaustion, and attributed it to his dread of becoming disabled by corpulence, to which he had a strong natural tendency.[1252] A good deal of it, however, was probably due to sheer physical restlessness and superabundant physical energy; and a good deal more to the irrepressible outward working of an extraordinarily active mind.

[1229] “Vir ... quem miles diligenter inspectum accurrebant [_accurrebat_?] inspicere.” W. Map, _De Nugis Curialium_, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

[1230] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 71). Peter of Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 193).

[1231] Pet. Blois as above.

[1232] Gir. Cambr. as above.

[1233] W. Map as above.

[1234] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 70). Pet. Blois as above.

[1235] Pet. Blois as above.

[1236] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. as above.

[1237] Pet. Blois as above.

[1238] Gir. Cambr. as above.

[1239] See how Merlin’s prophecy about “fortem lentiginosum” was applied to him, Gir. Cambr. _Itin. Kambr._, l. i. c. 6 (Dimock, vol. vi. p. 62).

[1240] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 70). Pet. Blois as above.

[1241] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. iii. c. 28 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 157).

[1242] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 193, 194).

[1243] See Ralf Niger (Anstruther), p. 169. Ralf, however, was a bitter enemy. Gerald on the other hand seems to draw, and to imply that Henry drew, a distinction between official and personal expenditure: “Parcimoniæ, quoad principi licuit, per omnia datus.” _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 70). “Largus in publico, parcus in privato” (_ib._ p. 71).

[1244] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 70). Pet. Blois as above (p. 195). W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 231).

[1245] W. Map as above (p. 227).

[1246] _Ibid._ Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 71). Pet. Blois as above (p. 194).

[1247] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 71).

[1248] _Ibid._ Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).

[1249] Pet. Blois as above.

[1250] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 72).

[1251] “Oratorium ingressus, picturæ et susurro vacabat.” R. Niger (Anstruther), p. 169. It is only fair to add that some of the highest clergy of the day were just as unscrupulous as the king about talking business during mass. See, _e.g._, Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), pp. 73, 74; and there are plenty of other examples.

[1252] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

It was no light matter to be in attendance upon such a king. His clerks, some playfully, some in all seriousness, compared his court to the infernal regions.[1253] His habit of constantly moving about from one place to another--a habit which he retained to the very end of his life--was in itself sufficiently trying to those who had to transact business with him, and was made positively exasperating by his frequent and sudden changes of plan. “He shunned regular hours like poison.”[1254] “Solomon saith,” wrote his secretary Peter of Blois to him once, after vainly striving to track him across land and sea, “Solomon saith there be three things difficult to be found out, and a fourth which may hardly be discovered: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a ship in the sea; the way of a serpent on the ground; and the way of a man in his youth. I can add a fifth: the way of a king in England.”[1255] In a letter to his old comrades of the court Peter gives a detailed account of the discomforts brought upon them by Henry’s erratic movements. “If the king has promised to spend the day in a place--more especially, if his intention so to do has been publicly proclaimed by a herald--you may be quite sure he will upset everybody’s arrangements by starting off early in the morning. Then you may see men rushing about as if they were mad, beating their packhorses, driving their chariots one into another--in short, such a turmoil as to present you with a lively image of the infernal regions. If, on the other hand, the king announces that he will set out early in the morning for a certain place, he is sure to change his mind; you may take it for granted that he will sleep till noon. Then you shall see the packhorses waiting with their burthens, the chariots standing ready, the couriers dozing, the purveyors worrying, and all grumbling one at another. Folk run to the women and the tent-keepers to inquire of them whither the king is really going; for this sort of courtiers often know the secrets of the palace. Many a time when the king was asleep and all was silent around, there has come a message from his lodging, not authoritative, but rousing us all up, and naming the city or town whither he was about to proceed. After waiting so long in dreary uncertainty, we were comforted by a prospect of being quartered in a place where there was a fair chance of accommodation. Thereupon arose such a clatter of horse and foot that hell seemed to have broken loose. But when our couriers had gone the whole day’s ride, or nearly so, the king would turn aside to some other place where he had perhaps one single house, and just enough provision for himself and none else. I hardly dare say it,” adds the sorely-tried secretary, “but I verily believe he took a delight in seeing the straits to which he put us! After wandering a distance of three or four miles in an unknown wood, and often in the dark, we thought ourselves lucky if we stumbled upon some dirty little hovel; there was often grievous and bitter strife about a mere hut; and swords were drawn for the possession of a lodging which pigs would not have deemed worth fighting for. I used to get separated from my people, and could hardly collect them again in three days. O Lord God Almighty! wilt Thou not turn the heart of this king, that he may know himself to be but man, and may learn to shew some grace of regal consideration, some human fellow-feeling, for those whom not ambition, but necessity, compels to run after him thus?”[1256]

[1253] _Ibid._, dist. i. c. 2 (pp. 5, 6); dist. v. c. 7 (p. 238). Pet. Blois, Ep. xiv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 50).

[1254] R. Niger (Anstruther), p. 169.

[1255] Pet. Blois, Ep. xli. (Giles, vol. i. p. 125). Arnulf of Lisieux makes a like complaint in a more serious tone: Arn. Lis., Ep. 92 (Giles, p. 247). See also the remark of Louis of France on Henry’s expedition to Ireland in 1172: R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351.

[1256] Pet. Blois, Ep. xiv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 50, 51).

This bustling, scrambling, roving Pandemonium was very unlike the orderly, well-disciplined court of the first King Henry, where everything was done according to rule;--where the royal itinerary was planned out every month, and its stages duly announced and strictly adhered to, so that every man knew exactly when and where to find his sovereign, and his coming brought people together as to a fair:--where all the earls and barons of the realm were set down in a written list, according to which every one on his arrival at court was furnished with a certain allowance of bread, wine and candles for the term of his sojourn;[1257]--where the king’s own daily life was passed in a steady routine, holding council with his wise men and giving audiences until dinner-time, devoting the rest of the day to the society of the young gallants whom he drew from every country on this side of the Alps to increase the splendour of his household:--a court which was “a school of virtue and wisdom all the morning, of courtesy and decorous mirth all the afternoon.”[1258] Yet this hasty, impetuous young sovereign, in whose rough aspect and reckless ways one can at first glance discern so little either of regal dignity or of steady application to regal duty, was in truth, no less than his grandfather, an indefatigable worker and a born ruler of men. His way of doing business, apparently by fits and starts, bewildered men of less versatile intellect and less rapid decision; but they saw that the business was done, and done thoroughly, though they hardly understood when or how. They resigned themselves to be swept along in the whirl of Henry’s unaccountable movements, for they learned to perceive that those movements did not spring from mere caprice and perversity, but had always a motive and an object, inscrutable perhaps to all eyes save his own, but none the less definite and practical. When he dragged them in one day over a distance which should have occupied four or five, they knew that it was to forestall the machinations of some threatening foe. When he ran over the country from end to end without a word of notice, it was to overtake his officials at unawares and ascertain for himself how they were or were not attending to their duty.[1259] If he was never still, he was also never idle. He seemed to be specially haunted by that dread of the mischief attendant upon idle hands which an Angevin writer quaintly puts forth as an apology for the ceaseless warfare in which his race passed their lives.[1260] Henry’s hands were never idle; in the intervals of state business, when not laden with bow and arrows, they almost invariably held a book; for Henry was, to the very close of his life, the most learned crowned head in Christendom.[1261] He was a match for the best among his subjects in all knightly exercises and accomplishments; he was no less a match for the best, among laymen at least, in scholarship and mental culture. If we may believe one of his chaplains, Walter Map, he knew something of every language “from the bay of Biscay to the Jordan,” though he only spoke two, Latin and his native French;[1262] he evidently never learned to speak, and it is doubtful how far he understood, the natural tongue of the people of his island realm. He loved reading; he enjoyed the society of learned men; his delight was to stand amid a little group of clerks, arguing out some knotty point with them; not a day passed in his court without some interesting literary discussion.[1263] His habit of shutting himself up in his own apartments with a few chosen companions was a grievance to those who remembered his grandfather’s practice of coming forth in public at stated hours every day;[1264] yet Henry II. was never difficult of access; once, when the prior of Witham made a witty retort to the marshals who refused him admittance to the royal chamber, the king himself, overhearing the jest, opened the door with a peal of laughter;[1265] and a courier charged with important news from the north made his way to the sovereign’s bedside and woke him in the middle of the night without hesitation.[1266] When he did shew himself to the people, they thronged him without ceremony; they caught hold of him right and left, they pulled him this way and that, yet he never rebuked them, never gave them an angry look, but listened patiently to what each man had to say, and when their importunity became intolerable he simply made his escape without a word.[1267] Though not gifted with a good voice,[1268] he was a ready and pleasant speaker;[1269] and he had two other natural qualifications specially useful for a king. Unlike his grandfather Fulk V., who never could remember a face and constantly had to ask the names of his own familiar attendants,[1270] Henry never failed to recognize a man whom he had once looked at; and a thing once heard, if worth remembering, never slipped from his memory, which was consequently stored with a fund of historical and experimental knowledge ready for use at any moment.[1271]

[1257] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, pp. 224, 225).

[1258] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 5 (Wright, p. 210).

[1259] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).

[1260] See above, p. 343, note 6{1002}.

[1261] Pet. Blois as above.

[1262] W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

[1263] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (Giles, vol. i. p. 194).

[1264] W. Map as above (p. 230).

[1265] _Ib._ dist. i. c. 6 (p. 7).

[1266] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 25 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 189).

[1267] W. Map, as above, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 231).

[1268] “Voce quassâ.” Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 70). This however refers to his later years.

[1269] _Ib._ p. 71. Pet. Blois as above (p. 195).

[1270] Will. Tyr., l. xiv. c. i.

[1271] Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c. 29 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 73).

His worst private vices only reached their full developement in later years; it is plain, however, that he was much less careful than his grandfather had been of the outward decorum of his household; and unluckily his consort was not a woman to control it by her influence or improve it by her example like the “good Queen Maude.” His wrath was even more terrific than the wrath of kings is proverbially wont to be.[1272] His passions were strong, and they were lasting; when once he had taken a dislike to a man, he could rarely be induced to grant him his favour; on the other hand, when his friendship and confidence were once given, he withdrew them with the utmost difficulty and reluctance;[1273] and he had the gift of inspiring in all who came in contact with him a love or a hatred as intense and abiding as his own. His temper was a mystery to those who had not the key to it; it was the temper of Fulk Nerra. He had the Black Count’s strange power of fascination, his unaccountable variations of mood, and his cool, clear head. Like Fulk, he was at one moment mocking and blaspheming all that is holiest in earth and heaven, and at another grovelling in an agony of remorse as wild as the blasphemy itself. Like Fulk, he was an indefatigable builder, constantly superintending the erection of a wall, the fortification of a castle, the making of a dyke, the enclosing of a deer-park or a fish-pond, or the planning of a palace;[1274] and all the while his material buildings were but types of a great edifice of statecraft which, all unseen, was rising day by day beneath the hands of the royal architect;--his ever-varying pursuits, each of which seemed to absorb him for the moment, were but parts of an all-absorbing whole;--and his seeming self-contradictions were unaccountable only because the most useful of all his Angevin characteristics, his capacity for instinctively and unerringly adapting means to ends, enabled him to detect opportunities and recognize combinations invisible to less penetrating eyes. This was the moral constitution which in Fulk III. and Fulk V. had made the greatness of the house of Anjou; its workings were now to be displayed on a grander scale and in a more important sphere.

[1272] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 223).

[1273] Pet. Blois, Ep. lxvi. (_ib._ p. 194). Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 71).

[1274] Pet. Blois as above (p. 195).

The young king saw at once that for his work of reconstruction and reform in England the counsellors who surrounded him in Normandy were of no avail; that he must trust solely to English help, and select his chief ministers partly from among those who had been in office under his predecessor, partly from such of his own English partizans as were best fitted for the task. First among the former class stood Richard de Lucy, who held the post of justiciar at the close of Stephen’s reign,[1275] who retained it under Henry for five-and-twenty years, and whose character is summed up in the epithet said to have been bestowed on him by his grateful sovereign--“Richard de Lucy the Loyal.”[1276] For thirteen years he shared the dignity and the duties of chief justiciar with Earl Robert of Leicester,[1277] who, after having been a faithful supporter of Stephen in his earlier and better days, had transferred his allegiance to Henry, and continued through life one of his most trusty servants and friends. The weight of Robert’s character was increased by that of his rank and descent; as head of the great house of Leicester, he was the most influential baron of the midland shires; while as son of Count Robert of Meulan, the friend of Henry I., he was a living link with that hallowed past which Henry II. was expected to restore, and a natural representative of its traditions of honour and of peace. Of the great ministers who had actually served under the first King Henry only one survived: the old treasurer, Nigel, bishop of Ely. We know not who took his place on his fall in 1139; but the treasurer in Stephen’s latter years can have had little more than an empty title; and when Nigel reappears in office, immediately after Henry’s accession, it is not as treasurer, but as chancellor.[1278] This, however, was a merely provisional arrangement; in a few weeks the bishop of Ely was reinstated in his most appropriate place, on the right side of the chequered table, gathering up the broken threads of the financial system which he had learned under his uncle of Salisbury;[1279] while the more miscellaneous work of the chancellor was undertaken by younger hands.

[1275] At the peace he held the Tower of London and the castle of Windsor; Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 18: these were peculiarly in the custody of the justiciar; Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, vol. i. p. 449, note 1.

[1276] Jordan Fantosme, vv. 1540–1541 (Michel, p. 70).

[1277] Robert appears as _capitalis justicia_ in a charter of, apparently, 1155 (Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 3). In 1159–1160, John of Salisbury describes him as “illustris comes Legrecestriæ Robertus, modeste proconsulatum gerens apud Britannias” (Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 25; Giles, vol. iv. p. 65), and at his death in 1168 he is named in the Chron. Mailros (_ad ann._) as “comes justus Leicestrie, et qui summa justitia vocatur.”

[1278] A charter issued at Westminster, evidently soon after the coronation, is witnessed by “N. Epọ de Ely et Canc.” Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 2, note 2.

[1279] _Dial. de Scacc._, l. i. c. 8 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 199).

Under the old English constitutional system, alike in its native purity and in the modified form which it assumed under the Conqueror and his sons, the archbishop of Canterbury was the official keeper of the royal conscience and the first adviser of the sovereign. Theobald had contributed more than any other one man to secure Henry’s succession; he saw in it the crowning of his own life’s work for England; while Henry saw in Theobald his most weighty and valuable supporter. It was therefore a matter of course that the primate should resume the constitutional position which he had inherited from Anselm and Lanfranc and their old-English predecessors. Theobald, however, was now in advanced age and feeble health; and when he fully perceived what manner of man it was to whom he was bound to act as spiritual father and political guide, he felt that to regulate these strong passions, to direct these youthful impulses, to follow these restless movements, was a task too hard for his failing strength. He feared the evil influences of the courtiers upon the young king, who seemed so willing to be led aright, and might for that very reason be so easily led astray;[1280] he feared for the English Church, through which there was already running a whisper of ill-omen concerning the Angevins’ known hostility to the rights of religion;[1281] he feared for his own soul, lest Henry should wander out of the right path for lack of guidance, and the sin should lie at the door of the incompetent guide.[1282] There was one man who, if he could but be placed at the young king’s side, might be trusted to manage the arduous and delicate task. So to place him could be no very difficult matter; for his own past services to Henry’s cause were far too great to be left unrewarded. Neither the recommendations of the bishops of Winchester,[1283] Bayeux and Lisieux,[1284] nor even those of the primate, could have as much weight as the known qualifications of the candidate himself in obtaining the office of chancellor for Thomas Becket.[1285]

[1280] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 160.

[1281] _Vita S. Thomæ_, Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 11.

[1282] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 160.

[1283] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 18.

[1284] “Quorum consiliis rex in primordiis suis innitebatur.” Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 12.

[1285] “Facile regi inspiratum est commendatum habere quem propria satis merita commendabant.” E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 363. I cannot attach any importance to the version of _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 45–47.

The chancellor’s duties were still much the same as they had been when first organized by Roger of Salisbury. He was charged with the keeping of the royal seal, the drawing-up of royal writs and charters, the conduct of the royal correspondence, the preservation of legal records, the custody of vacant fiefs and benefices, and the superintendence of the king’s chaplains and clerks;[1286]--in a word, the management of the whole clerical and secretarial work of the royal household and of the government. Officially, he seems to have been ranked below the chief ministers of state--the justiciar, or even the treasurer;[1287] personally, however, he was brought more than either of them into close and constant relations with his sovereign. The actual importance and dignity of the chancellorship depended in fact upon the capacity of individual chancellors for magnifying their office. Thomas magnified it as no man ever did before or since. In a very few months he became what the justiciar had formerly been, the second man in the kingdom;[1288] and not in the kingdom alone, but in all the lands, on both sides of the sea, which owned Henry Fitz-Empress for their sovereign.[1289] Theobald’s scheme far more than succeeded; his favourite became not so much the king’s chief minister as his friend, his director, his master.[1290] The two young men, drawn together by a strong personal attraction, seemed to have but one heart and one soul.[1291] Thomas was the elder by fifteen years; but the disparity of age was lost in the perfect community of their feelings, interests and pursuits. Thomas was now in deacon’s orders, having been ordained by Archbishop Theobald at the close of the previous year on his appointment to the archdeaconry of Canterbury,[1292] an office which was accounted the highest ecclesiastical dignity in England after those of the bishops and abbots.[1293] He felt, however, no vocation and no taste for the duties of sacred ministry, and was only too glad to “put off the deacon” and fling all his energies into the more congenial sphere of court life.[1294] Alike in its business and in its pleasures he was thoroughly at home. His refined sensibilities, his romantic imagination, revelled in the elegance and splendour which to Henry’s matter-of-fact disposition were simply irksome; he gladly took all the burthen of state ceremonial as well as of state business upon his own shoulders; and he bore it with an easy grace which men never wearied of admiring. One day he would be riding in coat of mail at the head of the royal troops, the next he would be dispensing justice in the king’s name;[1295] and his will was law throughout the land, for all men knew that his will and Henry’s were one.[1296]

[1286] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above. On the chancellor’s office see Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, vol. i. pp. 352, 353.

[1287] Will. Fitz-Steph., as above, does indeed say “Cancellarii Angliæ dignitas est ut secundus a rege in regno habeatur”; but he had in his mind one particular chancellor. He also says “Cancellaria emenda non est”; but it seems that Thomas himself paid for his appointment (Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxciv., Giles, vol. i. p. 268; Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ccxxv. pp. 523, 524), like the chancellors before and after him, and like the other great ministers of state.

[1288] “In regno secundus,” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 169. “Secundus a rege,” Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 18. “Nullus par ei erat in regno, excepto solo rege,” Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216. E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 363, and the _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 49, liken his position to that of Joseph.

[1289] “Secundum post regem in quatuor regnis quis te ignorat?” writes Peter of Celle to Thomas (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ii. p. 4).

[1290] “Regis amicus,” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 169. “Regis rector et quasi magister,” _ib._ pp. 160 and 169.

[1291] Joh. Salisb., Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 109; Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ix. p. 13).

[1292] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 159, 160. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 213. Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. i.), p. 4. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 17. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 168. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 11.

[1293] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above. He says it was worth a hundred pounds of silver.

[1294] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 173.

[1295] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 12.

[1296] _Ibid._ E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 364.

In outward aspect Thomas must have been far more regal than the king himself. He was very tall and elegantly formed,[1297] with an oval face,[1298] handsome aquiline features,[1299] a lofty brow,[1300] large, lustrous and penetrating eyes;[1301] there was an habitual look of placid dignity in his countenance,[1302] a natural grace in his every gesture, an ingrained refinement in his every word and action;[1303] the slender, tapering, white fingers[1304] and dainty attire of the burgher’s son contrasted curiously with the rough brown hands and careless appearance of Henry Fitz-Empress; the order, elegance and liberality of the chancellor’s household contrasted no less with the confusion and discomfort of the king’s. The riches that passed through Thomas’s hands were enormous; revenues and honours were heaped on him by the king; costly gifts poured in upon him daily from clergy and laity, high and low. But what he received with one hand he gave away with the other; his splendour and his wealth were shared with all who chose to come and take a share of them. His door was always open, his table always spread, for all men, of whatever race or rank, who stood in need of hospitality.[1305] Besides fifty-two clerks regularly attached to his household--some to act as his secretaries, some to take charge of the vacant benefices in his custody, some to serve his own numerous livings and prebends[1306]--he had almost every day a company of invited guests to dinner; every day the hall was freshly strewn with green leaves or rushes in summer and clean hay or straw in winter, amid which those for whom there was no room on the benches sat and dined on the floor. The tables shone with gold and silver vessels, and were laden with costly viands; Thomas stuck at no expense in such matters; but it was less for his own enjoyment than for that of his guests;[1307] and these always included a crowd of poor folk, who were as sumptuously and carefully served as the rich;[1308] the meanest in his house never had to complain of a dinner such as the noblest were often obliged to endure in King Henry’s court, where half-baked bread, sour wine, stale fish and bad meat were the ordinary fare.[1309] The chancellor’s hospitality was as gracious as it was lavish. He was the most perfect of hosts; he saw to the smallest details of domestic service; he noted the position of each guest, missed and inquired for the absent, perceived and righted in a moment the least mistake in precedence; if any man out of modesty tried to take a lower place than was his due, it was in vain; no matter in what obscure corner he might hide, Thomas was sure to find him out; he seemed to pierce through curtains and walls with those wonderful eyes whose glance brightened and cheered the whole table.[1310] No wonder that barons and knights sent their sons to be educated under his roof,[1311] and that his personal followers were far more numerous than those of the king.[1312]