The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part A. · David Hume
WILLIAM RUFUS.
_Contemporary Monarchs_ EMP. OF GERM. KINGS OF SCOTLAND. K. OF FRANCE. K. OF SPAIN. Henry IV. Malcolm III 1093 Philip I. Alphonso VI. Donald Bane, dep 1091 Duncan 1094 Donald Bane 1097 Edgar. POPES. Urban II. 1099 Paschal II. {1087.} WILLIAM, surnamed Rufus, or the Red, from the color of his hair, had no sooner procured his father’s recommendatory letter to Lanfranc, the primate, than he hastened to take measures for securing to himself the government of England. Sensible that a deed so unformal, and so little prepared, which violated Robert’s right of promigeniture, might meet with great opposition, he trusted entirely for success to his own celerity; and having left St. Gervas while William was breathing his last, he arrived in England before intelligence of his father’s death had reached that kingdom.[*] Pretending orders from the king, he secured the fortresses of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, whose situation rendered them of the greatest importance; and he got possession of the royal treasure at Winchester, amounting to the sum of sixty thousand pounds, by which he hoped to encourage and increase his partisans,[**] The primate, whose rank and reputation in the kingdom gave him great authority, had been intrusted with the care of his education, and had conferred on him the honor of knighthood;[***] and being connected with him by these ties, and probably deeming his pretensions just, declared that he would pay a willing obedience to the last will of the Conqueror, his friend and benefactor. Having assembled some bishops and some of the principal nobility, he instantly proceeded to the ceremony of crowning the new king;[****] and by this despatch endeavored to prevent all faction and resistance. At the same time, Robert, who had been already acknowledged successor to Normandy, took peaceable possession of that duchy.
Robert’s title to the duchy they esteemed incontestable; his claim to the kingdom plausible; and they all desired that this prince, who alone had any pretensions to unite these states, should be put in possession of both. A comparison also of the personal qualities of the two brothers led them to give the preference to the elder. The duke was brave, open, sincere, generous: even his predominant faults, his extreme indolence and facility, were not disagreeable to those haughty barons, who affected independence, and submitted with reluctance to a vigorous administration in their sovereign. The king, though equally brave, was violent, haughty, tyrannical; and seemed disposed to govern more by the fear than by the love of his subjects. Odo, bishop of Baieux, and Robert, earl of Mortaigne, maternal brothers of the Conqueror, envying the great credit of Lanfranc, which was increased by his late services enforced all these motives with their partisans, and engaged them in a formal conspiracy to dethrone the king. They communicated their design to Eustace, count of Boulogne Roger, earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel, Robert de Belesme, his eldest son, William, bishop of Durham, Robert de Moubray, Roger Bigod, Hugh de Grentmesnil; and they easily procured the assent of these potent noblemen. The conspirators, retiring to their castles, hastened to put themselves in a military posture; and expecting to be soon supported by a powerful army from Normandy, they had already begun hostilities in many places.
The king, sensible of his perilous situation, endeavored to engage the affections of the native English, As that people were now so thoroughly subdued that they no longer aspired to the recovery of their ancient liberties, and were content with the prospect of some mitigation in ihe tyranny of the Norman princes, they zealously embraced William’s cause, upon receiving general promises of good treatment, and of enjoying the license of hunting in the royal forests. The king was soon in a situation to take the field; and as he knew the danger of delay, he suddenly marched into Kent, where his uncles had already seized the fortresses of Pevensey and Rochester. These places he successively reduced by famine; and though he was prevailed on by the earl of Chester, William de Warrenne, and Robert Fitz-Hammon, who had embraced his cause, to spare the lives of the rebels, he confiscated all their estates, and banished them the kingdom.[*] This success gave authority to his negotiations with Roger, earl of Shewsbury, whom he detached from the confederates; and as his powerful fleet, joined to the indolent conduct of Robert, prevented the arrival of the Norman succors, all the other rebels found no resource but in flight or submission. Some of them received a pardon; but the greater part were attainted; and the king bestowed their estates on the Norman barons who had remained faithful to him.
The king appeared in Normandy at the head of an army and affairs seemed to have come to extremity between the brothers, when the nobility on both sides, strongly connected by interest and alliances, interposed, and meditated an accommodation. The chief advantage of this treaty accrued to William, who obtained possession of the territory of Eu, the towns of Aumule, Fescamp, and other places; but in return he promised, that he would assist his brother in subduing Maine, which had rebelled; and that the Norman barons, attainted in Robert’s cause, should be restored to their estates in England. The two brothers also stipulated, that, on the demise of either without issue, the survivor should inherit all his dominions; and twelve of the most powerful barons on each side swore that they would employ their power to insure the effectual execution of the whole treaty,[*] a strong proof of the great independence and authority of the nobles in those ages. [* Chron. Sax. p. 197. W. Malms, p. 121. Hoveden, p. 462. M Paris, p. 11. Annul. Waverl. p. 137. W. Heming. p. 463. Sum Dunelm. p. 216. Brompton, p. 986.]
Prince Henry, disgusted that so little care had been taken of his interests in this accommodation, retired to St. Michael’s Mount, a strong fortress on the coast of Normandy, and infested the neighborhood with his incursions. Robert and William, with their joint forces, besieged him in this place, and had nearly reduced him by the scarcity of water, when the elder, hearing of his distress, granted him permission to supply himself, and also sent him some pipes of wine for his own table. Being reproved by William for this ill-timed generosity, he replied, “What, shall I suffer my brother to die of thirst? Where shall we find another when he is gone?” The king also, during this siege, performed an act of generosity which was less suitable to his character. Riding out one day alone, to take a survey of the fortress, he was attacked by two soldiers, and dismounted. One of them drew his sword in order to despatch him, when the king exclaimed, “Hold, knave! I am the king of England.” The soldier suspended his blow and, raising the king from the ground with expressions of respect, received a handsome reward, and was taken into his service. Prince Henry was soon after obliged to capitulate; and being despoiled of all his patrimony, wandered about for some time with very few attendants, and often in great poverty.
The frank, open, remiss temper of Robert was ill fitted to withstand the interested, rapacious character of William, who, supported by greater power, was still encroaching on his brother’s possessions, and instigating his turbulent barons to rebellion against him. The king, having gone over to Normandy to support his partisans, ordered an army of twenty thousand men to be levied in England, and to be conducted to the sea-coast, as if they were instantly to be embarked. {1094.} Here Ralph Flambard, the king’s minister, and the chief instrument of his extortions, exacted ten shillings apiece from them, in lieu of their service, and then dismissed them into their several counties. This money was so skilfully employed by William that it rendered him better service than he could have expected from the army. He engaged the French king by new presents to depart from the protection of Robert; and he daily bribed the Norman barons to desert his service; but was prevented from pushing his advantages by an incursion of the Welsh, which obliged him to return to England, tie found no difficulty in repelling the enemy; but was not able to make any considerable impression on a country guarded by its mountainous situation.
A conspiracy of his own barons which was detected at this time, appeared a more serious concern, and engrossed all his attention. {1095.} Robert Moubray, earl of Northumberland, was at the head of this combination; and he engaged in it the count d’Eu, Richard de Tunbridge, Roger de Lacy, and many others. The purpose of the conspirators was to dethrone the king, and to advance in his stead Stephen, count of Aumale, nephew to the Conqueror. William’s despatch prevented the design from taking effect, and disconcerted the conspirators. Moubray made some resistance; but being taken prisoner, was attainted and thrown into confinement, where he died about thirty years after. {1096.} The count d’Eu denied his concurrence in the plot, and to justify himself, fought, in the presence of the court at Windsor, a duel with Geoffrey Bainard, who accused him. But being worsted in the combat, he was condemned to be castrated, and to have his eyes put out. William de Alderi, another conspirator, was supposed to be treated with more rigor when he was sentenced to be hanged.
But the noise of these petty wars and commotions was quite sunk in the tumult of the crusades, which now engrossed the attention of Europe, and have ever since engaged the curiosity of mankind, as the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation. After Mahomet had, by means of his pretended revelations, united the dispersed Arabians under one head, they issued forth from their deserts in great multitudes; and being animated with zeal for their new religion, and supported by the vigor of their new government, they made deep impression on the eastern empire, which was far in the decline with regard both to military discipline and to civil policy. Jerusalem, by its situation, became one of their most early conquests; and the Christians had the mortification to see the holy sepulchre, and the other places consecrated by the presence of their religious founder, fallen into the possession of infidels.
But the Arabians or Saracens were so employed in military enterprises, by which they spread their empire, in a few years, from the banks of the Ganges to the Straits of Gibraltar, that they had no leisure for theological controversy; and though the Alcoran, the original monument of their faith, seems to contain some violent precepts, they were much less infected with the spirit of bigotry and persecution than the indolent and speculative Greeks, who were continually refining on the several articles of their religious system. They gave little disturbance to those zealous pilgrims who daily flocked to Jerusalem; and they allowed every man, after paying a moderate tribute, to visit the holy sepulchre, to perform his religious duties, and so return in peace. But the Turcomans or Turks, a tribe of Tartars, who had embraced Mahometanism, having wrested Syria from the Saracens, and having in the year 1065 made themselves masters of Jerusalem, rendered the pilgrimage much more difficult and dangerous to the Christians. The barbarity of their manners, and the confusions attending their unsettled government, exposed the pilgrims to many insults, robberies, and extortions; and these zealots, returning from their meritorious fatigues and sufferings, filled all Christendom with indignation against the infidels, who profaned the holy city by their presence, and derided the sacred mysteries in the very place of their completion. Gregory VII., among the other vast ideas which he entertained, had formed the design of uniting all the western Christians against the Mahometans; but the egregious and violent invasions of that pontiff on the civil power of princes had created him so many enemies, and had rendered his schemes so suspicious, that he was not able to make great progress in this undertaking. The work was reserved for a meaner instrument, whose low condition ir life exposed aim to no jealousy, and whose folly was well calculated to coincide with the prevailing principles of the times.
Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens, in Picardy, had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Being deeply affected with the dangers to which that act of piety now exposed the pilgrims, as well as with the instances of oppression under which the eastern Christians labored, he entertained the bold, and, in all appearance, impracticable project of leading into Asia, from the farthest extremities of the west, armies sufficient to subdue those potent and warlike nations which now held the holy city in subjection.[*] He proposed his views to Martin II., who filled the papal chair, and who, though sensible of the advantages which the head of the Christian religion must reap from a religious war, and though he esteemed the blind zeal of Peter a proper means for effecting the purpose,[**] resolved not to interpose his authority till he saw a greater probability of success. He summoned a council at Placentia, which consisted of four thousand ecclesiastics and thirty thousand seculars; and which was so numerous that no hall could contain the multitude, and it was necessary to hold the assembly in a plain. [* Gul. Tyrius, lib. i. cap. 11 M. Paria, p, 17.] [** Gul. Trrius, lib. i. cap. 13.] The harangues of the pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal situation of their brethren in the East, and the indignity suffered by the Christian name, in allowing the holy city to remain in the hands of infidels, here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the whole multitude suddenly and violently declared for the war, and solemnly devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious, as they believed it, to God and religion.
Europe was at this time sunk into profound ignorance and superstition. The ecclesiastics had acquired the greatest ascendant over the human mind; the people, who, being little restrained by honor, and less by law, abandoned themselves to the worst crimes and disorders, knew of no other expiation than the observances imposed on them by their spiritual pastors; and it was easy to represent the holy war as an equivalent for all penances,[****] and an atonement for every violation of justice and humanity. [* Concil. torn. x. Concil. Clarom. M. Paris, p. 16. M. West, p. 233.] [** Historia Bell. Sacri, torn. i. Musaei Ital.] [*** Hist. Bell Sacri, tom. i. Mua. Ital. Order. Vitalis, p. 721.] [**** Order. Vitalis, p. 720.] But amidst the abject superstition which now prevailed, the military spirit also had universally diffused itself; and though not supported by art or discipline, was become the general passion of the nations governed by the feudal law. All the great lords possessed the right of peace and war: they were engaged in perpetual hostilities with each other: the open country was become a scene of outrage and disorder: the cities, still mean and poor, were neither guarded by walls nor protected by privileges, and were exposed to every insult: individuals were obliged to depend for safety on their own force, or their private alliances; and valor was the only excellence which was held in esteem, or gave one man the preeminence above another. When all the particular superstitions, therefore, were here united in one great object, the ardor for military enterprises took the same direction; and Europe, impelled by its two ruling passions, was loosened, as it were, from its foundations, and seemed to precipitate itself in one united body upon the East.
Amidst this universal frenzy, which spread itself by contagion throughout Europe, especially in France and Germany, men were not entirely forgetful of their present interests; and both those who went on this expedition, and those who stain behind, entertained schemes of gratifying by its means their avarice or their ambition. The nobles who enlisted themselves were moved, from the romantic spirit of the age, to hope for opulent establishments in the East, the chief seat of arts and commerce during those ages; and in pursuit of these chimerical projects, they sold at the lowest price their ancient castles and inheritances, which had now lost all value in their eyes. The greater princes, who remained at home, besides establishing peace in their dominions by giving occupation abroad to the inquietude and martial disposition of their subjects, took the opportunity of annexing to their crown many considerable fiefs, either by purchase or by the extinction of heirs. The pope frequently turned the zeal of the crusaders from the infidels against his own enemies, whom he represented as equally criminal with the enemies of Christ. The convents and other religious societies bought the possessions of the adventurers; and as the contributions of the faithful were commonly intrusted to their management, they often diverted to this purpose what was intended to be employed against the infidels.[**] But no one was a more immediate gainer by this epidemic fury than the king of England, who kept aloof from all connections with those fanatical and romantic warriors.
The smallness of this sum, with the difficulties which William found in raising it, suffices alone to refute the account which is heedlessly adopted by historians, of the enormous revenue of the Conqueror. Is it credible that Robert would consign to the rapacious hands of his brother such considerable dominions, for a sum which, according to that account, made not a week’s income of his father’s English revenue alone? or that the king of England could not on demand, without oppressing his subjects, have been able to pay him the money? The Conqueror, it is agreed, was frugal as well as rapacious, yet his treasure at his death exceeded not sixty thousand pounds, which hardly amounted to his income for two months; another certain refutation of that exaggerated account. The fury of the crusades during this age less infected England than the neighboring kingdoms; probably because the Norman conquerors, finding their settlement in that kingdom still somewhat precarious, durst not abandon their homes in quest of distant adventures. The selfish, interested spirit also of the king, which kept him from kindling in the general flame, checked its progress among his subjects; and as he is accused of open profaneness,[***] and was endued with a sharp wit,[****] it is likely that he made the romantic chivalry of the crusaders the object of his perpetual raillery.
After the death of Lanfranc, the king for several years retained in his own hands the revenues of Canterbury, as he did those of many other vacant bishoprics: but falling into a dangerous sickness, he was seized with remorse; and the clergy represented to him, that he was in danger of eternal perdition, if before his death he did not make atonement for those multiplied impieties and sacrileges of which he had been guilty.[***] He resolved, therefore, to supply instantly the vacancy of Canterbury; and for that purpose he sent for Anselm, a Piedmontese by birth, abbot of Bee, in Normandy, who was much celebrated for his learning and piety. The abbot earnestly refused the dignity, fell on his knees, wept, and entreated the king to change his purpose,[****] and when he found the prince obstinate in forcing the pastoral staff upon him, he kept his fist so fast clinched, that it required the utmost violence of the bystanders to open it, and force him to receive that ensign of spiritual dignity.[*****] [* Eadmer, p. 47.] [** W. Malms, p. 123.] [*** Eadmer, p. 16. Chron. Sax. p. 198,] [**** Eadmer, p. 17. Diceto, p. 494.] [***** Eadmer, p. 18.] William soon after recovered; and his passions regaining their wonted vigor, he returned to his former violence and rapine. He detained in prison several persons whom he had ordered to be freed during the time of his penitence; he still preyed upon the ecclesiastical benefices; the sale of spiritual dignities continued as open as ever; and he kept possession of a considerable part of the revenues belonging to the see of Canterbury.[**] But he found in Anselm that persevering opposition which he had reason to expect from the ostentatious humility which that prelate had displayed in refusing his promotion.
The opposition made by Anselm was the more dangerous on account of the character of piety which he soon acquired in England by his great zeal against all abuses, particularly those in dress and ornament. There was a mode which, in that age, prevailed throughout Europe, both among men and women, to give an enormous length to their shoes, to draw the toe to a sharp point, and to affix to it the figure of a bird’s bill, or some such ornament, which was turned upwards, and which was often sustained by gold or silver chains tied to the knee.[***] The ecclesiastics took exception at this ornament, which, they said, was an attempt to bely the Scripture, where it is affirmed, that no man can add a cubit to his stature; and they declaimed against it with great vehemence, nay, assembled some synods, who absolutely condemned it. But--such are the strange contradictions in human nature--though the clergy, at that time, could overturn thrones, and had authority sufficient to send above a million of men on their errand to the deserts of Asia, they could never prevail against these long-pointed shoes: on the contrary, that caprice, contrary to all other modes, maintained its ground during several centuries; and if the clergy had not at last desisted from their persecution of it, it might still have been the prevailing fashion in Europe.
When William’s profaneness therefore returned to him with his health, he was soon engaged in controversies with this austere prelate. There was at that time a schism in the church between Urban and Clement, who both pretended to the papacy;[**] and Anselm, who, as abbot of Bee, had already acknowledged the former, was determined, without the king’s consent, to introduce his authority into England.[***] William, who, imitating his father’s example, had prohibited his subjects from recognizing any pope whom he had not previously received, was enraged at this attempt, and summoned a synod at Buckingham, with an intention of deposing Anselm; but the prelate’s suffragans declared, that, without the papal authority, they knew of no expedient for inflicting that punishment on their primate.[****] The king was at last engaged by other motives to give the preference to Urban’s title; Anselm received the pall from that pontiff; and matters seemed to be accommodated between the king and the primate,[*****] when the quarrel broke out afresh from a new cause. William had undertaken an expedition against Wales, and required the archbishop to furnish his quota of soldiers for that service, but Anselm, who regarded the demand as an oppression on the church, and yet durst not refuse compliance, sent them so miserably accoutred, that the king was extremely displeased, and threatened him with a prosecution.[******] Anselm, on the other hand, demanded positively that all the revenues of his see should be restored to him; appealed to Borne against the king’s injustice;[*******] and affairs came to such extremities, that the primate, finding it dangerous to remain in the kingdom, desired and obtained the king’s permission to retire beyond sea. All his temporalities were seized;[********] but he was received with great respect by Urban, who considered him as a martyr in the cause of religion, and even menaced the king, on account of his proceedings against the primate and the church with the sentence of excommunication.
The weakness of the greatest monarchs during this age, in their military expeditions against their nearest neighbors, appears the more surprising, when we consider the prodigious numbers, which even petty princes, seconding the enthusiastic rage of the people, were able to assemble, and to conduct in dangerous enterprises to the remote provinces of Asia. William earl of Poitiers and duke of Guienne, inflamed with the glory and not discouraged by the misfortunes, which had attended the former adventurers in the crusades, had put himself at the head of an immense multitude, computed by some historians to amount to sixty thousand horse, and a much greater number of foot,[**] and he purposed to lead them into the Holy Land against the infidels. He wanted money to forward the preparations requisite for this expedition, and he offered to mortgage all his dominions to William, without entertaining any scruple on account of that rapacious and iniquitous hand to which he resolved to consign them.[***] [* W. Malms, p. 124. H. Hunting, p. 378. M. Paris, p. 33. Ypod. Neust. p. 442.] [** W. Malms, p. 149. The whole is said, by Order. Vitalie (p. 789) to amount to three hundred thousand men.] [*** W. Maims, p. 127.]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.