The History of England, Volume I · David Hume
WILLIAM RUFUS.
ACCESSION OF WILLIAM RUFUS.--CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE KING.INVASION OF NORMANDY.--THE CRUSADES.--ACQUISITION OF NORMANDY.QUARREL WITH ANSELM, THE PRIMATE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM RUFUS [MN 1087. Accession of William Rufus.] William, surnamed RUFUS, or the RED, from the colour 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 primogeniture, 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 [a]. 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 [b]. 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 honour of knighthood [c]; 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 [d]; and by this despatch endeavoured 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. [FN [a] W. Malmes, p. 120. M. Paris, p. 10. [b] Chron. Sax. p. 192. Brompton, p. 983. [c] W. Malmes. p. 120. M. Paris, p. 10. Thom. Rudborne, p. 263. [d] Hoveden, p. 461.]
The king, sensible of his perilous situation, endeavoured 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 the 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 Warenne, 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 [f]. This success gave authority to his negotiations with Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, whom he detached from the confederates; and as his powerful fleet, joined to the indolent conduct of Robert, prevented the arrival of the Norman succours, 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. [FN [f] Chron. Sax. p. 195. Order. Vital. p. 668.]
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 mediated an accommodation. The chief advantage of this treaty accrued to William, who obtained possession of the territory of Eu, the towns of Aumale, 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 ensure the effectual execution of the whole treaty [g]: a strong proof of the great independence and authority of the nobles in those ages! [FN [g] Chron. Sax. p. 197. W. Malmes. p. 121. Hoveden, p. 462. M. Paris, p. 11. Annal. Waverl. p. 137. W. Heming. p. 463. Sim. 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 neighbourhood 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. [MN 1094.] 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. Here Ralph Flambard, the king's minister, and the chief instrument of his extortions, exacted ten shillings a-piece 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. He found no difficulty in repelling the enemy; but was not able to make any considerable impression on a country guarded by its mountainous situation.
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 to 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 in life exposed him 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 laboured, 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 [h]. 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 [i], 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. 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. [FN [h] Gul. Tyrius, lib. 1. cap. 11. M. Paris, p. 17. [i] Gul. Tyrius, lib. 1. cap. 13.]
But though Italy seemed thus to have zealously embraced the enterprise, Martin knew that, in order to ensure success, it was necessary to enlist the greater and more warlike nations in the same engagement; and having previously exhorted Peter to visit the chief cities and sovereigns of Christendom, he summoned another council at Clermont in Auvergne [k]. The fame of this great and pious design being now universally diffused, procured the attendance of the greatest prelates, nobles, and princes; and when the pope and the Hermit renewed their pathetic exhortations, the whole assembly, as if impelled by an immediate inspiration, not moved by their preceding impressions, exclaimed with one voice, IT IS THE WILL OF GOD! IT IS THE WILL OF GOD! Words deemed so memorable, and so much the result of a divine influence, that they were employed as the signal of rendezvous and battle in all the future exploits of those adventurers [l]. Men of all ranks flew to arms with the utmost ardour; and an exterior symbol too, a circumstance of chief moment, was here chosen by the devoted combatants. The sign of the cross, which had been hitherto so much revered among Christians, and which, the more it was an object of reproach among the pagan world, was the more passionately cherished by them, became the badge of union, and was affixed to the right shoulder, by all who enlisted themselves in this sacred warfare [m]. [FN [k] Concil. tom. x. Concil. Clarom. Matth. Paris, p. 16. M. West. p. 233. [l] Historia Bell. Sacri, tom. i. Musaei Ital. [m] Hist. Bell. Sacri, tom. i. Mus. Ital. Order. Vital. p. 721.]
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 honour, 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 [n], and an atonement for every violation of justice and humanity. 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 valour was the only excellence which was held in esteem, or gave one man the pre-eminence above another. When all the particular superstitions, therefore, were here united in one great object, the ardour 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. [FN [n] Order. Vital. p. 720.]
All orders of men, deeming the crusades the only road to Heaven, enlisted themselves under these sacred banners, and were impatient to open the way with their sword to the holy city. Nobles, artisans, peasants, even priests [o], enrolled their names; and to decline this meritorious service, was branded with the reproach of impiety, or what perhaps was esteemed still more disgraceful, of cowardice and pusillanimity [p]. The infirm and aged contributed to the expedition by presents and money; and many of them, not satisfied with the merit of this atonement, attended it in person, and were determined, if possible, to breathe their last in sight of that city where their Saviour had died for them. Women themselves, concealing their sex under the disguise of armour, attended the camp; and commonly forgot still more the duty of their sex, by prostituting themselves, without reserve, to the army [q]. The greatest criminals were forward in a service which they regarded as a propitiation for all crimes; and the most enormous disorders were, during the course of those expeditions, committed by men inured to wickedness, encouraged by example, and impelled by necessity.
The multitude of the adventurers soon became so great, that their more sagacious leaders, Hugh, Count of Vermandois, brother to the French king, Raymond, Count of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, Prince of Brabant, and Stephen, Count of Blois, became apprehensive lest the greatness itself of the armament should disappoint its purpose; and they permitted an undisciplined multitude, computed at three hundred thousand men, to go before them, under the command of Peter the Hermit, and Walter the Moneyless [s]. These men took the road towards Constantinople through Hungary and Bulgaria; and trusting that Heaven, by supernatural assistance, would supply all their necessities, they made no provision for subsistence on their march. They soon found themselves obliged to obtain by plunder what they had vainly expected from miracles; and the enraged inhabitants of the countries through which they passed, gathering together in arms, attacked the disorderly multitude, and put them to slaughter without resistance. The more disciplined armies followed after; and passing the straits at Constantinople, they were mustered in the plains of Asia, and amounted in the whole to the number of seven hundred thousand combatants [t]. [FN [o] Order. Vital. p. 720. [p] W. Malm. p. 133. [q] Vertot, Hist. de Chev. de Malte, vol. i. p. 46. [r] Sim. Dunelm. p. 222. [s] Matth. Paris, p. 17. [t] Matth. Paris, p. 20, 21.]
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 stayed 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 [u]. But no one was a more immediate gainer by this epidemic fury than the King of England, who kept aloof from all connexions with those fanatical and romantic warriors. [FN [u] Padre Paolo Hist. delle benef. ecclesiast. p. 128.]
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 dominion, 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 neighbouring 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 [y], and was endued with a sharp wit [z], it is likely that he made the romantic chivalry of the crusaders the object of his perpetual raillery. As an instance of his irreligion, we are told, that he once accepted of sixty marks from a Jew, whose son had been converted to Christianity, and who engaged him by that present to assist him in bringing back the youth to Judaism. William employed both menaces and persuasion for that purpose; but finding the convert obstinate in his new faith, he sent for the father and told him, that as he had not succeeded, it was not just that he should keep the present; but as he had done his utmost, it was but equitable that he should be paid for his pains; and he would therefore retain only thirty marks of the money [a].
At another time, it is said, he sent for some learned Christian theologians and some rabbies, and bade them fairly dispute the question of their religion in his presence: he was perfectly indifferent between them; had his ears open to reason and conviction; and would embrace that doctrine which upon comparison should be found supported by the most solid arguments [b]. If this story be true, it is probable that he meant only to amuse himself by turning both into ridicule: but we must be cautious of admitting every thing related by the monkish historians to the disadvantage of this prince: he had the misfortune to be engaged in quarrels with the ecclesiastics, particularly with Anselm, commonly called St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury; and it is no wonder his memory should be blackened by the historians of that order. [FN [y] G. Newbr. p. 358. W. Gemet. p. 292. [z] W. Malm. p. 122. [a] Eadmer, p. 47. [b] W. Malm. p. 123.]
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 [g]. The ecclesiastics took exception at this ornament, which they said was an attempt to belie 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. [FN [g] Order. Vital. p. 682. W. Malmes. p. 123. Knyghton, p. 2369.]
But Anselm was more fortunate in decrying the particular mode which was the object of his aversion, and which probably had not taken such fast hold of the affections of the people. He preached zealously against the long hair and curled locks which were then fashionable among the courtiers; he refused the ashes on Ash-Wednesday to those who were so accoutred; and his authority and eloquence had such influence, that the young men universally abandoned that ornament, and appeared in the cropped hair, which was recommended to them by the sermons of the primate. The noted historian of Anselm, who was also his companion and secretary, celebrates highly this effort of his zeal and piety [h]. [FN [h] Eadmer, p. 23.] 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 [i]; and Anselm, who, as Abbot of Bec, had already acknowledged the former, was determined, without the king's consent, to introduce his authority into England [k]. 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 Rockingham, 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 [l]. 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 [m], when the quarrel broke out afresh from a new cause.
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