Читать книгу The History of Medieval Monarchy in England (449 to 1485) - James Franck Bright - Страница 20

WILLIAM I
(1066–1087)

Intended resistance of the English.

Election of Eadgar.

The death of Harold left England without a king. As yet, although William had expected the immediate submission of the whole country, no such course was thought of. The idea which occupied men’s minds was the election of a new king, who might continue the defence of the country. The two sons of Ælfgar, the great northern Earls Edwin and Morkere, whose jealousy of Harold had been one of the chief causes of his disaster, found themselves, now that the House of Godwine was practically destroyed, the most prominent leaders of the English. They came to London, and there, collecting about them such nobles and important people as they could readily find, they held an assembly which in some sort represented the Witan. They probably expected that the crown would be given to one of themselves, and that the hour for the triumph of the Mercian house had arrived. They were disappointed in their hopes. Of properly qualified candidates there were none, but the Southern Witan preferred to place the crown upon the head of the grandson of Ironside, the heir of the old royal house, and elected the Ætheling Eadgar, young though he was.5 It does not seem however that he was actually crowned, that ceremony being postponed till the feast of Christmas.

After the slaughters of the late battles, the means of resistance in the Southern counties must have been much diminished, and when Edwin and Morkere completed their treasonable conduct by again withdrawing their troops, and, though they had accepted the election, refused to give practical support to the defence of Wessex, immediate opposition to the Conqueror became hopeless. No further combined action was possible and no other great battle was fought.

William’s march to London.

Receives the crown at Berkhampstead.

Coronation of William.

Meanwhile William, disappointed in his hopes, proceeded with his own foreign forces to make good his conquest. He determined to subdue the South-eastern counties before he advanced against London. He marched eastward, took Romney, and captured the castle and town of Dover, and had reached Canterbury, when he was seized with an illness which kept him inactive during the whole month of November. Thence he sent an embassy which secured the great town of Winchester, and thence in December he moved to attack the capital, but contented himself with burning the suburb of Southwark, and passed on westward on the southern side of the Thames, which he did not cross till he reached Wallingford, intending to pass northward and thus cut the city off from the unconquered country. With this view he marched to Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire. But his progress had broken the spirit of the Londoners, and he was there met by Eadgar, Ealdred the Archbishop of York, and others, who submitted to him, and offered him the crown. After a feigned rejection of it, till he had further secured the kingdom, he accepted it at the earnest request of his followers, and marching into London, was crowned at Christmas. The ceremony was performed by Ealdred of York in the place of Stigand of Canterbury, whose appointment to the See had not been strictly canonical; it was impossible that William, one of whose professed objects was the reform of the uncanonical Church of England, should receive his crown from the hands of a schismatic. Stigand’s importance as the chief official of the English prevented William from taking immediate steps against him. He was therefore present at the ceremony, but though William thus, and for some time afterwards, temporized with him, his ruin was already determined. The coronation was performed with the usual English ceremonies; the name of the King was proposed for election to those who were present, and the shout of acquiescence excited the alarm of the Norman troops outside the church. They proceeded to set fire to buildings in the neighbourhood; the assembled multitude rushed from the church to extinguish the flames, and William was left almost alone with the officiating ecclesiastics. But the ceremony was completed in the midst of fears and misgivings of those within the Cathedral, and of uproar and confusion without.

William’s position as king.

William was thus crowned King of England, having received the crown from the hands of the Witan, and having been nominally elected by the popular voice. His position was in strict accordance with the claims he had raised, and he proceeded to pursue a policy in harmony with it. He had come to claim his rights against a usurper, he had obtained those rights, and would henceforth make them good while strictly following the forms of law. As crowned King of England, opposition to him was treasonable, and the property of traitors legally confiscated. It is clear that this position gave him great advantages, and would induce many a weak-hearted or peaceful Englishman to accept without opposition the de facto king, while it enabled William to hide the harsh character of the conqueror under the milder form of a monarch at war with rebellious subjects.

In pursuance of this policy, no sudden change was made in the constitution or social arrangements of the country. In the first period of his rule, William merely stepped into the place and exercised the rights of his predecessor; but those rights he found sufficient to secure his own position and to reward his followers. For these purposes it was necessary for him to give to Normans much of the conquered land, by which means he would spread as it were a garrison throughout the country, and at the same time gratify his adherents.

Transfer of property. The form of law retained.

Castles built.

He started from the legal fiction that the whole of the land, as the land of traitors, was confiscated. The folcland he made crown property, thus completing a change which had been long in progress. The large domains of the House of Godwine were by the destruction of that house naturally at his disposal, as was also the property of those who had fallen in arms against him at Hastings or been prominent in opposition. The land thus gained he granted to his followers, not making a new partition of it, but putting a Norman in the place of the dead or outlawed Englishman who was legally regarded as his ancestor. To complete this process, and appropriate all the conquered land, would obviously have been impolitic; and very shortly after his coronation he appears to have allowed a general redemption of property. Proprietors submitted, paid a sum of money, and received their lands back as fresh grants from the Conqueror. In addition to this, many of the smaller Thegns and free Ceorls were too insignificant to be disturbed, and in many instances some little fragment of their dead husband’s property was given in contemptuous pity to the widows, saddled frequently with some ignoble tenure. Still further to complete the subjection of the country, in every conquered town of importance a castle was erected.

Appointment of Earls.

In addition to his grants of land, William had the government of the country to attend to, and the vacant earldoms to fill. In doing this he was guided by his past experience, and in the fully conquered parts of England was careful not to put any earl into the position occupied by the great earls of the last days of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy. In this respect, as in some others, the spirit of feudalism had been making rapid strides in England, and the great earls, as well as the great cities, were bidding fair to assume the position of the feudatories and free cities of the Continent. William was careful to return to older precedent, and to confine his earldoms to one shire. The importance of this in English history is great, as it obliged the nobility to work in alliance with the commonalty, and secured national rather than aristocratic progress. Thus his two most trusted servants, to whom in his absence he left the vice-regency of the kingdom, William Fitz-Osbern and his brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, were respectively but Earls of Hereford and of Kent. William thus arranged that part of England which he had really conquered. In the North he as yet continued the existing state of things. Edwin and Morkere did homage and received their Earldoms back again. Waltheof remained Earl of Nottingham, and Copsige (Copsi or Coxo) was given the earldom of the Northern province of Northumberland. To secure the allegiance of these great unconquered Earls, William took them with him when in March he went to revisit his native duchy. The kingdom he left in charge, the South to Odo of Bayeux, the North to William Fitz-Osbern.

William revisits Normandy.

Misgovernment by his viceroys and consequent rebellion.

His retirement from England has sometimes been traced to an evil intention of enticing his new subjects into a more serious rebellion, that he might conquer them more completely. His natural desire to display his triumph in his own country would seem to supply a sufficient reason, without attributing to him such double dealing. The effect of his absence, however, was in fact to produce such an insurrection. In the midst of his conquests and confiscations he had always kept a strong hand upon his followers, and his police was good. The case was different under the government of his viceroys. The rapacity and licentiousness of the conquerors made itself heavily felt. Discontent began to show itself in the North, in the West, and in the South; and the native English, despairing of their unaided efforts, began to seek assistance from abroad. The news of this danger brought William back to England in the December of 1067. But already a revolt in Bernicia, as the Northern division of Northumberland was called, had produced the death of the newly-made Earl Copsige. Eadric the Forester in the West of England, in union with the Welsh, had ravaged Herefordshire, and the men of Kent had obtained assistance from Eustace of Boulogne in a fruitless attack upon Dover. It was the dread of more important foreign allies which brought William back. The English efforts to get aid from Henry IV. of Germany, or from the Prince of Norway, had been frustrated either by William’s intrigues or by the character of the Princes to whom they applied, but Swend of Denmark seemed likely to embrace their cause.

William returns.

Insurrection in the West. Taking of Exeter.

On his return, William found that although his lieutenants had repressed actual insurrections, the unconquered districts both of the North and West of England were gloomy and threatening. Want of union was still the bane of the English; the insurrection of Exeter and the West had been suppressed before York and the North moved. The party of Harold and his family was strong in Exeter and the Western shires. At Exeter, indeed, it is probable that what remained of the family of Godwine was at this time collected. William marched against the city, harrying Dorset as he passed. The position of Exeter was characteristic. As in the case of the great earldoms, so in that of the great cities, the feeling of local independence had been rising, and the chief men of Exeter seem to have had some thought of making their city a free town. They offered to own the King’s supremacy and to pay his taxes, but refused to admit him within their walls. The one point of William’s policy which is most prominent is his determination to establish the strength of the monarchy, as against local interests. He therefore rejected the proposition, and marched upon the city. The civic chiefs offered to submit, but the people repudiated their arrangements, and stood the siege. The city was captured by means of a mine. Harold’s family fled—Gytha, his mother, to the islands in the Bristol Channel, his sons to Ireland. As usual, a castle was built in the city; the tribute of the town considerably increased; both Devonshire and Cornwall completely subdued, and the same process of partial confiscation which had marked the first steps of the Conqueror carried out there. The earldom of Cornwall, and a large quantity of property, was given to Robert of Mortain, William’s half-brother. The conquest of the West was completed by the subjugation of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.

Insurrection in the North.

William’s position in the North and West.

This insurrection was hardly over when a general confederation against the Conqueror was set on foot in the North. Edwin and Morkere, and Eadgar, the nominal king, combined with Eadric the Forester, and had good hopes of assistance from the Welsh, from Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, and from Swend of Denmark. This help was not forthcoming; civil war hindered the Welsh, and Malcolm and Swend were not ready. The feeling against the Normans was, however, very strong, many of the inhabitants of Yorkshire taking to the woods rather than submit. The insurrection was a failure. Again Edwin and Morkere showed complete want of energy, submitted, and were received into favour. Such a desertion destroyed all unity of action; their armies dispersed to their own homes. A certain number of the insurgents retired and held Durham, others took refuge in Scotland, but William found no opposition; York submitted, and the usual castle, the constant badge of conquest, was built there. On his homeward march through Lincolnshire, the town of Lincoln and that part of England was also subjugated, while, at the same time, Malcolm of Scotland sent an embassy, and commended himself to William. At the close of 1068 William was actual possessor of England as far northward as the Tees; but Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and part of Herefordshire were still unconquered; Durham, Northumberland, and Scotland were his only by the tie of homage.

At this time it is said that a considerable number of his Norman followers, disliking to leave their homes so long, returned to Normandy, throwing up their estates in England. This movement has been exaggerated, as Hugh de Grantmesnil, who is mentioned as the leader of the returning Normans, undoubtedly held property in England afterwards. It is, however, probable that some returned, for William at this time discharged many of his mercenaries, acting henceforward more completely as English king.

Revolt in the North.

At the midwinter meeting of the Witan he proceeded to act as though the North was completely conquered, and granted the earldom of Northumberland, vacant by the flight of Gospatric, to his follower Robert de Comines. But the reception of this new earl showed how unsubdued as yet the northern earldom was. He reached Durham, and was received by the Bishop Æthelwine; but when his troops treated the city as though they had conquered it, the inhabitants rose and put him and his men to death. The spirit of insurrection spread, and the citizens of York at once also rose and slew one of the commanders there, Robert Fitz-Richard. This blow, which seems to have been concerted, was immediately followed by the return of Eadgar and the other exiles from Scotland. William hurried thither in person, re-established his authority, and built a second castle, which he put into the hands of William Fitz-Osbern. He then withdrew into the West of England, conscious probably that the Northern insurrection was only one of his dangers, for Swend of Denmark had at length sent a fleet to the assistance of the English, the sons of Harold were landing in Devonshire, and Eadric the Wild was threatening the north-west of his dominions. In fact, we have in this year the great final struggle of the English, and the Norman dominions were assaulted upon all sides.

Futile insurrections against the Normans.

William’s devastation in Yorkshire.

Complete subjugation of the North. 1070

As usual, however, the want of proper concert and of any acknowledged and heroic leader rendered the English efforts futile. The sons of Harold were disastrously defeated by Count Brian of Brittany, their wandering and ill-disciplined troops conquered in two battles in one day, and they themselves, escaping to Ireland, are heard of no more. This was in July. In September the Danish fleet approached. It touched, but was beaten off, both in Kent and in East Anglia, and finally entered the Humber, where it was joined by the great English exiles. Thence the combined English and Danish army moved upon York, while Eadric, in Staffordshire and the Welsh border, moved forward and besieged Shrewsbury, and the men of the West, though unaided by the sons of Harold, rose and besieged the castle of Montacute in Somersetshire. These two lesser insurrections William could afford to leave to his lieutenants; Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances relieved Montacute, and William Fitz-Osbern and Earl Brian apparently completed the subjugation of the West, compelling Eadric the Forester to retire after he had destroyed Shrewsbury, and re-establishing the Norman influence in Devonshire. William himself hastened to the scene of greatest danger. Already the castles of York were taken, as the story tells us chiefly by the prowess of Waltheof; but having completed this object the army had foolishly dispersed, and the Danes, lying in the Humber, were occupying Lindesey and the north of Lincolnshire. There William’s sudden march surprised them, and they were compelled to withdraw to the other side of the Humber. William then set quietly to work, with his army, which had now joined him, at the reconquest of Yorkshire. Staffordshire and Nottingham were secured, and after a lengthened delay at the passage of the Aire, during which he was probably engaged in negotiations with the Danes, he moved on practically unopposed to York. He there re-established his two castles, and proceeded to give the inhabitants of the country a lesson they were not likely to forget. He set to work systematically to lay waste the whole of the territory from the Humber to the Tees. Every house, every store of food, the very cattle themselves were included in the great burning. The completeness of the destruction is marked by the entries of “Waste,” following each other in unbroken succession in the Domesday Book. For nine years the country was left untilled, the towns wholly uninhabited, and the few survivors lived like beasts of the field, feeding upon unclean animals, and reduced even, in their utter want, to eat human flesh. Having completed this terrible work, William kept his Christmas in state at York. He pursued his advantage further, and, as the winter went on, advanced and secured the hitherto unconquered town of Durham. The North of England was at length completely conquered.

But the North-west, the counties of Cheshire and Shropshire, was still unsubdued, and in the dead of the winter William made his way, in the midst of unspeakable difficulties, through the wild moorland and hill country which joins the Peak district with the higher mountains of the Pennine range. The conquest of Chester, and the ravaging of the neighbouring counties, completed his work. And when, early in the year Osbern, the commander of Swend’s fleet, yielding to the diplomacy and bribes of William, sailed away to his own land, the conquest of England may be said to have been finished.

William’s legislation.

For the moment free from military difficulties, William proceeded to the regulation of his Conquest. He is said now to have re-enacted the laws of Edward, and although it is probably a legend that he issued a complete code of laws, it is likely that he took the opportunity of declaring the re-enactment of existing laws, with such changes as he chose to introduce. Two ordinances which seem to belong to this period exist. One, ordaining that peace and security should be kept between English and Normans, and the laws of Edward, with regard to land and other matters, upheld, with the addition of such as the King had added for the advantage of the English people. The second, enacting a heavy fine for the death of any one of his soldiers, which fine is to be made good by the Hundred in which the murder was committed; this was for the defence of his troops against lawless patriotism, and grew into the law of Englishry, by which an unknown corpse was always presumed to be that of a Frenchman, and the fine inflicted, unless the English nationality of the murdered man was proved.

His reform of the Church. Appointment of foreign Bishops.

Stigand deposed.

But William had always kept before him, as an object, the change and reform of the English Church, which till this time had been strictly national, its laws having been enacted by the mixed secular and ecclesiastical Witan, and the bishop having presided side by side with the secular judges in the shire gemot. The intention of William, whose enterprise had been undertaken with the full concurrence of the Roman See, whose interests he, as well as the Normans of Sicily, had much at heart, was to Romanize this national Church. For carrying out that scheme he looked to the gradual displacement of bishops of English birth, whose places could be filled with foreigners. This connection with Rome is marked by the re-coronation of the King in 1070 by the Papal Legates, immediately after which the attack upon the English Church began. The Primate Stigand was the first victim. With him the King had hitherto temporized; when he was charged with holding the See of Winchester with his own archbishopric, with having obtained the Pallium from the false Pope Benedict X., and with having accepted his bishopric during the lifetime of his predecessor Robert. He was deprived of both his bishoprics, and kept a prisoner at Winchester. His brother Æthelmær was removed from the bishopric of the East Angles. Æthelwine of Durham was also deprived and outlawed, and Ethelric, Bishop of Selsey, deposed. The Archbishopric of York, too, was vacant by the death of Ealdred, so that William had here a good opportunity for carrying out his plans.

Lanfranc made Archbishop.

Lanfranc’s legislation connects the Church with Rome.

The most important appointments were the two archbishoprics. For his new Primate he selected Lanfranc, an Italian priest, at this time Abbot of the little monastery at Bec, whose learning and importance were such that he had already been offered and had refused the Primacy of Normandy. It was not without much show of opposition on his part that he accepted the Archbishopric of Canterbury; but, when once appointed, he proved himself a most efficient instrument in carrying out the plans of the King. To the other vacant bishoprics, in almost every case, chaplains of the King were appointed. The changes thus begun were carried out gradually during the whole reign, and were in fact an offshoot of the great movement for the revival of the Papacy being carried out in Europe by Hildebrand. Having first, for the purposes of centralization, established the supremacy of the See of Canterbury over that of York, Lanfranc set on foot the habit of holding separate ecclesiastical councils after the great National Meetings had been dissolved; the bishops withdrew from the county court, and established ecclesiastical courts of their own; as far as possible regular canons were put in the place of the secular canons, of whom many of the chapters consisted; and although the archbishop had sufficient sense to tolerate those of the clergy who were already married, for the future such marriages were strictly prohibited.

But William still head of the Church.

The change good on the whole.

The effect of such legislation was to separate the clergy from the laity, and to connect the Church much more nearly with Rome. This policy, which in after times was the source of so much evil, was rendered harmless during the reign of William by his great power and decision. He always claimed the position of supreme head of the Church in England, nor would he suffer any encroachments from the Papal See. On more than one occasion he exhibited this determination. To the end of his reign he insisted upon giving the ring and staff to his bishops. He would not allow any of his soldiers to be excommunicated without his leave, and when Hildebrand, occupying the Papal throne as Gregory VII., demanded that he should both pay Peter’s pence and declare himself the Pope’s man, he replied, the money he would pay, as his predecessors had, that the homage he would refuse, as he had neither himself promised it, nor had his predecessors paid it. In many respects the change was doubtless for the better. The bishops were on the whole more learned men, and education was improved. The spirit of self-denial for the sake of the Church, and the consequent establishment of foundations and cathedrals, was revived, and the Church, brought into better discipline, was more able to play its proper part of mediator and peace-maker in an age of violence. The distribution of patronage was not, however, without its dark side. In many instances ecclesiastical position was given in reward of services to men qualified rather to be soldiers than clergymen; and complaints exist of the tyrannical manner in which these soldier-abbots or bishops behaved to their English inferiors.

Final struggle against the Normans under Hereward. 1070.

William conquers him. 1071.

The conquest of England was completed, as we have seen, in 1070. But it was six years more before William enjoyed the throne in peace. The remnant of the conquered nation gathered around a national hero, called Hereward, in the Fen country. His origin is not certain, but he seems to have been a Lincolnshire man who had been deprived of his property by a Norman intruder. He first appears as assailing with a host of outlaws the monastery of Peterborough, where one of those soldier abbots just mentioned, Turold by name, had been lately appointed. He is next heard of when, in 1071, the Earls Edwin and Morkere, who had seen the destruction of their old earldoms, while living in inglorious ease, half prisoners half guests at the Norman court, at length awoke from their lethargy and attempted to renew the war. Edwin was killed as he fled, stopped by the flooding of some river; Morkere succeeded in joining the insurgents at Ely. Hereward’s fastness was known by the name of the Camp of Refuge. There were collected many of the noblest of the old English exiles; and legend speaks of the presence of several people who were undoubtedly not there; but, at all events, Æthelwine, the deposed Bishop of Durham, was with the patriots.

The attack was intrusted to William of Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and Ivo of Taillebois, under the superintendence of William himself, who came to Cambridge. The difficulties of the situation were overcome by the building of a great causeway across the fens. The defence of the camp is described as lengthened and heroic, but before the end of the year it seems to have been captured, and Morkere and Æthelwine both prisoners. Hereward himself escaped, and in 1073 is mentioned as leading the English contingent in William’s attack on Maine. The legend describes how, while living in peace with the king, he was surprised at his meals by a band of Normans, and after a terrific combat, in which he slew fifteen or sixteen Frenchmen, was finally overpowered by numbers. In sober fact, his end seems to have been peaceful, as he appears in Domesday Book as holding property both in Worcester and Warwick.

Wales held in check by the Earls of Chester and Shrewsbury.

From the English William had no further trouble; with the neighbouring kingdoms he had still some difficulties. With the Britons in Wales, the old Earls of Mercia and the house of Leofric had had friendly connection; but all sign of this had ceased upon the Conquest. The wars carried on against them were however local in character; for, contrary to his usual practice, William had established upon the West March two palatine counties of Chester and Shrewsbury. In these counties the whole of the land belonged to the earl and his tenants, and the king had no domain. They were, therefore, like the great feudal holdings of France. Chester he at first placed in the hands of Gerbod the Fleming, his stepson, and, upon his withdrawal to the Continent, in those of Hugh of Avranches, surnamed Lupus, a man of whom the chroniclers speak much evil as at once licentious and tyrannical. Together with his lieutenant, Robert of Rhuddlan, he waged continual war with the Welsh. The same task fell to Roger of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, who took advantage of the disputes among the Welsh Princes, and succeeded so far as to build and hold, far in Wales, the castle of Montgomery, called after his own property in the neighbourhood of Lisieux in Normandy.

Scotland’s savage invasions.

Malcolm Canmore had throughout appeared as the supporter of the conquered English, and at his court the exiles had been constantly received. This did not prevent him from pushing his ravages into the Northern counties; nor did they cease when he received Eadgar Ætheling and his sisters on their flight to the North (1070). This was followed by acts of extraordinary barbarity. Gospatric, who had found favour with William, and accepted the Earldom of Northumberland, attempted a counter invasion into the Scotch district of Cumberland. In rage at this Malcolm gave orders to spare neither sex nor age. The old and the infants were slaughtered, the able-bodied men and maidens were carried off into slavery, so that there were few Scotch villages where there were not English slaves. Malcolm, however, grew milder under the influence of his wife Margaret, Eadgar’s sister, and the effect of the presence of the numerous English, either refugees or slaves, was such that the Lowlands became thoroughly Anglicised.

William makes Malcolm swear fealty. 1072.

In 1072, William himself revenged the inroad of the year 1070, by marching into Scotland and receiving the oath of fealty of Malcolm at Abernethy on the Tay. It is mentioned that the last great noble who had held out against him, Eadric the Wild, accompanied him on this expedition, which marks not only the Conquest of England, but the assumption on the part of William of that Imperial position in Great Britain which the great English kings had held.

Trouble in Normandy. 1075.

His foreign neighbours also gave William some trouble. The province of Maine, which he had conquered in 1063, threw off his allegiance. The citizens of Le Mans had risen in insurrection against their lords, and formed themselves into a free commune; but Geoffrey of Mayenne, a nobleman whose help they had sought, betrayed the burghers in their efforts to reduce one of the neighbouring nobility, and they were obliged to call in the assistance of Fulk of Anjou, who had claims upon the province. William reduced Le Mans, but was obliged to make a peace with Fulk, who had strengthened himself by an alliance with the Bretons; and, by the treaty of Blanchelande, William’s son Robert took the government of Maine, but did homage for it to Anjou.

Conspiracy of Norman nobles suppressed. 1076.

Waltheof executed. 1076.

While affairs on the Continent were thus occupying his attention, in 1075 a conspiracy of his own nobles in England broke out. Ralph of Gwader (or Wader), the son of Ralph the Staller and a Breton lady, had been intrusted with the Earldom of Norfolk. Roger, the son of William Fitz-Osbern, had succeeded to the Earldom of Hereford. These two nobles sought to ally their houses, and, against the will of William, Ralph married Emma, Roger’s sister. At the bridal feast Waltheof of Nottingham, the one remaining English Earl, was present, and there a conspiracy was entered into, apparently on account of the strong hold which William kept over his nobles, and in the interests of more perfect feudalism. The kingdom was to be divided among the three earls, one of whom was to be king. Waltheof had been well treated by the King, and married to his niece Judith. His conscience seems to have pricked him, and he confessed all to Lanfranc, at that time governing England. The conspiracy was at once suppressed; Norwich alone, under Emma, the new married bride, made a brave defence. Ralph fled to Brittany. Roger was taken prisoner, and spent his life in captivity. Waltheof was at first received into favour, but afterwards, it is believed at the instigation of his wife, he was tried before the Witan and found guilty of death. The sentence was executed in secret outside the town of Winchester. During his imprisonment the Earl’s penitence had been deep, and it was while still on his knees uttering the Lord’s Prayer that the impatient executioner smote off his head. The national hero, dying in this religious state of mind, speedily became the national saint. His remains were removed to Crowland, which he had much benefited, and miracles were worked at his tomb. The confiscation of the property of these two earldoms, and the death of Queen Edith, the widow of the Confessor, threw great property into the hands of William, who did not reappoint to the earldoms.

Quarrels between William and his sons.

Reconciliation at Gerberoi. 1079.

From this time onward William lived generally in Normandy, leaving England to the care of Lanfranc and Odo of Bayeux. The great success of his reign had indeed been reached, and the remaining years were disturbed by constant disputes with his sons and with his suzerain the King of France. Already, when pursuing Ralph of Gwader on his retreat into Brittany, and besieging him in the town of Dol, he had found himself checked by the union of Philip of France with Alan Fergant of Brittany, and had found it advisable to marry his daughter Constance to that nobleman as the price of peace. So, too, to lessen the jealousy the King of France might naturally have felt at his vassal’s great aggrandisement, he had made the Norman barons swear fealty to his son Robert as his heir, and had caused him to do homage in his place for Maine. Robert desired to make this nominal position real; and, as a part of the same feudal movement perhaps which produced the conspiracy of 1075, he demanded Normandy and Maine of his father. His demand was refused; and when, during an expedition of William against the Count of Mortagne, an accidental quarrel arose between Robert and his brothers, in company with many of the younger nobility he broke into open rebellion. With these, after an unsuccessful attempt at Rouen, he fled to Hugh of Neufchâtel. Beaten thence, he wandered from court to court, assisted by his mother Matilda, against William’s will. At length he found an ally in Philip, who established him in 1079 in Gerberoi, near the borders of Normandy. It was there that father and son met face to face, and that William was unhorsed by Robert. The siege of Gerberoi had to be raised, and William underwent the humiliation of seeking a reconciliation with his son, a reconciliation which was of short duration, as in 1080 Robert again fled from court.

Odo’s oppressive government.

In all directions ill success was attending William. He had been defeated at Dol and at Gerberoi; his son Robert in the period between his two quarrels had failed in an expedition against Scotland; he had just lost his son Richard in the New Forest; and in 1083 he lost his wife, to whom he was deeply attached. Meanwhile Odo had been ruling with extreme severity. In suppressing an insurrection in Northumberland he had been guilty of extortion and of cruel punishment even of the innocent. In his general government he seems to have been extremely avaricious. In the year 1082 his wealth and pride had risen to such a point that he thought of attaining to the Papacy. This he intended to secure by violent means. He purchased a magnificent palace in Rome to win the favour of the people, and even collected an army, in which Hugh of Chester took service, to cross the Apennines. William met him and apprehended him at the Isle of Wight; nor could the complaints of the Pope, which we cannot conceive to have been very earnest, produce any effect. He was seized, as the King affirmed, not as Bishop but as Earl of Kent, and remained in prison till the King’s death. Odo’s oppressions had been very severe, and the condition of England no doubt had become much worse since the complete subjugation of the country, and now, in addition to a famine which had just wasted the country, a heavy direct tax was laid on all land, and worse than that, a vast host of foreign mercenaries was quartered on all the King’s tenants, for a great danger was threatening.

Cnut’s threatened invasion. 1084.

The Domesday Book. 1085.

Cnut was on the throne of Denmark. He had been one of the commanders in Swend’s disastrous expeditions; he had married Adela the daughter of Robert of Flanders, one of William’s chief Continental enemies, and had now determined to invade England. He had induced the King of Norway to join him, and their combined fleets were expected. William took ruthless precautions against his enemies. The old tax of the Danegelt was reimposed, and all the land along the coast was laid waste. The people were even ordered to shave and change their dresses, that the Danes might not easily recognize them. Disputes among the leaders, and the death of Cnut, prevented the invasion. But it was probably the difficulties which William had found in collecting his taxes and troops on this occasion which induced him to set on foot the great survey which produced the Domesday Book. For this purpose commissioners were appointed, who went through England, and in each shire inquired of the sheriff, priests, reeves, and representatives of the inhabitants, the condition of the land and its value, as compared with what it had been in the reign of the Confessor. The whole of this great work was completed in one year. On its completion a great assembly was held on Salisbury Plain. It was, in fact, a vast review, attended by no less than 60,000 persons. In this assembly was passed the important ordinance which ordered that every man should be not only the man of his immediate lord, but also the man of the king. This was in direct opposition to the usual rule in feudal countries. The whole assembly took the oath to William. This great piece of work, which rendered England one nation, was a fitting conclusion to William’s reign.

William’s death and burial. 1087. Sept. 9.

In the following year a war broke out for the possession of the Vexin claimed by the King of France. Angered by a coarse jest of that monarch, William entered the country and ruthlessly ravaged it, and at the destruction of the town of Mantes, his horse stepped upon a burning coal and threw him forward upon the pummel of the saddle; the bulk of the King aggravated the injury, which in a few days caused his death. Before he died he released his prisoners. No sooner had the breath left his body than his attendants are said to have fled. He owed his burial not to his son, but to the kind offices of a neighbouring knight, and when brought to his Church of St. Stephen’s at Caen, it was not till the clergy had paid the price of the grave that Anselm Fitz-Arthur, whose property had been seized to make room for the Church, would allow his body to be buried.

The History of Medieval Monarchy in England (449 to 1485)

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WILLIAM I (1066–1087)

WILLIAM I
(1066–1087)