X. HENRY AND FRANCE…

X. HENRY AND FRANCE

1156–1161.

Formidable as was the task of England’s internal reorganization, it was but a small part of the work which lay before Henry Fitz-Empress. His accession brought the English Crown into an entirely new relation with the world at large. The realm which for ages had been counted almost as a separate sphere, whose insularity had been strong enough to survive even the Norman conquest and to turn the conqueror’s own native land into a dependency of the conquered island, suddenly became an unit in a vast group of states gathered into the hands of a single ruler, and making up altogether the most extensive and important empire in Christendom. Among the earlier kings of England Cnut is the only one whose dominions were at all comparable in extent to those of Henry II. But the empire of Cnut and that of Henry differed widely in character and circumstances. Cnut’s northern empire was to a certain extent homogeneous; its members had at least one thing in common besides their common allegiance--they were all, geographically and politically, almost as completely severed from the rest of Europe as England herself. It was only as an indirect consequence partly of his territorial power, but still more of his personal greatness, that Cnut and his realms came into connexion with central and southern Europe. In Henry’s case, on the contrary, such a connexion was rendered inevitable by the geographical position of his continental territories. They lay in the very heart of western Christendom; they covered the largest and some of the fairest regions of Gaul; they positively surrounded on two sides the domains of the French Crown to which they owed a nominal homage; they touched the borders of Spain, and they went very near to those old Burgundian lands which formed the south-western march of Germany and the north-western march of Italy. Again, Cnut’s territories were all perfectly independent of any ruler save himself; no rival power disputed his claims to any one of them; no other sovereign had any pretension to receive homage from him. Henry, on the other hand, was by the possession of his Gaulish fiefs placed in direct personal connexion with the French king who was not merely his neighbour but also his overlord. A like connexion had indeed existed between the Norman kings of England and the French kings as overlords of Normandy. But Henry’s relations with France were far more complex and fraught with far weightier political consequences than those of his Norman predecessors. He held under the king of France not a single outlying province, but--at the lowest reckoning--not less than five separate fiefs, all by different titles and upon different tenures, which were yet further complicated by the intricate feudal and political relations of these fiefs one with another.

Normandy was the least puzzling member of the group; Henry had inherited it from his mother, and held it on the same tenure as all her ancestors from Hrolf downwards. About Anjou, again--the original patrimony of the heirs of Fulk the Red--there could hardly be any question; and the old dispute whether Maine should count as an independent fief of the Crown or as an underfief of Normandy or of Anjou was not likely to be of any practical consequence when the immediate ruler of all three counties was one and the same. Yet all these had to be treated as separate states; each must have its special mention in the homage done by Henry to Louis; each must be governed according to its own special customs and institutions. So, too, must the other appendage of Anjou--Touraine, for which homage was still owed to the count of Blois, and where he still possessed a few outlying lands which might easily be turned into bones of contention should he choose to revive the ancient feud. Lastly, over and above all this bundle of family estates inherited from his father and his mother, Henry’s marriage had brought him the duchy of Aquitaine:--that is, the immediate possession of the counties of Poitou and Bordeaux; the overlordship of a crowd of lesser counties and baronies which filled up the remaining territory between the Loire and the Pyrenees; and a variety of more or less shadowy claims over all the other lands which had formed part of the old Aquitanian kingdom, and whose feudal relations with each other, with Poitou and with the Crown of France were in a state of inextricable confusion:--added to which, there was a personal complication caused by the two marriages of Eleanor, whereby her second husband owed homage to the first for the territories which he held in her name. Without going further into the details of the situation, we can easily see that it was crowded with difficulties and dangers, and that it would require the utmost care, foresight and self-restraint on the part of both Henry and Louis to avoid firing, at some point or other, a train which might produce an explosion disastrous to both alike.

Henry’s chief assistant in the management of his continental affairs was his mother, the Empress Matilda. Still closer to his side, indeed, stood one who in after-years shewed herself gifted with far greater administrative sagacity, and who had already acquired considerable political experience as queen of France and duchess of Aquitaine. As yet, however, Henry was likely to derive less assistance from the somewhat dangerously quick wit of his wife than from the mature wisdom of his mother. Matilda had been a harsh, violent, impracticable woman; but there was in her character an element of moral and intellectual grandeur which even in her worst days had won and kept for her the devotion of men like Miles of Hereford and Brian Fitz-Count, and which now in her latter years had fairly gained the mastery over her less admirable qualities. She had inherited a considerable share of her father’s talents for government; she had indeed failed to use them in her own behalf, but she had learned from her failure a lesson which enabled her to contribute not a little, by warnings and suggestions, to the success of her son. In England, where the haughtiness of her conduct had never been forgiven, whatever was found amiss in Henry’s seems to have been popularly laid to her charge.[1401] In Normandy, however, she was esteemed far otherwise. From the time of her son’s accession to the English crown she lived quietly in a palace which her father had built hard by the minster of Notre-Dame-des-Prés, outside the walls of Rouen;[1402] taking no direct share in politics, but universally held in profound respect by reason of her dignified and pious life, and of the influence which she was known to exercise upon the mind and policy of the young duke. His first step on the tidings of Stephen’s death had been to hold a consultation with her; so long as she lived, her opinions and her wishes were an element never absent from his calculations before entering upon any serious undertaking; and if he did not formally leave her as regent of the Norman duchy, yet he trusted in great measure to her for the maintenance of its tranquillity and order during his own absence beyond the sea.

[1401] “Nos autem illi doctrinæ [sc. maternæ] fidenter imputamus omnia quibus erat tædiosus” [rex]. W. Map. De Nug. Cur., dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, p. 227).

[1402] Draco Norm., l. iii. cc. 1, 2, vv. 37–66 (Howlett, Will. Newb., vol. ii. pp. 712–714).

A personal visit was, however, necessary to make sure of his ground with the king of France. As soon, therefore, as matters in England were sufficiently composed, early in 1156 Henry went to Normandy;[1403] Louis came to meet him on the border, and shortly afterwards, at a second meeting, received a repetition of his homage for all his French fiefs, including the duchy of Aquitaine.[1404] It was time; for to every one of those fiefs, except Aquitaine and Normandy, there was a rival claimant in the person of his brother. The story went that Geoffrey Plantagenet as he lay dying at Château-du-Loir had made the bishops and barons around his bed promise that they would not suffer him to be laid in the grave till his eldest son had sworn to abide by the contents of a will which he had just executed. When they called upon Henry to take the oath, he hesitated a long while; at last, seeing no other means of getting his father buried in peace, with a burst of tears he swore as he was required. After the funeral the will was read; and Henry found himself thereby pledged to make over the whole of his patrimonial territories--Anjou, Touraine and Maine--to his brother Geoffrey, as soon as the addition of the English crown to his Norman coronet should put him in complete possession of his mother’s heritage. Till then Geoffrey was to be content with three castles, Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau. For the moment Henry dissembled his vexation; the contingency contemplated in the will was still in the unknown future. But before it came to pass Geoffrey, as we have seen, provoked his brother’s ill-will by using his three castles as a basis of rebellion. Henry on his part sought and obtained a papal absolution from the extorted oath, and flatly refused to keep it.[1405] Hereupon Geoffrey again began stirring up a revolt whose suppression was one of the chief objects of Henry’s visit to the continent in 1156. The brothers met at Rouen, but they could not agree; Geoffrey hurried back to fortify his three castles, and Henry followed to besiege them.[1406] The troops which he employed were, as we have already seen, mercenaries paid out of the proceeds of a scutage levied in England; and if the chancellor’s share in the matter amounted to nothing more than the suggestion of this contrivance, its perfect success in every way would be enough to justify the statement of a contemporary, that Henry “profited greatly by his assistance.”[1407] Loudun and Mirebeau were successively besieged and taken;[1408] and in July the fall of Geoffrey’s last and mightiest fortress, Chinon, brought him to complete surrender of all his claims, for which he accepted a compensation in money from his brother.[1409] Next month Queen Eleanor came over to share her husband’s triumph;[1410] she doubtless accompanied him in a progress through Aquitaine, where he received homage from the vassals of the duchy, took hostages for their fidelity,[1411] and kept Christmas at Bordeaux.[1412] Every part of his continental dominions was thus thoroughly secured before he returned to England in the spring of 1157.[1413]

[1403] He was at Rouen on Candlemas day. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

[1404] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 215. Between the two meetings with Louis came one with the count and countess of Flanders at Rouen. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

[1405] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 112, 113).

[1406] Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

[1407] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 162, says that Henry won his success “Thomæ cancellarii sui magno fretus auxilio.” It is not quite clear whether Thomas was with him in person; he was certainly in England part of this year, witness the Pipe Roll.

[1408] Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

[1409] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 114). Rob. Torigni, a. 1156. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1156 (Marchegay, Eglises, p. 38). The first states the compensation as “terram planam ex quo fructuum utilitas proveniret”; the second as a thousand pounds sterling and two thousand Angevin per annum. All say Geoffrey lost his castles, except Loudun, which Henry restored to him (Chron. S. Albin. as above). The date is from Rob. Torigni.

[1410] She and Richard de Lucy were both with Henry at Saumur on August 29. Chron. de Bello (Angl. Christ. Soc.), p. 76.

[1411] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 215.

[1412] Anon. Chron., Rer. Gall. Scriptt., vol. xii. p. 121.

[1413] Eleanor went back independently before Easter. “In corredio reginæ quando venit de Normanniâ” appears among the accounts “de veteri firmâ” of Hampshire, Pipe Roll 3 Hen. II. (Hunter), p. 107.

Henry and Eleanor had now two children living. The eldest, born in London on February 28, 1155,[1414] and baptized by his father’s name, had already been recognized as his heir; the second was a girl, born in 1156,[1415] and named after her grandmother the Empress Matilda. A third, Richard, was born at Oxford[1416] on September 8, 1157.[1417] Eleanor had moreover by her former marriage with Louis of France two daughters, Mary and Adela, betrothed to the brother-counts of Champagne and Blois;[1418] while the second marriage of Louis with Constance of Castille had given him one child, the infant princess Margaret.[1419] Early in 1158 Henry resolved to secure the hand of this little girl for his eldest son, and he sent his chancellor over sea to make the proposal to Louis.[1420]

[1414] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1155 (Marchegay, Eglises, p. 38).

[1415] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302.

[1416] Ibid.

[1417] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1157 (Marchegay, Eglises, p. 39).

[1418] Gesta Ludov., c. 29 (Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. iv. p. 411). Hist. Ludov. (ibid.) p. 415. Mary had once been proposed as wife for Henry Fitz-Empress, but S. Bernard put a stop to the scheme on the ground of consanguinity (see above, p. 393, note 2{1161})--an objection which, however, applied still more strongly to Henry’s marriage with her mother. Mary was betrothed to Henry of Champagne before the Crusade (Gesta Ludov., c. 18, as above, pp. 403, 404). Adela was born in 1149 or 1150, and apparently betrothed to Theobald of Blois in 1152 or soon after (ib. cc. 27, 29, as above, pp. 410, 411; Hist. Ludov., ib. pp. 414, 415). Neither couple was married till 1164.

[1419] Gesta Ludov., c. 29 (Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. iv.), p. 411. Hist. Ludov. (ibid.), p. 415.

[1420] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 29. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302.

Never, since Haroun-al-Raschid sent his envoys to Charles the Great, had such an embassy been seen in western Europe. Thomas made up his mind to display before the eyes of astonished France all the luxury and splendour which the wealth of the island-realm could procure, that King Henry might be glorified in his representative.[1421] The six ships with which he habitually crossed the Channel[1422]--the king himself had but one for this purpose, till his chancellor presented him with three more[1423]--can hardly have sufficed for the enormous train which he took with him on this occasion. It comprized, in the first place, some two hundred members of his household, knights, clerks, stewards, servants, squires, and young pages of noble blood, all provided with horses and fitted out with new and gay attire as beseemed their several degrees. Thomas himself had twenty-four changes of raiment, most of which he gave away in the course of his journey; besides a quantity of rich silks, rare furs, and costly cloths and carpets, “fit to adorn the sleeping-chamber of a bishop.” He had a right royal train of coursing-dogs and hawks of all kinds. Above all, he had eight mighty chariots, each drawn by five horses equal to war-chargers in beauty and strength; beside each horse ran a stalwart and gaily-clad youth, and each chariot had its special conductor. Two of these vehicles were laden with casks of ale, to be given to the French, who marvelled at the beverage, strange to them, which the English thought superior to wine. The other chariots bore the furniture of the chancellor’s chapel, of his private chamber, and of his kitchen; others again contained treasure, provisions for the journey, necessaries of the toilet, trappings and baggage of all kinds. Next, there were twelve sumpter-horses, of which eight were loaded with coffers containing the gold and silver vessels of the chancellor’s household, vases, ewers, goblets, bowls, cups, flagons, basins, salt-cellars, spoons, plates and dishes. Other chests and packages held the money for daily expenses and gifts, the chancellor’s own clothes, and his books. One pack-horse, which always went first, bore the sacred vessels, altar-ornaments and books belonging to the chapel. To each horse there was a well-trained groom; to each chariot was fastened a dog, large, strong and “terrible as a lion or a bear”; and on the top of every chariot sat a monkey. The procession travelled along the road in regular order; first came the foot-pages, to the number of about two hundred and fifty, in groups of six, ten or more, “singing together in their native tongue, after the manner of their country.” They were followed at a little distance by the coursing-dogs and hounds coupled and in leashes under the charge of their respective keepers. Next, the great chariots covered with hides came heavily rolling and rattling along; after them trotted the pack-horses, each with a groom; these again were followed by the squires, bearing the shields and leading the chargers of the knights; then came a crowd of other attendants, pages, and those who had charge of the hawks; then the sewers and other servants of the chancellor’s household; then his knights and his clerks, all riding two and two; and lastly, amid a select group of friends, the chancellor himself. In every town and village along the road the French rushed out to inquire the meaning of such a startling procession, and when told that it was the chancellor of the king of England coming on a mission to the king of France, exclaimed: “If this is the chancellor, what must his master be?”

[1421] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

[1422] Partly, it seems, for the sake of giving a free passage to any one who wanted to go. Ib. p. 23.

[1423] Ibid. p. 26.

Immediately after landing Thomas notified his arrival to Louis; at Meulan he received an answer, fixing a day for an audience in Paris. It was the custom of the French kings to provide at their own expense for every man who came to their court during his sojourn there; Louis therefore issued a proclamation in Paris forbidding the sale of any article whatsoever to the chancellor or his attendants. Thomas however was resolved to decline the royal hospitality; he sent his caterers in disguise and under feigned names to all the fairs round about--Lagny, Corbeil, Pontoise, S. Denys--where they bought up such an abundance of bread, meat, fish and wine that when he reached his lodging at the Temple he found it stocked with three days’ provisions for a thousand men. One dish of eels, which had cost a hundred shillings sterling, was long remembered as an instance of the English chancellor’s prodigality. Every possible courtesy was interchanged between him and the French king. Every member of the court, were he count, baron, knight or serving-man, received some token of insular wealth and generosity; Thomas gave away all his gold and silver plate, all his costly raiment; to one a cloak, to another a fur cape, to another a pelisse, to another a palfrey or a destrier.[1424] The masters and scholars of the university came in for their share; the chancellor’s gracious reception of them, and of the citizens with whom the English scholars lodged,[1425] was a marked feature in his visit to Paris.[1426] The embassy was successful; Louis promised his daughter’s hand to the heir of England, and Thomas went home in triumph, having finished up his expedition by capturing and casting into prison at Neufmarché a certain Guy of Laval whose lawless depredations were a continual insult to King Henry and a continual terror to his subjects.[1427] Henry himself soon afterwards went over sea, partly, no doubt, to confirm the family alliance thus concluded with Louis. But there was also another reason which urgently required his presence in Gaul.

[1424] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), pp. 29–33.

[1425] “Cives scholarium Angligenarum creditores”(ib. p. 32) must mean something like this.

[1426] Ibid.

[1427] Ibid. p. 33.

A fresh opening had presented itself to the ambition of the Angevin house in a quarter where they seem to have had no dealings since the time of Geoffrey Martel, but which was intimately associated with their earliest traditions and with the very foundations of their power. The long rivalry between the counts of Nantes and of Rennes had ended, like that between the dukes of Normandy and the counts of Anjou, in a marriage, and for eighty-two years all Britanny had been united beneath the immediate and undisputed sway of the one ducal house, when in 1148 Duke Conan III. on his death-bed disavowed the young Hoel who had hitherto passed as his son and heir.[1428] The duchy split up into factions once again; the greater part accepted the rule of Count Eudo of Porhoët, who was married to Conan’s only daughter Bertha; the people of Nantes alone, fired with their old spirit of independence and opposition, opened their gates to Hoel and acknowledged him as their count. Hoel however proved unable to cope with the superior forces of his rival; at the end of eight years his people grew hopeless of maintaining their independence under him. Rather than give it up once more to those whom they looked upon as representatives of the hated supremacy of Rennes, they fell back upon their old traditional alliance with Anjou, and having driven out the unfortunate Hoel, offered themselves and their country to young Geoffrey Plantagenet.[1429] Geoffrey, smarting under the defeat which he had just sustained at his brother’s hands in Anjou, was naturally delighted with this new acquisition, and all the more as he had a fair prospect of enjoying it in peace; for Eudo at that very moment was suddenly confronted by another rival. Earl Conan of Richmond, Bertha’s son by a former marriage, being now grown to manhood, came over from England in this same summer of 1156 to claim the heritage which his stepfather had usurped;[1430] and during the struggle which ensued between them neither party had time or energy to spare for dislodging the Angevin intruder from Nantes, where he remained undisputed master for nearly two years.

[1428] Chron. Britann. ad ann. (Morice, Hist. Bret., preuves, vol. i. col. 103).

[1429] Ib. a. 1148, 1156, 1157 (as above). Chron. Brioc. (ibid.), col. 37.

[1430] Chron. Brioc. as above. Rob. Torigni, a. 1156.

On July 26, 1158, Geoffrey died.[1431] The county of Nantes was at once seized by Conan and claimed by the king of England as heir to his childless brother;[1432] and on the eve of the Assumption Henry landed in Normandy to enforce his claim. Before resorting to arms, however, he deemed it prudent to secure the assent of the lord paramount of Britanny, King Louis of France, to his intended proceedings. The negotiations were again intrusted to the chancellor, and again with marked success. At a conference held on the last day of August[1433] Louis did far more than sanction Henry’s claim upon Nantes; he granted him a formal commission to arbitrate between the competitors for the dukedom of Britanny and settle the whole question in dispute as he might think good, in virtue of his office as grand seneschal of France.[1434] This office was now little more than honorary, and was held throughout the greater part of the reign of Louis VII. by the count of Blois; but the rival house of Anjou seems to have also put forth a claim to it, which Louis admitted for a moment, as on the present occasion, whenever it suited his own purposes.[1435] From Argentan, on September 8, Henry issued a summons to the whole feudal host of Normandy to assemble at Avranches on Michaelmas-day for an expedition into Britanny. He himself spent the interval in a visit to Paris, where he was entertained by Louis with the highest honours; the betrothal of little Henry and Margaret was ratified, and the baby-bride was handed over to the care of her future father-in-law, who intrusted her for education to a faithful Norman baron, Robert of Neubourg.[1436] The host gathered at Avranches on the appointed day, but only to witness Conan’s submission. He knew that he was no match for the king of England with the king of France at his back; so he put himself into Henry’s hands, and received his confirmation in the dukedom of Britanny in return for the surrender of Nantes.[1437] Henry, after a visit to the Mont-S.-Michel and a brief halt at Pontorson to restore the castle, proceeded to take formal possession of Nantes; he then went to besiege Thouars,[1438] whose lord was in rebellion against him. In November he met Louis at Le Mans,[1439] and thence conducted him on a triumphal progress through Normandy. After going through Pacy and Evreux to Neubourg, that the French king might see his little daughter, they were received with a solemn procession at Bec; they then visited the abbey of Mont-S.-Michel, where Louis had a vow to pay, and from Avranches Henry escorted his guest by way of Bayeux, Caen and Rouen safely and honourably back to his own dominions.[1440]

[1431] Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. p. 166). Chron. S. Albin. a. 1158 (Marchegay, Eglises, p. 39).

[1432] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. Chron. Brioc. (Morice, Hist. Bret., preuves, vol. i.), col. 37. Chron. Britann. a. 1158 (ib. col. 103).

[1433] Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. p. 167).

[1434] “Eo tempore, per industriam Thomæ cancellarii a Lundoniâ, rex Angliæ a rege Francorum Christianissimo, viro tamen nimis simplici, optinuit ut quasi senescallus regis Francorum intraret Britanniam, et quosdam ibidem inter se inquietos et funebre bellum exercentes coram se convocaret et pacificaret, et quem inveniret rebellum violenter coherceret.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

[1435] On the office of seneschal of France see A. Luchaire, Hist. des Institutions Monarchiques sous les premiers Capétiens, vol. i. pp. 173–181. The treatise of Hugh of Clères “De senescalciâ et majoratu regni Franciæ” (printed in Marchegay, Comtes d’Anjou, pp. 387–394), which sets forth the Angevin claim in detail, is shown by M. Mabille to be a forgery (Introd., pp. xlix–li); and so too, it seems, is the only charter in which Henry appears as seneschal (ib. p. li, note). The treatise was, however, written between 1150 and 1168 (ib. p. li), and must therefore have been intended to support a claim made at that time. M. d’Arbois de Jubainville (Comtes de Champagne, vol. ii. pp. 270–274; vol. iii. pp. 96, 97) gives from charters a list of the seneschals of France from A.D. 1091 to A.D. 1163. No count of Anjou appears; and from 1154 to 1163 (inclusive) the seneschal each year is Theobald of Blois. That the Angevin claim was, however, not only made but occasionally admitted--doubtless for some special purpose--is shewn by the passage of Gerv. Cant. quoted above (note 3 {1434}), and also by two passages in Robert of Torigni, none of which are noticed by M. Luchaire. In A.D. 1169 Robert tells us that the younger Henry did homage to Louis at Montmirail for the county of Anjou, “et concessit ei rex Francorum ut esset senescallus Franciæ, quod pertinet ad feudum Andegavense;” and he adds that at Candlemas young Henry officiated as seneschal to the king in Paris; after which he proceeds to abridge from the pseudo-Hugh de Clères the story of the origin of the dignity. In A.D. 1164 he says: “Comes Carnotensis Tedbaudus despondit filiam Ludovici regis Franciæ, et ideo rex ei concessit dapiferatum Franciæ, quem comes Andegavensis antiquitus habebat.” M. de Jubainville’s list shews that Theobald had been seneschal long before this; but the words shew that the Angevin claim was well known, at any rate in the Angevin dominions.

[1436] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158.

[1437] Ibid. Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. p. 169). Chron. Britann. (Morice, Hist. Bret., preuves, vol. i.), col. 104. This last dates the surrender “circa festivitatem S. Dionysii” [Oct. 9]; the two former make it Michaelmas. According to Rob. Torigni the actual cession comprised the city of Nantes and the northern half of the county, said to be worth sixty thousand shillings Angevin.

[1438] Rob. Torigni and Contin. Becc. as above. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1158 (Marchegay, Eglises, p. 39). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

[1439] Gerv. Cant. as above.

[1440] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. Contin. Becc. a. 1158 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. pp. 169, 170). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

The county of Nantes was in itself a very trifling addition to the vast possessions of Henry Fitz-Empress; yet its acquisition was a more important matter than appears at first sight. Nantes, by its geographical position, commanded the mouth of the Loire; its political destinies were therefore of the highest consequence to the princes whose dominions lay along the course of that river. The carefully planned series of advances whereby Geoffrey Greygown and Fulk the Black had gradually turned the whole navigable extent of the Loire into a high-way through their own territories would have been almost useless had they not begun by securing the entrance-gate. To Henry, who as count of Poitou had command of the opposite shore of the estuary, there might have been less danger in the chance of hostility at Nantes; but the place was, for another reason, of greater value to him than it could ever have been to his ancestors. From the English Channel to the Pyrenees he was master of the entire western half--by far the larger half--of Gaul, with one exception: between his Norman and his Aquitanian duchy there jutted out the Breton peninsula. Britanny must have been in Henry’s eyes something like what Tours had been in those of Geoffrey Martel:--a perpetual temptation to his ambition, a fragment of alien ground which must have seemed to him destined almost by the fitness of things to become absorbed sooner or later into the surrounding mass from which it stood out in a sort of unnatural isolation. By his acquisition of Nantes he had gained a footing in the Breton duchy, somewhat as his forefathers had gained one in the city of Tours by their canonry at S. Martin’s; and as a grant of investiture from the French king had served as the final stepping-stone to Martel’s great conquest, so the privilege of arbitration conferred by Louis upon Henry might pave the way for more direct intervention in Britanny. The meaning of this autumn’s work is well summed up by Gervase of Canterbury: “This was Henry’s first step towards subduing the Bretons.”[1441] A week before the assembly at Avranches his fourth son had been born;[1442] the infant was baptized by the name of Geoffrey. It would indeed have been strange if the name made famous by Henry’s own father, as well as by so many of the earlier members of the family, had been allowed to drop out of use in the next generation. Yet by the light of after-events one may suspect that its revival at this particular moment had a special reference to the memory of the lately deceased Count Geoffrey of Nantes, and that the new-born child’s future destiny as duke of Britanny was already foreshadowed, however vaguely, in his father’s dreams.

[1441] “Hic fuit primus ingressus ejus super Britones edomandos.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 166.

[1442] On September 23; Rob. Torigni, a. 1158.

The year closed amid general tranquillity. So cordial was, or seemed to be, the alliance of the two kings, that they planned a joint crusade against the Moors in Spain, and wrote to ask the Pope’s blessing upon their undertaking;[1443] and a long-standing dispute between Henry and Theobald of Blois was settled before Christmas by the mediation of Louis.[1444] In England the year is marked by nothing more important than a new issue of coinage.[1445] The administration of the country was directed by the two justiciars, assisted, formally at least, by the queen,[1446] until shortly before Christmas, when she went over sea to keep the feast with her husband at Cherbourg.[1447] Unhappily, the beginnings of strife followed in her train.

[1443] Letter of Adrian IV.--date, February 19 [1159]--in Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. iv. pp. 590, 591.

[1444] Rob. Torigni, a. 1158. The quarrel had originated in Henry’s refusal, when he succeeded his father as count of Anjou, to do homage for Touraine. To this was added a dispute about Fréteval and Amboise. See details in Gesta Ambaz. Domin. (Marchegay, Comtes), pp. 216, 222, 223.

[1445] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 302. There are some references to this new coinage in the Pipe Roll of the year (4 Hen. II., Hunter, pp. 114, 181). Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 215, misdates it 1156.

[1446] Richard de Lucy and Eleanor seem to share the regency during her stay in England; see Eyton, Itin. Hen. II., pp. 42, 43, and Palgrave, Eng. Commonwealth, vol. ii. pp. v, vi. After her departure her place seems to be taken by Robert of Leicester.

[1447] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

The duchy of Aquitaine, or Guyenne, as held by Eleanor’s predecessors, consisted, roughly speaking, of the territory between the Loire and the Garonne. More exactly, it was bounded on the north by Anjou and Touraine, on the east by Berry and Auvergne, on the south-east by the Quercy or county of Cahors, and on the south-west by Gascony, which had been united with it for the last hundred years. The old Karolingian kingdom of Aquitania had been of far greater extent; it had in fact included the whole country between the Loire, the Pyrenees, the Rhône and the ocean. Over all this vast territory the counts of Poitou asserted a theoretical claim of overlordship by virtue of their ducal title; they had, however, a formidable rival in the house of the counts of Toulouse. These represented an earlier line of dukes of Aquitaine, successors of the dukes of Gothia or Septimania, under whom the capital of southern Gaul had been not Poitiers but Toulouse, Poitou itself counting as a mere underfief. In the latter half of the tenth century these dukes of Gothia or Aquitania Prima, as the Latin chroniclers sometimes called them from the old Roman name of their country, had seen their ducal title transferred to the Poitevin lords of Aquitania Secunda--the dukes of Aquitaine with whom we have had to deal. But the Poitevin overlordship was never fully acknowledged by the house of Toulouse; and this latter in the course of the following century again rose to great importance and distinction, which reached its height in the person of Count Raymond IV., better known as Raymond of St. Gilles, from the name of the little county which had been his earliest possession. From that small centre his rule gradually spread over the whole territory of the ancient dukes of Septimania. In the year of the Norman conquest of England Rouergue, which was held by a younger branch of the house of Toulouse, lapsed to the elder line; in the year after the Conqueror’s death Raymond came into possession of Toulouse itself; in 1094 he became, in right of his wife, owner of half the Burgundian county of Provence. His territorial influence was doubled by that of his personal fame; he was one of the chief heroes of the first Crusade; and when he died in 1105 he left to his son Bertrand, over and above his Aquitanian heritage, the Syrian county of Tripoli. On Bertrand’s death in 1112 these possessions were divided, his son Pontius succeeding him as count of Tripoli, and surrendering his claims upon Toulouse to his uncle Alfonso Jordan, a younger son of Raymond of St. Gilles.[1448] Those claims, however, were disputed. Raymond’s elder brother, Count William IV., had left an only daughter who, after a childless marriage with King Sancho Ramirez of Aragon,[1449] became the wife of Count William VIII. of Poitou.[1450] From that time forth it became a moot point whether the lord of St. Gilles or the lord of Poitiers was the rightful count of Toulouse. Raymond unquestionably bore the title and exercised its functions for some six years before his brother’s death and his niece’s second marriage,[1451] and one historian asserts that he had acquired the county by purchase from his brother.[1452] Another story relates that William of Poitou having married the heiress of Toulouse after her father’s death,[1453] immediately entered upon her inheritance, but afterwards pledged it to Raymond in order to raise money for the Crusade.[1454] The reckless, spendthrift duke, whose whole energies were given up to verse-making, discreditable adventures, and either defying or eluding the ecclesiastical authorities who vainly strove to check the scandals of his life, never found means to redeem his pledge; neither did his son William IX.,[1455] although it appears that he did at some time or other contrive to obtain possession of Toulouse.[1456] On his death, however, it immediately passed back into the hands of Alfonso Jordan.

[1448] On the counts of Toulouse and St. Gilles see Vic and Vaissète, Hist. du Languedoc (new ed., 1872), vol. iii.

[1449] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 48 (Labbe, Nova Biblioth., vol. ii. p. 304).

[1450] Ibid. Rob. Torigni, a. 1159. This second marriage took place in 1094: MS. Chron. quoted by Besly, Comtes de Poitou, preuves, p. 408.

[1451] Vic and Vaissète, Hist. du Languedoc, vol. iii. pp. 452, 453.

[1452] Will. Malm. Gesta Reg., l. iv. c. 388 (Hardy, p. 603).

[1453] William IV. of Toulouse died in 1093. Vic and Vaissète, Hist. du Languedoc, vol. iii. p. 465.

[1454] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 121, 122). It will be remembered that Duke William sought to pledge his own Poitou to the Red King for the same purpose.

[1455] Will. Newb. as above (p. 122).

[1456] Geoff. Vigeois, as above, describes Eleanor’s father as “Guillelmus dux Aquitaniæ filius Guillermi et filiæ comitis Tholosani, qui jure avi sui urbem Tholosanam possedit.” Besly (Comtes de Poitou, p. 132) has an account of the matter, but I cannot find his authorities.

With all these shiftings and changes of ownership the kings of France had never tried to interfere. Southern Gaul--“Aquitaine” in the wider sense--was a land whose internal concerns they found it wise to leave as far as possible untouched. It was, even yet, a land wholly distinct from the northern realm whose sovereign was its nominal overlord. The geographical barrier formed by the river Loire had indeed been long ago passed over, if not exactly by the French kings, at least by the Angevin counts. But a wider and deeper gulf than the blue stream of Loire stood fixed between France and Aquitaine. They were peopled by different races, they belonged to different worlds. There was little community of blood, there was less community of speech, thought and temper, of social habits or political traditions, between the Teutonized Celt of the north and the southern Celt who had been moulded by the influences of the Roman, the Goth and the Saracen. Steeped in memories of the Roman Empire in its palmiest days, and of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse which had inherited so large a share of its power, its culture and its glory, Aquitania had never amalgamated either with the Teutonic empire of the Karolings or with the French kingdom of their Parisian supplanters. Her princes were nominal feudataries of both; but, save in a few exceptional cases, the personal and political relations between the northern lord paramount and his southern vassals began and ended with the formal ceremonies of investiture and homage. In the struggle of Anjou and Blois for command over the policy of the Crown, in the struggle of the Crown itself to maintain its independence and to hold the balance between Anjou and Normandy, the Aquitanian princes took no part; the balance of powers in northern Gaul was nothing to them; neither party ever seriously attempted to enroll them as allies; both seem to have considered them, as they considered themselves, totally unconcerned in the matter. Whatever external connexions and alliances they cultivated were in quite another direction--in the Burgundian provinces which lay around the mouth of the Rhône and the western foot of the Alps, and on the debateable ground of the Spanish March, the county of Barcelona, which formed a link between Gascony and Aragon. The marriage of Louis and Eleanor, however, altered the political position of Aquitaine with respect not only to the French Crown but to the world at large. She was suddenly dragged out of her isolation and brought into contact with the general political system of northern Europe, somewhat as England had been by its association with Normandy. The union of the king and the duchess was indeed dissolved before its full consequences had time to work themselves out. Its first and most obvious result was a change in the attitude of the Crown towards the internal concerns of Aquitaine. Whether the count of Toulouse paid homage to the count of Poitou, or both alike paid it immediately to the Crown--whether Toulouse and Poitiers were in the same or in different hands--mattered little or nothing to the earlier kings whose practical power over either fief was all bound up in the mere formal grant of investiture. But to Eleanor’s husband such questions wore a very different aspect. To him who was in his own person duke of Aquitaine as well as its overlord, they were matters of direct personal concern; the interests of the house of Poitou were identified with those of the house of France. For his own sake and for the sake of his posterity which he naturally hoped would succeed him in both kingdom and duchy, it was of the utmost importance that Louis should strive to make good every jot and tittle of the Poitevin claims throughout southern Gaul.

Four years after his marriage, therefore, Louis summoned his host for an expedition against the count of Toulouse.[1457] It tells very strongly against the justice of the Poitevin claims in that quarter that one of his best advisers--Theobald of Blois--so greatly disapproved of the enterprize that he refused to take any part in it at all;[1458] and it may be that his refusal led to its abandonment, for we have no record of its issue, beyond the fact that Alfonso Jordan kept Toulouse for the rest of his life, and dying in 1148 was succeeded without disturbance by his son Raymond V.[1459] Four years later the duchy of Aquitaine passed with Eleanor’s hand from Louis VII. to Henry Fitz-Empress. Once again the king of France became its overlord and nothing more:--his chance of enforcing his supremacy fainter than ever, yet his need to enforce it greater than ever, since Aquitaine, far from sinking back into her old isolation, was now linked together with Anjou and Normandy in a chain which encircled his own royal domain as with a girdle of iron. In these circumstances the obvious policy of France and Toulouse was a mutual alliance which might enable them both to stand against the power of Henry. It was cemented in 1154 by the marriage of Raymond V. with Constance, widow of Eustace of Blois and sister of Louis VII.[1460] Four more years passed away; Henry’s energies were still tasked to the uttermost by more important work than the prosecution of a doubtful claim of his wife against the brother-in-law of her overlord and former husband. Whether the suggestion at last came from Eleanor herself, during the Christmas-tide of 1158, we cannot tell; we only know that early in 1159 Henry determined to undertake the recovery of Toulouse.

[1457] At Midsummer 1141. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Scriptt.), p. 923.

[1458] Alterius Roberti App. ad Sigebertum, Rer. Gall. Scriptt., vol. xiii. p. 331.

[1459] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1460] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 122).

A summons to Raymond to give back the county to its heiress was of course met with a refusal.[1461] It was a mere formal preliminary, and so was also a conference between Henry and Louis at Tours, where they discussed the matter and failed to agree upon it,[1462] but parted, it seems, without coming to any actual breach; Henry indeed was evidently left under the impression that his undertaking would meet with no opposition on the part of France.[1463] Early in Lent he went to Poitiers and there held council with the barons of Aquitaine. The upshot of their deliberations was an order for his forces to meet him at Poitiers on Midsummer-day, ready to march against the count of Toulouse.[1464]

[1461] Ib. (p. 123).

[1462] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. p. 171).

[1463] “Inde graves inimicitiæ inter ipsum” [sc. Ludovicum] “et regem Anglorum ortæ sunt, cum videret sibi regem Francorum nocere, de cujus auxilio plurimum confidebat” remarks Rob. Torigni on Louis’s arrival at Toulouse (a. 1159).

[1464] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172).

A question now arose of what those forces were to consist. The feudal levies of Eleanor’s duchy might fairly be called upon to fight for the supposed rights of their mistress; those of Anjou and Maine might perhaps be expected to do as much for the aggrandizement of their count; but to demand the services of the Norman knighthood for an obscure dynastic quarrel in southern Gaul--still more, to drag the English tenants-in-chivalry across sea and land for such a purpose--would have been both unjust and impolitic, if not absolutely impracticable. On the other hand, the knights of Aquitaine were of all Henry’s feudal troops those on whom he could least depend; and they would be moreover, even with the addition of those whom he could muster in his paternal dominions, quite insufficient for an expedition which was certain to require a large and powerful host, and whose duration it was impossible to calculate. In these circumstances the expedient which had been tentatively and in part adopted three years before was repeated, and its application this time was sweeping and universal. The king gave out that in consideration of the length and hardship of the way which lay before him, and desiring to spare the country-knights, citizens and yeomen, he would receive instead of their personal services a certain sum to be levied as he saw fit upon every knight’s fee in Normandy and his other territories.[1465] This impost, which afterwards came to be known in English history as the “Great Scutage,” was, as regards England, the most important matter connected with the war of Toulouse. It marks a turning-point in the history of military tenure. It broke down the old exemption of “fiefs of the hauberk” from pecuniary taxation, in such a way as to make the encroachment upon their privilege assume the shape of a favour. To the bulk of the English knighthood the boon was a real one; military service beyond sea was a burthen from which they would be only too glad to purchase their release; the experiment, so far as it concerned them, succeeded perfectly, and made a precedent which was steadily followed in after-years. From that time forth the word “scutage” acquired its recognized meaning of a sum paid to the Crown in commutation of personal attendance in the host; and the specially cherished privilege of the tenants-in-chivalry came to be not as formerly exemption from money-payment on their demesne lands, but, by virtue of their payment, exemption from service beyond sea.

[1465] “Rex igitur Henricus ... considerans longitudinem et difficultatem viæ, nolens vexare agrarios milites nec burgensium nec rusticorum multitudinem, sumptis LX. solidis Andegavensium in Normanniâ de feudo uniuscujusque loricæ et de reliquis omnibus tam in Normanniâ quam in Angliâ, sive etiam aliis terris suis, secundum hoc quod ei visum fuit,” etc. Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

The sums thus raised in 1159 are however entered in the Pipe Roll of the year not as scutage but under the vaguer and more comprehensive title of donum. The reason doubtless is that they were assessed, as the historians tell us and as the roll itself shews, not only upon those estates from which services of the shield were explicitly due, but also upon all lands held in chief of the Crown, and all Church lands without distinction of tenure:[1466]--the basis of assessment in all cases being the knight’s fee, in its secondary sense of a parcel of land worth twenty pounds a year. Whatever the laity might think of this arrangement, the indignation of the clergy was bitter and deep. The wrong inflicted on them by the scutage of 1156 was as nothing compared with this, which set at naught all ancient precedents of ecclesiastical immunity, and actually wrung from the Church lands even more than from the lay fiefs.[1467] Their wrath however was not directed solely or even chiefly against the king. A large share of the blame was laid at the chancellor’s door; for the scheme had his active support, if it was not actually of his contriving. Its effects on English constitutional developement were for later generations to trace; the men of the time saw, or thought they saw, its disastrous consequences in the after-lives of its originators. In the hour of Thomas’s agony Gilbert Foliot raked up as one of the heaviest charges against him the story of the “sword which his hand had plunged into the bosom of his mother the Church, when he spoiled her of so many thousand marks for the army of Toulouse”;[1468] and his own best and wisest friend, John of Salisbury, who had excused the scutage of 1156, sorrowfully avowed his belief that the scutage of 1159 was the beginning of all Henry’s misdoings against the Church, and that the chancellor’s share in it was the fatal sin which the primate had to expiate so bitterly.[1469]

[1466] “Secundum ejus scutagium assisum pro eodem exercitu Walliæ” [this writer assigns a like object to the scutage of 1156, but in both cases he is contradicted by chronology and contemporary evidence] “reperies in rotulo anni quinti regis ejusdem inferius. Fuitque assisum ad duas marcas pro quolibet feodo, non solum super prælatos, verum tam super ipsos quam super milites suos, secundum numerum feodorum, qui tenuerunt de rege in capite; necnon et super residuos milites singulorum comitatuum in communi.” [Cf. Rob. Torigni as quoted above, p. 459, note 2.] “Intitulaturque illud scutagium, De Dono. Eâ quidem, ut credo, ratione, quod non solum prælati qui tenentur ad servicia militaria sed etiam alii, abbates utpote de Bello et de Salopesbirie et alii, tunc temporis dederunt auxilium.” Alex. Swereford (Liber Ruber Scacc.) quoted in Madox, Hist. Exchequer, vol. i. p. 626. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167, calls it a scutage: “Scotagium sive scuagium de Angliâ accepit.” The references to it are in almost every page of the Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II. (Pipe Roll Soc.); the most important are collected by Madox, Hist. Exch., vol. i. pp. 626, 627. There are also a few notices in the next year; Pipe Roll 6 Hen. II. (Pipe Roll Soc.), pp. 3, 6, 24, 29, 30, 32, 51. There are a few entries of “scutage” by that name--from the abbot of Westminster (Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II., pp. 6, 24, 27; 6 Hen. II., pp. 11, 24, 28), the bishop of Worcester (5 Hen. II., p. 24), William of Cardiff (ibid.), the abbot of Evesham (ib. p. 25), and the earl of Warwick (ib. p. 26). Some of these pay “donum” as well. In reference to this matter some of the Northumbrian tenants-in-chivalry are designated by a title which is somewhat startling in the middle of the twelfth century: the sheriff of Northumberland renders an account “de dono militum et tainorum” (Pipe Roll 5 Hen. II., p. 14). What was the distinction between them?

The sum charged on the knight’s fee in Normandy was sixty shillings Angevin;[1470] in England it seems to have been two marks.[1471] The proceeds, with those of a similar tax levied upon Henry’s other dominions,[1472] amounted to some hundred and eighty thousand pounds,[1473] with which he hired an immense force of mercenaries.[1474] But his host did not consist of these alone. The great barons of Normandy and England, no less than those of Anjou, Aquitaine and Gascony, were eager to display their prowess under the leadership of such a mighty king. The muster at Poitiers was a brilliant gathering of Henry’s court, headed by the chancellor with a picked band of seven hundred knights of his own personal following,[1475] and by the first vassal of the English Crown, King Malcolm of Scotland,[1476] who came, it seems, to win the spurs which his cousin had refused to grant him twelve months ago, when they met at Carlisle just before Henry left England in June 1158.[1477] The other vassal state was represented by an unnamed Welsh prince;[1478] and the host was further reinforced by several important allies. One of these was Raymond Trencavel, viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne, a baron whom the count of Toulouse had despoiled, and who gladly seized the opportunity of vengeance.[1479] Another was William of Montpellier.[1480] The most valuable of all was the count of Barcelona, a potentate who ranked on an equality with kings.[1481] His county of Barcelona was simply the province which in Karolingian times had been known as the Spanish March--a strip of land with the Pyrenees for its backbone, which lay between Toulouse, Aragon, Gascony and the Mediterranean sea. It was a fief of the West-Frankish realm; but the facilities which every marchland in some degree possesses for attaching itself to whichever neighbour it may prefer, and so holding the balance between them as to keep itself virtually independent of them all, were specially great in the case of the Spanish March, whose rulers, as masters of the eastern passes of the Pyrenees, held the keys of both Gaul and Spain. During the last half-century they had, like the lords of another marchland, enormously strengthened their position by three politic marriages. Dulcia of Gévaudan, the wife of Raymond-Berengar III. of Barcelona, was heiress not only to her father’s county of Gévaudan, but also, through her mother, to the southern half of Provence, whose northern half fell to the share of Raymond of St.-Gilles. Her dower-lands were settled upon her younger son. He, in his turn, married an heiress, Beatrice of Melgueil, whose county lay between Gévaudan and the sea; and the dominions of the house of St.-Gilles were thus completely cut in twain, and their eastern half surrounded on two sides, by the territories of his son, the present count of Provence, Gévaudan and Melgueil.[1482] The elder son of Dulcia, having succeeded his father as Count Raymond-Berengar IV. of Barcelona, was chosen by the nobles of Aragon to wed their youthful queen Petronilla, the only child of King Ramirez the Monk. He had thus all the power of Aragon at his command, although, clinging with a generous pride to the old title which had come down to him from his fathers, he refused to share his wife’s crown, declaring that the count of Barcelona had no equal in his own degree, and that he would rather be first among counts than last among kings.[1483] A man with such a spirit, added to such territorial advantages, was an ally to be eagerly sought after and carefully secured. Henry therefore invited him to a meeting at Blaye in Gascony, and secured his co-operation against Toulouse on the understanding that the infant daughter of Raymond and Petronilla should in due time be married to Henry’s son Richard, and that the duchy of Aquitaine should then be ceded to the young couple.[1484]

[1467] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxlv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 223; Robertson, Becket, vol. v. Ep. cxciv., p. 378).

[1468] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxciv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 269; Robertson, Becket, vol. v. Ep. ccxxv., p. 525).

[1469] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxlv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 223, 224).

[1470] See above, p. 459, note 2{1465}.

[1471] So says Alex. Swereford. See above, p. 460 note{1466}.

[1472] “De aliis vero terris sibi subjectis inauditam similiter censûs fecit exactionem.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167. Cf. above, p. 459, note 2{1465}.

[1473] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167. He makes this to be the proceeds of the scutage in England alone, but see Bishop Stubbs’s explanation, Constit. Hist., vol. i. p. 457, note 4, and his remarks in the preface to Gesta Hen. Reg. (“Benedict of Peterborough”), vol. ii. pp. xciv–xcvi.

[1474] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1475] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 33.

[1476] Gerv. Cant. as above. Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1477] Chron. Mailros, a. 1158.

[1478] “Quidam rex Gualiæ.” Gerv. Cant. as above.

[1479] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 125). He miscalls him William Trencavel.

[1480] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1481] “Vir magnus et potens, nec infra reges consistens.” Will. Newb. as above (p. 123).

[1482] On these marriages, etc., see Vic and Vaissète, Hist. du Languedoc, vol. iii.

[1483] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 123–125). Raymond’s speech, and the whole story of Raymond, Ramirez and Petronilla, as given in this chapter, form a charming romance, whose main facts are fully borne out by the more prosaic version of Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1484] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

A last attempt to avert the coming struggle was made early in June; the two kings met near the Norman border, but again without any result.[1485] Immediately after midsummer, therefore, Henry and his host set out from Poitiers and marched down to Périgueux. There, in “the Bishop’s Meadow,” Henry knighted his Scottish cousin, and Malcolm in his turn bestowed the same honour upon thirty noble youths of his suite.[1486] The expedition then advanced straight into the enemy’s country. The first place taken was Cahors; its dependent territory was speedily overrun;[1487] and while in the south Raymond Trencavel was winning back the castles of which the other Raymond had despoiled him, Henry led his main force towards the city of Toulouse itself.[1488] Count and people saw the net closing round them; they had seen it drawing near for months past, and one and all--bishop, nobles and citizens--had been writing passionate appeals to the king of France, imploring him, if not for the love of his sister, at least for the honour of his crown, to come and save one of its fairest jewels from the greedy grasp of the Angevin.[1489] Louis wavered till it was all but too late; he was evidently, and naturally, most unwilling to quarrel with the king of England. He began to move southward, but apparently without any definite aim; and it was not till after another fruitless conference with Henry in the beginning of July[1490] that he at last, for very shame, answered his brother-in-law’s appeal by throwing himself into Toulouse almost alone, as if to encourage its defenders by his presence, but without giving them any substantial aid.[1491] Perhaps he foresaw the result. Henry, on the point of laying siege to the city, paused when he heard that his overlord was within it. Dread of Louis’s military capacity he could have none; personal reverence for him he could have just as little. But he reverenced in a fellow-king the dignity of kingship; he reverenced in his own overlord the right to that feudal obedience which he exacted from his own vassals. He took counsel with his barons; they agreed with him that the siege should be postponed till Louis was out of the city--a decision which was equivalent to giving it up altogether.[1492] The soldiers grumbled loudly, and the chancellor loudest of all. Thomas had now completely “put off the deacon,” and flung himself with all his might into the pursuit of arms. His knights were the flower of the host, foremost in every fight, the bravest of the brave; and the life and soul of all their valour was the chancellor himself.[1493] The prospect of retreat filled him with dismay. He protested that Louis had forfeited his claim to Henry’s obedience by breaking his compact with him and joining his enemies, and he entreated his master to seize the opportunity of capturing Toulouse, city, count, king and all, before reinforcements could arrive.[1494] Henry however turned a deaf ear to his impetuous friend. Accompanied by the king of Scots and all his host, he retreated towards his own dominions just as a body of French troops were entering Toulouse.[1495]

[1485] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. p. 172).

[1486] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 58 (Labbe, Nova Biblioth., vol. ii. p. 310). The Chron. Mailros, a. 1159, says Malcolm was knighted at Tours on the way back from Toulouse; Geoff. Vigeois implies that it was on the way out.

[1487] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 34. Rob. Torigni, a. 1159. Cf. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 126), who however has got the sequence of events wrong.

[1488] Will. Newb. as above.

[1489] Letters of Peter archbishop of Narbonne:--Hermengard viscountess of Narbonne:--“commune consilium urbis Tolosæ et suburbii”--Epp. xxxiii., xxxiv., ccccxiv., Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. iv. pp. 574, 575, 713. The archbishop curiously describes the threatening invader as “Dux Normanniæ.” The citizens make a pitiful appeal; the viscountess makes a spirited one, and wishes the king “Karoli regis magnanimitatem.”

[1490] Contin. Becc. a. 1159 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. pp. 173, 174).

[1491] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 33. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 125).

[1492] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 33, Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 58 (Labbe, Nova Biblioth., vol. ii. p. 310), Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 125), the Draco Norm., l. i. c. 12, vv. 437–464 (ib. vol. ii. pp. 608, 609), and R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 303, attribute the retreat to Henry’s reverence for his overlord; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167, seems to look upon it as a measure of necessity; but considering that Louis had brought almost nothing but himself to Raymond’s aid, one does not see what necessity there could be in the case. The Draco alone mentions Henry’s consultation with the barons--unless there is some allusion to it in the words of Will. Fitz-Steph., who describes Henry as “vanâ superstitione et reverentiâ tentus consilio aliorum.”

[1493] The English archdeacon’s unclerical doings in this war were however quite eclipsed by those of the archbishop of Bordeaux. See a letter from the citizens of Toulouse to King Louis; Ep. ccccxxv., Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. iv. p. 718.

[1494] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 34.

[1495] Ibid.

He had, however, conquered the greater part of the county,[1496] and had no intention of abandoning his conquests; but the task of protecting them against Raymond and Louis together, without the support of Henry’s own presence, was a responsibility which all his great barons declined. Two faithful ministers accepted the duty: Thomas the chancellor and Henry of Essex the constable.[1497] Thomas fixed his head-quarters at Cahors;[1498] thence, with the constable’s aid, he undertook to hold the country by means of his own personal followers,[1499] backed by Raymond of Barcelona, Trencavel, and William of Montpellier.[1500] He ruled with a high hand, putting down by proscription and even with the sword every attempt at a rising against Henry’s authority storming towns and burning manors without mercy in his master’s service;[1501] in helm and hauberk he rode forth at the head of his troops to the capture of three castles which had hitherto been considered impregnable.[1502] Henry’s “superstition” (as it was called by a follower of Thomas)[1503] about bearing arms against his overlord applied only to a personal encounter in circumstances of special delicacy; he had no scruples in making war upon Louis indirectly, as he had done more than once before, and was now doing not only through Thomas but also at the opposite end of France. The English and Scottish kings had retired from Toulouse to Limoges, where they arrived about Michaelmas.[1504] Meanwhile Count Theobald of Blois, now an ally of Henry, was despatched by him “to disquiet the realm of France”--that is, doubtless, to make a diversion which should draw off the attention of the French from Toulouse and leave a clear field to the operations of Thomas. The French king’s brothers, Henry, bishop of Beauvais, and Robert, count of Dreux, retaliated by attacking the Norman frontier with fire and sword.[1505] Thomas, having chased away the enemies across the Garonne and secured the obedience of the conquered territory, hurried northward to join his sovereign, whom he apparently followed into Normandy. There he undertook the defence of the frontier. Besides his seven hundred picked knights, he maintained at his own cost for the space of forty days twelve hundred paid horsemen and four thousand foot in his master’s service against the king of France on the marches between Gisors, Trie and Courcelles; he not only headed his troops in person, but also met in single combat a valiant French knight of Trie, Engelram by name; and the layman went down before the lance of the warlike archdeacon, who carried off his opponent’s destrier as the trophy of his victory.[1506] The king himself marched into the Beauvaisis, stormed Gerberoi, and harried the surrounding country till he gained a valuable assistant in Count Simon of Montfort, who surrendered to him all his French possessions, including the castles of Montfort, Rochefort and Epernon. As these places lay directly in the way from Paris to Etampes and Orléans, Louis found himself completely cut off from the southern part of his domain, and was compelled to ask for a truce. It was made in December, to last till the octave of Pentecost.[1507] Henry’s wife had now joined him; they kept Christmas together at Falaise,[1508] and Henry used the interval of tranquillity to make some reforms in the Norman judicature.[1509] When the truce expired the two kings made a treaty of peace,[1510] negotiated as usual by the indefatigable chancellor;[1511] the betrothal of little Henry and Margaret was confirmed, and the Vexin was settled upon the infant couple. As for the Aquitanian quarrel, Louis formally restored to Henry all the rights and holdings of the count of Poitou, except Toulouse itself; Henry and Raymond making a truce for a year, during which both were to keep their present possessions, and complete freedom of action was left to their respective allies.[1512]

[1496] Ibid. Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1497] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 34.

[1498] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1499] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

[1500] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1501] E. Grim (Robertson, Becket, vol. ii.), p. 365. Herb. Bosh. (ib. vol. iii.), pp. 175, 176.

[1502] Will. Fitz-Steph. (ibid.), p. 34.

[1503] Ib. p. 33. See above, p. 465, note 1{1485}.

[1504] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 58 (Labbe, Nova Biblioth., vol. ii. p. 310).

[1505] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1506] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), pp. 34, 35.

[1507] Rob. Torigni, a. 1159.

[1508] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

[1509] Contin. Becc. a. 1160 (Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. ii. p. 180).

[1510] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

[1511] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 24 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 159).

[1512] The treaty is printed in Lyttelton’s Hen. II., vol. iv. pp. 173, 174. It has no date; we have to get that from Rob. Torigni--May 1160. The terms of the treaty are summarized by Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 218, who places it a year too late. He also introduces a second betrothal, between Richard and Adela, the second daughter of Louis and Constance. But the treaty printed by Lyttelton says nothing of this; and if it be the treaty mentioned by Rob. Torigni the clause is impossible, for Adela was not born till the autumn of 1160.

This imperfect settlement, as far as Toulouse was concerned, advanced no further towards completion during the next thirteen years. Henry’s expedition could hardly be called a success; and whatever advantage he had gained over Raymond was dearly purchased at the cost of a quarrel with Louis. There can be little doubt that Henry had fallen into a trap; Louis had misled him into lighting the torch of war, and then turned against him in such a way as to cast upon him the blame of the subsequent conflagration. The elements of strife between the two kings could hardly have failed to burst sooner or later into a blaze; the question was whose hand should kindle it. In spite of Henry’s Angevin wariness, Louis had contrived to shift upon him the fatal responsibility; and for the rest of his life the fire went smouldering on, breaking out at intervals in various directions, smothered now and then for a moment, but never thoroughly quenched; consuming the plans and hopes of its involuntary originator, while the real incendiary sheltered himself to the last behind his mask of injured innocence.

For six months all was quiet. In October the two kings held another meeting; the treaty was ratified, and little Henry, who had lately come over from England with his mother, was made to do homage to Louis for the duchy of Normandy.[1513] About the same time the queen of France died, leaving to her husband another infant daughter.[1514] Disappointed for the fourth time in his hopes of a son, Louis in his impatience set decency at defiance; before Constance had been a fortnight in her grave he married a third wife, Adela of Blois, daughter of Theobald the Great, and sister of the two young counts who were betrothed to the king’s own elder daughters.[1515] His subjects, sharing his anxiety for an heir, easily forgave his unseemly haste and welcomed the new queen, who in birth, mind and person was all that could be desired.[1516] It would, however, have been scarcely possible to find a choice more irritating to Henry of Anjou. On either side of the sea, the house of Blois seemed to be always in some way or other crossing his path; in their lives or in their deaths, they were perpetually giving him trouble. At that very time the death of Stephen’s last surviving son, Earl William of Warren,[1517] had led to a quarrel between the king and his dearest friend. William was childless, and the sole heir to his county of Boulogne was his sister Mary, abbess of Romsey. This lady was now brought out of her convent to be married by Papal dispensation to Matthew, second son of the count of Flanders.[1518] The scheme, devised by King Henry,[1519] was strongly opposed by the bridegroom’s father,[1520] and also by Henry’s own chancellor. Thomas, somewhat unexpectedly perhaps, started up as a vindicator of monastic discipline, remonstrated vehemently against the marriage of a nun, and used all his influence at Rome to hinder the dispensation; he gained, however, nothing save the enmity of Matthew, and a foretaste of that kingly wrath[1521] which was to burst upon him with all its fury three years later. Even without allowing for Henry’s probable frame of mind in consequence of this affair, the French king’s triple alliance with the hereditary rivals of the Angevin house would naturally appear to him in the light of a provocation and a menace. The chancellor seems to have made his peace by suggesting an answer to it.

[1513] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

[1514] Ibid. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 303. _Hist. Ludov._ (Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. iv.), p. 415. Constance died on October 4; Lamb. Waterloo, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xiii. p. 517.

[1515] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 303. Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 167, and Rob. Torigni, a. 1160. Adela was crowned at Paris with her husband on S. Brice’s day (November 13); Hist. Ludov. (Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. iv.), p. 416.

[1516] Hist. Ludov. as above.

[1517] He died in October 1159, on the way home from Toulouse; Rob. Torigni, ad ann.

[1518] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160. Lamb. Waterloo (Rer. Gall. Scriptt., vol. xiii.), p. 517. According to Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl. (Madden), vol. i. p. 314, the marriage took place in 1161.

[1519] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 328.

[1520] Lamb. Waterloo as above.

[1521] Herb. Bosh. as above. Mat. Paris, Hist. Angl. (Madden), vol. i. pp. 314, 315.

One of Henry’s great desires was to recover the Vexin, which at his father’s suggestion he had ceded to Louis in 1151 as the price of the investiture of Normandy. By the last treaty between the two kings it had been settled that this territory should form the dowry of little Margaret; her father was to retain possession of it, and to place its chief fortresses in the custody of the Knights Templars, for the next three years, until she should be wedded to young Henry with the consent of Holy Church; whenever that should take place, Henry’s father was to receive back the Vexin. In other words, the dowry was not to be paid till the bride was married; and there was evidently a tacit understanding, at any rate on the French side, that this was not to be for three years at least.[1522] Later in the summer two cardinal-legates visited France and Normandy on business connected with a recent Papal election.[1523] Henry, apparently at the instigation of Thomas,[1524] persuaded them to solemnize the marriage of the two children on November 2 at Neubourg.[1525] The written conditions of the treaty were fulfilled to the letter--the babes were wedded with the consent of Holy Church, represented by the Pope’s own legates; and the castles of the Vexin were at once made over to Henry by the Templars,[1526] three of whom were present at the wedding.[1527] Louis found himself thoroughly outwitted. His first step was to banish the three Templars, who were cordially received by Henry;[1528] his next was to concert with the brothers of his new queen a plan of retaliation in Anjou. The house of Blois naturally resented a curtailment of the possessions of the crown which they now hoped one day to see worn by a prince of their own blood. Louis and Theobald accordingly set to work to fortify Chaumont, a castle which Gelduin of Saumur had long ago planted on the bank of the Loire as a special thorn in the side of the Angevin counts. Henry flew to the spot, put king and count to flight, besieged and took the castle of Chaumont together with thirty-five picked knights and eighty men-at-arms whom Theobald had sent to reinforce its garrison; he then fortified Fréteval and Amboise, and, secure from all further molestation, went to keep Christmas with Eleanor in his native city of Le Mans.[1529]

[1522] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 24 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 159), distinctly states that the children were not to be married till they were of a fit age; and such was no doubt the intention of Louis; but it was by no means expressed in the treaty:--“Totum remanens Wilcassini” [i.e. all except three of its fiefs which were specially reserved to Henry] “regi Francie; hoc modo, quod ipse illud remanens dedit et concessit maritagium cum filiâ suâ filio regis Anglie habendum. Et eum unde seisiendum ab Assumptione B. Marie proximâ post pacem factam in tres annos, et si infra hunc terminum filia regis Francie filio regis Anglie desponsata fuerit, assensu et consensu Sancte Ecclesie, tunc erit rex Anglie seysitus de toto Wilcassino, et de castellis Wilcassini, ad opus filii sui.” Treaty in Lyttelton, Hen. II., vol. iv. p. 173. The question turned on the construing of “tunc.” Louis intended it to mean “then, when the three years are expired, if the children shall be wedded”; Henry and his friends the Templars made it mean “then, when the children are wedded, whether the three years are expired or not.”

[1523] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 197). Of their business we shall see more later.

[1524] This must surely be the meaning of Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 175: “Quam industrie munitiones quinque munitissimas, in Franciæ et Normanniæ sitas confinio, domino suo regi, ad cujus tamen jus ab antiquo spectare dignoscebantur, a rege Francorum per matrimonium, sine ferro, sine gladio, absque lanceâ, absque pugnâ, in omni regum dilectione et pace revocaverit, Gizortium scilicet, castrum munitissimum, et alia quatuor.” Cf. Thomas Saga (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 57, which seems however to refer rather to the drawing-up of the treaty.

[1525] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 304. Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 168, Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 218, and Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

[1526] Rog. Howden and Rob. Torigni, as above. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 24 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 159).

[1527] Roger of Pirou, Tostig of S. Omer and Richard of Hastings; Rog. Howden as above.

[1528] Ibid.

[1529] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

A year of peace followed: Henry spent the greater part of it in Normandy, garrisoning the castles of the duchy, strengthening its newly-recovered border-fortresses, providing for the restoration of the old royal strongholds and the erection of new ones in all parts of his dominions, and superintending the repair of his palace at Rouen, the making of a park at Quévilly, and the foundation of an hospital for lepers at Caen.[1530] The chancellor was still at his side, and had lately, as a crowning mark of his confidence, been intrusted with the entire charge of his eldest son. Thomas received the child into his own household, to educate him with the other boys of noble birth who came to learn courtly manners and knightly prowess in that excellent school; he playfully called him his adoptive son, and treated him as such in every respect.[1531] Little Henry was now in his seventh year, and his father was already anxious to secure his succession to the throne. The conditional homage which he had received as an infant was, as Henry knew by personal experience, a very insufficient security. Indeed, the results of every attempt to regulate the descent of the crown since the Norman conquest tended to prove that the succession of the heir could be really secured by nothing short of his actual recognition and coronation as king during his father’s life-time. This was now becoming an established practice in France and Germany. In England, where the older constitutional theory of national election to the throne had never died out, such a step had never been attempted but once; and that attempt, made by Stephen in behalf of his son Eustace, had ended in signal failure. Discouraging as the precedent was, however, Henry had made up his mind to follow it; and in the spring of 1162 he sent his boy over sea and called upon the barons of England to do him homage and fealty, as a preliminary to his coronation as king.[1532]

[1530] Ibid. a. 1161.

[1531] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 22. Herb. Bosh. (ibid.), pp. 176, 177.

[1532] E. Grim (ib. vol. ii.), p. 366. Anon. I. (ib. vol. iv.), p. 13.

A matter so important and so delicate could be intrusted to no one but the chancellor. He managed it, like everything else that he took in hand, with a calm facility which astonished every one. He brought the child to England, presented him to the bishops and barons of the realm in a great council summoned for the purpose,[1533] knelt at his feet and swore to be his faithful subject in all things, reserving only the fealty due to the elder king so long as he lived and reigned;[1534] the whole assembly followed his example, and thus a measure which it was believed that Henry’s personal presence would hardly have availed to carry through without disturbance was accomplished at once and without a word of protest,[1535] save from the little king himself, who with childish imperiousness, it is said, refused to admit any reservation in the oath of his adoptive father.[1536] Henry probably intended that the boy’s recognition as heir to the crown should be speedily followed by his coronation.[1537] This, however, was a rite which could only be performed by the primate of all England; and the chair of S. Augustine was vacant. Once again it was to Thomas that Henry looked for aid; but this time he looked in vain. Thomas had done his last act in the service of his royal friend. The year which had passed away since Archbishop Theobald’s death had been, on both sides of the sea, a year of almost ominous tranquillity. It was in truth the forerunner of a storm which was to shatter Henry’s peace and to cost Thomas his life.

[1533] Anon. I. as above. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 306.

[1534] R. Diceto as above.

[1535] Anon. I. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iv.), p. 13.

[1536] Mat. Paris, Hist. Angl. (Madden), vol. i. p. 316.

[1537] Such an intention is distinctly stated by E. Grim (Robertson, Becket, vol. ii.), p. 366: ... “filio suo, jam tunc coronando in regem.”

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XI. THE LAST YEARS OF ARCHBISHOP THEOBALD

1156–1161.

All Henry’s endeavours for the material and political revival of his kingdom had been regulated thus far by one simple, definite principle:--the restoration of the state of things which had existed under his grandfather. In his own eyes and in those of his subjects the duty which lay before him at his accession, and which he had faithfully and successfully fulfilled, was to take up the work of government and administration not at the point where he found it, but at the point where it had been left by Henry I. and Roger of Salisbury: to pull down and sweep away all the innovations and irregularities with which their work had been overlaid during the last nineteen years, and bring the old foundations to light once more, that they might receive a legitimate superstructure planned upon their own lines and built upon their own principles. In law, in finance, in general administration, there was one universal standard of reference:--“the time of my grandfather King Henry.”

But there was one side of the national revival, and that the most important of all, to which this standard could not apply. The religious and intellectual movement which had begun under Henry I., far from coming to a standstill at his death, had gone on gathering energy and strength during the years of anarchy till it had become the one truly living power in the land, the power which in the end placed Henry II. on his throne. It looked to find in him a friend, a fellow-worker, a protector perhaps; but it had no need to go back to a stage which it had long since overpassed and make a new departure thence under the guidance of a king who was almost its own creation. At the very moment of Henry’s accession, the hopes of the English Church were raised to their highest pitch by the elevation of an Englishman to the Papal chair. Nicolas Breakspear was the only man of English birth who ever attained that lofty seat; and the adventures which brought him thither, so far as they can be made out from two somewhat contradictory accounts, form a romantic chapter in the clerical history of the time. Nicolas was the son of a poor English clerk[1538] at Langley, a little township belonging to the abbey of S. Alban’s.[1539] The father retired into the abbey,[1540] leaving his boy, according to one version of the story, too poor to go to school and too young and ignorant to earn his bread; he therefore came every day to get a dole at the abbey-gate, till his father grew ashamed and bade him come no more; whereupon the lad, “blushing either to dig or to beg in his own country,” made his way across the sea.[1541] Another version asserts that Nicolas, being “a youth of graceful appearance, but somewhat lacking in clerkly acquirements,” sued to the abbot of S. Alban’s for admission as a monk; the abbot examined him, found him insufficiently instructed, and dismissed him with a gentle admonition: “Wait awhile, my son, and go to school that you may become better fitted for the cloister.”[1542] Whether stung by the abbot’s hint or by his father’s reproofs, young Nicolas found his way to Paris and into its schools, where he worked so hard that he out-did all his fellow-students.[1543] But the life there wearied him as it had wearied Thomas Becket; he rambled on across Gaul into Provence, and there found hospitality in the Austin priory of S. Rufus. His graceful figure, pleasant face, sensible talk and obliging temper so charmed the brotherhood that they grew eager to keep him in their midst,[1544] and on their persuasion he joined the order.[1545] It seems that he was even made superior of the house, but the canons afterwards regretted having set a stranger to rule over them, and after persecuting him in various ways appealed to the Pope to get rid of him. The Pope--Eugene III.--at first refused to hear them; but on second consideration he decided to give them over to their own evil devices and offer their rejected superior a more agreeable post in his own court.[1546] Nicolas, who had already twice visited Rome, proceeded thither a third time and was made cardinal[1547] and bishop of Albano.[1548] Shortly afterwards he was appointed legate to Norway and Denmark, an office which he filled with prudence and energy during some years.[1549] Returning to Rome about 1150, he apparently acted as secretary to Eugene III. until the latter’s death in July 1153.[1550] The next Pope, Anastasius III., reigned only sixteen months, and dying on December 2, 1154, was succeeded by the bishop of Albano, who took the name of Adrian IV.[1551]

[1538] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 109).

[1539] Gesta Abbat. S. Albani (Riley), vol. i. p. 112.

[1540] Will. Newb. as above. Probably he separated from his wife in consequence of some of the decrees against clerical marriage passed under Henry I.; that she was not dead is plain from John of Salisbury’s mention of her as still living in the days of his friendship with Nicolas. Joh. Salisb., Metalog., l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p. 205).

[1541] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 109, 110).

[1542] Gesta Abbat. as above. The abbot’s name is there given as Robert, but this must be wrong, as Robert did not become abbot till 1151, and by 1150, as we shall see, Nicolas was at Rome.

[1543] Gesta Abbat. (as above), pp. 112, 113.

[1544] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 110).

[1545] Ibid. Gesta Abbat. (Riley), vol. i. p. 113.

[1546] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 110, 111). The church of S. Rufus (diocese Valence) had between 1145 and 1151 an abbot named N.... The editors of Gall. Christ. (vol. xvi. cols. 359, 360) will not allow that this N. was Nicolas Breakspear, and of course the date will not agree with the version of his history in the Gesta Abbat.; but it agrees perfectly with that of Will. Newb.; while the Gesta’s dates are confuted by Nicolas’s undoubted signatures at Rome.

[1547] Gesta Abbat. as above.

[1548] Will. Newb. as above (p. 111). Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

[1549] Will. Newb. as above.

[1550] “A partir de l’année 1150, on trouve la souscription de Nicolaus episcopus Albanensis au bas des bulles d’Eugène III.” Delisle, Rob. Torigni, vol. i. p. 288, note 2.

[1551] Will. Newb. as above (p. 111). Date from Cod. Vatic., Baronius, Annales (Pagi), vol. xix. p. 77.

The English Church naturally hailed with delight the accession of a pontiff who was at once one of her own sons and a disciple of Eugene, whom the leaders of the intellectual and spiritual revival in England had come to regard almost as their patron saint.[1552] Adrian indeed shared all their highest and most cherished aspirations far more deeply and intimately than Eugene himself could have done. It was in the cloisters of Canterbury that these aspirations were gradually taking definite shape under the guidance of Archbishop Theobald. There, beneath the shadow of the cathedral begun by Lanfranc and completed by S. Anselm, their worthy successor had been throughout the last ten or twelve years of the anarchy watching over a little sanctuary where all that was noblest, highest, most full of hope and promise in the dawning intellectual life of the day found a peaceful shelter and a congenial home. The Curia Theobaldi, the household of Archbishop Theobald, was a sort of little school of the prophets, a seminary into which the vigilant primate drew the choicest spirits among the rising generation, to be trained up under his own eyes in his own modes of thought and views of life, till they were fitted to become first the sharers and then the continuators of his work for the English Church and the English nation. Through his scholars had come the revival of legal and ecclesiastical learning in England; through them had come the renewal of intercourse and sympathy with the sister-Churches of the west; through them had been conducted the negotiations with Rome which had led to the restoration of order and peace; and in them, as Theobald hoped, the Church, having saved the state, would find her most fitting instruments for the work of reform and revival which still remained to be done within her own borders. One by one, as the occasion presented itself, he began to send them forth to take independent positions in the Church or in the world. Of the chosen three whom he specially trusted, the first who thus left his side was John of Canterbury, who in 1153 succeeded Hugh of Puiset as treasurer of York. Next year Theobald was able to place another of his disciples in the northern metropolis in a far more important capacity: he succeeded in obtaining the royal assent to the appointment of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque as archbishop of York, in succession to S. William, who had been restored by Pope Anastasius after Henry Murdac’s death, but died six weeks after his restoration.[1553]

[1552] John of Salisbury frequently writes of him as “Sanctus Eugenius.”

[1553] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 298, 299. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 26 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 80, 82). Anon. I. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iv.), pp. 10, 11.

Roger’s history before his entrance into the primate’s household is so completely lost that even the rendering of his surname is a matter of some doubt; it may have been derived from the English town of Bishopsbridge, and if so Roger was now going back as primate to his own native shire; it seems however more probable that he came from Pont-l’Evêque in Normandy.[1554] He was evidently some years older than Theobald’s other favourites, John of Canterbury and Thomas of London; for we find him and Gilbert Foliot quarrelling, apologizing, lecturing and forgiving each other with an outspoken freedom and familiarity possible only between two men of equal standing who have been friends from their youth.[1555] With Thomas Becket, on the other hand, Roger was never upon really friendly terms; jealous, no doubt, of the younger man who seemed likely to supersede him in the primate’s confidence, Roger lost no opportunity of teasing the “hatchet-clerk” (as he called Thomas, from the nickname of the man who had first introduced him to Theobald), and made his life so wretched that he was twice driven to quit the archbishop’s house and take refuge with Theobald’s brother, Walter, archdeacon of Canterbury, till the latter smoothed the way for his return.[1556] On Walter’s elevation to the see of Rochester in 1148 his archdeaconry was given to Roger;[1557] he also held some other preferments, all of which he was at one time in great danger of losing--most likely on account of his share in the famous “swimming-voyage” to Reims; but his friend Gilbert Foliot secured him the protection of the Pope;[1558] and the restoration of the archbishop would naturally involve that of the archdeacon. After six years’ tenure of his office at Canterbury Roger was called to go up higher. Theobald had more than one reason for desiring his archdeacon’s elevation. He wished it for Roger’s own sake; he wished it still more for the sake of his younger favourite, whom he longed to establish in a position of dignity and importance, yet close to his own side; above all, he wished it for the sake of the Church;[1559] for he naturally hoped that in leaving one of his own foremost disciples seated on the metropolitan chair of York, he would be leaving at least one prelate of the highest rank firmly pledged to those schemes of ecclesiastical policy and organization which he himself had most at heart. His confidence in Roger was over-great. After all the disputes about the canonical relations between Canterbury and York which had wasted the energies of Lanfranc and embittered the last days of S. Anselm, Theobald missed his opportunity of securing at last a full acknowledgement of Canterbury’s superior rights, and was rash enough to consecrate Roger without requiring from him a profession of obedience.[1560] The large-hearted primate evidently never dreamed that any question of obedience could arise between himself and one of his spiritual sons, or that Roger’s loyalty to him could fail to be extended to his successor. He never discovered his mistake; it was Roger’s old rival, and with him the English Church, who ultimately had to bear its unhappy consequences.

[1554] There is a bit of evidence on this side in Thomas Saga (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 40, where the writer calls him “Rogerum Nevstriensem.”

[1555] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. cix.–cxi. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 135–145). This was after Roger became archbishop; the quarrel went so far that Roger appealed to Rome about it, and carried his appeal in person. (What can be the date of this?) Gilbert owns that he had let his sharp tongue run away with him; Roger lectures him soundly, but ends with “ecce jam in occursum vestrum vetus festinat amicus,” and a proposal to kill the fatted calf in celebration of his repentance (Ep. cx. p. 141).

[1556] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 16. Cf. Anon I. (ib. vol. iv.), pp. 9, 10; E. Grim (ib. vol. ii.), p. 362; and Gamier (Hippeau), p. 10.

[1557] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 133.

[1558] “Clericus ... dilecti filii vestri domini Cantuariensis archiepiscopi Magister R. de Ponte Episcopi vestrum adit urgente necessitate præsidium ut ad tuenda ea quæ canonice possidet a vestrâ imploret serenitate patrocinium.” Gilb. Foliot, Ep. xvii (Giles, vol. i. p. 30). The salutation of the letter runs “Summo Dei gratiâ Pontifici E., frater G. Glocestriæ dictus abbas”; it looks very much as if written in the interval between the council of Reims and Gilbert’s consecration.

[1559] Anon. I. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iv.), p. 10.

[1560] “Sed professionem non fecit” [Roger], significantly remarks R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 298. Roger was consecrated at Westminster on October 10, 1154; ibid. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158.

Immediately after Roger’s consecration Thomas was raised by his primate to deacon’s orders and made archdeacon of Canterbury.[1561] A few months later the accession of Henry II. opened the way for his advancement in another direction. His appointment to the chancellorship involved a great self-sacrifice on the part of Theobald; for the chancellor’s duties--at least as conceived by Thomas, and as Theobald had intended him to conceive them--took him not only quite away from those of his archdeaconry and from his primate’s side, but very often out of the country altogether; so that Theobald in giving him up to the king had condemned himself to pass his declining years apart from the object of his warmest earthly affections. But the Curia Theobaldi was by no means deserted; though it had lost its most brilliant star, there was no lack of lesser lights to brighten the primate’s home-circle; there was one whose soft mild radiance, less dazzling than the glory of Thomas, was a far truer and steadier reflex of Theobald’s own calm and gentle spirit. Yet John of Salisbury had entered the archbishop’s household within a comparatively recent period. His father’s name seems to have been Reinfred;[1562] his family connexions were all in or around the city whence his surname was derived;[1563] but there is some indication that John himself may have been born in London.[1564] In the year after the death of Henry I. he went to study in Paris, and there received his first lessons in dialectics from the greatest scholar of the day--sitting at the feet of Peter Abelard, and eagerly drinking in, to the utmost capacity of his young mind, every word that fell from the master’s lips. Abelard departed all too soon, and John pursued his studies for about two years under his successors Alberic and Robert, of whom the latter, although commonly called “Robert of Melun” from having taught with distinction in that place, was an Englishman by birth, and will come before us again in later days as Gilbert Foliot’s successor in the bishopric of Hereford. It must have been precisely during those two years that Thomas of London also was in Paris for the first time, striving for his mother’s sake to overcome his dislike of books; and it was possibly there that the two young Englishmen, who must have been of nearly the same age, began to form an acquaintance which afterwards ripened into a lifelong friendship. And it can only have been about the same time, and in that same wonderful meeting-place where so many of the happiest and most fruitful associations of the time had their beginnings, that John of Salisbury first met with Nicolas of Langley.

[1561] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, Becket, vol. iii.), p. 17. Herb. Bosh. (ibid.), p. 168. Will. Cant. (ib. vol. i.), p. 4. Anon. I. (ib. vol. iv.), p. 11. Garnier (Hippeau), p. 10. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 159. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 213, where he is called “Thomas Beket”--apparently for the first time.

[1562] “Magister B. filius Reinfred peccator, fraterculus meus,” is named by Joh. Salisb. Ep. xc. (Giles, vol. i. p. 135).

[1563] See his correspondence passim.

[1564] There is among John’s letters a most enigmatical one--Ep. cxxx. (Giles, vol. i. p. 109)--without date, address, or writer’s name, but very much in the tone and style of John’s familiar letters--in which a Londoner, or rather a man who tried to make himself out to be such, is described as “concivis noster.” It looks very much as if written by John to Thomas.

Thomas went home to the plodding life of a city merchant’s clerk; Nicolas set out on the long course of wandering which was to bring him at last to the Papal chair; John, having as he says “steeped himself to the finger-tips in dialectics, and moreover learned to think his knowledge greater than it really was,” applied himself for the next three years to the schools of the grammarians William of Conches and Richard l’Evêque, with whom he went over again the whole course of his previous studies, penetrated somewhat deeper into those of the quadrivium which he had begun under the direction of a German named Hardwin, and improved some slight notions of rhetoric which he had acquired at the lectures of a certain Master Theodoric. His relatives were quite unable to maintain him all this while; like all poor students of the day, he earned his living and his college-fees by teaching others, and as he pleasantly says “What I learned was the better fixed in my mind, because I constantly had to bring it out for my pupils.” One of these pupils was William of Soissons, to whom he taught the elements of logic, “and who afterwards contrived, as his followers say, a method of breaking down the old strongholds of logic, producing unexpected consequences, and overthrowing the opinions of the ancients.” John however declined to believe in a “system of impossibilities,” for which he at any rate was clearly not responsible; for he had soon transferred his pupil to the care of one Master Adam, an English teacher deeply versed in Aristotelian lore. It seems just possible that this Master Adam, who was at this time helping John in his studies not as a teacher but as a friend,[1565] was the same who many years before had stood in a somewhat similar relation to Gilbert Foliot.[1566] He may, however, perhaps be more probably identified with Adam “du Petit-Pont”--so called from the place where he lectured in Paris--who in 1176 became bishop of S. Asaph’s.[1567] After a while John found that with all his efforts he could hardly earn enough to live upon in Paris; so by the advice of his friends he determined to set up a school elsewhere.[1568] While sitting at the feet of the “Peripatetic” doctors on the Mont-Ste.-Geneviève he had become acquainted with a young native of Champagne, Peter by name, who was studying in the school of S. Martin-des-Champs.[1569] The two friends, it seems, settled together at Provins in Peter’s native land, and there, under the protection of the good Count Theobald,[1570] laboured and prospered for three years.[1571] Long afterwards, from his anxious post at the side of the dying Archbishop Theobald, John’s thoughts strayed tenderly back to the days which he and his young comrade, with hearts as light as their purses, had spent among the roses of Champagne: “I am the same that ever I was,” he wrote to Peter, now abbot of Celle, “only I possess more than you and I had between us at Provins.”[1572] He returned to Paris, revisited his old haunts on the Mont-Ste.-Geneviève, and was amused to find his old school-companions just where and as he had left them. “They did not seem to have advanced an inch towards disposing of the old questions, nor to have added one new proposition.” He, in his three years of healthy meditation in the country, had discovered that their dialectics, however useful as a help to other studies, were in themselves but a fruitless and lifeless system; he therefore now gave himself up to the study of theology under a certain Master Gilbert, Robert “Pullus”--in whom one is tempted to recognize the Robert Pulein who had planted the seed of the first English University by his divinity-lectures at Oxford in 1133--and lastly, Simon of Poissy.

[1565] Joh. Salisb. Metalog., l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v. pp. 78–80). Adam’s nationality appears in l. iii. c. 3 (p. 129), where he is described as “noster ille Anglus Peripateticus Adam.”

[1566] See below, p. 492, 493.

[1567] Wright, Biogr. Britt. Lit., vol. ii. pp. 245, 246.

[1568] Joh. Salisb. Metalog., l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v. pp. 80, 81).

[1569] On Peter of Celle see Migne, Patrologia, vol. ccii. cols. 399, 400, and Gall. Christ., vol. xii. col. 543.

[1570] Cf. Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxxxii. and cxliii. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 114, 206); and see also Demimuid, Jean de Salisbury, pp. 26, 27.

[1571] “Reversus itaque in fine triennii.” Joh. Salisb. Metalog. as above (p. 81).

[1572] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 114).

John’s whole career in the schools, after occupying about twelve years,[1573] apparently came to an end shortly before the council of Reims. His old friend Peter had already retired into the peace of the cloister, and about this time became abbot of Celle, near Troyes. There John, who was utterly without means of living, found a shelter and a home, nominally, it seems, in the capacity of Peter’s “clerk” or secretary, but in reality as the recipient of a generous hospitality which sought for no return save the enjoyment of his presence and his friendship.[1574] Such a light as John’s, however, could not long remain thus hidden under a bushel. So felt Peter himself;[1575] and at that moment a better place for it was easily found. At the council of Reims, or during his exile after it, the archbishop of Canterbury probably met the abbot of Celle and his English “clerk”;[1576] he certainly must have met the abbot of Clairvaux; and S. Bernard, with his unerring instinct, had already discovered John’s merits. He named him to Theobald in terms of commendation; and it was he who furnished the letter of introduction,[1577] as it was Peter who furnished the means,[1578] wherewith John at last made his way to the archbishop’s court,[1579] of which he soon became one of the busiest and most valued members. So busy was he--so “distracted with diverse and adverse occupations,” as he himself said--that he complained of being scarce able to steal an hour for the literary and philosophical pursuits which he so dearly loved. Ten times in the next thirteen years[1580] did he cross the Alps, twice did he visit Apulia, on business with the Roman court for his superiors or his friends; besides travelling all over England and Gaul on a variety of errands, and fulfilling a crowd of home-duties which left him scarcely time to look after his own private affairs, much less to indulge in study.[1581] The greater part of the communications between Theobald and Eugene III. must have passed through his hands, either as messenger or as amanuensis; but his name never figures in their diplomatic history; his place therein was a subordinate one. It was not in his nature to take the foremost rank. Not that he was unfit for it:--with his gracious, genial temper; his calm clear judgement, generally sound because always disinterested; his delicate wit, his easy, elegant scholarship, and his wide practical experience of the world--John of Salisbury might have adorned far higher positions in either Church or state than any which he ever actually occupied. But his own position was a thing of which he seems never to have thought, save as a means of serving others. His apology for his unwilling neglect of literature--“I am a man under authority”[1582]--might have been the motto of his life. He left it to others to lead; if they led in the way of righteousness, they might be sure of one faithful adherent who would serve and follow them through good report and evil report, who would try to clear the path before them at any risk to himself; who would criticize their conduct and tell them of their errors with fearless simplicity, while striving to avert the consequence of those errors and to cover their retreat; who in poverty and exile, incurred for another’s sake, would make light of his own sufferings and be constantly endeavouring to relieve those of his fellow-sufferers, and who would always find or make a silver lining to the darkest cloud. This was what John did for the possible acquaintance of his early student-days whom he had now rejoined in the household of Archbishop Theobald. To the end of his life he was more than satisfied to count the friendship of Thomas Becket as his chief title of honour, and to let whatever share of lustre might have been his own go to brighten the aureole of his friend. It brightened it far more than he knew. When detractors and panegyrists have both done their worst, there remains this simple proof of the real worth of Thomas--that he inspired such devotion as this in a man such as John of Salisbury, and that he knew how to appreciate it as it deserved.

[1573] Joh. Salisb. Metalog., l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v. p. 81).

[1574] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 117). Pet. Cell. Epp. lxvii.–lxxv. (Migne, Patrol., vol. ccii. cols. 513–522).

[1575] Pet. Cell. Ep. lxx. (as above, col. 516).

[1576] The Historia Pontificalis, certainly the work of one who was present at this council, is attributed to John.

[1577] S. Bern. Ep. ccclxi. (Mabillon, vol. i. col. 325).

[1578] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 117).

[1579] From the Prologue to the Polycraticus, l. i. (Joh. Salisb. Opp., Giles, vol. iii. p. 13), it appears that at the time of writing it John had been twelve years at the court. As the Polycraticus was written during the war of Toulouse, this takes us back to 1148. He must in fact have joined Theobald very soon after the council of Reims.

[1580] He himself makes it twenty years (Joh. Salisb. Metalog., prolog. l. iii., Giles, vol. v. p. 113); but he cannot possibly have left Paris before 1147, and the Metalogicus was finished before Theobald’s death in 1161. Either there is something wrong in John’s reckoning, or in his copyist’s reading of it, or this passage was added some years after the completion of the book.

[1581] Joh. Salisb. Metalog. as above.

[1582] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., prolog. l. vii. (Giles, vol. iv. p. 80).

It was however John’s friendship with Nicolas of Langley which in these years of his residence in the primate’s household made him so valuable to Theobald as a medium of communication with Rome. We can hardly doubt that this acquaintance, too, had begun in Paris; now, as the English cardinal-secretary and the envoy of the English primate discussed in the Roman court the prospects of their common mother-country and mother-Church, their acquaintance ripened into a friendship which no change of outward circumstances could alter or disturb. Nicolas cared more for John than for his own nearest relatives; he declared in public and in private that he loved him above all men living; he delighted in unburthening his soul to him. When he became Pope there was no change; a visit from John was still Adrian’s greatest pleasure; he rejoiced in welcoming him to his table, and despite John’s modest remonstrances insisted that they should be served from the same dish and flagon.[1583] King and primate were both alike quick to perceive and use such an opportunity of strengthening the alliance between England and Rome; while Adrian on his part was all the more ready to give a cordial response to overtures made to him from the land of his birth, when they came through the lips of his dearest friend. As a matter of course, it was John who very soon after the accession of Henry II. was sent to obtain a Papal authorization for the king’s projected conquest of Ireland.[1584] Naturally, too, it was John who now became Theobald’s private secretary and confidential medium of communication with Pope Adrian. A considerable part of the correspondence which goes under John’s name really consists of the archbishop’s letters, John himself being merely the amanuensis. This part of his work, however, was a relaxation which he only enjoyed at intervals; he was still constantly on active duty of some kind or other not only at the court of the primate but also at that of the king; and sorely did he long to escape from its weary trifling, to find rest for his soul in the pursuit of that “divine philosophy” which had been the delight of his youth.[1585] But obedience, not inclination, had brought him to court, and obedience kept him there. Thomas knew his worth and would not let him go; at last, to pacify his uneasiness, he bade him relieve his mind by pouring it out in a book. John protested he had scarce time to call his soul his own, much less his intellect or his hands.[1586] He was, however, set free by the removal of the court over sea for the expedition against Toulouse; and while Thomas was riding in coat of mail at the head of his troops against Count Raymond and King Louis, John was writing his Polycraticus in the quiet cloisters of Canterbury.[1587]

[1583] Joh. Salisb. Metalog., l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p. 205).

[1584] Joh. Salisb. Metalog., l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. pp. 205, 206).

[1585] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., l. i. prolog. (Giles, vol. iii. p. 13).

[1586] Ib. l. vii. prolog. (vol. iv. p. 80).

[1587] Ib. l. i. prolog. (vol. iii. p. 16). Cf. ib. l. viii. c. 24 (vol. iv. p. 379).

This book of Polycraticus on the Triflings of Courtiers and the Foot-prints of Philosophers[1588] is a strange medley of moral and political speculations, personal experiences, and reflections upon men and things, old and new. Its greatest charm lies in the revelation of the writer’s pure, sweet, child-like character, shining unconsciously through the veil of his scholastic pedantries and rambling metaphysics; its historical value consists in the light which it throws on the social condition of England with respect to a crowd of matters which the chroniclers leave wholly in the dark. “Part of it,” says the author in his dedication, “deals with the trifles of the court; laying most stress on those which have chiefly called it forth. Part treats of the foot-prints of the philosophers, leaving, however, the wise to decide for themselves in each case what is to be shunned and what to be followed.”[1589] We need not weary ourselves with John’s meditations upon Aristotle and Plato and their scholastic commentators; they all come round to one simple conclusion--that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the love of Him the end of all true philosophy.[1590] It is in the light of this truth that he looks at the practical questions of the day, and reviews those “trifles of the court” which are really the crying abuses of the government, the ecclesiastical administration, and society at large. In the forefront of all he does not hesitate, although dedicating his book to the chancellor whose passion for hunting almost equalled that of the king himself, to set the inordinate love of the chase and the cruelties of the forest-law.[1591] The tardiness of the royal justice and the corruption of the judges--“justitiæ errantes, justices errant are they rightly called who go erring from the path of equity in pursuit of greed and gain”[1592]--was also, after seven years of Henry’s government, still a ground of serious complaint. So, too, was the decay of valour among the young knighthood of the day--a consequence of the general relaxation of discipline, first during the years of anarchy, and then in the reaction produced by the unbroken peace which England had enjoyed since Henry’s accession. Chivalry was already falling back from its lofty ideal; military exercises were neglected for the pleasures and luxury of the court; the making of a knight, in theory a matter almost as solemn as the making of a priest, was sinking into a mere commonplace formality;[1593] and the consequences were beginning to be felt on the Welsh border.[1594] John was moved to contrast the present insecurity of the marches with their splendid defence in Harold’s time,[1595] and to lament that William the Conqueror, in his desire to make his little insular world share the glories of the greater world beyond the sea, had allowed the naturally rich and self-sufficing island to be flooded with luxuries of which it had no need, and thus fostered rather than checked the indolent disposition which had helped to bring its people under his sway.[1596]

[1588] Polycraticus de Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum.

[1589] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., l. i. prolog. (Giles, vol. iii. p. 13).

[1590] This is the idea which runs through the whole of Polycraticus, and indeed through all John’s writings. It is neatly expressed in two lines of his Entheticus (vv. 305, 306, Giles, vol. v. p. 248):

“Si verus Deus est hominum sapientia vera, Tunc amor est veri philosophia Dei.”

[1591] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., l. i. c. 4 (Giles, vol. iii. pp. 19–32).

[1592] Ib. l. v. c. 15 (p. 322). Cf. cc. 10, 11 (pp. 300–311). Pet. Blois, Ep. xcv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 297), makes a like play on the title of the judges.

[1593] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., l. vi. cc. 2, 3, 5, 8–10 (Giles, vol. iv. pp. 8–12, 15, 16, 20–23).

[1594] Ib. cc. 6, 16 (pp. 16, 17, 39, 40).

[1595] Ib. c. 6 (p. 18).

[1596] Ib. l. viii. c. 7 (p. 238).

The ills of the state had each its counterpart in the Church; the extortions and perversions of justice committed by the secular judges were paralleled by those of the ecclesiastical officials, deans and archdeacons;[1597] and at the bottom of the mischief lay the old root of all evil. Simony was indeed no longer public; spiritual offices were no longer openly bought with hard cash; but they were bought with court-interest instead;[1598] the Church’s most sacred offices were filled by men who came straight from the worldly life of the court to a charge for which they were utterly unfit;[1599] although, in deference to public opinion, they were obliged to go through an elaborate shew of reluctance, and Scripture and hagiology were ransacked for examples of converted sinners, which were always found sufficient to meet any objections against a candidate for consecration and to justify any appointment, however outrageous.[1600] All the sins of the worldly churchmen, however, scarcely move John’s pure soul to such an outburst of scathing sarcasm as he pours upon the “false brethren” who sought their advancement in a more subtle way, by a shew of counterfeit piety:--the ultra-monastic, ultra-ascetic school, with their overdone zeal and humility, and their reliance on those pernicious exemptions from diocesan jurisdiction which the religious orders vied with each other in procuring from Rome, and which were destroying all discipline and subverting all rightful authority.[1601]

[1597] Ib. l. v. c. 15 (vol. iii. pp. 327, 328).

[1598] Ib. l. vii. c. 18 (vol. iv. pp. 149, 152).

[1599] Ib. l. v. c. 15 (vol. iii. p. 329).

[1600] Ib. l. vii. cc. 18, 19 (vol. iv. pp. 149–152, 156–158).

[1601] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., l. vii. c. 21 (Giles, vol. iv. pp. 169–178). It is to be noted that the two orders which John considers to be least infected with this hypocrisy are those of the Chartreuse and of Grandmont. Ib. c. 23 (pp. 180, 181).

Over against the picture of the world and the Church as they actually were, the disciple of Archbishop Theobald sets his ideal of both as they should be--as the primate and his children aimed at making them. For John’s model commonwealth, built up in a somewhat disjointed fashion on a foundation partly of Holy Writ and partly of classic antiquity, is not, like the great Utopia of the sixteenth century, the product of one single, exceptionally constituted mind; it is a reflection of the plans and hopes of those among whom John lived and worked, and thus it helps us to see something of the line of thought which had guided their action in the past and which moulded their schemes for the future. Like all medieval theorists, they began at the uppermost end of the social and political scale; they started from a definite view of the rights and duties of the king, as the head on which all the lower members of the body politic depended. The divine right of kings, the divine ordination of the powers that be, were fundamental doctrines which they understood in a far wider and loftier sense than the king-worshippers of the seventeenth century:--which they employed not to support but to combat the perverted theory that “the sovereign’s will has the force of law,” already creeping in through the influence of the imperial jurisprudence;[1602]--and which were no less incompatible with the principle of invariable hereditary succession. “Lands and houses and suchlike things must needs descend to the next in blood; but the government of a people is to be given only to him whom God has chosen thereto, even to him who has God’s Spirit within him and God’s law ever before his eyes.... Not that for the mere love of change it is lawful to forsake the blood of princes, to whom by the privilege of the divine promises and by the natural claims of birth the succession of their children is justly due, if only they walk according to right. Neither, if they turn aside from the right way, are they to be immediately cast off, but patiently admonished till it become evident that they are obstinate in their wickedness”[1603]--then, and then only, shall the axe be laid to the root of the corrupt tree, and it shall cumber the ground no more.[1604]

[1602] Ib. l. iv. c. 7 (vol. iii. p. 241).

[1603] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., l. v. c. 6 (Giles, vol. iii. p. 278).

[1604] Ib. l. iv. c. 12 (pp. 259, 260).

Such was the moral which the wisest and most thoughtful minds in England drew from the lessons of the anarchy. On a like principle, it was in the growth of a more definite and earnest sense of individual duty and responsibility, as opposed to the selfish lawlessness which had so long prevailed, that they trusted for the regeneration of society. They sought to teach the knights to live up to the full meaning of their vows and the true objects of their institution--the protection of the Church, the suppression of treason, the vindication of the rights of the poor, the pacification of the country;[1605] so that the consecration of their swords upon the altar at their investiture should be no empty form, but, according to its original intention, a true symbol of the whole character of their lives and, if need be, of their deaths.[1606] And then side by side with the true knight would stand the true priest:--both alike soldiers of the Cross, fighting in the same cause though with different weapons--figured, according to John’s beautiful application of a text which medieval reformers never wearied of expounding, by the “two swords” which the Master had declared “enough” for His servants, all the lawless undisciplined activity of self-seekers and false brethren being merely the “swords and staves” of the hostile multitude.[1607] Into a detailed examination of the rights or the duties of the various classes of the people no one in those days thought it necessary to enter; their well-being and well-doing were regarded as dependent upon those of their superiors, and the whole question of the relation between rulers and ruled--“head and feet,” according to the simile which John borrows from Plutarch--was solved by the comprehensive formula, “Every one members one of another.”[1608] To watch over and direct the carrying-out of this principle was the special work of the clergy; and the clerical reformers were jealous for the rights of their order because, as understood by them, they represented and covered the rights of the whole nation; the claims which they put forth in the Church’s name were a protest in behalf of true civil and religious liberty against tyranny on the one hand and license on the other.[1609] “For there is nothing more glorious than freedom, save virtue; if indeed freedom may rightly be severed from virtue--for all who know anything aright know that true freedom has no other source.”[1610]

[1605] Ib. l. vi. c. 8 (vol. iv. p. 21).

[1606] Ibid. c. 10 (p. 23). Cf. Pet. Blois, Ep. xciv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 291–296).

[1607] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., l. vi. c. 8 (Giles, vol. iv. p. 21). John’s use of the text is perhaps only a generalization from S. Bernard’s application of it to Suger and the count of Nevers, left regents of France in 1149. Odo of Deuil, Rer. Gall. Scriptt., vol. xii. p. 93.

[1608] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., l. vi. c. 20 (as above, pp. 51, 52).

[1609] Ib. l. vii. c. 20 (pp. 161–169).

[1610] Ibid. c. 25 (p. 192).

How far these lofty views had made their way into the high places of the Church it was as yet scarcely possible to judge. The tone of the English episcopate had certainly undergone a marked change for the better during the last six years of Stephen’s reign. Theobald’s hopes must, however, have been chiefly in the rising generation. Of the existing bishops there was only one really capable of either helping or hindering the work which the primate had at heart; for Henry of Winchester, although his royal blood, his stately personality and his long and memorable career necessarily made him to his life’s end an important figure in both Church and state, had ceased to take an active part in the affairs of either, and for several years lived altogether away from England, in his boyhood’s home at Cluny.[1611] A far more weighty element in the calculations of the reforming party was the character and policy of the bishop of Hereford, Gilbert Foliot. From the circumstances in which we find Gilbert’s relatives in England,[1612] it seems probable that he belonged to one of the poorer Norman families of knightly rank who came over either in the train of the great nobles of the conquest or in the more peaceful immigration under Henry I. His youth is lost in obscurity; of his education we know nothing, save by its fruits. Highly gifted as he unquestionably was by nature, even his inborn genius could hardly have enabled him to acquire his refined and varied scholarship, his unrivalled mastery of legal, political and ecclesiastical lore, his profound and extensive knowledge of men and things, anywhere but in some one or other of the universities of the day. It is curious that although Gilbert’s extant correspondence is one of the most voluminous of the time--extending over nearly half a century, and addressed to persons of the most diverse ranks, parties, professions and nationalities--it contains not one allusion to the studies or the companions of his youth, not one of those half playful, half tender reminiscences of student-triumphs, student-troubles and student-friendships, which were so fresh in the hearts and in the letters of many distinguished contemporaries. Only from an appeal made to him, when bishop of London, in behalf of his old benefactor’s orphan and penniless children, do we learn that he had once been the favourite pupil, the ward, almost the adoptive son, of a certain Master Adam.[1613] It is tempting, but perhaps hardly safe, to conjecture that this Master Adam was the learned Englishman of that name who in like manner befriended another young fellow-countryman, John of Salisbury, when he too was studying in Paris.[1614] This, however, was not till Gilbert Foliot’s student-days had long been past. Wherever his youth may have been spent, wherever his reputation may have been acquired, the one was quite over and the other was fully established before 1139, when he had been already for some years a monk of Cluny, had attained the rank of prior in the mother-house, and had thence been promoted to become the head of the dependent priory of Abbeville.[1615]

[1611] He went there in 1155 (Rob. Torigni, ad ann.), and does not reappear in England till March 1159 (Palgrave, Eng. Commonwealth, vol. ii. p. xii).

[1612] See his letters passim.

[1613] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. dxv., dxvii. (Giles, vol. ii. pp. 323, 324, 326). The writer of the first is “Ranulfus de Turri”; the second is anonymous. Both appeal earnestly to the bishop’s charity and gratitude in behalf of “J. filius A. magistri quondam vestri, procuratoris vestri, tutoris vestri.... Hæreat animo sanctitatis vestræ illa M. Adæ circa vos curarum gravitas, alimoniæ fœcunditas, diligentia doctrinæ, specialis impensa benivolentiæ. Quis hodie proprios liberos regit providentius, educat uberius, instruit attentius, diligit ferventius? Sic pæne amor ille modum excessit, ut vos diligeret non quasi excellenter, sed quasi singulariter ... qui vos aliquando pro filio adoptavit” (Ep. dxv.). “Tangat memoriam vestram illa M. Adæ circa vos curarum gravitas, doctrinæ profunditas, alimoniæ ubertas, postremo fervens, immo ardens caritas. Hæreat animo vestro quantâ curâ, quali amplexu, quam speciali privilegio, illa doctoris vestri, procuratoris, tutoris, diligens vigilantia vos non modo supra familiares, verum supra quoslibet mortales adoptaverit, qualiterque ejus spiritus in vestro, ut ita dicam, spiritu quieverit.” Ep. dxvii.

[1614] See above, p. 482. In any case, Gilbert’s Master Adam is surely a somewhat interesting person, of whom one would like to know more. This was the condition of his eldest son, when commended to the gratitude of Gilbert: “Pater ejus cum fati munus impleret, filium reliquit ære alieno gravatum, fratrum numerositate impeditum, redituum angustiis constrictum, et quibusdam aliis nexibus intricatum.” Gilb. Foliot, Ep. dxvii. (Giles, vol. ii. p. 326). “Onerant enim eum supra modum redituum angustiæ, debitorum paternorum sarcinæ, amicorum raritas, fratrum sororumque pluralitas et reliquæ sarcinæ parentelæ.” Ep. dxv. (ib. p. 323).

[1615] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cclxix. (Giles, vol. i. p. 366).

In 1139 the abbot of S. Peter’s at Gloucester died; Miles the constable, the lord of Gloucester castle and sheriff of the county, and the greatest man of the district after Earl Robert himself, secured the vacant office for Gilbert Foliot,[1616] who was a family connexion of his own.[1617] The abbey of S. Peter at Gloucester, founded as a nunnery in the seventh century, changed into a college of secular priests after the Danish wars, and finally settled as a house of Benedictine monks in the reign of Cnut, had risen to wealth and fame under its first Norman abbot, Serlo, some of whose work still survives in the nave of his church, now serving as the cathedral church of Gloucester. Gloucester itself, the capital of Earl Robert’s territories, was still, like Hereford and Shrewsbury, a border-city whose inhabitants had to be constantly on their guard against the thievery and treachery of the Welsh, who, though often highly useful to their English earl as auxiliary forces in war, were anything but loyal subjects or trustworthy neighbours. The position of abbot of S. Peter’s therefore was at all times one of some difficulty and anxiety; and Gilbert entered upon it at a specially difficult and anxious time. Stephen’s assent to his appointment can hardly have been prompted by favour to Miles, who had openly defied the king a year ago; he may have been influenced by fear of giving fresh offence to such a formidable deserter, or he may simply have been, as we are told, moved by the report of Gilbert’s great merits.[1618] The new abbot proved quite worthy of his reputation. His bitterest enemies always admitted that he was a pattern of monastic discipline and personal asceticism; and his admirable judgement, moderation and prudence soon made him a personage of very high authority in the counsels of the English Church. Holding such an important office in the city which was the head-quarters of the Empress’s party throughout the greater part of the civil war, he of course had his full share of the troubles of the anarchy, whereof Welsh inroads counted among the least. There is no doubt that in bringing him to England Miles had, whether intentionally or not, brought over one who sympathized strongly with the Angevin cause; but Gilbert’s sympathies led him into no political partizanship. During his nine years’ residence at Gloucester he consistently occupied the position which seems to have been his ideal through life: that of a churchman pure and simple, attached to no mere party in either Church or state, but ready to work with each and all for the broad aims of ecclesiastical order and national tranquillity. That these aims came at last to be identified with the success of the Angevin party was a result of circumstances over which Gilbert had no control. He was honoured, consulted and trusted by the most diverse characters among the bishops. Mere abbot of a remote monastery as he was, Nigel of Ely was glad to be recommended by him to Pope Celestine, Jocelyn of Salisbury to Lucius, and Alexander of Lincoln to Eugene III.[1619] He was treated almost as an equal not only by his own diocesan Bishop Simon of Worcester, by his neighbour Robert of Hereford, and by Jocelyn of Salisbury, but even by the archbishop of Canterbury and the legate Henry of Winchester; and he writes in the tone of a patron and adviser to Bishop Uhtred of Landaff and to the heads of the religious houses on the Welsh border.[1620] He seems indeed to have been the usual medium of communication between the Church in the western shires and its primate at far-off Canterbury, who evidently found him a trustworthy and useful agent in managing the very troublesome Church affairs of the Welsh marches during the civil war.

[1616] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 114. Hist. Monast. S. Pet. Gloc. (Riley), vol. i. p. 18.

[1617] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 162.

[1618] Flor. Worc. Contin., a. 1139 (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 114). Hist. S. Pet. Gloc. (Riley), vol. i. p. 18.

[1619] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. v., xi., xxv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 12, 22, 37).

[1620] See his correspondence while abbot of Gloucester; Gilb. Foliot Opp. (Giles), vol. i. pp. 3–94.

When at last the storm subsided and a turn of the tide came with the spring of 1148, Theobald openly shewed his confidence in the abbot of Gloucester by commanding his attendance on that journey to Reims which the king had forbidden, and which was therefore looked upon as the grand proclamation of ecclesiastical independence, as well as of devotion to the house of Anjou. Gilbert, with characteristic caution, excused himself on the plea that the troubles of his house urgently required his presence at home;[1621] but he ended by going nevertheless,[1622] and when his friend Bishop Robert of Hereford--one of the three prelates whom Stephen had permitted to attend the council of Reims--died during its session, the Pope and the primate rewarded Gilbert with the succession to the vacant see.[1623] For his perjury in doing homage to Stephen for its temporalities after swearing to hold them only of Henry Fitz-Empress he may be supposed to have quieted his conscience with the plea that there was no other means of securing them for Henry’s benefit;--a plea which Henry, after some delay,[1624] found it wise to accept. The heads of the Angevin party knew indeed that Gilbert regarded all homage to Stephen as simply null and void; he had just written it plainly to Brian Fitz-Count, when criticizing Brian’s apology for the Empress, in a letter[1625] which, we may be very sure, must have been handed about and studied among her friends as a much more valuable document than the pamphlet which had called it forth.

[1621] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. vi., vii. (ib. pp. 13, 14).

[1622] He writes--evidently from the spot--a report of the council of Reims to Robert archdeacon of Lincoln; Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxvi. (as above, p. 92). In July he was at Arras with Theobald: Ep. lxxiii. (ib. p. 89).

[1623] See above, pp. 370, 371.

[1624] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. xc., cxxx. (as above, pp. 116, 170).

[1625] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxix. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 94–102); a most interesting and valuable letter, being a detailed review of the whole question of the succession, as well as of Brian’s “book.” The latter is unhappily lost.

The career of the new bishop of Hereford was but the natural continuation of that of the abbot of Gloucester. His more exalted office enabled him to be more than ever Theobald’s right hand in the direction of the western dioceses. In their secular policy he and Theobald were wholly at one; whether they really were equally so in their ideas of Church reform is a question which was never put to the test; but the tone of Gilbert’s mind, so far as it can be made out from his letters and from his course in after-years, does not seem to have altogether harmonized with that which prevailed in the primate’s household; and the one member of that household with whom Gilbert was on really intimate terms was precisely the one who, as afterwards appeared, had imbibed least of its spirit--Roger of Pont-l’Evêque. Gilbert’s character is not an easy one to read. Its inner depths are scarcely reflected in his letters, which are almost all occupied with mere business or formal religious exhortation; we never get from him such a pleasant little stream of unpremeditated, discursive talk as John of Salisbury or Peter of Blois delighted to pour out of the abundance of their hearts into the ears of some old comrade, or such a flood of uncontrolled passion as revealed the whole soul of Thomas Becket. Gilbert’s letters are carefully-balanced, highly-finished compositions; almost every one of them reads as if it had received as much polishing, in proportion to its length and importance, as the review of Earl Brian’s book, which, the abbot owns, occupied what should have been his hours of prayer during two days.[1626] A strong vein of sarcasm, very clever as well as very severe, is the only token of personal feeling which at times forces its way strangely, almost startlingly, through the veil of extreme self-depreciation with which Gilbert strove to cover it. The self-depreciation is even more disagreeable than the sarcasm; yet it seems hardly fair to accuse Gilbert of conscious hypocrisy. There was a bitter, sneering disposition ingrained in his innermost being, and he knew it. His elaborate expressions of more than monastic humility and meekness may have been the outcome of a struggle to smother what he probably regarded as his besetting sin; and if he not only failed to smother it, but drifted into a much more subtle and dangerous temptation, still it is possible that he himself never perceived the fact, and was less a deceiver than a victim of self-deception. During his episcopate at Hereford, at any rate, no shadow of suspicion fell upon him from any quarter; primate and Pope esteemed, trusted and consulted him as one of the wisest as well as most zealous doctors of the English Church; and when the young king came to his throne he did not fail to shew a duly respectful appreciation of Gilbert’s character and services.

[1626] “Et biduo saltem ores pro me, quia biduo mihi est intermissa oratio ut literas dictarem ad te.” Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxix. (Giles, vol. i. p. 102).

The king’s own attitude towards the religious revival was as yet not very clearly defined. Henry was not without religious impulse; but it had taken a special direction which indeed might naturally be expected in a grandson of Fulk of Jerusalem:--a restless desire to go upon crusade. He had no sooner mounted his throne than he began to urge upon the English Pope, newly crowned like himself, the importance of giving special attention to the necessities of the Holy Land.[1627] Four years later he proposed to join Louis of France in a crusade against the Moors in Spain. Louis wrote to the Pope announcing this project and begging for his advice and support; Adrian in reply assured the two kings of his sympathy and goodwill, but though praising their zeal he expressed some doubt of its discretion, advised them to ascertain whether the Spaniards desired their help before thrusting it upon them unasked, and reminded Louis in plain terms of the disastrous issue of his former rash crusade.[1628] The warning was needless, for it was hardly written before the intending brothers-in-arms were preparing to fight against each other; and before the war of Toulouse was over the English Pope was dead.[1629]

[1627] Pet. Blois, Ep. clxviii. (Giles, vol. ii. pp. 116–118). The letter is headed merely “Tali Papæ talis rex,” but there can be no doubt that they are Henry and Adrian. The king congratulates himself and his country--“noster Occidens”--on the elevation of a native thereof to the Papal chair, and makes suggestions to the Pope about the work which lies before him.

[1628] Adrian IV. Ep. ccxli. (Migne, Patrol., vol. clxxxviii., cols. 1615–1617; Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. iv. pp. 590, 591). Date, February 18 [1159].

[1629] Adrian died at Anagni on September 1, 1159. Alex. III. Ep. i. (Migne, Patrol., vol. cc., col. 70).

His death was a heavy blow to the Church of his native land; and it was followed by a schism which threatened disastrous consequences to all western Christendom. Two Popes were elected--Roland of Siena, cardinal of S. Mark and treasurer of the Holy See, and Octavian, cardinal of S. Cecilia, a Roman of noble birth. This latter, who assumed the name of Victor IV., was favoured by the Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa. After a violent struggle he was expelled from Rome and fled to the protection of his imperial patron, who thereupon summoned a general council to meet at Pavia early in the next year and decide between the rival pontiffs.[1630] Only the bishops of Frederic’s own dominions obeyed the summons, and only one of the claimants; for Alexander III. (as Roland was called by his adherents) disdained to submit to a trial whose issue he believed to have been predetermined against him. He was accordingly condemned as a rebel and schismatic, and Victor was acknowledged as the lawful successor of S. Peter.[1631] This decision, however, bound only the bishops of the Imperial dominions; and its general acceptance throughout the rest of Christendom, doubtful from the first, became impossible when Alexander and his partizans published their account of the mode by which it had been arrived at. Victor--so their story went--had actually placed his pontifical ring in the Emperor’s hands and received it back from him as the symbol of investiture.[1632] The Church at large could have no hesitation in deciding that a man who thus climbed into the sheepfold by surrendering, voluntarily and deliberately, the whole principle of spiritual independence whose triumph Gregory and Anselm had devoted their lives to secure, was no true shepherd but a thief and robber. Frederic however lost no time in endeavouring to obtain for him the adhesion of France and England; and in the last-named quarter he had great hopes of success. Henry had for several years past shewn a disposition to knit up again the old political ties which connected England with Germany; friendly embassies had been exchanged between the two countries;[1633] now that he had begun to quarrel with France, too, he was likely to be more inclined towards an imperial alliance. Moreover it might naturally be expected that Frederic’s bold and apparently successful attempt to revive the claims of his predecessor Henry IV. on the subject of ecclesiastical investitures would meet with sympathy from the grandson and representative of Henry I. Indeed, the official report of the council of Pavia declares that Henry had actually, by letters and envoys, given his assent to its proceedings.[1634] But nothing of the kind was known in Henry’s own dominions;[1635] and it seems that the Emperor was forestalled by a Norman bishop.

[1630] Radevic of Freisingen, l. ii. cc. 43, 50–56 (Muratori, Rer. Ital. Scriptt., vol. vi. cols. 819, 823–834), largely made up of official letters. This is the Victorian or Imperialist version; for the Alexandrine see Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 118, 119), and Arn. Lisieux, Epp. 21, 22, 23 (Giles, pp. 108–122. Arnulf calls the antipope “Otto.”) It seems quite hopeless to reconcile them or decide between them.

[1631] Rad. Freising., l. ii. cc. 64–72 (as above, cols. 838–853). Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 119, 120).

[1632] Arn. Lisieux, Ep. 23 (Giles, p. 118).

[1633] Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II. (Hunter), p. 112. Cf. Rad. Freising., l. i. c. 7 (Muratori, Rer. Ital. Scriptt., vol. vi. cols. 744, 745). Another embassy from Henry reached Frederic in Lombardy, in the winter of 1158–1159, immediately after one from Louis. The object of each king was to secure Frederic’s alliance against the other, in prospect of the coming war of Toulouse; Rad. Freising., l. ii. c. 22 (as above, col. 804).

[1634] Report in Rad. Freising., l. ii. c. 70 (as above, col. 850). But the bishop of Bamberg, also an eye-witness, says: “Nuntius regis Francorum promisit pro eo neutrum se recepturum usque dum nuntios Imperatoris recipiat. Nuntius regis Anglorum idem velle et idem nolle promisit, tam in his quam in aliis” (ib. c. 71, col. 851); which leaves it doubtful whether the English envoy really echoed the decision of the council, or the answer of his French brother.

[1635] Not even to Stephen of Rouen, the author of the Draco Normannicus, who has a long account of the schism, curious as proceeding from a Norman monk whose sympathies are wholly and openly on the opposite side to that which was formally adopted by his own sovereign, nation and Church. Draco Norm., l. iii. cc. 6–11, vv. 361–868 (Howlett, Will. Newb., vol. ii. pp. 724–739).

Arnulf of Lisieux came of a family which had for more than half a century been constantly mixed up in the diplomatic concerns of Normandy and Anjou. Arnulf himself had begun his career about 1130 by writing a treatise in defence of an orthodox Pope against an usurper;[1636] he had been chosen to succeed his uncle Bishop John of Lisieux[1637] shortly before Geoffrey Plantagenet’s final conquest of Normandy, and had bought at a heavy price his peace with the new ruler;[1638] and for the next forty years there was hardly a diplomatic transaction of any kind, ecclesiastical or secular, in England or in Gaul, in which he was not at some moment and in some way or other concerned. He had little official influence; he had indeed a certain amount of territorial importance in Normandy, for Lisieux was the capital of a little county of which the temporal as well as the spiritual government was vested in the bishop; but a Norman bishop, merely as such, had none of the political weight of an English prelate; and Arnulf never held any secular office. He was not exactly a busybody; he was a consummate diplomatist, of wide experience and far-reaching intelligence, with whose services no party could afford to dispense; and his extraordinary caution and sagacity enabled him to act as counsellor and guide of all parties at once without sacrificing his own reputation as a sound Churchman and a loyal subject. In his youth he had come in contact with most of the rising scholars and statesmen of the day in the schools of Paris; and as he was an indefatigable and accomplished letter-writer, he kept up through life a busy correspondence with men of all ranks and all schools of thought on both sides of the sea.[1639] During the quarrel between Louis VII. and Geoffrey Plantagenet concerning the affair of Montreuil-Bellay, Arnulf was intrusted by Suger with a chief part in the negotiations for the restoration of peace;[1640] the final settlement in 1151, whereby the investiture of Normandy was secured to Henry, was chiefly owing to his diplomacy;[1641] he accompanied Henry to England and was present at his crowning;[1642] and on all questions of continental policy he continued to be Henry’s chief adviser till he was superseded by Thomas Becket.

[1636] See his Tractatus de Schismate in his “Works” (ed. Giles), pp. 43–79.

[1637] In 1141. Gall. Christ., vol. xi. cols. 774, 775.

[1638] Ib. col. 775.

[1639] One of his fellow-students was Ralf de Diceto, the future historian and dean of S. Paul’s, to whom he writes affectionately in after-years, recalling vividly the memories of joy and sorrow which they had shared in their college days. Arn. Lis. Ep. 16 (Giles, pp. 100, 101). Another of his early friends was Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln, whose good offices he earnestly entreated in behalf of the young Duke Henry when the latter made his expedition to England in 1149. Ep. 4 (pp. 85, 86).

[1640] Suger, Epp. clxvii., clxviii. (Migne, Patrol., vol. clxxxvi., cols. 1428, 1429).

[1641] Arn. Lis. Ep. 5 (Giles, pp. 86, 87). One passage looks as if the demand for Henry’s investiture had come from England; it is described as “postulatio Anglorum.”

[1642] Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

To Arnulf there was nothing new or startling in a schism at Rome; his experiences of thirty years before enabled him to penetrate the present case at once, and as then with his pen, so now with his tongue, he proved the readiest and most powerful advocate of the orthodox pontiff. Fortunately, Henry was in Normandy; before any one else had time to gain his ear and bias his mind, before he himself had time to think of forming an independent judgement on the subject, Arnulf hurried to his side,[1643] and set forth the claims of Alexander with such convincing eloquence that the king at once promised to acknowledge him as Pope. He refrained however from issuing an immediate order for Alexander’s acceptance throughout his dominions, partly in deference to the Emperor,[1644] and partly to make sure of the intentions of the king of France. Louis, like Henry, had sent a representative to the council of Pavia, but he had taken care not to commit himself to any decision upon its proceedings.[1645] He was not naturally inclined to favour the Emperor’s views. The question of the investitures had never been as important in France as in Germany or in England, and had been settled by a kind of tacit concordat which the Most Christian King had no mind to forfeit his title by disturbing; France was always the staunchest upholder of the independence of the Apostolic see;[1646] and neither king nor clergy desired to change their attitude. They met in council at Beauvais some time in the summer of 1160; a similar gathering of the Norman bishops, in Henry’s presence, took place in July at Neufmarché; both assemblies resulted in the acknowledgement of Alexander.[1647] The formal assent of the Churches of England and Aquitaine had still to be obtained before either king would fully proclaim his decision.[1648] Archbishop Theobald’s anxious request for information and instructions concerning the schism[1649] was answered by an exhaustive and eloquent statement of the case from the pen of the indefatigable bishop of Lisieux;[1650] and in accordance with his directions the English bishops in council assembled unanimously declared their acceptance of Alexander III. as the lawful successor of S. Peter.[1651]

[1643] Arn. Lis. Epp. 18 and 21 (Giles, pp. 103, 104, 111).

[1644] Arn. Lis. Ep. 21 (Giles, p. 111).

[1645] See above, p. 499, note 3{1634}.

[1646] Arn. Lis. Ep. 23 (Giles, p. 120).

[1647] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

[1648] Arn. Lis. Epp. 23, 24 (Giles, pp. 120, 129).

[1649] Joh. Salisb. Ep. xliv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 45, 46).

[1650] Arn. Lis. Ep. 23 (Giles, pp. 116–122). Cf. Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 197).

[1651] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii. (as above). Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxiv (Giles, vol. i. p. 79).

Alexander’s legates were already in Normandy;[1652] unluckily, however, the use which Henry made of their presence led as we have seen to a fresh rupture between him and Louis; and by this the Emperor and the anti-pope immediately sought to profit. Tempting as their overtures were to Henry, it does not appear that he ever seriously entertained them; but the leaders of the English Church, having now learned the circumstances of the case and grasped the full importance of the triumph insured to the reforming party by his acceptance of Alexander, were naturally alarmed lest he should be induced to change his mind. Their anxiety was increased by the enfeebled state of their own ranks. The struggles of Bishop Richard of London to clear off the debts incurred in raising a fine required by Stephen at his election seemed to have only aggravated the confusion of his affairs, which his friends the bishops of Hereford and Lincoln were engaged in a desperate effort to disentangle,[1653] while Richard himself, to complete his misfortunes, was stricken helpless by paralysis.[1654] Henry of Winchester had returned to his diocese, after nearly four years’ absence, in 1159;[1655] but by the spring of 1161 he again left the Church of England to her fate and went back to his beloved Cluny.[1656] The bishoprics of Chester (or Lichfield), Exeter and Worcester were vacant;[1657] and, worst of all, Archbishop Theobald was dying.

[1652] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii (as above).

[1653] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxx. (Giles, vol. i. p. 158).

[1654] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 304.

[1655] See above, p. 492, note 1{1611}.

[1656] R. Diceto, as above.

[1657] Walter of Lichfield died December 7, 1160 (Stubbs, Registr. Sac. Ang., p. 30); Alfred of Worcester, July 31, 1160; and Robert of Exeter some time in the same year (ib. p. 31).

The primate’s letters during the last few months of his life shew him calmly awaiting his call to rest, yet anxiously longing to be assured of the future of those whom he was leaving behind, and to set in order a few things that were wanting before he could depart altogether in peace. Very touching are the expressions of his longing to “see the face of the Lord’s anointed once again”--to welcome the king back to his country and his home, safely removed from political temptations to break away from the unity of the Church.[1658] And there was another for whose return Theobald yearned more deeply still: his own long absent archdeacon--“the first of my counsellors, nay, my only one,” as he calls him, pleading earnestly with the king to let him come home.[1659] For a moment, indeed, Theobald was on the point of being left almost alone. Some rather obscure mischief-making in high places had caused John of Salisbury to be visited with the king’s severe displeasure; treated as a suspected criminal in England, forbidden to go and clear himself in Normandy, John found his position so unbearable that he contemplated taking refuge in France under the protection of his old friend Abbot Peter of Celle.[1660] He seems, however, to have ended by remaining in England under Theobald’s protection; before the winter of 1160, at any rate, he was again at Canterbury, watching over and tending the primate’s gradual decline;--almost overwhelmed with “the care of all the churches,” which Theobald had transferred to him;[1661]--characteristically finding relief from his anxieties in correspondence with old friends, and in the composition of another little philosophical treatise, called Metalogicus, whose chief interest lies in the sketch which it contains of its author’s early life.[1662] John’s disinterested affection and devoted services were fully appreciated by Theobald;[1663] but they could not make up for the absence of Thomas. Not only did the old man long to see his early favourite once more; not only were there grave matters of diocesan administration dependent on the archdeacon’s office and urgently requiring his personal co-operation:[1664]--it was on far weightier things than these that the archbishop desired to hold counsel with Thomas. In the hands of Thomas, as chief adviser and minister of the king, rested in no small degree the future of the English Church; Theobald’s darling wish was that it should rest in his hands as primate of all England.[1665]

[1658] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxiii, lxiv,* lxiv** (Giles, vol. i. pp. 77, 78, 80–82), all from Theobald to Henry.

[1659] “Qui [sc. Thomas] nobis unicus est et consilii nostri primus.” Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxx. (ib. p. 93).

[1660] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxi., xcvi., cviii., cxii., cxiii., cxv., cxxi. (ib. pp. 74, 75, 141–144, 158, 160, 161, 164, 165, 169, 170). See Demimuid, Jean de Salisbury, pp. 183–188.

[1661] Joh. Salisb. Metalog., prolog. (Giles, vol. v. pp. 8, 9), and l. iv. c. 42 (ib. p. 206).

[1662] Ib. l. ii. c. 10 (pp. 78–81).

[1663] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxiv.* (Giles, vol. i. p. 80), from Theobald to Henry.

[1664] Joh. Salisb. Epp. xlix., lxxi. (ib. pp. 51, 52, 94, 95), both from Theobald to Thomas. The initial in the address of lxxi. is clearly wrong. See Robertson, Becket, vol. v. p. 11, note a.

[1665] This is distinctly stated by John of Salisbury:--

“Ille Theobaldus qui Christi præsidet aulæ, Quam fidei matrem Cantia nostra colit, Hunc successurum sibi sperat et orat, ut idem Præsulis officium muniat atque locum.”

Entheticus, vv. 1293–1296 (Giles, vol. v. p. 280.)

Later writers dilate upon the startling contrast between Becket’s character and policy as chancellor and as archbishop. That contrast vanishes when we look at the chancellor through the eyes of the two men who knew him best; and we find that the real contrast lies between their view of him and that of the outside world which only saw the surface of his life and could not fathom its inner depths. Those who beheld him foremost in every military exercise and every courtly pastime, far outdoing the king himself in lavish splendour and fastidious refinement, devoting every faculty of mind and body to the service and the pleasure of his royal friend:--those who saw all this, and could only judge by what they saw, might well have thought that for such a man to become the champion of the Church was a dream to be realized only by miracle or by imposture. But Archbishop Theobald and John of Salisbury had known his inmost soul, better perhaps than he knew it himself, before ever he went to court; and they knew that however startling his conduct there might look, he was merely fulfilling in his own way the mission on which he had been sent thither:--making himself all things to all men, if thereby he might by any means influence the court and the king for good.[1666] Even his suggestion of the scutage for the war of Toulouse did not seriously shake their faith in him; they blamed him, but they believed that he had erred in weakness, not in wilfulness.[1667] In the middle of the war John dedicated the Polycraticus to him as the one man about the court to whom its follies and its faults could be criticized without fear, because he had no part in them.[1668] Thomas himself does not seem to have contemplated the possibility of removal from his present sphere. It was not in his nature at any time to look far ahead; and Henry seemed to find his attendance more indispensable than ever, declaring in answer to Theobald’s intreaties and remonstrances that he could not possibly spare him till peace was thoroughly restored.[1669]

[1666] Joh. Salisb. Enthet., vv. 1435–1440 (Giles, vol. v. p. 285).

[1667] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxlv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 223, 224).

[1668] Joh. Salisb. Polycrat., prolog. (Giles, vol. iii. p. 13).

[1669] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 106).

Thomas was in a strait. His first duty was to his dying spiritual father; but he could not go against the king’s will without running such a risk as Theobald would have been the first to disapprove. Thomas himself therefore at last suggested that the archbishop should try to move the king by summoning his truant archdeacon to return home at once on pain of deprivation.[1670] Theobald, unable to reconcile the contradictory letters of king and chancellor with the general reports of their wonderful unanimity, steered a middle course between severity and gentleness, from fear of bringing down the royal displeasure upon his favourite, whom he yet half suspected of being in collusion with the king. His secretary, John, had no such doubts; but he too was urgent that by some means or other Thomas should come over before the primate’s death.[1671] If he did go, it can only have been for a flying visit; and there is no sign that he went at all. One thing he did obtain for Theobald’s satisfaction: the appointment of Bartholomew archdeacon of Exeter to the bishopric of that diocese.[1672] In April Richard Peche, on whom the see of Chester had been conferred, was consecrated at Canterbury by Walter of Rochester, the archbishop being carried into the chapel to sanction by his presence the rite in which he was too feeble to assist.[1673] By the hand of the faithful secretary John he transmitted to King Henry his last solemn benediction and farewell, and commended to the royal care the future of his church and the choice of his successor.[1674] A few days later, on April 18, 1161, the good primate passed away.[1675]

[1670] Ib. (p. 105).

[1671] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 105–107).

[1672] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxx., lxxi., lxxviii. (as above, pp. 94, 95, 106). On Bartholomew see also Ep. xc. (ib. pp. 132–136), where John addresses him as a personal friend.

[1673] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 168.

[1674] Joh. Salisb. Ep. liv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 56–58). See the archbishop’s will in Ep. lvii. (ib. pp. 60–62).

[1675] Gerv. Cant. as above.

ERRATA

Page 50, line 8 from foot, insert “and” before “bore.” ” 158, ” 5, for “in” read “by.” ” 268, ” 18, dele “the following.” ” 274, ” 14 from foot, for “two” read “three.” ” 282, ” 14, insert “and” before “made.” ” 417, lines 3 and 4 from foot, for “husband ... heiress” read “head.” ” 438, note 5, line 8, for “David” read “Henry of Scotland.”

END OF VOL. I.

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh

ENGLAND UNDER THE ANGEVIN KINGS

ENGLAND UNDER THE ANGEVIN KINGS

BY KATE NORGATE

IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. II.

WITH MAPS AND PLANS

London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1887

All rights reserved

CONTENTS

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Chapter I

PAGE ARCHBISHOP THOMAS, 1162–1164 1 Note A.--The Council of Woodstock 43 Note B.--The Council of Clarendon 44

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Chapter II

HENRY AND ROME, 1164–1172 46

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Chapter III

THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND, 795–1172 82

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Chapter IV

HENRY AND THE BARONS, 1166–1175 120

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Chapter V

THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE, 1175–1183 169

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Chapter VI

THE LAST YEARS OF HENRY II., 1183–1189 229

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Chapter VII

RICHARD AND ENGLAND, 1189–1194 273

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Chapter VIII

THE LATER YEARS OF RICHARD, 1194–1199 332

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Chapter IX

THE FALL OF THE ANGEVINS, 1199–1206 388 Note.--The Death of Arthur 429

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Chapter X

THE NEW ENGLAND, 1170–1206 431

LIST OF MAPS

III. IRELAND, A.D. 1172 To face page 82

IV. MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE REBELLION OF 1173–1174 ” 149

V. FRANCE AND BURGUNDY c. 1180 ” 185

VI. EUROPE c. 1180 ” 189

VII. FRANCE AND THE ANGEVIN DOMINIONS, 1194 ” 359

PLANS

VII. LES ANDELYS AND CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD To face page 375

VIII. CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD ” 378

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