Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Part 10

His own revolted town of Mantes was the first object of his fury. It was harvest-time, and the crops and vineyards were mercilessly trodden down.

The inhabitants sallied out, hoping to save their corn; but the ruthless king made his way into the city, and there caused house, convent, and church alike to suffer plunder and fire, riding about himself directing the work of destruction. The air was flame above, the ground was burning hot beneath. His horse stumbled with pain and fright; and the large, heavy body of the king fell forward on the high steel front of the saddle, so as to be painfully and internally injured. He was carried back to Rouen, but the noise, bustle, and heat of the city were intolerable to him, and, with the restlessness of a dying man, he caused himself to be carried to the convent of St. Gervais, on a hill above the town; but he there found no relief. He felt his time was come, and sent for his sons, William and Henry.

The mighty man's agony was a terrible one. "No tongue can tell," said he, "the deeds of wickedness I have wrought during my weary pilgrimage of toil and care." He tried to weigh against these his good actions, his churches and convents, his well-chosen bishops, his endeavors to act uprightly and justly; but finding little comfort in these, he bewailed his own destiny, and how his very birth had forced him into bloodshed, and driven him to violence, even in his youth.

The presence of his sons brought back his mind from the thought of his condition, to that of the disposal of the lands which had become to him merely a load of thick clay smeared with blood. Normandy, he said, must be Robert's; but he groaned at the thought of the misery preparing for his native land. "Wretched," he said, "must be the country under Robert's rule; but he has received the homage of the barons, and the grant once made can never be revoked. To England I dare appoint no heir.

Let Him in whose hands are all things, provide according to His will."

This was his first feeling, but when he saw William's disappointment, he added, that he hoped the choice of the English might fall on his obedient son.

"And what do you give me, father?" broke in Henry.

"A treasure of 5,000 pounds of silver," was the answer.

"What good will the treasure do me," cried Henry, "if I have neither land, nor house, nor home?"

"Take comfort, my son," said his father; "it may be that one day thou shalt be greater than all."

These words he spoke in the spirit of foreboding, no doubt perceiving in Henry a sagacity and self-command which in the struggle of life was certain to give him the advantage of his elder brothers; but then, alarmed lest what he had said might be construed as acknowledging Henry's superior claim as having been born a king's son, he felt it needful to back up Rufus's claim, and bade a writ be prepared commanding Lanfranc to crown William King of England. Affixing his signet, he kissed and blessed his favorite, and sent him off at once to secure the English throne. Henry, too, hurried away to secure his 5,000 pounds, and the dying man was left alone, struggling between terror and hope.

He left sums of money for alms, ma.s.ses, and prayers; and as an act of forgiveness, released his captives--Earl Morcar, Ulfnoth, the unfortunate hostage, Siward, and Roger de Breteuil, and all the rest; but he long excepted his brother Odo, and only granted his liberation on the earnest persuasion of the other brother, the Count of Mortagne.

He slept uneasily at night, awoke when the bells were ringing for lauds, lifted up his hands in prayer, and breathed his last on the 8th of September, 1087.

His sons were gone, his attendants took care of themselves, his servants plundered the chamber and bed, and cast on the floor uncovered the mortal remnant of their once dreaded master. And though the clergy soon recollected themselves, and attended to the obsequies of their benefactor, carrying the corpse to his own Abbey at Caen, yet even there, as has already been said, the cry of the despoiled refused to the Conqueror even the poor boon of a grave.

CAMEO XII. THE CROWN AND THE MITRE.

_Kings of England_.

1087. William II.

1100. Henry I.

_King of France_.

1059. Philippe I.

_Emperors of Germany_.

1080. Heinrich IV.

1105. Heinrich V.

_Popes of Rome_.

1066. Victor III.

1073. Gregory VII.

1088. Urban II.

1099. Paschal II.

Great struggles took place in the eleventh century, between the spiritual and temporal powers. England was the field of one branch of the combat, between Bishop and King; but this cannot be properly understood without reference to the main conflict in Italy, between Pope and Emperor.

The Pope, which word signifies Father, or Patriarch, of Rome, had from the Apostolic times been always elected, like all other bishops, by the general consent of the flock, both clergy and people; and, after the conversion of Constantine, the Emperor, as first lay member of the Church, of course had a powerful voice in the election, could reject any person of whom he disapproved, or nominate one whom he desired to see chosen, though still subject to the approval of clergy and people.

This power was, however, seldom exercised by the emperors at Rome, after the seat of empire had been transferred to Constantinople, and their power over Italy was diminis.h.i.+ng through their own weakness and the German conquests. The election continued in the hands of the Romans, and in general, at this time, their choice was well-bestowed; the popes were, many of them, saintly men, and, by their wisdom and authority, often guarded Rome from the devastations with which it was threatened by the many barbarous nations who invaded Italy. So it continued until Pope Zaccaria quarrelled with Astolfo, King of Lombardy, and summoned the Carlovingian princes from France to protect him. These Italian wars resulted in Charles-le-Magne taking for himself the crown of Lombardy, and in his being chosen Roman Emperor of the West, by the citizens of Rome, under the influence of the Pope; while he, on his side, conferred on the pope temporal powers such as none of his predecessors had enjoyed.

From thenceforth the theory was, that the Pope was head of the Western Church, with archbishops, bishops, clergy, and laity, in regular gradations under him; while the Emperor was in like manner head of the State, kings, counts, barons, and peasants, in different orders below him; the Church ruling the souls, the State the bodies of men, and the two chieftains working hand in hand, each bearing a mission from above; the Emperor, as a layman, owning himself inferior to the Pope, yet the Pope acknowledging the temporal power of the crowned monarch.

This was a grand theory, but it fell grievously short in the practice.

The city of Rome, with its worn-out civilization, was a most corrupt place; and now that the Papacy conferred the highest dignity and influence, it began to be sought by very different men, and by very different means, from those that had heretofore prevailed. Bribery and every atrocious influence swayed the elections, and the wickedness of some of the popes is almost incredible. At last the emperors interfered to check the dreadful crimes and profanity at Rome, and thus the nomination of the Pope fell absolutely into their hands, and was taken from the Romans, to whom it belonged.

In the earlier part of the eleventh century, a deacon of Rome, named Hildebrand, formed the design of freeing the See of St. Peter from the subjection of the emperors, and at the same time of saving it from the disgraceful power of the populace. The time was favorable, for the Emperor, Henry IV., was a child, and the Pope, Stephen II., was ready to forward all Hildebrand's views.

In the year 1059 was held the famous Lateran Council [Footnote: So called from being convoked in the Church at the Lateran gate, on the spot where St. John was miraculously preserved from the boiling oil.] of the Roman clergy, in which it was enacted, that no benefice should be received from the hands of any layman, but that all bishops should be chosen by the clergy of the diocese; and though they in many cases held part of the royal lands, they were by no means to receive invest.i.ture from the sovereign, nor to pay homage. The tokens of invest.i.ture were the pastoral staff, fas.h.i.+oned like a shepherd's crook, and the ring by which the Bishop was wedded to his See, and these were to be no longer taken from the monarch's hands. The choice of the popes was given to the seventy cardinal or princ.i.p.al clergy of the diocese, who were chiefly the ministers of the different parish churches, and in their hands it has remained ever since.

Hildebrand himself was elected Pope in 1073, and took the name of Gregory VII. He bore the brunt of the battle by which it was necessary to secure the privileges he had a.s.serted for the clergy. Henry IV.

of Germany was a violent man, and a furious struggle took place. The Emperor took it on himself to depose the Pope, the Pope at the same time sentenced the Emperor to abstain from the exercise of his power, and his subject; elected another prince in his stead.

At one time Gregory compelled Henry to come barefooted to implore absolution; at another, Henry besieged Rome, and Gregory was only rescued from him by the Normans of Apulia, and was obliged to leave Rome, and retire under their protection to Apulia, where he died in 1085, after having devoted his whole life to the fulfilment of his great project of making the powers of this world visibly submit themselves to the dominion of the Church.

The strife did not end with Gregory's death. Henry IV. was indeed dethroned by his wicked son, but no sooner did this very son, Henry V., come to the crown, than he struggled with the Pope as fiercely as his father had done.

It was not till after this great war in Germany that the question began in any great degree to affect England. Archbishop Lanfranc, as an Italian, thought and felt with Gregory VII.; and the Normans, both here and in Italy, were in general the Pope's best friends; so that, though William the Conqueror refused to make oath to become the warrior of the Pope, Church affairs in general made no great stir in his lifetime, and the question was not brought to issue.

The face of affairs was, however, greatly changed by the death of the Conqueror in 1087. William Rufus was a fierce, hot-tempered man, without respect for religion, delighting in revelry, and in being surrounded with boisterous, hardy soldiers, whom he paid lavishly, though at the same time he was excessively avaricious.

He had made large promises of privileges to the Saxons, in order to obtain their support in case his elder brother Robert had striven to a.s.sert his claims; but all these were violated, and when Lanfranc remonstrated, he scoffingly asked whether the Archbishop fancied a king could keep all his promises.

Lanfranc had been his tutor, had conferred on him the order of knighthood and had hitherto exercised some degree of salutary influence over him; but seeing all his efforts in vain, he retired to Canterbury, and there died on the 24th of May, 1089.

Then, indeed, began evil days for the Church of England. William seized all the revenues of the See of Canterbury, and kept them in his own hands, instead of appointing a successor to Lanfranc, and he did the same with almost every other benefice that fell vacant, so that at one period he thus was despoiling all at once--the archbishopric, four bishops' sees, and thirteen abbeys. At the same time, the miseries he inflicted on the country were dreadful; his father's cruel forest laws were enforced with double rigor, and the oppression of the Saxons was terrible, for they were absolutely without the least protection from any barbarities his lawless soldiery chose to inflict upon them. Every oppressive baron wreaked his spite against his neighbors with impunity, and Ivo Taillebois [Footnote: See "The Camp of Refuge."] was not long in showing his malice, as usual, against Croyland Abbey.

A fire had accidentally broken out which consumed all the charters, except some which were fortunately in another place, where they had been set aside by Abbot Ingulf, that the younger monks might learn to read the old Saxon character, and among these was happily the original grant of the lands of Turketyl, signed by King Edred, and further confirmed by the great seal of William I.

Ivo Taillebois, hearing of the fire, and trusting that all the parchments had been lost together, sent a summons to the brethren to produce the deeds by which they held their lands. They despatched a lay brother called Trig to Spalding, with Turketyl's grant under his charge.

The Normans glanced over it, and derided it. "Such barbarous writings,"

they said, "could do nothing;" but when Trig produced the huge seal, with William the Conqueror's effigy, still more "stark" and rigid than Sir Ivo had known him in his lifetime, there was no disputing its validity, and the court of Spalding was baffled. However, Taillebois sent some of his men to waylay the poor monk, and rob him of his precious parchment, intending then again to require the brotherhood to prove their rights by its production; but brother Trig seems to have been a wary man, and, returning by a by-path, avoided pursuit, and brought the charter safely home. A short time after, Ivo offended the king, and was banished, much to the joy of the Fen country.

Rapine and oppression were in every corner of England and Normandy, the two brothers Robert and William setting the example by stripping their youngest brother, Henry, of the castle he had purchased with his father's legacy. One knight, two squires, and a faithful chaplain, alone would abide by the fortunes of the landless prince. The chaplain, Roger le Poer, had been chosen by Henry, for a reason from which no one could have expected the fidelity he showed his prince in his misfortunes, nor his excellent conduct afterward when sharing the prosperity of his master. He was at first a poor parish priest of Normandy, and Henry, chancing to enter his church, found him saying ma.s.s so quickly, that, quite delighted, the prince exclaimed, "Here's a priest for me!" and immediately took him into his service. Nevertheless, Roger le Poer was an excellent adviser, an upright judge, and a good bishop. It was he who commenced the Cathedral of Salisbury, where it now stands, removing it from the now deserted site of Old Sarum.

Robert had not added much to the tranquillity of the country by releasing his uncle, the turbulent old Bishop Odo, who was continually raising quarrels between him and William. Odo's old friend, Earl Hugh the Wolf, of Chester, [Footnote: See the "Camp of Refuge."] was at this time better employed than most of the Norman n.o.bles. He was guarding the frontier against the Welsh, and at the same time building the heavy red stone pile which is now the Cathedral of Chester, and which he intended as the Church of a monastery of Benedictines. Fierce old Hugh was a religious man, and had great reverence and affection for one of the persons in all the world most unlike himself--Anselm, the Abbot of Bec.

Anselm was born at Aosta, in Piedmont, of n.o.ble parents, and was well brought up by his pious mother, Ermengarde, under whose influence he applied himself to holy learning, and was anxious to embrace a religious life. She died when he was fifteen years of age, and his father was careless and harsh. Anselm lost his love for study, and fell into youthful excesses, but in a short time her good lessons returned upon him, and he repented earnestly. His father, however, continued so unkind, and even cruel, that he was obliged to leave the country, and took refuge, first in Burgundy and then in Normandy, where he sought the instruction of his countryman, Lanfranc, then Abbot of Bec.

He learnt, at Bec, that his father was dead, and decided on taking the vows in that convent. There he remained for many years, highly revered for his piety and wisdom, and, in fact, regarded as almost a saint.

In 1092, Hugh the Wolf was taken ill, and, believing he should never recover, sent to entreat the holy Abbot to come and give him comfort on his death-bed. Anselm came, but on his arrival found the old Earl restored, and only intent on the affairs of his new monastery, the regulation of which he gladly submitted to Anselm. The first Abbot was one of the monks of Bec, and Earl Hugh himself afterward gave up his country to his son Richard, and a.s.sumed the monastic habit there.

Whilst Anselm was on his visit to the Earl of Chester, there was some conversation about him at Court, and some one said that the good Abbot was so humble that he had no desire for any promotion or dignity. "Not for the Archbishopric?" shouted the King, with a laugh of derision; "but"--and he swore an oath--"other Archbishop than me there shall be none."