The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (43 page)

The opposition, made by Anselm, was the more dangerous on account of the character of piety, which he soon acquired in England, by his great zeal against all abuses, particularly those in dress and ornament. There was a mode, which, in that age, prevailed throughout Europe, both among men and women, to give an enormous length to their shoes, to draw the toe to a sharp point, and to affix to it the figure of a bird’s bill, or some such ornament, which was turned upwards, and which was often sustained by gold or silver chains tied to the knee.
h
The ecclesiastics took exception at this ornament, which, they said, was an attempt to bely the Scripture, where it is affirmed, that no man can add a cubit to his stature; and they declaimed against it with great vehemence, nay assembled some synods, who absolutely condemned it. But, such are the strange contradictions in human nature! Though the clergy, at that time, could overturn thrones, and had authority sufficient to send above a million of men on
their
errand to the desarts of Asia, they could never prevail against these long-pointed shoes: On the contrary, that caprice, contrary to all other modes, maintained its ground during several centuries; and if the clergy had not at last desisted from their persecution of it, it might still have been the prevailing fashion in Europe.

But Anselm was more fortunate in decrying the particular mode, which was the object of his aversion, and which probably had not taken such fast hold of the affections of PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

172

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/695

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 1

the people. He preached zealously against the long hair and curled locks, which were then fashionable among the courtiers; he refused the ashes on Ash-Wednesday to those who were so accoutered; and his authority and eloquence had such influence, that the young men universally abandoned that ornament, and appeared in the cropt hair, which was recommended to them by the sermons of the primate. The noted historian of Anselm, who was also his companion and secretary, celebrates highly this effort of his zeal and piety.
i

When William’s profaneness therefore returned to him with his health, he was soon engaged in controversies with this austere prelate. There was at that time a schism in the church, between Urban and Clement, who both pretended to the papacy;
k
and Anselm, who, as abbot of Bec, had already acknowledged the former, was determined, without the king’s consent, to introduce his authority into Engiand.
l

William, who, imitating his father’s example, had prohibited his subjects from recognizing any pope, whom he had not previously received, was enraged at this attempt; and summoned a synod at Rockingham, with an intention of deposing Anselm: But the prelate’s suffragans declared, that, without the papal authority, they knew of no expedient for inflicting that punishment on their primate.
m
The king was at last engaged by other motives to give the preference to Urban’s title; Anselm received the pall from that pontiff; and matters seemed to be accommodated between

the king and the primate,n
when the quarrel broke out afresh from a new cause.

William had undertaken an expedition against Wales, and required the archbishop to furnish his quota of soldiers for that service; but Anselm, who regarded the demand as an oppression on the church, and yet durst not refuse compliance, sent them so miserably accoutered, that the king was extremely displeased, and threatened him

with a prosecution.o
Anselm, on the other hand, demanded positively that all the revenues of his see should be restored to him; appealed to Rome against the king’s injustice;
p
and affairs came to such extremities, that the primate, finding it dangerous to remain in the kingdom, desired and obtained the king’s permission to retire beyond sea. All his temporalities were seized;
q
but he was received with great respect by Urban, who considered him as a martyr in the cause of religion, and even menaced the king, on account of his proceedings against the primate and the church, with the sentence of excommunication. Anselm assisted at the council of Bari, where, besides fixing the controversy between the Greek and Latin churches, concerning the

procession of the Holy Ghost,r
the right of election to church preferments was declared to belong to the clergy alone, and spiritual censures were denounced against all ecclesiastics, who did homage to laymen for their sees or benefices, and against all laymen who exacted it.
s
The rite of homage, by the feudal customs, was, that the vassal should throw himself on his knees, should put his joined hands between those

of his superior, and should in that posture swear fealty to him.t
But the council declared it execrable, that pure hands, which could create God, and could offer him up as a sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, should be put, after this humiliating manner, between profane hands, which, besides being inured to rapine and bloodshed, were employed day and night in impure purposes and obscene contacts.
u
Such were the reasonings prevalent in that age; reasonings, which, though they cannot be passed over in silence, without omitting the most curious and, perhaps, not the least instructive part of history, can scarcely be delivered with the requisite decency and gravity.

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

173

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/695

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 1

The cession of Normandy and Maine by duke Robert encreased

1097.

the king’s territories; but brought him no great encrease of

power, because of the unsettled state of those countries, the mutinous disposition of the barons, and the vicinity of the French king, who supported them in all their insurrections. Even Helie, lord of la Fleche, a small town in Anjou, was able to give him inquietude; and this great monarch was obliged to make several expeditions abroad, without being able to prevail over so petty a baron, who had acquired the confidence and affections of the inhabitants of Maine. He was, however, so fortunate, as at last to take him prisoner in a rencounter; but having released him, at the intercession of the French king and the count of Anjou, he found the province of Maine still exposed to his intrigues and incursions. Helie, being introduced by the citizens into the town of Mans, besieged the garrison in the citadel: William, who was hunting in the new forest, when he received

1099.

intelligence of this hostile attempt, was so provoked, that he immediately turned his horse, and galloped to the sea-shore at Dartmouth; declaring, that he would not stop a moment till he had taken vengeance for the offence. He found the weather so cloudy and tempestuous, that the mariners thought it dangerous to put to sea: But the king hurried on board, and ordered them to set sail instantly; telling them that they never yet heard of a king that was drowned.
w
By this vigour and celerity, he delivered the citadel of Mans from its present danger; and pursuing Helie into his own territories, he laid siege to Majol, a small castle in those parts: But a wound, which he received before this place, obliged him to raise the siege; and he returned to England.

1100.

The weakness of the greatest monarchs, during this age, in their military expeditions against their nearest neighbours, appears the more surprising, when we consider the prodigious numbers, which even petty princes, seconding the enthusiastic rage of the people, were able to assemble, and to conduct in dangerous enterprizes to the remote provinces of Asia. William, earl of Poitiers and duke of Guienne, enflamed with the glory, and not discouraged by the misfortunes, which had attended the former adventurers in the crusades, had put himself at the head of an immense multitude, computed by some historians to amount to 60,000 horse, and a much greater number of foot,
x
and he purposed to lead them into the Holy Land against the infidels. He wanted money to forward the preparations requisite for this expedition, and he offered to mortgage all his dominions to William, without entertaining any scruple on account of that rapacious and iniquitous hand, to which he resolved to consign them.
y
The king accepted the offer; and had prepared a fleet, and an army, in order to escort the money, and take possession of the rich provinces of Guienne and Poictou; when an accident put an end to his life, and to all his ambitious 3d August.

projects. He was engaged in hunting, the sole amusement, and

indeed the chief occupation of princes in those rude times, when society was little cultivated, and the arts afforded few objects worthy of attention. Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman, remarkable for his address in archery, attended him in this recreation, of which the new forest was the scene; and as William had dismounted after a chace, Tyrrel, impatient to show his dexterity, let fly an arrow at a stag, which suddenly started before him. The arrow, glancing from a tree, struck the king in the

breast, and instantly slew him;z
while Tyrrel, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

174

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/695

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 1

without informing any one of the accident, put spurs to his horse, Death and character hastened to the sea-shore, embarked for France, and joined the of William Rufus.

crusade in an expedition to Jerusalem; a pennance which he

imposed on himself for this involuntary crime. The body of William was found in the forest by the country-people, and was buried without any pomp or ceremony at Winchester. His courtiers were negligent in performing the last duties to a master who was so little beloved; and every one was too much occupied in the interesting object of fixing his successor, to attend the funerals of a dead sovereign.

The memory of this monarch is transmitted to us with little advantage by the churchmen, whom he had offended; and though we may suspect in general, that their account of his vices is somewhat exaggerated, his conduct affords little reason for contradicting the character which they have assigned him, or for attributing to him any very estimable qualities. He seems to have been a violent and tyrannical prince; a perfidious, encroaching, and dangerous neighbour; an unkind and ungenerous relation. He was equally prodigal and rapacious in the management of his treasury; and if he possessed abilities, he lay so much under the government of impetuous passions, that he made little use of them in his administration; and he indulged, without reserve, that domineering policy, which suited his temper, and which, if supported, as it was in him, with courage and vigour, proves often more successful in disorderly times, than the deepest foresight and most refined artifice.

The monuments which remained of this prince in England are the Tower, Westminster-hall, and London-bridge, which he built. The most laudable foreign enterprize which he undertook, was the sending of Edgar Atheling, three years before his death, into Scotland with a small army, to restore prince Edgar the true heir of that kingdom, son of Malcolm, and of Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling; and the enterprize proved successful. It was remarked in that age, that Richard, an elder brother of William’s, perished by an accident in the new forest; Richard, his nephew, natural son of duke Robert, lost his life in the same place, after the same manner: And all men, upon the king’s fate, exclaimed, that, as the Conqueror had been guilty of extreme violence, in expelling all the inhabitants of that large district, to make room for his game, the just vengeance of heaven was signalized, in the same place, by the slaughter of his posterity. William was killed in the thirteenth year of his reign, and about the fortieth of his age. As he was never married, he left no legitimate issue.

In the eleventh year of this reign, Magnus king of Norway made a descent on the isle of Anglesea; but was repulsed by Hugh, earl of Shrewsbury. This is the last attempt made by the northern nations upon England. That restless people seem about this time to have learned the practice of tillage, which thenceforth kept them at home, and freed the other nations of Europe from the devastations spread over them by those pyratical invaders. This proved one great cause of the subsequent settlement and improvement of the southern nations.

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

175

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/695

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 1

[Back to Table of Contents]

VI

HENRY I

The Crusades — Accession of Henry — Marriage of the king — Invasion by duke
Robert — Accommodation with Robert — Attack of Normandy — Conquest of
Normandy — Continuation of the quarrel with Anselm, the primate — Compromise
with him — Wars abroad — Death of prince William — King’s second marriage —

Death — and character of Henry

After the adventurers in the holy war were assembled on the

1100. The crusades.

banks of the Bosphorus, opposite to Constantinople, they

proceeded on their enterprize; but immediately experienced those difficulties, which their zeal had hitherto concealed from them, and for which, even if they had foreseen them, it would have been almost impossible to provide a remedy. The Greek emperor, Alexis Comnenus, who had applied to the western Christians for succour against the Turks, entertained hopes, and those but feeble ones, of obtaining such a moderate supply, as, acting under his command, might enable him to repulse the enemy: But he was extremely astonished to see his dominions overwhelmed, on a sudden, by such an inundation of licentious barbarians, who, though they pretended friendship, despised his subjects as unwarlike, and detested them as heretical. By all the arts of policy, in which he excelled, he endeavoured to divert the torrent; but while he employed professions, caresses, civilities, and seeming services towards the leaders of the crusade, he secretly regarded those imperious allies as more dangerous than the open enemies, by whom his empire had been formerly invaded. Having effected that difficult point of disembarking them safely in Asia, he entered into a private correspondence with Soliman, emperor of the Turks; and practised every insidious art, which his genius, his power, or his situation enabled him to employ, for disappointing the enterprize, and discouraging the Latins from making thenceforward any such prodigious migrations. His dangerous policy was seconded by the disorders, inseparable from so vast a multitude, who were not united under one head, and were conducted by leaders of the most independant, intractable spirit, unacquainted with military discipline, and determined enemies to civil authority and submission. The scarcity of provisions, the excesses of fatigue, the influence of unknown climates, joined to the want of concert in their operations, and to the sword of a warlike enemy, destroyed the adventurers by thousands, and would have abated the ardour of men, impelled to war by less powerful motives. Their zeal, however, their bravery, and their irresistible force still carried them forward, and continually advanced them to the great end of their enterprize. After an obstinate siege, they took Nice, the seat of the Turkish empire; they defeated Soliman in two great battles; they made themselves masters of Antioch; and entirely broke the force of the Turks, who had so long retained those countries in subjection. The soldan of Egypt, whose alliance they had hitherto courted, recovered, on the fall of the Turkish power, his former authority in Jerusalem; and he informed them by his ambassadors, that, if they came disarmed to that city, they might now perform their religious vows, and that all Christian pilgrims, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)