THE ALLEGED INVASION OF ENGLAND IN 1147
When Mr Richard Howlett, in the preface to his edition of the Gesta Stephani for the Rolls series, announced that we were indebted to its 'careful author' for the knowledge of an invasion of England by Henry FitzEmpress in 1147, 'unrecorded by any other chronicler', and endeavoured at considerable length to establish this proposition,[1] it was received, from all that I can learn, with general incredulity. As, however, in the volume which he has since edited, he reiterates his belief in this alleged invasion,[2] it becomes necessary to examine in detail the evidence for a discovery so authoritatively announced in the pages of the Rolls series.
The accepted view of Henry's movements has hitherto been that, by his father's permission, in the autumn of 1142 he accompanied the Earl of Gloucester to England; that he remained there about four years; that, by his father's wish, at the end of 1146 or beginning of 1147 he returned from England; that he then spent two years and four months over sea; that in the spring of 1149 he again came to England, and was knighted at Carlisle by the king of Scots on May 22nd. As to the above long visit, commencing in 1142, Gervase of Canterbury is our chief authority, but the other chroniclers (omitting for the present the Gesta Stephani) harmonize well with his account. Gervase and Robert of Torigni alike mention but one arrival of Henry (1142) and one departure (1146 or 1147), thus distinctly implying there was then only one visit—namely, that visit which Gervase tells us lasted four years. The only slight discrepancy between Gervase and Robert is found in the date of Henry's departure. Robert places that event under 1147, and mentions that Henry visited Bec May 29th in that year. There is also, Mr Howlett has pointed out, charter evidence implying that Henry was back in Normandy in March or April. Now Gervase says distinctly that he was away from England two years and four months. The chroniclers, Gervase included, say that he returned to England in the middle of May 1149. Counting back the two years and four months, this would bring us to January 1147, as the date of his departure from England. But there is a charter of his to Salisbury Cathedral, tested, as Mr Howlett observes, at Devizes, April 13, 1149. If this evidence be trustworthy, it would take us back to December 1146, instead of January 1147. It is easy to see how Gervase may have included in 1146, and Robert in 1147, an event which appears to have taken place about the end of the one or the beginning of the other year.
Much has been made of the alleged circumstance that Gervase assigned the Earl of Gloucester's death to 1146, whereas he is known to have died in 1147. But reference to his text will show that he does nothing of the kind. Writing of Henry's departure at the close of 1146, he tells us that the earl was destined never to see him again, for he died in November [i.e. November 1147]. He is here obviously anticipating.
Such being the evidence on which is based the accepted view of Henry's movements, let us now turn to the Gesta Stephani. Though Mr Howlett's knowledge of the period is great and quite exceptional, I cannot but think that he has been led astray by his admiration for this fascinating chronicle. Miss Norgate sensibly observes that 'there must be something wrong in the story' as actually preserved in the Gesta,[3] but Mr Howlett, unwilling to admit the possibility of error in his chronicle, boldly asserts that the 'romantic account'[4] of Henry's adventures which it contains does not refer to his visit in 1149, but to a hitherto unknown invasion in 1147. He appears to imagine that the only objection in accepting this story is found in the fact that Henry was but just fourteen at the time.[5] But this is not so. Putting aside this objection, as also the silence of other chroniclers, there remains the chronological difficulty. How is the alleged visit to be fitted in? Its inventor, who suggests 'about April 1147', for its date, must first take Henry back to Normandy (why or when he does not even suggest) and then bring him back to England as an invader, neither his alleged going or coming being recorded by any chronicler. Then he assigns to his second return to Normandy (after the alleged invasion) the only passages in Gervase and Robert which speak of his returning at all. Surely nothing could be more improbable than that Henry should rush back to England just after he had left it, and had returned to his victorious father, and this at a time when his cause seemed as hopeless there as it was prosperous over the sea.
The evidence of the Gesta Stephani would have, indeed, to be beyond question if we are to accept, on its sole authority, so improbable a story. But what does that evidence amount to? The Gesta, unlike other chronicles, not being arranged chronologically under years, the only definite note of time here afforded in its text is found in the passage, 'Consuluit [Henricus] et avunculum [sic] Glaorniæ comitem, sed ipse suis sacculis avide incumbens, rebus tantum sibi necessariis occurrere maluit'.[6]
As Earl Robert is known to have died in the autumn of 1147, the word avunculus does, undoubtedly, fix these events as prior to that date. But is not avunculus a slip of the writer for cognatus? Is not the reference to Earl William rather than to his father, Earl Robert?[7] Such a slip is no mere conjecture; the statement that Earl Robert was too avaricious to assist his beloved nephew in his hour of need is not only absolutely contrary to all that we know of his character, but is virtually discredited by the Gesta itself when its author tells us, further on:
Comes deinde Glaorniæ ut erat regis adversariorum strenuissimus et ad magna quevis struenda paratissimus, iterum atque iterum exercitum comparare, jugi hortaminis et admonitionis stimulo complices suos incitavit; illos minis, istos promissis sibi et præmiis conjugare; quatinus omnes in unam concordiam, in unum animum conspirati, exercitum e diverso ad idem velle repararent, et collectis undecumque agminibus, vive et constanter in regem insurgerent.[8]
How can such language as this be reconciled with the statement as to Earl Robert's apathy at the very time when Henry's efforts offered him a unique opportunity of pursuing his war against the king? Mr Howlett does not attempt to meet, or even notice, this objection. Moreover, when the Gesta proceeds to describe Earl William of Gloucester as devoted to his own pleasures rather than to war,[9] we see that the conduct so incredible in his father would in him be what we might expect.
I will not follow Mr Howlett in his lengthy argument relative to the knighting of Eustace and Henry, because he himself admits that it is based only on conjecture.[10] It is sufficient to observe that if the 'romantic' narrative in the Gesta refers to the events of 1149,[11] then the knighting of Eustace, which is a pendant to that narrative, belongs, as the other chroniclers assert, to 1149. The statement, I may add, that Henry applied for help to his mother, by no means involves, as Mr Howlett assumes, her presence in England at the time.
I would suggest, then, that the whole hypothesis of this invasion in 1147 is based on nothing more than a confusion in the Gesta. Mr Howlett, indeed, claims that 'mediaeval history would simply disappear if the evidence of chroniclers were to be treated in this way,[12] and detects 'among some modern writers a tendency to incautious rejection', etc.[13] But he himself goes out of his way to denounce, in this connection, as a 'blundering interpolation' a passage in John of Hexham, which he assigns to notes being 'carelessly misplaced' and 'ignorantly miscopied'.[14] The Gesta, to my knowledge, is by no means immaculate; its unbroken narrative and vagueness as to dates render its chronology a matter of difficulty; and the circumstance that the passage in dispute occurs towards its close renders it impossible to test it as we could wish by comparison with later portions. The weakness of Mr Howlett's case is shown by his desperate appeal to 'the exact precedent' set by Fulk Nerra, and no talk about the contrast presented by 'physical science' and that 'fragmentary tale of human inconsistencies which we term history' can justify the inclusion of this alleged invasion as a fact beyond dispute in so formal and authoritative a quarter as the preface to a Rolls volume.
[1] Chronicles, Stephen, Henry II, Richard I, vol. iii. pp. xvi-xx, 130.
[2] ibid., vol. iv. pp. xxi-xxii.
[3] England under the Angevin Kings, i. 377.
[4] ibid.
[5] 'The invasion of England by Henry in 1147, when he was but a boy of fourteen, a piece of history which has hitherto been rejected solely on the ground of improbability.'—Preface (ut supra), p. xxi.
[6] Gesta (ed. Howlett), p. 131.
[7] There is a precisely similar slip, by John of Salisbury, in the Historia Pontificalis (Pertz, xx. 532), where the 'Duke' of Normandy is referred to in 1148 as 'qui modo rex est' (i.e. Henry). Mr Howlett himself has pointed out (Academy, November 12, 1887) that the author 'slipped in the words "qui modo rex est", and thus transferred to Henry a narrative which assuredly relates to his father'. The slip in question, as he observed, had sadly misled Miss Norgate.
[8] Gesta (ed. Howlett), p. 134.
[9] 'Successit in comitatum suum Willelmus filius suus, senior quidem ætate, sed vir mollis, et thalamorum magis quam militiæ appetitor' (Gesta, ed. Howlett, p. 134).
[10] Mr Howlett incidentally claims that knighthood was a necessary preliminary to comital rank, and appeals to the fact that the younger Henry was even carefully knighted before his coronation (Gesta, p. xxii). But what has he to say to the knighting of Earl Richard of Clare, by Henry VI, and more especially to the knighting of Malcolm, already Earl of Huntingdon and king of Scots, by Henry II, in 1159? (Robert of Torigni, p. 203).
[11] Mr Howlett asserts (Gesta, p. 130, note) that 'when Henry made his better known visit in 1149 his acts were quite different' from those recorded in the Gesta. But if, as he himself admits, in 1149 Henry visited Devizes on his way to Carlisle, what more natural than that he should pass by Cricklade and Bourton (the two places mentioned in the Gesta), which lay directly on his road?
[12] Preface to Gesta, p. xx.
[13] Preface to Robert of Torigni, p. xxii.
[14] Preface to Gesta (ut supra), p. xvi.