A history of England

by Charles Oman

Henry's long reign (1100-1135) was more noteworthy for the tendencies which were at work in it, than for the particular events which mark its individual years. It is mainly important as the time of the silent growth together of Norman and English, and the stereotyping of the constitution on a strong monarchical basis. In his day the king was everything, and the Great Council of tenants-in-chief was no check on him, and did little more than register his decrees. If his successors had all been like himself, England might have become a pure despotism, though one well ordered and—considering the lights of the times—not oppressively administered.

Fresh disputes with the Church.

The strife between the monarchy and the Church, which had first taken shape in the quarrel of William Rufus and Anselm, continued in Henry's time, but raged on a new point of issue. When the archbishop returned from exile, he refused to take the usual oath of homage, and to be reinvested in his see by the new king, alleging that, as a spiritual person, he owed fealty to God alone, and received all his power and authority from God, and not from the king. This new and strange doctrine he had picked up in Rome during his exile: the papacy was at this time putting forth those monstrous claims to dominion over kings and princes with which it had been inspired a few years before by the imperious Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII.). Henry could only reply that, though the archbishop was a spiritual person, he was also a great tenant-in-chief, holding vast estates, and that for them he must do homage to the crown, like all other feudal landowners. Anselm refused, and there the matter stood still, for neither would yield, though they treated each other courteously enough, and did not indulge in the angry recrimination which had been wont to take place when Rufus was in Henry's place. Anselm even went into exile again for a space. But at last he and the king met at Bec, in Normandy, in 1106, and hit on a wise compromise, which they agreed to apply both to Anselm's case and to all future investitures of bishops. The newly elected prelate was to do homage, as a feudal tenant, for the estates of his see; but he was not to receive the symbols of his spiritual authority from the king, but was to take up his ring and crozier from the high altar of his cathedral, as direct gifts from God. This decision served as a model for the agreement between the Pope and the empire, when fourteen years later the "Contest about Investiture," as this widespread dispute was called, was brought to an end on the continent.

Wars with Duke Robert.—Partial conquest of Normandy.

The chief incidents in the foreign relations of Henry's reign are his long wars with his shiftless brother Robert, and afterwards with Robert's son, William Clito. He had never forgiven the duke for his attempt to dethrone him by the aid of rebels in 1099; nor did the duke ever forgive him for having so promptly seized England at the moment of the death of William II. The peace which they had made in 1100 did not endure, and a long series of hostilities at last culminated in the battle of Tinchebrai (1106). Here Henry, who had invaded Normandy, completely defeated his brother and took him prisoner. He sent the unfortunate Robert to strict confinement in Cardiff Castle, and kept him there all the days of his life. For the rest of his reign Henry ruled Normandy as well as England, but his dominion in the duchy was very precarious. The baronage hated his strong hand and his strict enforcement of the law. They often rebelled against him, but he never failed to subdue them. When William, surnamed Clito, the son of the imprisoned duke, grew towards man's estate, he had no difficulty in finding partisans in Normandy who would do their best to win him back his father's heritage. Aided by the King of France, who was one of Henry's most consistent enemies, William Clito made several bold attempts to deprive his uncle of Normandy. He did not succeed, but presently he became Count of Flanders, to which he had a claim through his grandmother Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror. Possessed of this rich country, he grew to be a more serious danger to the English king, but he fell in battle in 1128, while striving with some Flemish rebels, and by his death Henry's position became unassailable.

Marriage of Princess Matilda to Geoffrey of Anjou.

The King of England was troubled with many other enemies beside William Clito. Lewis VI. of France, and Fulk, Count of Anjou, were always molesting him. But he gained or lost little by his long and dreary border wars with them. The one noteworthy consequence of this strife was that, to confirm a peace with Count Fulk, the king married his two children to the son and daughter of the lord of Anjou. First, his son William was wedded to the count's daughter (1119), and some years later the Lady Matilda was married to Geoffrey, the count's son and heir (1127).

Death of Henry's son.—Matilda heiress to the throne.

The importance of this latter marriage lay in the fact that Prince William had died in the intervening space, and that Matilda—a widowed princess whose first husband had been the Emperor Henry V.—was now the King of England's sole heiress. The end of her brother had been strange and tragic: he was following his father from Normandy to England, when a drunken skipper ran his vessel upon the reef of Catteville, only five miles from the Norman shore. The prince was hurried by his followers into the only boat that the ship possessed, and might have escaped, had he not seen that his half-sister, the Countess of Perche, [11] had been left behind. He bade the oarsmen put back, but when they reached the ship, a crowd of panic-stricken passengers sprang down into the boat and swamped it. The prince was drowned, and with him his half-brother Richard, his half-sister the Countess of Perche, the Earl of Chester, and many of the chief persons of the realm. Only one sailor-lad survived to tell the sad tale of the White Ship. When the news of the death of his only legitimate son reached the king, he was prostrated by it for many days, and it was said that he was never seen to smile again, though he lived for fifteen years after the disaster. But, if the chronicles speak true, the death of William was more of a loss to his father than to the realm, for they report him to have been a proud and cruel youth, who bid fair to reproduce some of the evil qualities of his uncle William Rufus.