This great event happened on the 5th of July, in the last year of the eleventh century. The Christian princes and nobles, after choosing Godfrey of Bouillon King of Jerusalem, began to settle themselves in their new conquests; while some of them returned to Europe, in order to enjoy at home that glory which their valour had acquired them in this popular and meritorious enterprise. Among these was Robert, Duke of Normandy, who, as he had relinquished the greatest dominions of any prince that attended the crusade, had all along distinguished himself by the most intrepid courage, as well as by that affable disposition and unbounded generosity which gain the hearts of soldiers, and qualify a prince to shine in a military life. In passing through Italy, he became acquainted with Sibylla, daughter of the Count of Conversana, a young lady of great beauty and merit, whom he espoused: indulging himself in this new passion, as well as fond of enjoying ease and pleasure after the fatigues of so many rough campaigns, he lingered a twelvemonth in that delicious climate; and though his friends in the north looked every moment for his arrival, none of them knew when they could with certainty expect it. By this delay he lost the kingdom of England, which the great fame he had acquired during the crusades, as well as his undoubted title, both by birth, and by the preceding agreement with his deceased brother, would, had he been present, have infallibly secured to him.
[MN Accession of Henry.] Prince Henry was hunting with Rufus in the new forest, when intelligence of that monarch's death was brought him; and being sensible of the advantage attending the conjuncture, he hurried to Winchester, in order to secure the royal treasure, which he knew to be a necessary implement for facilitating his designs on the crown. He had scarcely reached the place when William of Breteuil, keeper of the treasure, arrived, and opposed himself to Henry's pretensions. This nobleman, who had been engaged in the same party of hunting, had no sooner heard of his master's death, than he hastened to take care of his charge; and he told the prince that this treasure, as well as the crown, belonged to his elder brother, who was now his sovereign; and that he himself, for his part, was determined, in spite of all other pretensions, to maintain his allegiance to him. But Henry, drawing his sword, threatened him with instant death if he dared to disobey him; and as others of the late king's retinue, who came every moment to Winchester, joined the prince's party, Breteuil was obliged to withdraw his opposition, and to acquiesce in this insolence [c]. [FN [c] Order. Vital. p. 782.]
Henry, without losing a moment, hastened with the money to London; and having assembled some noblemen and prelates, whom his address, or abilities, or presents, gained to his side, he was suddenly elected, or rather saluted, king, and immediately proceeded to the exercise of royal authority. In less than three days after his brother's death, the ceremony of his coronation was performed by Maurice, Bishop of London, who was persuaded to officiate on that occasion [d]; and thus by his courage and celerity, he intruded himself into the vacant throne. No one had sufficient spirit or sense of duty to appear in defence of the absent prince: all men were seduced or intimidated: present possession supplied the apparent defects in Henry's title, which was indeed founded on plain usurpation: and the barons, as well as the people, acquiesced in a claim which, though it could neither be justified nor comprehended, could now, they found, be opposed through the perils alone of civil war and rebellion. [FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 208. Order. Vital. p. 783.]
But as Henry foresaw that a crown, usurped against all rules of justice, would sit unsteady on his head, he resolved, by fair professions at least, to gain the affections of all his subjects. Besides taking the usual coronation oath to maintain the laws and execute justice, he passed a charter, which was calculated to remedy many of the grievous oppressions which had been complained of during the reigns of his father and brother [e]. He there promised, that, at the death of any bishop or abbot, he never would seize the revenues of the see or abbey during the vacancy, but would leave the whole to be reaped by the successor; and that he would never let to farm any ecclesiastical benefice, nor dispose of it for money. After this concession to the church, whose favour was of so great importance, he proceeded to enumerate the civil grievances which he purposed to redress. He promised, that, upon the death of any earl, baron, or military tenant, his heir should be admitted to the possession of his estate, on paying a just and lawful relief; without being exposed to such violent exactions as had been usual during the late reigns: he remitted the wardship of minors, and allowed guardians to be appointed, who should be answerable for the trust: he promised not to dispose of any heiress in marriage but by the advice of all the barons; and if any baron intended to give his daughter, sister, niece, or kinswoman in marriage, it should only be necessary for him to consult the king, who promised to take no money for his consent, nor ever to refuse permission, unless the person to whom it was purposed to many her should happen to be his enemy: he granted his barons and military tenants the power of bequeathing, by will, their money or personal estates; and if they neglected to make a will, he promised that their heirs should succeed to them: he renounced the right of imposing money-age, and of levying taxes at pleasure on the farms which the barons retained in their own hands [f]: he made some general professions of moderating fines: he offered a pardon for all offences; and he remitted all debts due to the crown: he required that the vassals of the barons should enjoy the same privileges which he granted to his own barons: and he promised a general confirmation and observance of the laws of King Edward. This is the substance of the chief articles contained in that famous charter [g]. [FN [e] Chron. Sax. p. 208. Sim. Dunelm. p. 225. [f] See Appendix II. [g] M. Paris, p. 38. Hoveden, p. 468. Brompton, p. 1021. Hagulstadt, p. 310.]
To give greater authenticity to these concessions, Henry lodged a copy of his charter in some abbey of each county, as if desirous that it should be exposed to the view of all his subjects, and remain a perpetual rule for the limitation and direction of his government: yet it is certain, that, after the present purpose was served, he never once thought, during his reign, of observing one single article of it; and the whole fell so much into neglect and oblivion, that in the following century, when the barons, who had heard an obscure tradition of it, desired to make it the model of the great charter which they exacted from King John, they could with difficulty find a copy of it in the kingdom. But as to the grievances here meant to be redressed, they were still continued in their full extent; and the royal authority, in all those particulars, lay under no manner of restriction. Reliefs of heirs, so capital an article, were never effectually fixed till the time of Magna Charta [h]; and it is evident that the general promise here given, of accepting a just and lawful relief, ought to have been reduced to more precision, in order to give security to the subject. The oppression of wardship and marriage was perpetuated even till the reign of Charles II. And it appears from Glanville , the famous justiciary of Henry II., that in his time, where any man died intestate, an accident which must have been very frequent when the art of writing was so little known, the king, or the lord of the fief, pretended to seize all the movables, and to exclude every heir, even the children of the deceased: a sure mark of a tyrannical and arbitrary government. [FN [h] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 36. What is called a relief in the Conqueror's laws, preserved by Ingulph, seems to have been the heriot; since reliefs, as well as the other burdens of the feudal law, were unknown in the age of the Confessor, whose laws these originally were. Lib. 7. cap. 16. This practice was contrary to the laws of King Edward ratified by the Conqueror, as we learn from Ingulph, p. 91. But laws had at this time very little influence: power and violence governed every thing.]
The Normans, indeed, who domineered in England, were, during this age, so licentious a people, that they may be pronounced incapable of any true or regular liberty; which requires such improvement in knowledge and morals as can only be the result of reflection and experience, and must grow to perfection during several ages of settled and established government. A people so insensible to the rights of their sovereign as to disjoint, without necessity, the hereditary succession, and permit a younger brother to intrude himself into the place of the elder, whom they esteemed, and who was guilty of no crime, but being absent, could not expect that that prince would pay any greater regard to their privileges, or allow his engagements to fetter his power and debar him from any considerable interest or convenience. They had, indeed, arms in their hands, which prevented the establishment of a total despotism, and left their posterity sufficient power, whenever they should attain a sufficient degree of reason, to assure true liberty: but their turbulent disposition frequently prompted them to make such use of their arms, that they were more fitted to obstruct the execution of justice, than to stop the career of violence and oppresion. The prince, finding that greater opposition was often made to him when he enforced the laws than when he violated them, was apt to render his own will and pleasure the sole rule of government; and, at every emergence, to consider more the power of the persons whom he might offend, than the rights of those whom he might injure. The very form of this charter of Henry proves that the Norman barons (for they, rather than the people of England, were chiefly concerned in it) were totally ignorant of the nature of united monarchy, and were ill qualified to conduct, in conjunction with their sovereign, the machine of government. It is an act of his sole power, is the result of his free grace, contains some articles which bind others as well as himself, and is therefore unfit to be the deed of any one who possesses not the whole legislative power, and who may not at pleasure revoke all his concessions.
Henry, farther to increase his popularity, degraded and committed to prison Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, who had been the chief instrument of oppresion under his brother [k]: but this act was followed by another, which was a direct violation of his own charter, and was a bad prognostic of his sincere intentions to observe it: he kept the see of Durham vacant for five years, and during that time retained possession of all its revenues. Sensible of the great authority which Anselm had acquired by his character of piety, and by the persecutions which he had undergone from William, he sent repeated messages to him at Lyons, where he resided, and invited him to return and take possession of his dignities [l]. On the arrival of the prelate, he proposed to him the renewal of that homage which he had done his brother, and which he had never been refused by any English bishop: but Anslem had acquired other sentiments by his journey to Rome, and gave the king an absolute refusal. He objected to the decrees of the council of Bari, at which he himself had assisted; and he declared, that so far from doing homage for his spiritual dignity, he would not so much as communicate with any ecclesiastic who paid that submission, or who accepted of investitures from laymen. Henry; who expected, in his present delicate situation, to reap great advantages from the authority and popularity of Anselm, durst not insist on his demand [m]: he only desired that the controversy might be suspended: and that messengers might be sent to Rome, in order to accommodate matters with the pope, and obtain his confirmation of the laws and customs of England. [FN [k] Chron. Sax. p. 208. W. Malm. p. 156. Matth. Paris, p. 39. Alur. Beverl. p. 144. [l] Chron. Sax. p. 208. Order. Vital. p. 783. Matth. Paris, p. 39. T. Rudborne, p. 273. [m] W. Malm. p. 225.]
[MN 1100. Marriage of the king.] There immediately occurred an important affair, in which the king was obliged to have recourse to the authority of Anselm. Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III., King of Scotland, and niece to Edgar Atheling, had, on her father's death, and the subsequent revolutions in the Scottish government, been brought to England, and educated under her aunt Christina, in the nunnery of Rumsey. This princess Henry purposed to marry; but as she had worn the veil, though never taken the vows, doubts might arise concerning the lawfulness of the act; and it behoved him to be very careful not to shock, in any particular, the religious prejudices of his subjects. The affair was examined by Anselm in a council of the prelates and nobles, which was summoned at Lambeth; Matilda there proved that she had put on the veil, not with the view of entering into a religious life, but merely in consequence of a custom familiar to the English ladies, who protected their chastity from the brutal violence of the Normans by taking shelter under that habit [n], which, amidst the horrible licentiousness of the times, was yet generally revered. The council, sensible that even a princess had otherwise no security for her honour, admitted this reason as valid; they pronounced that Matilda was still free to marry [o] and her espousals with Henry were celebrated by Anselm with great pomp and solemnity [p]. No act of the king's reign rendered him equally popular with his English subjects, and tended more to establish him on the throne. Though Matilda, during the life of her uncle and brothers, was not heir of the Saxon line, she was become very dear to the English on account of her connexions with it: and that people, who, before the Conquest, had fallen into a kind of indifference towards their ancient royal family, had felt so severely the tyranny of the Normans, that they reflected with extreme regret on their former liberty, and hoped for more equal and mild administration, when the blood of their native princes should be mingled with that of their new sovereigns [q]. [FN [n] Eadmer, p. 57. [o] Ibid. [p] Hoveden, p. 468. [q] M. Paris, p. 40.]
[MN 1100. Invasion by Duke Robert.] But the policy and prudence of Henry, which, if time had been allowed for these virtues to produce their full effect, would have secured him possession of the crown, ran great hazard of being frustrated by the sudden appearance of Robert, who returned to Normandy about a month after the death of his brother William. [MN 1101.] He took possession, without opposition, of that duchy; and immediately made preparations for recovering England, of which, during his absence, he had, by Henry's intrigues, been so unjustly defrauded. The great fame which he had acquired in the East forwarded his pretensions; and the Norman barons, sensible of the consequences, expressed the same discontent at the separation of the duchy and kingdom, which had appeared on the accession of William. Robert de Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel, William de la Warenne, Earl of Surrey, Arnulf de Montgomery, Walter Giffard, Robert de Pontefract, Robert de Mallet, Yvo de Grentmesnil, and many others of the principal nobility [r], invited Robert to make an attempt upon England, and promised, on his landing, to join him with all their forces. Even the seamen were affected with the general popularity of his name, and they carried over to him the greater part of a fleet which had been equipped to oppose his passage. Henry, in this extremity, began to be apprehensive for his life, as well as for his crown, and had recourse to the superstition of the people, in order to oppose their sentiment of justice. He paid diligent court to Anselm, whose sanctity and wisdom he pretended to revere. He consulted him in all difficult emergencies; seemed to be governed by him in every measure; promised a strict regard to ecclesiastical privileges; professed a great attachment to Rome, and a resolution of persevering in an implicit obedience to the decrees of councils, and to the will of the sovereign pontiff. By these caresses and declarations, he entirely gained the confidence of the primate, whose influence over the people, and authority with the barons, were of the utmost service to him in his present situation. Anselm scrupled not to assure the nobles of the king's sincerity in those professions which he made of avoiding the tyrannical and oppressive government of his father and brother: he even rode through the ranks of the army, recommended to the soldiers the defence of their prince, represented the duty of keeping their oaths of allegiance, and prognosticated to them the greatest happiness from the government of so wise and just a sovereign. By this expedient, joined to the influence of the Earls of Warwick and Mellent, of Roger Bigod, Richard de Redvers, and Robert Fitz-Hamon, powerful barons, who still adhered to the present government, the army was retained in the king's interest, and marched, with seeming union and firmness, to oppose Robert, who had landed with his forces at Portsmouth. [FN [r] Order. Vital. p. 785.]
[MN Accommodation with Robert.] The two armies lay in sight of each other for some days without coming to action; and both princes, being apprehensive of the event, which would probably be decisive, hearkened the more willingly to the counsels of Anselm and the other great men, who mediated an accommodation between them. After employing some negotiation, it was agreed that Robert should resign his pretensions to England, and receive in lieu of them an annual pension of three thousand marks; that, if either of the princes died without issue, the other should succeed to his dominions; that the adherents of each should be pardoned and restored to all their possessions either in Normandy or England; and that neither Robert nor Henry should thenceforth encourage, receive, or protect the enemies of the other . [FN Chron. Sax. p. 209. W. Malmes. p. 156.]