The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry the First, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Edward A. Freeman

THE REIGN OF WILLIAM RUFUS.

CHAPTER V.

THE WARS OF SCOTLAND, NORTHUMBERLAND, AND WALES.[1]
1093–1098.

THE year of Anselm’s appointment to the archbishopric, Events of the year 1093. that part of the year which passed between the day when the bishop’s staff was forced into his hand and the day when he received consecration from Thomas of Bayeux, was a time full of stirring and memorable events of quite another kind. Relations between England and Scotland. War of 1093. It was now that some of the events of former years were to bring forth fruit. The relations between England and Scotland were of a kind which might lead to open warfare at any moment.[2] This year the open warfare came. And it was a warfare which was far more important in its direct results than mere plundering inroads on either side of the border commonly were. Its results. The direct results of the warfare of this year were in truth the crowning result of causes which had been working for a whole generation. Growth of the English power It was a singular irony of fate which made William the Red in some sort a missionary, not only of the political power of the English kingdom, but of the ascendency of the English blood and speech. He began the later position of England as an European power. He extended the boundaries of the kingdom of England within his own island. and of the English nation under William Rufus. And, more than this, he gave decisive help to a work which wrought one of the greatest of victories, not so much for England as a power as for the English-speaking folk in their English-speaking character. That he gave kings to Scotland was a small matter; that was done by other rulers of England before and after him. What specially marks his reign is that in his day, and largely by his agency, it was ruled that, of the three elements in Northern Britain, British, English, and Scottish or Irish, the English element should have the upper hand. The Scottish kingdom becomes English. It was ruled that the kingdom of Scotland, whatever might be its relations towards the kingdom of England, whether separate or united, whether dependent or independent, whether friendly or hostile, should be itself truly an English kingdom, a kingdom which was for some generations more truly English than the southern England itself.

Summary of Scottish affairs. The Scottish affairs with which we shall have to deal in the present chapter begin with the controversy between William Rufus and Malcolm which led to the death of Malcolm in his last invasion of England. Death of Malcolm; first reign of Donald. 1093. On this follows that first outburst of the true Scottish nationality which led to the election of Donald, followed by his overthrow and the establishment of Duncan by the power of England. Reign of Duncan. Then, after a short interval, comes the second national uprising, and the restoration of Donald. After a longer interval comes the second overthrow of Donald, and the establishment of the younger Eadgar by the arms of the elder. Second reign of Donald. 1094. Establishment of Eadgar. 1097. The question was now decided in favour of the line of Malcolm and Margaret and of the form of English influence which was represented by that line. And between these two last revolutions we may record, as a kind of episode for which it is not easy to find a place in the general run of any other narrative, Revolt of Robert of Mowbray. 1095. the revolt and overthrow of the great earl of Northern England which forms at least a poetical sequence to the overthrow of Malcolm. Between the second establishment and the second overthrow of Donald, I propose to tell, in its chronological order, the tale of the slayers of Malcolm, of Earl Robert of Mowbray and his kinsman Morel. There is little doubt that their revolt was connected with movements in Normandy also; but it would have been hard to describe it in a chapter in which Anselm is the chief actor. It comes better in its moral and geographical relation towards the affairs of Scotland.

But Scotland was not the only land within the four seas of Britain with which the kingdom of England has much to do, especially in the way of fighting, within the few years of this memorable reign. Affairs of Wales. The affairs of Wales are still more constantly coming before our eyes. While the Red King is on the throne, Welsh warfare supplies, year after year, no small part of the events which the chronicler of England has to record. The Welsh history of this time is one of deep interest on many grounds. But it is specially important as giving us an example of a third type of conquest in our own island, a conquest differing widely both from the English Conquest of Britain and from the Norman Conquest of England. Comparison between Wales and Scotland. Nor do the affairs of Wales fail to supply us with some instructive contrasts as compared with the affairs of Scotland. Scotland and the other dominions of the Scottish king seem throughout this time to act as a whole, at least as regards England. The land is conquered, or it wins back its freedom; it receives foreign influences, or it casts them out; but it seems to do all these things as a whole. The union was perhaps very much on the surface, but the events of this time bring whatever there was of union to the front. Disunion in Wales. The British story, on the other hand, is the story of disunion in its strongest form. Alike in victory and in defeat, all is local and personal; common action on the part of the whole nation seems impossible. The result of English dealings with Wales during these years may be summed up as immediate loss and final success, as defeat in detail leading to substantial conquest. Effects of the reign on the union of Britain. It is to this reign more than to any other that we may trace up the beginning of the chain of events which has gradually welded together England, Scotland, and Wales, into the thoroughly united island of Great Britain. The remote causes begin far earlier; now we begin to enter on the actual story itself. And from that story we may perhaps draw another lesson. Its causes. Three nations, differing in blood and speech, once parted by bitter enmities, have been worked together into one political whole, while still keeping so much of old diversity as is really healthy, so much as hinders a dull and lifeless uniformity, so much as sometimes kindles to wholesome rivalry in a common cause. But this has been because the facts of geography allowed and almost compelled their union; it has been because the nature of the old enmities was such as did not hinder union. England, Scotland, and Wales, have at various times done one another a good deal of mischief; there has been no time when any one of the three held either of the others in abiding Turkish bondage. But these very facts may teach us that the same result cannot be looked for in a land where the undying laws of nature and the events of past history alike forbid it. Such union cannot be where the boundaries of land and water on the map, where the memory of abiding Turkish bondage in days not long passed by, join to hinder the same process of welding together which has so happily taken place among the three nations of the isle of Britain. Comparison with Ireland and Normandy. William the Red did much for the final union of Britain, because nature favoured that union. He brought Normandy under the same rule as England, but only for the two lands to be again parted asunder, because nature forbad their union. And if it be true that from the rocks of Saint David’s he looked out on the dim outline of distant Ireland, he did well to turn away from the prospect, to bluster and threaten, it may be, but to keep the practical exercise of his warfare and his policy for other lands. He did well to keep it, as far as the island world was concerned, for those lands which, as the event has shown, nature did not forbid to be, in course of ages, fully united with his kingdom.

§ 1. The Last Year of Malcolm.
1093.

We should be glad of a clearer account than we have of the immediate causes which led to the open breach between William and Malcolm in the year which followed the restoration of Carlisle. Complaints made by Malcolm. It is certain that Malcolm complained through an embassy that the King of the English had failed to carry out the provisions of the treaty made two years before. Nothing is more likely; it was not the manner of William Rufus to carry out his treaties with other princes, any more than his promises to his subjects. Both alike, being parts of his everyday duty, and not lighted up with the rays of chivalrous honour, were reckoned by him under the head of those promises which no man can carry out. But we should be well pleased to know whether the alleged breach of treaty had anything to do with William’s Cumbrian conquest. Effects on Scotland of the restoration of Carlisle. The strengthening of Carlisle, the annexation of its district, could in no case have been agreeable to the King of Scots. And if, as there seems every reason to believe, the land had been held by its late lord Dolfin as a vassal of the Scottish crown, what William had done was a distinct aggression on the rights of that crown. Probable wrong to Scotland. The superiority of the English crown over both Scotland and Cumberland would in no way justify the act; it would have been a wrong done to the Duke of the Normans if the King of the French had annexed Ponthieu and strengthened Saint Valery against Normandy. Other grounds of offence. But we are not told whether this was the ground of offence, or whether William had failed to carry out any of the clauses of the treaty, those for instance which secured to the King of Scots certain payments and possessions in England.[3] What followed may perhaps suggest that, however much the occupation of Carlisle may have rankled in the mind of Malcolm, the formal ground of complaint was something of this last kind. Scottish embassy at Gloucester. March, 1093. Whatever were his wrongs, the Scottish king sent to complain of them, and the answer which he received was one which shows that, at this first stage, Rufus was not disposed to slight the complaint. We are not told the exact date of this first Scottish embassy. It may very well have come during the short season of William’s reformation; his seeming readiness to deal reasonably with the matter, as contrasted with his conduct a few months later, may pass as one of the fruits of his temporary penitence, along with the appointment of Anselm and the promise of good laws. Malcolm summoned to Gloucester. He sent an embassy to Scotland, inviting or summoning the Scottish King to Gloucester, and giving hostages for his safety. This looks very much as if the ground of complaint was the refusal of some of the rights which had been promised to Malcolm whenever he came to the English court. The Scottish King agreed to come on these terms. William, in his present frame of mind, was seemingly anxious to do all honour to the prince with whom he was dealing. Eadgar sent to bring him. The Scottish ambassadors were sent back to bring their king, and with them, as the most fitting of mediators, was sent the man who had himself for a moment been a king, the brother-in-law of Malcolm, the favoured guest of William, the Ætheling Eadgar.[4]

Eadgar in favour with William. We last heard of Eadgar somewhat more than a year before, when Robert left England in anger, and Eadgar went with him.[5] This seems to imply that the relations between William and Eadgar were at that moment unfriendly. We have no account of Eadgar’s return to England; but the duty on which he was now sent implies that he was now not only in William’s formal favour, but in his real confidence. His mission to Scotland. He who had lately been Malcolm’s representative in a conference with William now acts as William’s representative in a conference with Malcolm. Eadgar, like his friend Duke Robert, was clearly one of those men who can act better on behalf of others than on behalf of themselves.[6] In his present mission he seems to have acquitted himself to William’s full satisfaction; the King of Scots was persuaded to come to the English court. If his coming did not prove specially lucky either to himself or to the over-lord to whom he came, that was at all events not the fault of Eadgar.