The truce agreed to; provisional restoration of the Archbishop’s temporalities. By the terms of the truce, things were to remain as they were for the present. Anselm was to be restored to his temporalities without homage or other conditions; but, if Paschal could not be brought to yield on the matter of the decrees, they were to pass to the King again.[939] Anselm looked on all this as useless; he knew the temper of the papal court better than the King and his friends did. But he agreed for the sake of peace; he wished to avoid the slightest suspicion of any wish to disturb the King in the possession of his kingdom.[940] The truce was therefore agreed to; the messengers were sent, and Anselm, when the court broke up, went once more in peace to his metropolitan city or to some other of his many houses.
But, besides settling the affairs of his Church and realm, Henry had other more distinctly domestic and personal duties to discharge. Reformation of the court. He had to reform the household which he had inherited from his brother; he had also—so we are told that the bishops and others strongly pressed upon him—to reform his own life.[941] Personal character of Henry. The vices of Henry were at least not the vices of Rufus; inclination as well as duty led him to cleanse the court of its foulest abuses, to make a clean sweep of the works of darkness.[942] But it was only in a wholly abnormal state of things that Henry the First could have been hailed as a moral reformer. Henry’s mistresses and children. His private life was very unlike the life of his father. Unmarried, like both of his brothers till the recent marriage of Robert, he was already the father of several children by mothers of various nations. Robert Earl of Gloucester. Of his eldest and most famous son, Robert, afterwards the renowned Earl of Gloucester, the mother is unknown; but she appears to have been French.[943] Henry son of Nest. The British Nest, of whom we have often heard, the daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, had, before her marriage with Gerald of Windsor, borne a son to Henry who bore his own name.[944] Matilda Countess of Perche. Two of his mistresses bore the characteristic English name of Eadgyth. One was the mother of Matilda Countess of Perche, who died in the White Ship;[945] the other, who afterwards, like Nest, obtained an honourable marriage with the younger Robert of Ouilly, Robert son of Eadgyth. was the mother of a Robert who plays a part in the civil wars forty years later.[946] Henry’s daughter by Isabel of Meulan. His birth therefore most likely came long after the times of which we are speaking, as did the birth of the daughter whom Henry is said to have had by a woman of a Norman house of the loftiest rank, Isabel, daughter of his chief counsellor, Robert Count of Meulan and Earl of Leicester.[947] Richard son of Ansfrida. The list of Henry’s natural children is not yet exhausted—we have no account of the mother of the valiant Juliana; but the birth of one who is second in personal fame to Earl Robert of Gloucester had already taken place, and it is connected with a characteristic story which is worth telling. Story of his mother and her husband Anskill. A wealthy man of Berkshire, Anskill by name, was one of the chief tenants of the church of Abingdon. As far as his name is concerned, he might be Norman; he might be English or rather Danish. His enemies brought a charge against him to the Red King, who caused him to be kept in so sharp a prison that before long he died of his hardships.[948] He left a widow, whose name is given as Ansfrida, and a son named William. The King then seized on the manor of Sparsholt, which Anskill had held of the abbey, and gave it—or perhaps only its wardship—to one of his officers named Toustain, without reserving any service to the Church.[949] By this grant both the young William and the church of Abingdon were wronged. For the wardship of its tenant would even, by Flambard’s own law, go to the abbey. The widow, by what instinct we are not told, betook herself to Henry to ask his intercession with his brother the King. Young William did not get back his land, which was recovered for the abbey at a later time. Henry’s son Richard. But his mother presently gave him a half-brother, Richard, who afterwards distinguished himself in the French wars, and died in the White Ship.[950] The interest of Henry, if it did not get back Sparsholt for its lawful tenant, was enough to secure for his new mistress the safe possession of her dower, and to provide for her legitimate son by an advantageous marriage.[951] Ansfrida herself was in the end buried in the minster of Abingdon with honours of which Saint Hugh would hardly have approved, and her lawful son did not fail to give gifts to the place of his mother’s burial.[952]
Henry is exhorted to marry. Henry then, if he was fully entitled to reform the worst abuses of his brother’s household, stood in some need of reformation himself. His counsellors exhorted him to mend matters by giving himself a wife and his kingdom a queen. He had not far to look for one when policy and inclination led him the same way. He seeks for Eadgyth daughter of Malcolm. Notwithstanding all his irregularities, we are told that he had long loved Eadgyth or Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm, and it is further implied that his love was returned on her part.[953] It is not clear where she was at this moment, but seemingly no longer with her aunt Christina in her monastic shelter at Romsey.[954] She was now about twenty years old, some say of remarkable beauty, at all events of a pleasing face, and mistress of an amount of learning which must have equalled or exceeded that of her clerkly lover.[955] She had no great worldly possessions;[956] Policy of the marriage. but she came of a stock which made a marriage with her the most politic choice which the King could make at the moment. Eadgyth looked on as English. Eadgyth had lived so long in England that men seem to have forgotten that she was the daughter of Malcolm, and to have remembered only that she was the daughter of Margaret. As such she was held to be of the right kingly kin of England,[957] marked out as the most fitting bride for a king whose purpose was to reign as an Englishman. True she came of the blood of Cerdic only by the spindle-side, and by the spindle-side Henry came of the blood of Cerdic himself.[958] Henry’s descent from Ælfred. But no one was likely to remember that a daughter of Ælfred was a remote ancestress of Henry’s mother, while everybody remembered that Eadgyth was the daughter of Margaret, the daughter of Eadward, the son of Eadmund, the son of Æthelred, the son of Eadgar. It was for the English King to take an English Lady, and to hand on the English crown to kings born in the land and sprung of the true blood of its ancient princes.
So thought the people; so thought the King; so seemingly thought the daughter of Malcolm herself. Objections made to the marriage. But not a few mouths were opened to denounce the marriage as contrary to the laws of the Church. Eadgyth, they alleged, was a consecrated virgin, and a marriage with her would be sacrilege. Eadgyth said to have taken the veil. She had, they said, taken the veil at Romsey, when she was dwelling there with her aunt Christina.[959] She appealed to the Archbishop, to whom all looked to decide the matter.[960] She told her story, as we have already heard it, and called on Anselm to judge her cause in his wisdom. Anselm holds an assembly to settle the question. The Archbishop called together at Lambeth—the manor of his friend the Bishop of Rochester—an assembly of bishops, abbots, nobles, and religious men, before whom he laid the matter, and the evidence bearing on it.[961] There was the evidence of the maiden herself; there was the evidence of two archdeacons, William of Canterbury and Humbald of Salisbury, whom Anselm had sent to the monastery, and who, after inquiries among the sisters, reported that there was no ground to think that Eadgyth had ever been a veiled nun.[962] The Archbishop then left the assembly, and the rest, who are spoken of as the Church of England gathered into one place,[963] debated the question in his absence. Much stress was laid on the case of those women who, in the first days of the Conquest, had sought shelter in the cloister from shame and violence, but who had not taken religion upon themselves.[964] Eadgyth declared free to marry. The late Archbishop had declared them free to marry, and the judgement of the assembly was that the same rule applied to the case of the daughter of Malcolm.[965] Anselm came back, and the debate and the decision were reported to him. He declared that he assented to the judgement, strengthened as it was by the great authority of Lanfranc.[966] Then Eadgyth herself was brought in, and heard with a pleased countenance all that had passed.[967] She then offered to confirm all that she had said by any form of oath that might be thought good. She did not fear that any one would disbelieve her; but she wished that no occasion should be left for any one to blaspheme.[968] Anselm told her that no oath was needed; if any man out of the evil treasure of his heart should bring forth evil things, he would not be able to withstand the amount and strength of the evidence by which her case was proved.[969] He gave her his blessing,[970] and she went forth, we may say, Lady-elect of the English.
Other versions of the story. In another version, also contemporary but not resting on the same high authority, things are made to take another turn. The King bids Anselm perform the marriage rite between himself and the nameless daughter of Malcolm, called in this version David.[971] Anselm made to object. Anselm refuses on the ground that, having worn the veil of a nun, she belonged to a heavenly, not to an earthly bridegroom. The King says that he has sworn to her father to marry her, and that he cannot break his oath, unless it can be shown by a canonical judgement that the marriage is unlawful.[972] Anselm is therefore bidden to summon the Archbishop of York, and the rest of the bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastical persons of all England, to come together and examine the matter.[973] Story of Rufus and the Abbess. The Abbess is brought before them, and she tells the story of the Red King’s visit to her flowers.[974] The King bids Anselm call on the synod for its judgement. Decision in favour of the marriage. The assembled fathers debate; canons are read, and it is judged that the maiden is free to marry, chiefly on the ground that, if she was veiled, it was while she was under age and without her father’s consent.[975] Anselm’s scruples and warning. The King asks Anselm whether he objects to this decision; Anselm says that he has no fault to find with it. Henry then asks Anselm to marry them at once. Anselm pleads that, though the judgement is right, yet, as the maiden had somehow or other worn the veil, it were better that she should not marry; there were others, daughters of kings and counts, one of whom the King might marry instead. Henry still insists; Anselm performs the ceremony; but with a warning that England would not rejoice in the offspring of the marriage.[976] The fate of the White Ship and the wars of Stephen and Matilda are quoted as a proof of Anselm’s prophetic power.
The tone of this story is quite unlike that of the more trustworthy version; yet there is perhaps no actual contradiction between them. But the foreign writer stumbles greatly in his names and pedigrees, and writes by the light of forty years later. Later fables. We may see in his version the beginnings of the wild stories of later times, where Eadgyth is pictured as forced into the marriage against her will, and even as devoting her future offspring to the fiend.[977]
Marriage of Henry and Eadgyth. November 11, 1100. She takes the name of Matilda. A few days later, on the feast of Saint Martin, the marriage was celebrated by Anselm, and Matilda, as we must now call her, was hallowed to Queen.[978] It is only a guess that this was the time of her change of name. One hardly sees its motive; it was Henry’s policy at this moment to be as English as possible, and the name of his bride was one of the few English names which the Normans now and then adopted. Could it be Henry’s abiding reverence for his mother which made him wish to place another Matilda on his throne? Be this as it may be, the new Queen bears no other name. The wedding and coronation. All the great men of the kingdom and a crowd of folk of lower degree came together to her wedding and crowning. At the door of the West Minster, as the multitude thronged towards the King and his bride, the Archbishop stood on high and harangued the people. Anselm’s speech. He told them how the whole matter had been settled, and on what grounds. And he once again called on any one who had aught else to say against the marriage to stand forth and say it.[979] The only answer was a general shout of assent to the judgement and the marriage.[980] The rite was done. Objections not wholly silenced. But there were still some who blamed Anselm for the course that he had taken;[981] and years afterwards the validity of Matilda’s marriage, and the consequent legitimacy of her children, was called in question by those whose political objects it suited to do so.[982]
It is somewhat singular that Matilda practically stepped into the place of the Lady whose name she had forsaken. There had been no queen constantly living in England since the elder Eadgyth. The elder Matilda had been but little in England; William Rufus had been pre-eminently the “bachelor king.” Novelty of a queen. It must have been a wonderful change when the riot and foul excess of the Red King’s court gave way to a household presided over by a devout and virtuous woman. Regular life of the King and Queen. For a time at least Henry as well as his wife lived a sober and regular life. As a generation back the strict conduct of Henry’s father had called forth the jeers of the profligate scoffers of his day, so now the profligate scoffers of another generation jeered at the decorous court of Henry and Matilda, “Godric and Godgifu.” and mocked the English King and his English Lady by the characteristic English names of Godric and Godgifu.[983] 1100–1118. The married life of Matilda reached over eighteen years only; Children of the marriage. William; of her two children, both born early in her wedlock, she did not live to see her son, the Ætheling William, cut off in the White Ship; she did live to see her daughter of her own name raised to a place which had never before been filled by a daughter of England,the Empress Matilda. sitting as a crowned Augusta in the seat of Livia and Placidia.[984] After a while Henry seems to have fallen back into his old courses; Later life of Henry and Matilda. some at least of his natural children must have been born after his marriage; and the same kind of language which was used about his first marriage was used about his second.[985] The Queen, for whatever reason, ceased to follow the endless wanderings of the court; and lived in all royal pomp at Westminster.[986] Her character. Her piety rivalled that of her mother; it was shown in all the usual forms of the time; and her brother David, not an undevout prince, went so near to a scoff as to ask his sister whether King Henry would care to kiss the lips which had kissed the ulcers of the lepers.[987] Her boundless liberality to the poor, to clerks, scholars, and strangers of every kind, was perhaps not the less amiable for a manifest touch of vanity.[988] We read that the means for her lavish bounty in this way had to be found by harsh exactions from her tenants; but, here as ever, the blame is laid upon the reeves rather than on their mistress.[989] “Good Queen Mold.” The memory of “good Queen Mold” was long cherished, and we can hardly doubt that her presence by Henry’s side did much to help the fusion of Normans and English in her husband’s kingdom.
Two ecclesiastical events wind up the last year of the eleventh century. Guy of Vienne comes as Legate. One of them showed that there were limits to Anselm’s submission to the see of Rome. Guy Archbishop of Vienne came into England, professing to be papal Legate throughout all Britain. Legates had been seen in England before, but not with such a commission as superseded the authority of an acknowledged Primate. Earlier Legates. They had come both under Eadward and under William the Great; but they came in the doubtful days of Stigand, and the last time they came to set Stigand finally aside.[990] One Legate had come under William the Red; but it was to bring the pallium to Anselm.[991] Guy’s pretensions not acknowledged. But now all men were amazed at a foreign prelate claiming to exercise powers which had hitherto been held to belong to none but the Patriarch of the island world.[992] Legates waxed mightier before Henry’s reign was out;[993] this time Guy went back as he came. We get no details; but we read that no one acknowledged him as Legate, and that he was not able to discharge any legatine function.[994]
Death of Archbishop Thomas. November 18, 1100. The other event was the death of Archbishop Thomas of York, after an episcopate of thirty years. He died a few days after the King’s marriage, leaving a good name behind him as the honoured rebuilder of his church and legislator of its chapter.[995] This was the first prelacy which had fallen vacant since Henry’s accession. To deal with the vacant see after his brother’s fashion would have been in the teeth of all the new King’s promises. He therefore soon gave the church of York another shepherd. But his choice fell on a man of a character widely different from either Thomas or Anselm. The new archbishop was Gerard Bishop of Hereford, of whom we have already heard a good deal, and heard some things that are passing strange.[996] The see of York given to Gerard of Hereford. Archbishop 1100–1108. He held the throne of the northern metropolis for eight years, and, when he died, he had some difficulty in finding a resting-place in his own minster.[997]