“Inter has obsidionis moras, ministri regis mare custodientes quosdam quos dux Robertus in auxilium prædictorum miserat schismaticorum, partim cæde et partim naufragio oppresserunt: quorum quidam fugam meditantes vento destituuntur, et sic ludibrio Anglis sibique exitio exstiterunt, nam, ne vivi caperentur, ultro sese fluctibus submerserunt.”
Florence (see [p. 74]) gives an animated account of the operations by land; but he wholly leaves out the coming of the Norman fleet.
The Bishopric of Somerset and the Abbey of Bath.
William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 194) has got wrong in his chronology when he makes John already bishop before the death of the Conqueror, but unable to carry out his scheme for the removal of the bishopric till the accession of Rufus. “Minoris gloriæ putans si in villa [should this be some form of Wells?] resideret inglorius, transferre thronum in Bathoniam animo intendit. Sed cum id inaniter, vivente Willelmo patre, cogitasset, tempore Willelmi filii effecit.” Gisa certainly did not die till 1088, and John was consecrated in July of that year. “Qui cum rex excellentissimus Willielmus senior, qui xxij. annis regnaverat, fine laudabili vitam conclusisset, et Willielmus junior filius ejus pro eo regnaret, consecratus est episcopus in Julio.” (Historiola, 21.)
The transfer of the bishopric to Bath and the union of the abbey with the bishopric are undoubted facts; as the writer of the Historiola says, “Statim cathedram pontificis transtulit de Wella Bathoniæ.” The charter of William Rufus making this grant is printed in the Monasticon, ii. 266; the original is preserved in the chapter library at Wells. It is in two handwritings, the former part containing the first grant of 1088, while the second consists of a confirmation of 1090, or rather 1091. The substance of the grant is contained in the words;
“Ego Willelmus Willelmi regis filius, Dei dispositione monarches Britanniæ, pro meæ meique patris remedio animæ, et regni prosperitate, et populi a Domino mihi collati salute, concessi Johanni episcopo abbatiam sancti Petri Bathoniæ, cum omnibus appendiciis, tam in villis quam in civitate et in consuetudinibus, illis videlicet, quibus saisita erat ea die qua regnum suscepi. Dedi, inquam, ad Sumersetensis episcopatus augmentationem, eatenus præsertim ut inibi instituat præsuleam sedem.”
On the use of the title “monarches Britanniæ,” see N. C. vol. i. p. 561. It is somewhat singular that, when Henry of Huntingdon (211) speaks of the Conqueror as leaving “regnum Angliæ” to his second son, Robert of Torigny, in his own Chronicle, 1085, changes it into “monarchiam Angliæ.”
The date of the first grant is thus given;
“Lanfranco archipræsule machinante, Wintoniæ factum est donum hujus beneficii, mill. lxxxviiiᵒ. anno ab incarnatione Domini, secundo vero anno regni regis Willelmi filii prioris Willelmi.”