Reign Of William Rufus.
The Pope had given his approval to William's enterprise, and had excommunicated Harold. Nevertheless, William boldly repulsed the pretensions of Gregory VII, and forbade his subjects to recognize any one as Pope, until he had done so himself. The canons of every council were to be submitted to him for his sanction or rejection. No bull or letter of the Pope might be published without the permission of the king. He protected his ministers and barons against excommunication. He subjected the clergy to feudal military service. And finally, during his reign, the ecclesiastical and civil courts, which had previously been commingled in the county courts, were separated.
After the death of William, in 1087, his States were divided among his three sons, Robert, William, and Henry. William Rufus succeeded to the throne of England, and Robert to the dukedom of Normandy. William's reign is remarkable only for acts of tyranny, for the extension of the royal forests, and for odious exactions; he would not appoint bishops to any of the vacant episcopal sees, but appropriated their revenues to his own use, considering them as fiefs whose possessors were dead.
William Rufus was almost constantly at war with his brother Robert. He ended by buying Normandy of him, or, to speak more correctly, he received it in pledge for thirteen thousand silver marks which he lent to Robert when about to join the Crusaders. In the year 1100, he made a similar bargain with William, Count of Poitou and Duke of Guienne. The Norman barons bitterly regretted that Robert was not King of England, as well as Duke of Normandy. They rebelled several times against William; and various facts indicate that the Saxon nation gained something by these revolts, and was rather better treated, in consequence, by its Norman monarch. But the relations of the two peoples were still extremely hostile when William Rufus was killed while hunting, on the 2nd of August, 1100.
Reign Of Henry I.
Henry I. usurped the crown of England from his brother Robert, to whom it rightfully belonged; and the Norman barons, who preferred Robert, offered only a feeble resistance to Henry; he was crowned in London. His first act was a charter, in which, to gain forgiveness for his usurpation, he promised not to seize upon the revenues of the church during the vacancy of benefices; to admit the heirs of the crown vassals to the possession of their estates, without exposing them to such violent exactions as had been usual during the preceding reigns; to moderate the taxes, to pardon the past, and finally to confirm the authority of the laws of St. Edward, which were so dear to the nation. A short time after the concession of this charter, Henry married Matilda, the daughter of the King of Scotland, and niece of Edgar Atheling, the last heir of the Saxon dynasty; by this marriage he hoped to conciliate the attachment of the Saxon people. In order to marry him, Matilda was liberated from her vows, for she had taken the veil, not with the intention of becoming a nun, says Eadmer, but in order to escape from the brutal violence of the Normans.
In 1101, Robert returned from the Crusades, and invaded England, but a treaty soon put a stop to his progress, and he renounced his pretensions on receiving a pension of 3000 marks, and the promise of succeeding to Henry's inheritance. The bad government of Robert in Normandy occasioned continual disturbances in that country, and maintained the ever-increasing tendency towards the union of Normandy with England. Henry, taking advantage of this state of things, invaded Normandy, where he had many powerful adherents, and after three years of war, in 1106, the battle of Tenchebray decided the fate of Robert, who was taken prisoner and confined in Cardiff Castle, where he languished twenty-eight years. Normandy was then united to England.
The reign of Henry I. was disturbed by continual quarrels with the clergy; he was obliged to renounce the right of investiture, which was held to confer spiritual dignity, but the bishops continued to swear to him fidelity and homage, by reason of their temporal possessions. In the midst of the obstacles which lay in his path, Henry governed with vigour and prudence; he humbled the great barons, restored order, and restrained the clergy; and these were the qualities which then constituted a great king. The pretended code which is ascribed to Henry I. is a later compilation; but he effected several important reforms, among others, by repressing the abuses of the right of purveyance, by which the socage tenants of the king were bound gratuitously to supply the court, while journeying, with provisions and carriages. It is also said that he substituted, for tenants of this class, the payment of a money rent instead of the rent in kind which they had formerly paid; but it is not probable that this was a general rule.