The History of England from the Norman Conquest to the Death of John (1066-1216)

by George Burton Adams

But besides the growth of the common law, these reforms involved and carried with them as a second consequence a great change in the machinery of government and in the point of view from which it was regarded. We have already seen how in the feudal state government functions were undifferentiated and were exercised without consciousness of inconsistency by a single organ, the curia regia, in which, as in all public activities, the leading operative element was the feudal baronage. The changes in the judicial system which were accomplished in the reign of Henry, especially the giving of a more fixed and permanent character to the courts, the development of legal procedure into more complicated and technical forms, and the growth of the law itself in definiteness and body,—these changes meant the necessity of a trained official class and the decline of the importance of the purely feudal baronage in the carrying on of government. This was the effect also of the gradual transformation of the sheriff into a more strictly ministerial officer and the diminished value of feudal levies in war as indicated by the extension of scutage. In truth, at a date relatively as early for this transformation as for the growth of a national law, the English state was becoming independent of feudalism. The strong Anglo-Norman monarchy was attacking the feudal baron not merely with the iron hand by which disorder and local independence were repressed, but by finding out better ways of doing the business of government and so destroying practically the whole foundation on which political feudalism rested. Of the threatening results of these reforms the baronage was vaguely conscious, and this feeling enters as no inconsiderable element into the troubles that filled the reign of Henry's youngest son and led to the first step towards constitutional government.

For a moment serious business was now interrupted by a bit of comedy, at least it seems comedy to us, though no doubt it was a matter serious enough to the actors. For many years there had been a succession of bitter disputes between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York over questions of precedence and various ceremonial rights, or to state it more accurately the Archbishops of York had been for a long time trying to enforce an exact equality in such matters with the Archbishops of Canterbury. At mid-Lent, 1776 Cardinal Hugo, the legate, held a council of the English Church in London, and at its opening the dispute led to actual violence. The cardinal took the seat of the presiding officer, and Richard of Canterbury seated himself on his right hand. The Archbishop of York on entering found the seat of honour occupied by his rival, and unwilling to yield, tried to force himself in between Richard and the cardinal. One account says that he sat down in Richard's lap. Instantly there was a tumult. The partisans of Canterbury seized the offending archbishop, bishops we are told even leading the attack, dragged him away, threw him to the floor, and misused him seriously. The legate showed a proper indignation at the disorder caused by the defenders of the rights of Canterbury, but found himself unable to go on with the council.

For a year past the young king had been constantly with his father, kept almost a prisoner, as his immediate household felt and as we may well believe. Now he began to beg permission to go on a pilgrimage to the famous shrine of St. James of Compostella, and Henry at last gave his consent, though he knew the pilgrimage was a mere pretext to escape to the continent. But the younger Henry was detained at Portchester some time, waiting for a fair wind; and Easter coming on, he returned to Winchester, at his father's request, to keep the festival with him. In the meantime, Richard and Geoffrey had landed at Southampton, coming to their father with troubles of their own, and reached Winchester the day before Easter Sunday. Henry and his sons were thus together for the feast, much to his joy we are told; but it is not said that Queen Eleanor, who was then imprisoned in England, very likely in Winchester itself, was allowed any part in the celebration. Richard's visit to England was due to a dangerous insurrection in his duchy, and he had come to ask his father's help. Henry persuaded the young king to postpone his pilgrimage until he should have assisted his brother to re-establish peace in Aquitaine, and with this understanding they both crossed to the continent about a fortnight after Easter, but young Henry on landing at once set off with his wife to visit the king of France. Richard was now nearly nineteen years old, and in the campaign that followed he displayed great energy and vigour and the skill as a fighter for which he was afterwards so famous, putting down the insurrection almost without assistance from his brother, who showed very little interest in any troubles but his own. The young king, indeed, seemed to be making ready for a new breach with his father. He was collecting around him King Henry's enemies and those who had helped him in the last war, and was openly displaying his discontent. An incident which occurred at this time illustrates his spirit. His vice-chancellor, Adam, who thought he owed much to the elder king, attempted to send him a report of his son's doings; but when he was detected, the young Henry, finding that he could not put him to death as he would have liked to do because the Bishop of Poitiers claimed him as a clerk, ordered him to be sent to imprisonment in Argentan and to be scourged as a traitor in all the towns through which he passed on the way.

About the same time an embassy appeared in England from the Norman court of Sicily to arrange for a marriage between William II of that kingdom and Henry's youngest daughter, Joanna. The marriages of each of Henry's daughters had some influence on the history of England before the death of his youngest son. His eldest daughter Matilda had been married in 1168 to Henry the Lion, head of the house of Guelf in Germany, and his second daughter, Eleanor, to Alphonso III of Castile, in 1169 or 1170. The ambassadors of King William found themselves pleased with the little princess whom they had come to see, and sent back a favourable report, signifying also the consent of King Henry. In the following February she was married and crowned queen at Palermo, being then a little more than twelve years old. Before the close of this year, 1176, Henry arranged for another marriage to provide for his youngest son John, now ten years old. The infant heiress of Maurienne, to whom he had been years before betrothed, had died soon after, and no other suitable heiress had since been found whose wealth might be given him. The inheritance which his father had now in mind was that of the great Earl Robert of Gloucester, brother and supporter of the Empress Matilda, his father's mother. Robert's son William had only daughters. Of these two were already married, Mabel to Amaury, Count of Evreux, and Amice to Richard of Clare, Earl of Hertford. Henry undertook to provide for these by pensions on the understanding that all the lands of the earldom should go to John on his marriage with the youngest daughter Isabel. To this plan Earl William agreed. The marriage itself did not take place until after the death of King Henry.

An income suitable for his position had now certainly been secured for the king's youngest son, for in addition to the Gloucester inheritance that of another of the sons of Henry I, Reginald, Earl of Cornwall who had died in 1175, leaving only daughters, was held by Henry for his use, and still earlier the earldom of Nottingham had been assigned him. At this time, however, or very soon after, a new plan suggested itself to his father for conferring upon him a rank and authority proportionate to his brothers'. Ireland was giving more and more promise of shaping itself before long into a fairly well-organized feudal state. If it seems to us a turbulent realm, where a central authority was likely to secure little obedience, we must remember that this was still the twelfth century, the height of the feudal age, and that to the ruler of Aquitaine Ireland might seem to be progressing more rapidly to a condition of what passed as settled order than to us. Since his visit to the island, Henry had kept a close watch on the doings of his Norman vassals there and had held them under a firm hand. During the rebellion of 1173 he had had no trouble from them. Indeed, they had served him faithfully in that struggle and had been rewarded for their fidelity. In the interval since the close of the war some advance in the Norman occupation had been made. There seemed to be a prospect that both the south-west and the north-east—the southern coast of Munster and the eastern coast of Ulster—might be acquired. Limerick had been temporarily occupied, and it was hoped to gain it permanently. Even Connaught had been successfully invaded. Possibly it was the hope of securing himself against attacks of this sort which he may have foreseen that led Roderick of Connaught to acknowledge himself Henry's vassal by formal treaty. If he had any expectation of this sort, he was disappointed; for the invaders of Ireland paid no attention to the new relationship, nor did Henry himself any longer than suited his purpose.

We are now told that Henry had formed the plan of erecting Ireland into a kingdom, and that he had obtained from Alexander III permission to crown whichever of his sons he pleased and to make him king of the island. Very possibly the relationship with Scotland, which he had lately put into exact feudal form, suggested the possibility of another subordinate kingdom and of raising John in this way to an equality with Richard and Geoffrey. At a great council held at Oxford in May, 1177, the preliminary steps were taken towards putting this plan into operation. Some regulation of Irish affairs was necessary. Richard "Strongbow," Earl of Pembroke and Lord of Leinster, who had been made justiciar after the rebellion, had died early in 1176, and his successor in office, William Fitz Adelin, had not proved the right man in the place. There were also new conquests to be considered and new homages to be rendered, if the plan of a kingdom was to be carried out. His purpose Henry announced to the council, and the Norman barons, some for the lordships originally assigned them, some for new ones like Cork and Limerick, did homage in turn to John and to his father, as had been the rule in all similar cases. Hugh of Lacy, Henry's first justiciar, was reappointed to that office, but there was as yet no thought of sending John, who was then eleven years old, to occupy his future kingdom.

It was a crowded two years which Henry spent in England. Only the most important of the things that occupied his attention have we been able to notice, but the minor activities which filled his days make up a great sum of work accomplished. Great councils were frequently held; the judicial reforms and the working of the administrative machinery demanded constant attention; the question of the treatment to be accorded to one after another of the chief barons who had taken part in the rebellion had to be decided; fines and confiscations were meted out, and finally the terms on which the offenders were to be restored to the royal favour were settled. The castles occasioned the king much anxiety, and of those that were allowed to stand the custodians were more than once changed. The affairs of Wales were frequently considered, and at last the king seemed to have arranged permanent relations of friendship with the princes of both north and south Wales. In March, 1177, a great council decided a question of a kind not often coming before an English court. The kings of Castile and Navarre submitted an important dispute between them to the arbitration of King Henry, and the case was heard and decided in a great council in London—no slight indication of the position of the English king in the eyes of the world.

Ever since early February, 1177, Henry had been planning to cross over to Normandy with all the feudal levies of England. There were reasons enough for his presence there, and with a strong hand. Richard's troubles were not yet over, though he had already proved his ability to deal with them alone. Britanny was much disturbed, and Geoffrey had not gone home with Richard, but was still with his father. The king of France was pressing for the promised marriage of Adela and Richard, and it was understood that the legate, Cardinal Peter of Pavia, had authority to lay all Henry's dominions under an interdict if he did not consent to an immediate marriage. The attitude of the young Henry was also one to cause anxiety, and his answers to his father's messages were unsatisfactory. One occasion of delay after another, however, postponed Henry's crossing, and it was the middle of August before he landed in Normandy. We hear much less of the army that actually went with him than of the summons of the feudal levies for the purpose, but it is evident that a strong force accompanied him. The difficulty with the king of France first demanded attention. The legate consented to postpone action until Henry, who had determined to try the effect of a personal interview, should have a conference with Louis. This took place on September 21, near Nonancourt, and resulted in a treaty to the advantage of Henry. He agreed in the conference that the marriage should take place on the original conditions, but nothing was said about it in the treaty. This concerned chiefly a crusade, which the two kings were to undertake in close alliance, and a dispute with regard to the allegiance of the county of Auvergne, which was to be settled by arbitrators named in the treaty, After this success Henry found no need of a strong military force. Various minor matters detained him in France for nearly a year, the most important of which was an expedition into Berri to force the surrender to him of the heiress of Déols under the feudal right of wardship. July 15, 1178, Henry landed again in England for another long stay of nearly two years. As in his previous sojourn this time was occupied chiefly in a further development of the judicial reforms already described.

While Henry was occupied with these affairs, events in France were rapidly bringing on a change which was destined to be of the utmost importance to England and the Angevin house. Louis VII had now reigned in France for more than forty years. His only son Philip, to be known in history as Philip Augustus, born in the summer of 1165, was now nearly fifteen years old, but his father had not yet followed the example of his ancestors and had him crowned, despite the wishes of his family and the advice of the pope. Even so unassertive a king as Louis VII was conscious of the security and strength which had come to the Capetian house with the progress of the last hundred years. Now he was growing ill and felt himself an old man, though he was not yet quite sixty, and he determined to make the succession secure before it should be too late. This decision was announced to a great council of the realm at the end of April, 1179, and was received with universal applause. August 15 was appointed as the day for the coronation, but before that day came the young prince was seriously ill, and his father was once more deeply anxious for the future. Carried away by the ardour of the chase in the woods of Compiegne, Philip had been separated from his attendants and had wandered all one night alone in the forest, unable to find his way. A charcoal-burner had brought him back to his father on the second day, but the strain of the unaccustomed dread had been too much for the boy, and he had been thrown into what threatened to be a dangerous illness. To Louis's troubled mind occurred naturally the efficacy of the new and mighty saint, Thomas of Canterbury, who might be expected to recall with gratitude the favours which the king of France had shown him while he was an exile. The plan of a pilgrimage to his shrine, putting the king practically at the mercy of a powerful rival, was looked upon by many of Louis's advisers with great misgiving, but there need have been no fear. Henry could always be counted upon to respond in the spirit of chivalry to demands of this sort having in them something of an element of romance. He met the royal pilgrim on his landing, and attended him during his short stay at Canterbury and back to Dover. This first visit of a crowned king of France to England, coming in his distress to seek the aid of her most popular saint, was long remembered there, as was also his generosity to the monks of the cathedral church. The intercession of St. Thomas availed. The future king of France recovered, selected to become—it was believed that a vision of the saint himself so declared—the avenger of the martyr against the house from which he had suffered death.

Philip recovered, but Louis fell ill with his last illness. As he drew near to Paris on his return a sudden shock of paralysis smote him. His whole right side was affected, and he was unable to be present at the coronation of his son which had been postponed to November 1. At this ceremony the house of Anjou was represented by the young King Henry, who as Duke of Normandy bore the royal crown, and who made a marked impression on the assembly by his brilliant retinue, by the liberal scale of his expenditure and the fact that he paid freely for everything that he took, and by the generosity of the gifts which he brought from his father to the new king of France. The coronation of Philip II opens a new era in the history both of France and England, but the real change did not declare itself at once. What seemed at the moment the most noteworthy difference was made by the sudden decline in influence of the house of Blois and Champagne, which was attached to Louis VII by so many ties, and which had held so high a position at his court, and by the rise of Count Philip of Flanders to the place of most influential counsellor, almost to that of guardian of the young king. With the crowning of his son, Louis's actual exercise of authority came to an end; the condition of his health would have made this necessary in any case, and Philip II was in fact sole king. His first important step was his marriage in April, 1180, to the niece of the Count of Flanders, Isabel of Hainault, the childless count promising an important cession of the territory of south-western Flanders to France to take place on his own death, and hoping no doubt to secure a permanent influence through the queen, while Philip probably intended by this act to proclaim his independence of his mother's family.