A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy - J. Franck Bright

1087.

While the late King was on his deathbed, he had been induced to declare his wishes with regard to his kingdoms. In pursuance, perhaps, of a wise policy, and with the wish to keep up and increase the nationality of England, he gave his hereditary dominions to his son Robert, England to his second son William. He told his son Henry to bide his time, and gave him £5000 in money.

William is crowned by Lanfranc, and appeases the English.

Opposition of the Normans checked. 1088.

William at once hurried to England to secure his succession, and, winning the support of Lanfranc, was in less than three weeks crowned by him. At Winchester he found the King’s treasure, from which he distributed gifts among the churches in England, and a sum of money for the poor in every shire. A promise of laws more just and mild than their forefathers had known, attached the English to him for a time. Thus supported by the Church and by the conquered people, who could not but rejoice at the separation of England from Normandy, it was only the Norman Baronage he had to fear.

In Normandy the character of the new Duke Robert, who was a mere knight-errant, induced the great nobility to get rid of the royal garrisons from their castles, and otherwise to establish their feudal independence. A similar movement was begun in England, where Odo of Bayeux, liberated at the late King’s death, had returned to his county of Kent, and now found himself at the head of a strong party who disliked the separation of their conquered possessions from their hereditary property. Among the adherents of the party we find such names as the two great bishops, Geoffrey of Coutances and William of Durham, Robert, Count of Mortain, Roger of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, his son Robert of Belesme, and Hugh of Grantmesnil, with others. Odo occupied the castle of Rochester, and against it William led a body of English, collected by a threat that all who had remained behind should be proclaimed “nithing,” or worthless. The efforts of the discontented barons in other parts of England were checked, and finally the castle of Rochester was captured. Odo of Bayeux and the Normans of the garrison were allowed to march out, which they did amid the revilings of the besiegers, and to retire to France. The King thus secured his position in England.

Lanfranc dies. Ralph Flambard succeeds him. 1089.

He had hitherto been kept in some restraint by the influence of Lanfranc; but when that prelate died in 1089, his coarse, licentious, sceptical and avaricious character began to display itself. His chief minister was Ralph Flambard, a Churchman, who, like many others, was of low parentage, but who seems to have recommended himself to William by his skill as a financier. One of the plans attributed to him was a more accurate completion of the Domesday survey, and the measurement of the hides of land there returned. This would have been harmless enough, but there must have been many other more flagrant exactions, though very likely covered by some form of law, to account for the hatred with which he was regarded. Although his office is not mentioned, he was probably justiciary.

William’s quarrels with his brothers in Normandy. 1090.