The Low
Countries.
North of France the imperial provinces of Lower Lorraine, and the debatable lands between Lorraine and Saxony, had much the same indefinite character as belonged to the southern parts of the intermediate kingdom. They seldom took part in the work of the Empire, although they were nominally part of it, and the stronger emperors enforced their right. But as a rule they were too distant from the centre of government to fear much interference, and, enjoying such freedom as they could, they gladly recognized the emperor’s sway when they required his help. We shall see the princes of Lorraine taking no small part in the negotiations between England and Germany under Richard and John, but they generally played a game with Flanders, France, and the Empire which has but an indirect bearing on European politics; and we chiefly hear of these lands as furnishing the hordes of mercenary soldiers for the crusades and internal wars of Europe, until almost suddenly the Flemish cities break upon our eye as centres of commerce and political life.
Spain and
Portugal.
Southward lie Spain and Portugal; divided into several small kingdoms between closely allied and kindred kings, all employed in the long crusade of seven centuries against the Moor; a crusade which is now beginning to have hopes of successful issue. Central Spain, on the line of the Tagus, is still in dispute, although Toledo had been taken in 1085, and Saragossa in 1118. Lisbon was taken with the help of the Crusaders in 1147. In each of the Christian states of Spain, free institutions of government, national assemblies and local self-government, preserved distinct traces of the Teutonic or Gothic origin of the ruling races; and even before the English parliament grew to completeness, the Cortes of Castile and Aragon were theoretically complete assemblies of the three estates. The growth of Spain is one of the distinct features of our epoch; but it is a growth apart. There are as yet scarcely more than one or two points at which it comes in contact with the general action of Europe.
CHAPTER II.
STEPHEN AND MATILDA.
Accession of Stephen—Arrest of the Bishops—Election of Matilda—The Anarchy—The Pacification.
Results of
the Norman
rule.
The English had had hard times under the Conqueror and his sons, but they had learned a great lesson; they had learned that they were one people. The Normans too, the great nobles who had divided the land, and hoped to create little monarchies of their own in every county and manor, had had hard times. Confiscation, mutilation, exile, death had come heavily upon them. They also had had a lesson to learn, to rid themselves of personal and selfish aims, to consolidate a powerful state under a king of their own race, and to content themselves as servants of the law with the substantial enjoyment of powers which they found themselves too weak to wrest out of the hands of the king, the supreme lawgiver and administrator of the law. This lesson they had not learned. They had submitted with an ill grace to the strong rule of the king’s ministers, the men whom they had taught to guard against their attempts at usurpation. Hence throughout these reigns the Norman king and the English people had been thrown together. They soon learned that they had common aims, finding themselves constantly in array against a common enemy. Hence, too, the English had already an earnest of the final victory. They grew whilst their adversaries wasted. The successive generations of the Normans found their wiser sons learning to call themselves English, while those who would not learn English ways declined in number and strength from year to year.
Alliance
of king and
people.