Bishop
of Winchester.
The
Empress.
Theobald
and Becket.
Stephen died on October 25, 1154. Henry was in France at the time, and was not able, owing to the weather, to reach England before December 8. During this time the management of affairs rested with Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and in some measure perhaps with his secretary, Thomas Becket, who had been so busy negotiating the succession of Henry. Although it was the theory that during the vacancy of the throne all law and police were suspended, and no one could be punished for offences committed in a general abeyance of justice, the country remained quiet during these six weeks. Perhaps the rogues were cowed by the apprehension of a strong king coming, perhaps the religious obedience inculcated by the archbishop was really maintained; perhaps the same bad weather that kept Henry in Normandy kept thieves and robbers within doors. Nor was there any political rising during the interregnum. Stephen’s children were not thought of, at least on this side of the Channel, as rivals to Henry. The Bishop of Winchester had learnt moderation, that might in him well pass for wisdom; he might well feel that his position was a hazardous one, to be maintained only by caution; and he had no reason, nor excuse for seeking a reason, for evading the compact which he had had a chief hand in making. It shows, however, his importance that as soon as Henry landed, which he did near Southampton, he hastened to Winchester, and there visited his powerful kinsman, who, as we learn, was now busily employed in collecting statues and sculpture from southern Europe, and with whom he made a friendship which, although once or twice seriously endangered, was never actually broken. Amongst the other leaders who likewise had learned wisdom we must count the Empress Matilda, who, strange to say, appears to us no more as the arrogant, self-willed virago, but as a sage politician and a wise, modest, pious old lady, living at Rouen, and ruling Normandy in the name of her son with prudent counsel. Not a word is said now of her succeeding to the throne or even resigning her rights to Henry; all that was regarded as arranged by the settlement made with Stephen. Henry succeeded without a competitor. Stephen’s minister, Richard de Lucy, became his minister. Theobald continued to be, as his office made him, the great constitutional adviser; and to reconcile personal convenience with constitutional precedent, he presented his secretary to the king as his future Chancellor. Thomas Becket thus entered on his high and fatal office.
Coronation.
Banishment
of mercenaries.
All this done, Henry appeared at Westminster on the 19th of December, and was there crowned with the ceremonies observed at his grandfather’s coronation, now more than half a century past, and bound himself by the same ancient and solemn promises which Ethelred had made to Dunstan, and which the Conqueror, Henry I., and Stephen had renewed. Nor, when crowned, did he lose a moment: he issued a charter, as Stephen had done, at his coronation, confirming his grandfather’s laws. The same week he held a great court and council at Bermondsey. At once he re-established the Exchequer, recalling to the head of it Bishop Nigel of Ely, whom Stephen had displaced in 1140, and setting at work at once with the business of the revenue. From this court at Bermondsey went forth the decree that the Flemish and other foreign mercenaries should leave the kingdom at once, and that the castles built under Stephen should be thrown down. The mercenaries fled forthwith. Their presence was perhaps the most offensive of all insults to the national pride, and the late reign had taught Normans and Englishmen that they had now a common nationality in suffering, if not in conquest. By this article of the agreement Henry faithfully stood. Although he fought all his foreign wars with mercenaries, he never but once—and that in the greatest emergency, and to repel foreign mercenaries brought against him by the rebellious earls in 1174—introduced any such force into England. Even Richard employed in the kingdom no more foreigners than formed his ordinary surroundings, and it is not until John’s reign that we find the country again oppressed and insulted by hired foreign soldiery.
Destruction of
castles.
The demolition of the castles, which one contemporary writer reckons at three hundred and seventy-five, another a little later at eleven hundred and fifteen, was a still greater boon; for these, had they been suffered to stand, would not only have fitted England to be a constant scene of civil war, but have continued to afford to their owners a shadow of claim for the exercise of those feudal jurisdictions which on the Continent made every baron a petty despot. Castles were unfortunately not entirely destroyed at this time; the older strongholds, which had been built under Henry, were untouched, and gave trouble enough in the one civil war that marks the reign; but the legal misuse of them was abolished, and they ceased to be centres of feudal lawlessness.
Fate of the
new earls.