Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Read online

  Rapine and oppression were in every corner of England and Normandy, the two brothers Robert and William setting the example by stripping their youngest brother, Henry, of the castle he had purchased with his father's legacy. One knight, two squires, and a faithful chaplain, alone would abide by the fortunes of the landless prince. The chaplain, Roger le Poer, had been chosen by Henry, for a reason from which no one could have expected the fidelity he showed his prince in his misfortunes, nor his excellent conduct afterward when sharing the prosperity of his master. He was at first a poor parish priest of Normandy, and Henry, chancing to enter his church, found him saying mass so quickly, that, quite delighted, the prince exclaimed, "Here's a priest for me!" and immediately took him into his service. Nevertheless, Roger le Poer was an excellent adviser, an upright judge, and a good bishop. It was he who commenced the Cathedral of Salisbury, where it now stands, removing it from the now deserted site of Old Sarum.

  Robert had not added much to the tranquillity of the country by releasing his uncle, the turbulent old Bishop Odo, who was continually raising quarrels between him and William. Odo's old friend, Earl Hugh the Wolf, of Chester, [Footnote: See the "Camp of Refuge."] was at this time better employed than most of the Norman nobles. He was guarding the frontier against the Welsh, and at the same time building the heavy red stone pile which is now the Cathedral of Chester, and which he intended as the Church of a monastery of Benedictines. Fierce old Hugh was a religious man, and had great reverence and affection for one of the persons in all the world most unlike himself-Anselm, the Abbot of Bec.

  Anselm was born at Aosta, in Piedmont, of noble parents, and was well brought up by his pious mother, Ermengarde, under whose influence he applied himself to holy learning, and was anxious to embrace a religious life. She died when he was fifteen years of age, and his father was careless and harsh. Anselm lost his love for study, and fell into youthful excesses, but in a short time her good lessons returned upon him, and he repented earnestly. His father, however, continued so unkind, and even cruel, that he was obliged to leave the country, and took refuge, first in Burgundy and then in Normandy, where he sought the instruction of his countryman, Lanfranc, then Abbot of Bec.

  He learnt, at Bec, that his father was dead, and decided on taking the vows in that convent. There he remained for many years, highly revered for his piety and wisdom, and, in fact, regarded as almost a saint. In 1092, Hugh the Wolf was taken ill, and, believing he should never recover, sent to entreat the holy Abbot to come and give him comfort on his death-bed. Anselm came, but on his arrival found the old Earl restored, and only intent on the affairs of his new monastery, the regulation of which he gladly submitted to Anselm. The first Abbot was one of the monks of Bec, and Earl Hugh himself afterward gave up his country to his son Richard, and assumed the monastic habit there.

  Whilst Anselm was on his visit to the Earl of Chester, there was some conversation about him at Court, and some one said that the good Abbot was so humble that he had no desire for any promotion or dignity. "Not for the Archbishopric?" shouted the King, with a laugh of derision; "but"-and he swore an oath-"other Archbishop than me there shall be none."

  Some of the clergy about this time requested William to permit prayers to be offered in the churches, that he might be directed to make a fit choice of a Primate. He laughed, and said the Church might ask what she pleased; she would not hinder him from doing what he pleased.

  He knew not what Power he was defying. That power, in the following spring, stretched him on a bed of sickness, despairing of life, and in an agony of remorse at his many fearful sins, especially filled with terror at his sacrilege, and longing to free himself from that patrimony of the Church which seemed to be weighing down his soul.

  Anselm was still with Hugh the Wolf, probably at Gloucester, where the King's illness took place. A message came to summon him without delay to the royal chamber, there to receive the pastoral staff of Canterbury. He would not hear of it; he declared he was unfit, he was an old man, and knew nothing of business, he was weak, unable to govern the Church in such times. "The plough should be drawn by animals of equal strength," said he to the bishops and other friends who stood round, combatting his scruples, and exulting that the king's heart was at length touched. "Would you yoke a feeble old sheep with a wild young bull?"

  Without heeding his objections, the Norman clergy by main force dragged him into the room where lay the Red King, in truth like to a wild bull in a net, suffering from violent fever, and half mad with impatience and anguish of mind. He would not hear Anselm's repeated refusals, and besought him to save him. "You will ruin me," he said. "My salvation is in your hands. I know God will never have mercy on me if Canterbury is not filled."

  Still Anselm wept, imploring him to make another choice; but the bishops carried him up to the bedside, and actually forced open his clenched hand to receive the pastoral staff which William held out to him. Then, half fainting, he was carried away to the Cathedral, where they chanted the _Te Deum_, and might well have also sung, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water."

  But though William had thus been shown how little his will availed when he openly defied the force of prayer, his stubborn disposition was unchanged, and he recovered only to become more profane than ever. Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, when congratulating him on his restoration, expressed a hope that he would henceforth show more regard to the Most High. "Bishop," he returned, as usual with an oath, "I will pay no honor to Him who has brought so much evil on me."

  A war at this time broke out between William and his brother Robert, and the King ordered all his bishops to pay him large sums to maintain his forces. Canterbury had been so wasted with his extortions that Anselm could hardly raise 500 marks, which he brought the King, warning him that this was the last exaction with which he meant to comply. "Keep your money and your foul tongue to yourself," answered William; and Anselm gave the money to the poor.

  Shortly after, Anselm expostulated with William on the wretched state of the country, where the Christian religion had almost perished; but the King only said he would do what he would with his own, and that his father had never met with such language from Lanfranc. Anselm was advised to offer him treasure to make his peace, but this he would not do; and William, on hearing of his refusal, broke out thus: "Tell him that as I hated him yesterday, I hate him more to day, and will hate him daily more and more. Let him keep his blessings to himself; I will have none of them."

  The next collision was respecting the Pallium, the scarf of black wool with white crosses; woven from the wool of the lambs blessed by the Pope on St. Agnes' day, which, since the time of St. Augustine, had always been given by the Pope to the English Primate. Anselm, who had now been Archbishop for two years, asked permission to go and receive it; but as it was in the midst of the dispute between Emperor and Pope, there was an Antipope, as pretenders to that dignity were called-one Guibert, appointed by Henry IV. of Germany, besides Urban II., who had been chosen by the Cardinals, and whose original Christian name was really Odo. William went into a great fury on hearing that Anselm regarded Urban as the true Pope, without having referred to himself, convoked the clergy and laity at Rockingham, and called on them to depose the Archbishop. The bishops, all but Gundulf of Rochester, were in favor of the King, and renounced their obedience to the Primate; but the nobles showed themselves resolved to protect him, whereupon William adjourned the council, and sent privately to ask what might be gained by acknowledging Urban as Pope.

  Urban sent a legate to England with the Pallium. The King first tried to make him depose Anselm, and then to give him the Pallium instead of investing the Archbishop with it; but the legate, by way of compromise, laid it on the altar at Canterbury, whence Anselm took it up.

  Two years more passed, and Anselm came to beg permission to go to Rome to consult with the Pope on the miserable state of the Church. William said he might go, but if he did, he himself should take all the manors of Canterbury
again, and the bishops warned him they should be on the king's side.

  "You have answered well," said Anselm; "go to your lord; I will hold to my God."

  William banished him for life; but just before he departed, he came to the King, saying, "I know not when I shall see you again, and if you will take it, I would fain give you my blessing-the blessing of a father to his son."

  For one moment the Red King was touched; he bowed his head, and the old man made the sign of the cross on his brow; but no sooner was Anselm gone forth from his presence, than his heart was again hardened, and he so interfered with his departure, that he was forced to leave England in the dress of a pilgrim, with only his staff and wallet.

  In Italy, Anselm was able to live in quiet study, write and pray in peace. He longed to resign his archbishopric, but the Pope would not consent; and when Urban was about to excommunicate the King, he prevailed to prevent the sentence from being pronounced.

  William was left to his own courses, and to his chosen friend Ralph, a low-born Norman priest, beloved by the King partly for his qualities as a boon companion, partly for his ingenuity as an extortioner. He was universally known by the nickname of Flambard, or the Torch, and was bitterly hated by men of every class. He was once very nearly murdered by some sailors, who kidnapped him, and carried him on board a large ship. Some of them quarrelled about the division of his robes, a storm arose, and he so worked on their fears that they at length set him on shore, where William was so delighted to see him that he gave him the bishopric of Durham, the richest of all, because the bishop was also an earl, and was charged to defend the frontier against the Scots.

  He had promised to relax the forest laws, but this was only one of his promises made to be broken; and he became so much more strict in his enforcement of them than even the Conqueror, that he acquired the nickname of Ranger of the Woods and Keeper of the Deer. Dogs in the neighborhood of his forests were deprived of their claws, and there was a scale of punishments for poachers of any rank, extending from the loss of a hand, or eye, to that of life itself. In 1099, another Richard, an illegitimate son of Duke Robert of Normandy, was killed in the New Forest by striking his head against the branch of a tree; and a belief in a family fate began to prevail, so much so that Bishop Gundulf warned the King against hunting there; but William, as usual, laughed him to scorn, and in the summer of 1100 took up his residence in his lodge of Malwood, attended by his brother Henry, and many other nobles.

  On the last night of July a strange sound was heard-the King calling aloud on St. Mary; and when his attendants came into his chamber, they found him crossing himself, in terror from a frightful dream. He bade them bring lights, and make merry, that he might not fall asleep again; but there were other dreamers. With morning a monk arrived to tell that he had had a vision presaging the King's death; but William brayed his own misgivings, and laughed, saying the man dreamt like a monk. "Give him a hundred pence, and bid him dream better luck next time."

  Yet his spirits were subdued all the morning, and it was not till wine had excited him that he returned to his vein of coarse, reckless mirth. He called his hunters round him, ordered the horses, and asked for his new arrows-long, firm, ashen shafts. Three he stuck in his belt, the other three he held out to a favorite comrade, Walter Tyrrel, Lord de Poix, saying, "Take them, Wat, for a good marskman should have good arrows."

  Some one ventured to remind him of his dream, but his laugh was ready. "Do they take me for a Saxon, to be frighted because an old woman dreams or sneezes?"

  The hunters rode off, Walter Tyrrel alone with the King. By-and-by a cry rang through the forest that the King was slain. There was an eager gathering into the beech-shaded dell round the knoll of Stoney Cross, where, beneath an oak tree, lay the bleeding corpse of the Red William, an arrow in his heart. Terror fell on some, the hope of self-aggrandizement actuated others. Walter Tyrrel never drew rein till he came to the coast, and there took ship for France, whence he went to the holy wars. Prince Henry rode as fast in the opposite direction. William de Breteuil (eldest son of Fitz-Osborn) galloped off to secure his charge, the treasury at Winchester, and; when he arrived, found the prince before him, trying to force the keepers to give him the keys, which they refused to do except at their master's bidding.

  Breteuil, who, as well as Henry, had sworn that Robert should reign if William died childless, tried to defend his rights, but was overpowered by some friends of Henry, who now came up to the forest; and the next morning the prince set off to London, taking with him the crown, and caused the Bishop of London to anoint and crown him four days after his brother's death.

  No one cared for the corpse beneath the oak, and there it lay till evening, when one Purkiss, a charcoal-burner of the forest hamlet of Minestead, came by, lifted it up, and carried it on his rude cart, which dripped with the blood flowing from the wound, to Winchester.

  There the cathedral clergy buried it in a black stone coffin, ridged like the roof of a house, beneath the tower of the cathedral, many people looking on, but few grieving, and some deeming it shame that so wicked a man should be allowed to lie within a church. These thought it a judgment, when, next year, the tower fell down over the grave, and it was rebuilt a little further westward with some of the treasure Bishop Walkelyn had left. Never did any man's history more awfully show a hardened, impenitent heart, going back again to sin after a great warning, then cut off by an instantaneous death, in the full tide of prosperity, in the very height of health and strength-for he was but in his fortieth year.

  A spur of William Rufus is still preserved at the forest town of Lyndhurst; Purkiss's descendant still dwells at Minestead; part of the way by which he travelled is called the King's Lane, and the oak long remained at Stoney Cross to mark the spot where the King fell; and when, in 1745, the remains of the wood mouldered away, a stone was set up in its place; but the last of the posterity of William the Conqueror's "high deer" were condemned in the course of the year 1831.

  A Minestead churl, whose wonted trade

  Was burning charcoal in the glade,

  Outstretched amid the gorse

  The monarch found: and in his wain

  He raised, and to St. Swithin's fane

  Conveyed the bleeding corse.

  And still-so runs our forest creed-

  Flourish the pious woodman's seed,

  Even in the self-same spot:

  One horse and cart, their little store,

  Like their forefather's, neither more

  Nor less, their children's lot.

  And still in merry Tyndhurst hall

  Red William's stirrup decks the wall;

  Who lists, the sight may see.

  And a fair stone in green Mai wood,

  Informs the traveller where stood

  The memorable tree.

  Thus in those fields the Red King died,

  His father wasted in his pride,

  For it is God's command

  Who doth another's birthright rive,

  The curse unto his blood shall cleave,

  And God's own word shall stand.

  Who killed William Rufus? is a question to which the answer becomes more doubtful in proportion to our knowledge of history. Suspicion attached of course to Tyrrel, but he never owned that the shaft, either by design or accident, came from his bow, and no one was there to bear witness. Some think Henry Beauclerc might be guilty of the murder, and he was both unscrupulous enough and prompt enough in taking advantage of the circumstance, to give rise to the belief. Anselm was in Auvergne when he heard of the King's death, and he is said to have wept at the tidings. He soon received a message from Henry inviting him to return to England, where he was received with due respect, and found that, outwardly at least, order and regularity were restored in Church matters, and the clergy possessed their proper influence. Great promises were made to them and to the Saxons; and the hated favorite of William, Ralph Flambard, was in prison in the Tower. However, he contrived to make his escape by the h
elp of two barrels, one containing wine, with which he intoxicated his keepers, the other a rope, by which he let himself down from the window. He went to Robert of Normandy, remained with him some time, but at last made his peace with Henry, and in his old age was a tolerably respectable Bishop of Durham.

  Anselm was in favor at court, owing to the influence of the "good Queen Maude," and he tried to bring about a reformation of the luxuries then prevalent especially long curls, which had come into fashion with the Normans of late. Like St. Wulstan, he carried a knife to clip them, but without making much impression on the gay youths, till one of them happened to dream that the devil was strangling him with his own long hair, waked in a fright, cut it all off, and made all his friends do so too.

  As long as Henry was afraid of having his crown disputed by Robert, he took care to remain on excellent terms with the Church, and Anselm supported him with all his influence when Robert actually asserted his rights; but when the danger was over, the strife between Church and State began again. In 1103, Henry appointed four bishops, and required Anselm to consecrate them, but as they all had received the staff and ring from the King, and paid homage for their lands, he considered that he could not do so, conformably with the decree of the Lateran Council against lay investiture. Henry was much displeased, and ordered the Archbishop of York to consecrate them; but two of them, convinced by Anselm, returned the staff and ring, and would not be consecrated by any one but their true primate.

  Henry said that one archbishop must consecrate all or none, and the whole Church was in confusion. Anselm, though now very old, offered to go and consult the Pope, Paschal II., and the King consented; but when Paschal decided that lay investiture was unlawful, Henry was so much displeased that he forbade the archbishop to return to England.