and adventurous courage, plunged into the thickest | of the fight, and, unknowingly, encountered each other. But Robert, superiour by fortune, or by the vigour of his youth, wounded and unhorsed the old monarch; and was just on the point of pursuing his unhappy advantage to the fatal extremity, when the well known voice of his father at once struck his ears, and suspended his arm. Blushing for his victory, and overwhelmed with the united emotions of grief, shame, and returning piety, he fell on his knees, poured out a flood of tears, and, embracing his father, besought him for pardon. The tide of nature returning strongly on both, the father in his turn embraced his son, and bathed him with his tears; whilst the combatants on either side, astonished at so unusual a spectacle, suspended the fight, applauded this striking act of filial piety and paternal tenderness, and pressed that it might become the prelude to a lasting peace. Peace was made; but entirely to the advantage of the father, who carried his son into England, to secure Normandy from the dangers to which his ambition and popularity might expose that dukedom. That William might have peace upon no part, the Welsh and Scots took advantage of these troubles in his family to break into England; but their expeditions were rather incursions than invasions; they wasted the country, and then retired to secure their plunder. But William, always troubled, always in action, and always victorious, pursued them, and compelled them to a peace; which was not concluded but by compelling the king of Scotland, and all the princes of Wales, to do him homage. How far this homage extended with regard to Scotland, I find it difficult to determine. Robert, who had no pleasure but in action, as soon as this war was concluded, finding, that he could not regain his father's confidence, and that he had no credit at the court of England, retired to that of France. Edgar Atheling saw likewise, that the innocence of his conduct could not make amends for the guilt of an undoubted title to the Crown; and that the Conqueror, soured by continual opposition, and suspicious through age and the experience of mankind, regarded him with an evil eye. He therefore desired leave to accompany Robert out of the kingdom, and then to make a voyage to the Holy Land: this leave was readily granted. Edgar having displayed great valour in useless acts of chivalry abroad, after the Conqueror's death returned to England, where he long lived in great tranquillity, happy in himself, beloved by all the people, and unfeared by those who held his sceptre, from his mild and inactive virtue. William had been so much a stranA. D. 1094. ger to repose, that it became no longer an object desirable to him. He revived his claim to the Vexin François, and some other terrritories on the confines of Normandy. This quarrel, which began between him and the king of France on political motives, was encreased into rancour and bitterness, first, by a boyish contest at chess between their children, which was resented, more than became wise men, by the fathers; it was further exasperated by taunts and mockeries yet less becoming their age and dignity, but which infused a mortal venom into the war. William entered first into the French territories, A. D. 1087. wantonly wasting the country, and setting fire to the towns and villages. He entered Mantes, and as usual set it on fire; but, whilst he urged his horse over the smoking ruins, and pressed forward to further havock, the beast, impatient of the hot embers, which burned his hoofs, plunged and threw his rider violently on the saddle-bow. The rim of his belly was wounded; and this wound, as William was corpulent, and in the decline of life, proved fatal. A rupture ensued, and he died at Rouen, after shewing a desire of making amends for his cruelty by restitutions to the towns he had destroyed, by alms, and endowments, the usual fruits of a late penitence, and the acknowledgments which expiring ambition pays to virtue. There is nothing more memorable in history than the actions, fortunes, and character of this great man; whether we consider the grandeur of the plans he formed, the courage and wisdom with which they were executed, or the splendour of that success, which, adorning his youth, continued without the smallest reserve to support his age, even to the last moments of his life. He lived above seventy years, and reigned within ten years as long as he lived; sixty over his dukedom, above twenty over England; both of which he acquired or kept by his own magnanimity, with hardly any other title than he derived from his arms; so that he might be reputed, in all respects, as happy as the highest ambition, the most fully gratified, can make a man. The silent inward satisfactions of domestick happiness he neither had nor sought. He had a body suited to the character of his mind, erect, firm, large, and active ; whilst to be active was a praise; a countenance stern, and which became command. Magnificent in his living, reserved in his conversation, grave in his common deportment, but relaxing with a wise facetiousness, he knew how to relieve his mind and preserve his dignity; for he never forfeited by a personal acquaintance that esteem he had acquired by his great actions. Unlearned in books, he formed his understanding by the rigid discipline of a large and complicated experience. He knew men much, and therefore generally trusted them but little; but when he knew any man to be good, he reposed in him an entire confidence, which prevented his prudence from degenerating into a vice. He had vices in his composition, and great ones; but they were the vices of a great mind: ambition, the malady of every extensive genius; and avarice, the madness of the wise: one chiefly actuated his youth; the other governed his age. The vices of young and light minds, the joys of wine, and the pleasures of love, never reached his aspiring nature. The general run of 1 men he looked on with contempt, and treated with cruelty when they opposed him. Nor was the rigour of his mind to be softened but with the appearance of extraordinary fortitude in his enemies, which, by a sympathy congenial to his own virtues, always excited his admiration, and insured his mercy. So that there were often seen in this one man, at the same time, the extremes of a savage cruelty, and a generosity, that does honour to human nature. Religion too seemed to have a great influence on his mind from policy, or from better motives; but his religion was displayed in the regularity with which he performed its duties, not in the submission he shewed to its ministers, which was never more than what good government required. Yet his choice of a counsellor and favourite was, not according to the mode of the time, out of that order, and a choice that does honour to his memory. This was Lanfranc, a man of great learning for the times, and extraordinary piety. He owed his elevation to William; but, though always inviolably faithful, he never was the tool or flatterer of the power which raised him; and the greater freedom he shewed, the higher he rose in the confidence of his master. By mixing with the concerns of state he did not lose his religion and conscience, or make them the covers or instruments of ambition; but tempering the fierce policy of a new power by the mild lights of religion, he became a blessing to the country in which he was promoted. The English owed to the virtue of this stranger, and the influence he had on the king, the little remains of liberty they continued to enjoy; and at last such a degree of his confidence, as in some sort counterbalanced the severities of the former part of his reign. CHAP. III. REIGN OF WILLIAM THE SECOND, SURNAMED RUFUS. WILLIAM had by his Queen Matilda A. D. 1087. three sons, who survived him, Robert, William, and Henry. Robert, though in an advanced age at his father's death, was even then more remarkable for those virtues, which make us entertain hopes of a young man, than for that steady prudence, which is necessary, when the short career we are to run will not allow us to make many mistakes. He had indeed a temper suitable to the genius of the time he lived in, and which therefore enabled him to make a considerable figure in the transactions which distinguished that period. He was of a sincere, open, candid nature; passionately fond of glory; ambitious without having any determinate object in view; vehement in his pursuits, but inconstant; much in war, which he understood and loved. But guiding himself both in war and peace solely by the impulses of an unbounded and irregular spirit, he filled the world with an equal admiration and pity of his splendid qualities and great misfor tunes. William was of a character very different. His views were short, his designs few, his genius narrow, and his manners brutal; full of craft, rapacious, without faith, without religion; but circumspect, steady and courageous for his ends, not for glory. These qualities secured to him that fortune, which the virtues of Robert deserved. Of Henry we shall speak hereafter. We have seen the quarrels, together with the causes of them, which embroiled the Conqueror with his eldest son Robert. Although the wound was skinned over by several temporary and palliative accommodations, it still left a soreness in the father's mind, which influenced him, by his last will, to cut off Robert from the inheritance of his English dominions. Those, he declared, he derived from his sword, and therefore he would dispose of them to that son, whose dutiful behaviour had made him the most worthy. To William therefore he left his crown; to Henry he devised his treasures: Robert possessed nothing but the dutchy, which was his birthright. William had some advantages to enforce the execution of a bequest, which was not included even in any of the modes of succession, which then were admitted. He was at the time of his father's death in England, and had an opportunity of seizing the vacant government, a thing of great moment in all disputed rights. He had also, by his presence, an opportunity of engaging some of the most considerable leading men in his interests; but his greatest strength was derived from the adherence to his cause of Lanfranc, a prelate of the greatest authority amongst the English as well as the Normans, both from the place he had held in the Conqueror's esteem, whose memory all men respected, and from his own great and excellent qualities. By the advice of this prelate the new monarch professed to be entirely governed. And as an earnest of his future reign he renounced all the rigid maxims of conquest, and swore to protect the church and the people, and to govern by St. Edward's laws, a promise extremely grateful and popular to all parties: for the Normans, finding the English passionately desirous of these laws, and only knowing, that they were in general favourable to liberty, and conducive to peace and order, became equally clamorous for their re-establishment. A. D. 1088. By these measures, and the weakness of those which were adopted by Robert, William established himself on his throne, and suppressed a dangerous conspiracy formed by some Norman noblemen in the interests of his brother, although it was fomented by all the art and intrigue, which his uncle Odo could put in practice, the most bold and politick man of that age. The security he began to enjoy from this success, and the strength which government receives by merely continuing, gave room to his natural dispositions to break out in several acts of tyranny on. and injustice. The forest laws were executed with | commodation, broke out with redoubled fury the rigour, the old impositions revived, and new laid following year. The king of Scotland, provoked Lanfranc made representations to the king to this rupture by the haughtiness of William, on this conduct, but they produced no other effect was circumvented by the artifice and fraud of one than the abatement of his credit, which from that of his ministers; under an appearance of negocimoment to his death, which happened soon after, ation he was attacked and killed, together with his was very little in the government. The revenue of only son. This was a grievous wound to Scotland the vacant see was seized into the king's hands. in the loss of one of the wisest and bravest of her When the church-lands were made kings; and in the domestick distractions, which A. D. 1089. subject to military service, they seemed afterwards tore that kingdom to pieces. to partake all the qualities of the military tenure, and to be subject to the same burthens; and as on the death of a military vassal his land was in wardship of the lord until the heir had attained his age, so there arose a pretence, on the vacancy of a bishoprick, to suppose the land in ward with the king, until the seat should be filled. This principle, once established, opened a large field for various lucrative abuses; nor could it be supposed, whilst the vacancy turned to such good account, that a necessitous or avaricious king would shew any extraordinary haste to put the bishopricks and abbacies out of his power. In effect, William always kept them a long time vacant, and in the vacancy granted away much of their possessions, particularly several manors belonging to the see of Canterbury; and when he filled this see, it was only to prostitute that dignity by disposing of it to the highest bidder. To support him in these courses he chose for his minister Ralf Flambard, a fit instrument in his designs, and possessed of such art and eloquence as to colour them in a specious manner. This man inflamed all the king's passions, and encouraged him in his unjust enterprises. It is hard to say which was most unpopular, the king or his minister. But Flambard having escaped a conspiracy against his life, and having punished the conspirators severely, struck such a general terrour into the nation, that none dared to oppose him. Robert's title alone stood in the king's way, and he knew, that this must be a perpetual source of disturbance to him. He resolved therefore to put him in peril for his own dominions. He collected a large army, and entering into Normandy, he began a war, at first with great success on account of a difference between the duke and his brother Henry; but their common dread of William reconciled them, and this reconciliation put them A. D. 1093. in a condition of procuring an equal peace; the chief conditions of which were, that Robert should be put in possession of certain seigniories in England, and that each, in case of survival, should succeed to the other's dominions. William concluded this peace the more readily, because Malcolm king of Scotland, who hung over him, was ready upon every advantage to invade his territories, and had now actually entered England with a powerful army. Robert, who courted action, without regarding what interest might have dictated, immediately on concluding the treaty entered into his brother's service in this war against the Scots; which, on the king's return, being in appearance laid asleep by an ac No sooner was this war ended, than A. D. 1094. William, freed from an enemy, which had given himself and his father so many alarms, renewed his ill treatment of his brother, and refused to abide by the terms of the late treaty. Robert, incensed at these repeated perfidies, returned to Normandy with thoughts full of revenge and war. But he found, that the artifices and bribes of the king of England had corrupted the greatest part of his barons, and filled the country with faction and disloyalty. His own facility of temper had relaxed all the bands of government, and contributed greatly to these disorders. In this distress he was obliged to have recourse to the king of France for succour. Philip, who was then on the throne, entered into his quarrel. Nor was William on his side backward; though prodigal to the highest degree, the resources of his tyranny and extortion were inexhaustible. He was enabled to enter Normandy, once more, with a considerable army. But the opposition too was considerable; and the war had probably been spun out to a great length, and had drawn on very bloody consequences, if one of the most extraordinary events, which are contained in the history of mankind, had not suspended their arms, and drawn all inferiour views, sentiments, and designs, into the vortex of one grand project. This was the crusade, which, with astonishing success, now began to be preached through all Europe. This design was then, and it continued long after, the principle which influenced the transactions of that period both at home and abroad; it will therefore not be foreign to our subject to trace it to its source. A. D. 1096. in As the power of the papacy spread, the see of Rome began to be more and more an object of ambition: the most refined intrigues were put practice to attain it; and all the princes of Europe interested themselves in the contest. The election of pope was not regulated by those prudent dispositions, which have since taken place; there were frequent pretences to controvert the validity of the election, and of course several persons at the same time laid claim to that dignity. Popes and anti-popes arose. Europe was rent asunder by these disputes, whilst some princes maintained the rights of one party, and some defended the pretensions of the other; sometimes the prince acknowledged one pope, whilst his subjects adhered to his rival. The scandals occasioned by these schisms were infinite; and they threatened a deadly wound to that authority, whose greatness had occasioned them. Princes were taught to know their own power. That pope, who this day was a sup- | which were headed by priests; and it is hard to pliant to a monarch to be recognised by him, could say which is most lamentable, the destruction of with an ill grace pretend to govern him with an such multitudes of men, or the phrenzy which high hand the next. The lustre of the holy see drew it upon them. But this design, after innubegan to be tarnished; when Urban the Second, merable calamities, began at last to be conducted after a long contest of this nature, was universally in a manner worthy of so grand and bold a proacknowledged. That pope, sensible by his own ject. Raimond, count of Tholouse, Godfrey of experience of the ill consequence of such disputes, Boulogne, and several other princes, who were sought to turn the minds of the people into another great captains as well as devotees, engaged in the channel; and by exerting it vigorously, to give a expedition, and with suitable effects. But none new strength to the papal power. In an age so burned more to signalize his zeal and courage on ignorant it was very natural, that men should think, this occasion than Robert duke of Normandy, who a great deal in religion depended upon the very was fired with the thoughts of an enterprise, which scene where the work of our redemption was ac- seemed to be made for his genius. He immedicomplished. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were there- ately suspended his interesting quarrel with his fore judged highly meritorious, and became very brother, and, instead of contesting with him the frequent. But the country, which was the object crown, to which he had such fair pretensions, or of them, as well as several of those through which the dutchy, of which he was in possession, he prothe journey lay, were in the hands of Mahome- posed to mortgage to him the latter during five tans; who, against all the rules of humanity and years for a sum of 13,000 marks of gold. Wilgood policy, treated the Christian pilgrims with liam, who had neither sense of religion, nor thirst great indignity. These, on their return, filled the of glory, intrenched in his secure and narrow pominds of their neighbours with hatred and resent-licy, laughed at a design, that had deceived all the ment against those infidels. Pope Urban laid hold great minds in Europe. He extorted, as usual, on this disposition, and encouraged Peter the this sum from his subjects; and immediately took Hermit, a man visionary, zealous, enthusiastick, possession of Normandy; whilst Robert, at the and possessed of a warm irregular eloquence head of a gallant army, leaving his hereditary doadapted to the pitch of his hearers, to preach an minions, is gone to cut out unknown kingdoms in expedition for the delivery of the Holy Land. Asia. Great designs may be started, and the spirit of them inspired, by enthusiasts, but cool heads are required to bring them into form. The pope, not relying solely on Peter, called a council at Clermont, where an infinite number of people of all sorts were assembled; here he dispensed, with a full hand, benedictions and indulgences to all persons, who should engage in the expedition; and preaching with great vehemence in a large plain, towards the end of his discourse somebody by design, or by accident, Maimbourg. cried out, "It is the will of God!" this voice was repeated by the next, and in a moment it circulated through this innumerable people, which rung with the acclamation of " It 66 is the will of God! It is the will of God!" The neighbouring villages caught up those oracular words, and it is incredible with what celerity they spread every where around into places the most distant. This circumstance, then considered as miraculous, contributed greatly to the success of the hermit's mission. No less did the disposition of the nobility throughout Europe, wholly actuated with devotion and chivalry, contribute to forward an enterprise so suited to the gratification of both these passions. Every thing was now in motion; both sexes, and every station, and age, and condition of life, engaged with transport in this holy warfare. There was even a danger, that Europe would be entirely exhausted by the torrents that were rushing out to deluge Asia. Chron. Sax. 204. These vast bodies, collected without choice, were conducted without skill or order; and they succeeded accordingly. Women and children composed no small part of those armies, Some conspiracies disturbed the course of the reign, or rather tyranny, of this prince; as plots usually do, they ended in the ruin of those who contrived them, but proved no check to the ill government of William. Some disturbances too he had from the incursions of the Welsh; from revolts in Normandy, and from a war, that began and ended without any thing memorable either in the cause or consequence, with France. nue. He He had a dispute at home, which at another time had raised great disturbances; but nothing was now considered but the expedition to the Holy Land. After the death of Lanfranc, William omitted for a long time to fill up that see, and had even alienated a considerable portion of the reveA fit of sickness, however, softened his mind; and the clergy, taking advantage of those happy moments, among other parts of misgovernment, which they advised him to correct, particularly urged him to fill the vacant sees. filled that of Canterbury with Anselm, bishop of Beck, a man of great piety and learning, but inflexible and rigid in whatever related to the rights, real or supposed, of the church. This prelate refused to accept the see of Canterbury, foreseeing the troubles that must arise from his own dispositions and those of the king; nor was he prevailed upon to accept it but on a promise of indemnification for what the temporalities of the see had suffered. But William's sickness and pious resolutions ending together, little care was taken about the execution of this agreement. Thus began a quarrel between this rapacious king and inflexible archbishop. Soon after Anselm declared in favour of Pope Urban, before the king had recog nised him, and thus subjected himself to the law, which William the Conqueror had made against accepting a pope without his consent. The quarrel was inflamed to the highest pitch; and Anselm desiring to depart the kingdom, the king consented. A. D 1100. met his fate. He was not long before he came to a resolution of seizing on the vacant crown. The order of succession had already been broken; the absence of Duke Robert, and the concurrence of many circumstances altogether resembling those, which had been so favourable to the late monarch, The eyes of all men being now turned incited him to a similar attempt. To lose no time towards the great transactions in the at a juncture when the use of a moment is often East, William duke of Guienne, by the success decisive, he went directly to Winchester, where and glory, that attended the holy adventurers, rethe regalia and the treasures of the crown were solved to take the cross; but his revenues were deposited. But the governour, a man of resolunot sufficient to support the figure his rank re- tion, and firmly attached to Robert, positively quired in this expedition. He applied to the king refused to deliver them. Henry, conscious that of England; who being master of the purses of great enterprises are not to be conducted in a his subjects, never wanted money; and he was middle course, prepared to reduce him by force of politician enough to avail himself of the prodigal arms. During this contest, the news of the king's inconsiderate zeal of the times to lay out this mo- death, and the attempts of Henry, drew great ney to great advantage. He acted the part of numbers of the nobility to Winchester, and with usurer to the Croises; and as he had taken Nor-them a vast concourse of the inferiour people. To mandy in mortgage from his brother Robert, hav- the nobility he set forth his title to the crown in ing advanced the duke of Guienne a sum on the the most plausible manner it could bear; he same conditions, he was ready to confirm his bar-alleged, that he was born after his father had acgain by taking possession, when he was killed in quired his kingdom, and that he was therefore hunting by an accidental stroke of an arrow, which natural heir of the crown; but that his brother pierced his heart. This accident happened in the was, at best, only born to the inheritance of a New Forest, which his father with such infinite op- dukedom. The nobility heard the claim of this pression of the people had made, and in which they prince; but they were more generally inclined to both delighted extremely. In the same forest the Robert, whose birthright, less questionable in itConqueror's eldest son, a youth of great hopes, had, self, had been also confirmed by a solemn treaty. several years before, met his death from the horns But whilst they retired to consult, Henry, well of a stag; and these so memorable fates to the apprized of their dispositions, and who therefore same family, and in the same place, easily inclined was little inclined to wait the result of their debates, men to think this a judgment from Heaven; the threw himself entirely upon the populace. To people consoling themselves under their sufferings them he said little concerning his title, as he knew with these equivocal marks of the vengeance of such an audience is little moved with a discussion Providence upon their oppressors. of rights, but much with the spirit and manner in which they are claimed; for which reason he began by drawing his sword, and swearing, with a bold and determined air, to persist in his pretensions to his last breath. Then turning to the crowd, and remitting of his severity, he began to soothe them with the promises of a milder government than they had experienced, either beneath his brother, or his father: the church should enjoy her immunities; the people their liberties, the nobles their pleasures; the forest laws should cease; the distinction of Englishman and Norman be heard no more. Next, he expatiated on the grievances of the former reigns, and promised to redress them all. Lastly, he spoke of his brother Robert, whose dissoluteness, whose inactivity, whose unsteady temper, nay, whose very virtues, threatened nothing but ruin to any country which he should govern. The people received this popular harangue, delivered by a prince, whose person was full of grace and majesty, with shouts of joy and rapture. Immediately they rush to the house where the council is held, which they surround, and with clamour and menaces demand Henry for their king. The nobility were terrified by the sedition; and remembering how little present Robert had been on a former occasion to his own interests, or to those who defended him, they joined their voice to that of the people, and Henry was We have painted this prince in the colours, in which he is drawn by all the writers who lived the nearest to his time. Although the monkish historians, affected with the partiality of their character, and with the sense of recent injuries, expressed themselves with passion concerning him, we have no other guides to follow. Nothing, indeed, in his life appears to vindicate his character; and it makes strongly for his disadvantage, that without any great end of government he contradicted the prejudices of the age in which he lived, the general and common foundation of honour; and thereby made himself obnoxious to that body of men, who had the sole custody of fame, and could alone transmit his name with glory or disgrace to posterity. A. D. 1100. CHAP. IV. REIGN OF HENRY I HENRY, the youngest son of the Conqueror, was hunting at the same time, and in the same forest, in which his brother |