by Edmund Burke
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 in 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 Antipopes 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 suppliant to a monarch to be recognized by him could with an ill grace pretend to govern him with an high hand the next. The lustre of the Holy See began to be tarnished, when Urban the Second, after a long contest of this nature, was universally acknowledged. That Pope, sensible by his own experience of the ill consequence of such disputes, sought to turn the minds of the people into another channel, and by exerting it vigorously to give a new strength to the Papal power. In an age so ignorant, it was very natural that men should think a great deal in religion depended upon the very scene where the work of our Redemption was accomplished. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were therefore judged highly meritorious, and became very frequent. But the country which was the object of them, as well as several of those through which the journey lay, were in the hands of Mahometans, who, against all the rules of humanity and good policy, treated the Christian pilgrims with great indignity. These, on their return, filled the minds of their neighbors with hatred and resentment against those infidels. Pope Urban laid hold on this disposition, and encouraged Peter the Hermit, a man visionary, zealous, enthusiastic, and possessed of a warm irregular eloquence adapted to the pitch of his hearers, to preach an expedition for the delivery of the Holy Land.
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, 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 rang with the acclamation of “It is the will of God! It is the will of God!” The neighboring villages caught up those oracular words, and it is incredible with what celerity they spread everywhere 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. Everything 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. 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, which were headed by priests; and it is hard to say which is most lamentable, the destruction of such multitudes of men, or the frenzy which drew it upon them. But this design, after innumerable calamities, began at last to be conducted in a manner worthy of so grand and bold a project. Raimond, Count of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, and several other princes, who were great captains as well as devotees, engaged in the expedition, and with suitable effects. But none burned more to signalize his zeal and courage on this occasion than Robert, Duke of Normandy, who was fired with the thoughts of an enterprise which seemed to be made for his genius. He immediately suspended his interesting quarrel with his brother, and, instead of contesting with him the crown to which he had such fair pretensions, or the duchy of which he was in possession, he proposed to mortgage to him the latter during five years for a sum of thirteen thousand marks of gold. William, who had neither sense of religion nor thirst of glory, intrenched in his secure and narrow policy, laughed at a design that had deceived all the great minds in Europe. He extorted, as usual, this sum from his subjects, and immediately took possession of Normandy; whilst Robert, at the head of a gallant army, leaving his hereditary dominions, is gone to cut out unknown kingdoms in Asia.
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 anything memorable either in the cause or consequence, with France.
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 revenue. A 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. He filled that of Canterbury with Anselm, Bishop of Bec, 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 favor of Pope Urban, before the king had recognized 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.The eyes of all men being now turned towards the great transactions in the East, William, Duke of Guienne, fired by the success and glory that attended the holy adventurers, resolved to take the cross; but his revenues were not sufficient to support the figure his rank required in this expedition. He applied to the King of England, who, being master of the purses of his subjects, never wanted money; and he was politician enough to avail himself of the prodigal, inconsiderate zeal of the times to lay out this money to great advantage. He acted the part of usurer to the Croises; and as he had taken Normandy in mortgage from his brother Robert, having advanced the Duke of Guienne a sum on the same conditions, he was ready to confirm his bargain by taking possession, when he was killed in hunting by an accidental stroke of an arrow which pierced his heart. This accident happened in the New Forest, which his father with such infinite oppression of the people had made, and in which they both delighted extremely. In the same forest the Conqueror’s eldest son, a youth of great hopes, had several years before met his death from the horns of a stag; and these so memorable fates to the same family and in the same place easily inclined men to think this a judgment from Heaven: the people consoling themselves under their sufferings with these equivocal marks of the vengeance of Providence upon their oppressors.
We have painted this prince in the colors 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 them
selves 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 honor, 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.
CHAPTER IV.
REIGN OF HENRY I.
A.D. 1100.Henry, the youngest son of the Conqueror, was hunting at the same time and in the same forest in which his brother 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 favorable to the late monarch, incited him to a similar attempt. To lose no time at a juncture when the use of a moment is often decisive, he went directly to Winchester, where the regalia and the treasures of the crown were deposited. But the governor, a man of resolution, and firmly attached to Robert, positively refused to deliver them. Henry, conscious that great enterprises are not to be conducted in a middle course, prepared to reduce him by force of arms. During this contest, the news of the king’s death, and the attempts of Henry, drew great numbers of the nobility to Winchester, and with them a vast concourse of the inferior people. To the nobility he set forth his title to the crown in the most plausible manner it could bear: he alleged that he was born after his father had acquired his kingdom, and that he was therefore natural heir of the crown; but that his brother was, at best, only born to the inheritance of a dukedom. The nobility heard the claim of this prince; but they were more generally inclined to Robert, whose birthright, less questionable in itself, had been also confirmed by a solemn treaty. But whilst they retired to consult, Henry, well apprised of their dispositions, and who therefore was little inclined to wait the result of their debates, threw himself entirely upon the populace. To them he said little concerning his title, as he knew such an audience is little moved with a discussion 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 clamor 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 proclaimed without opposition. The treasure which he seized he divided amongst those that seemed wavering in his cause; and that he might secure his new and disputed right by every method, he proceeded without delay to London to be crowned, and to sanctify by the solemnity of the unction the choice of the people. As the churchmen in those days were the arbiters of everything, and as no churchman possessed more credit than Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been persecuted and banished by his brother, he recalled that prelate, and by every mark of confidence confirmed him in his interests. Two other steps he took, equally prudent and politic: he confirmed and enlarged the privileges of the city of London, and gave to the whole kingdom a charter of liberties, which was the first of the kind, and laid the foundation of those successive charters which at last completed the freedom of the subject. In fine, he cemented the whole fabric of his power by marrying Maud, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland, by the sister of Edgar Atheling, — thus to insure the affection, of the English, and, as he flattered himself, to have a sure succession to his children.
A.D. 1101.The Crusade being successfully finished by the taking of Jerusalem, Robert returned into Europe. He had acquired great reputation in that war, in which he had no interest; his real and valuable rights he prosecuted with languor. Yet such was the respect paid to his title, and such the attraction of his personal accomplishments, that, when he had at last taken possession of his Norman territories, and entered England with an army to assert his birthright, he found most of the Norman barons, and many of the English, in readiness to join him. But the diligence of Anselm, who employed all his credit to keep the people firm to the oath they had taken, prevented him from profiting of the general inclination in his favor. His friends began to fall off by degrees, so that he was induced, as well by the situation of his affairs as the flexibility of his temper, to submit to a treaty on the plan of that he had formerly entered into with his brother Rufus.
A.D. 1103.
A.D. 1106.This treaty being made, Robert returned to his dukedom, and gave himself over to his natural indolence and dissipation. Uncured by his misfortunes of a loose generosity that flowed indiscriminately on all, he mortgaged every branch of his revenue, and almost his whole domain. His barons, despising his indigence, and secure in the benignity of his temper, began to assume the unhappy privilege of sovereigns. They made war on each other at pleasure, and, pursuing their hostilities with the most scandalous license, they reduced that fine country to a deplorable condition. In vain did the people, ruined by the tyranny and divisions of the great, apply to Robert for protection: neither from his circumstances nor his character was he able to afford them any effectual relief; whilst Henry, who by his bribes and artifices kept alive the disorder of which he complained and profited, formed a party in Normandy to call him over, and to put the dukedom under his protection. Accordingly, he prepared a considerable force for the expedition, and taxed his own subjects, arbitrarily, and without mercy, for the relief he pretended to afford those of his brother. His preparations roused Robert from his indolence, and united likewise the greater part of his barons to his cause, unwilling to change a master whose only fault was his indulgence of them for the severe vigilance of Henry. The King of France espoused the same side; and even in England some emotions were excited in favor of the Duke by indignation for the wrongs he had suffered and those he was going to suffer. Henry was alarmed, but did not renounce his design. He was to the last degree jealous of his prerogative; but knowing what immense resources kings may have in popularity, he called on this occasion a great council of his barons and prelates, and there, by his arts and his eloquence, in both which he was powerful, he persuaded the assembly to a hearty declaration in his favor, and to a large supply. Thus secured at home, he lost no time to pass over to the continent, and to bring the Norman army to a speedy engagement. They fought under the walls of Tinchebrai, where the bravery and military genius of Robert, never more conspicuous than on that day, were borne down by the superior fortune and numbers of his ambitious brother. He was made prisoner; and notwithstanding all the tender pleas of their common blood, in spite of his virtues, and even of his misfortunes, which pleaded so strongly for mercy, the rigid conqueror held him in various prisons until his death, which did not happen until after a rigorous confinement of eighteen, some say twenty-seven, years. This was the end of a prince born with a thousand excellent qualities, which served no other purpose than to confirm, from the example of his misfortunes, that a facility of disposition and a weak beneficence are the greatest vices that can enter into the composition of a monarch, equally ruinous to himself and to his subjects.
/>
A.D. 1107.
A.D. 1108.The success of this battle put Henry in possession of Normandy, which he held ever after with very little disturbance. He fortified his new acquisition by demolishing the castles of those turbulent barons who had wasted and afterwards enslaved their country by their dissensions. Order and justice took place, until everything was reduced to obedience; then a severe and regular oppression succeeded the former disorderly tyranny. In England things took the same course. The king no longer doubted his fortune, and therefore no longer respected his promises or his charter. The forests, the savage passion of the Norman princes, for which both the prince and people paid so dearly, were maintained, increased, and guarded with laws more rigorous than before. Taxes were largely and arbitrarily assessed. But all this tyranny did not weaken, though it vexed the nation, because the great men were kept in proper subjection, and justice was steadily administered.
