London and the Kingdom Volume I Part 4

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This compact was entered into on the 2nd March, and on the following day the empress was received with solemn pomp into Winchester Cathedral. It remained for the compact to be ratified. For this purpose an ecclesiastical synod was summoned to sit at Winchester on the 7th April.

The day was spent by the legate holding informal communications with the bishops, abbots, and archdeacons who were in attendance, and who then for the first time in England's history claimed the right not only of consecration, but of election of the sovereign.(115)

On the 8th April, Henry in a long speech announced to the a.s.sembled clergy the result of the conclave of the previous day. He extolled the good government of the late king who before his death had caused fealty to be sworn to his daughter, the empress. The delay of the empress in coming to England (he said) had been the cause of Stephen's election. The latter had forfeited all claim to the crown by his bad government, and G.o.d's judgment had been p.r.o.nounced against him. Lest therefore, the nation should suffer for want of a sovereign, he, as legate, had summoned them together, and by them the empress had been elected Lady of England. The speech was received with unanimous applause, those to whom the election did not commend itself being wise enough to hold their tongue.

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But there was another element to be considered before Matilda's new t.i.tle could be a.s.sured. What would the Londoners who had taken the initiative in setting Stephen on the throne, and still owed to them their allegiance, say to it? The legate had foreseen the difficulty that might arise if the citizens, whom he described as very princes of the realm, by reason of the greatness of their city (_qui sunt quasi optimates pro magnitudine civitatis in Anglia_), could not be won over. He had, therefore, sent a special safe conduct for their attendance, so he informed the meeting after the applause which followed his speech had died away, and he expected them to arrive on the following day. If they pleased they would adjourn till then.

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The next day (9th April) the Londoners arrived, as the legate had foretold, and were ushered before the council. They had been sent, they said, by the so called "commune" of London; and their purpose was not to enter into debate, but only to beg for the release of their lord, the king.(116) The statement was supported by all the barons then present who had entered the commune of the city(117) and met with the approval of the archbishop and all the clergy in attendance. Their solicitations, however, proved of no avail. The legate replied with the same arguments he had used the day before, adding that it ill became the Londoners who were regarded as n.o.bles (_quasi proceres_) in the land to foster those who had basely deserted their king on the field of battle, and who only curried favour with the citizens in order to fleece them of their money.

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Here an interruption took place. A messenger presented to the legate a paper from Stephen's queen to read to the council. Henry took the paper, and after scanning its contents, refused to communicate them to the meeting. The messenger, however, not to be thus foiled, himself made known the contents of the paper. These were, in effect, an exhortation by the queen to the clergy, and more especially to the legate himself, to restore Stephen to liberty. The legate, however, returned the same answer as before, and the meeting broke up, the Londoners promising to communicate the decision of the council to their brethren at home, and to do their best to obtain their support.

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The next two months were occupied by the empress and her supporters in preparing the way for her admission into the city, the inhabitants of which, had as yet shown but little disposition towards her. But however great their inclination may have been to Stephen, they at length found themselves forced to transfer their allegiance and to offer, for a time at least, a politic submission to the empress. Accordingly, a deputation went out to meet her at St. Albans (May 1141), and arrange terms on which the city should surrender.(118)

More delay took place; and it was not until shortly before midsummer (1141), that she entered the city. Her stay was brief. She treated the inhabitants as vanquished foes,(119) extorted large sums of money,(120) and haughtily refused to observe the laws of Edward the Confessor they valued so much, preferring those of the late king, her father.(121)

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The consequence was that, within a few days of her arrival in London, the inhabitants rose in revolt, drove her out of the city(122) and attacked the Tower, of which Geoffrey de Mandeville was constable, as his father William had been before him.(123)

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This Geoffrey de Mandeville had been recently created Earl of Ess.e.x by Stephen, in the hope and expectation that the fortress over which Geoffrey was governor, would be held secure for the royal cause. The newly fledged earl, however, was one who ever fought for his own hand, and was ready to sell his fortress and sword to the highest bidder. The few days that the empress was in the city, afforded her an opportunity of risking a trial to win over the earl from his allegiance. To this end she offered to confirm him in his earldom and to continue him in his office of Constable of the Tower, conferred upon him by Stephen; in addition to which, she was ready to allow him to enjoy lands of the rent of 100 a year, a license to fortify his castles, and the posts of sheriff and justiciar throughout his earldom. The bait was too tempting for the earl not to accept; and a charter to the above effect was drawn up and executed.(124)

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Scarcely had the fickle earl consented to throw in his lot with the empress before she had to flee the city. The departure of the empress was quickly followed by the arrival of her namesake, Matilda, the valiant queen of the captured Stephen; and again the earl proved false to his allegiance and actively supported the queen in concert with the citizens.(125)

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With his aid(126) and the aid of the Londoners,(127) the queen was enabled to reduce Winchester and to effect the liberation of her husband by exchanging the Earl of Gloucester, brother of the empress, for the captured king.

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After being solemnly crowned, for the second time,(128) at Canterbury, Stephen issued a second charter (about Christmas time, 1141),(129) to Geoffrey de Mandeville, confirming and augmenting the previous grant by the empress. Instead of sheriff and justiciar of his own county of Ess.e.x merely, he is now made sheriff and justiciar of London and Middles.e.x, as well as of Hertfordshire.

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But even these great concessions failed to secure the earl's fidelity to the king. Again he broke away from his allegiance and planned a revolt in favour of the empress who recompensed him with still greater dignities and possessions than any yet bestowed. This second charter of the empress,(130) is remarkable for a clause in which she promises never to make terms with the Londoners without the earl's consent, "because they are his mortal foes."(131) But the plans of the earl were doomed to be frustrated. The empress, tired of the struggle, soon ceased to be dangerous, and eventually withdrew to the continent, and Stephen was left free to deal with the rebel earl alone. With the a.s.sistance of the Londoners, who throughout the long period of civil dissension, were generally to be found on the winning side, and held as it were the balance between the rival powers, Stephen managed after considerable bloodshed to capture the fortifications erected by the Earl at Farringdon.(132)

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The earl was subsequently treacherously arrested and made to give up his castles. Thenceforth his life was that of a marauding freebooter, until, fatally wounded at the siege of Burwell, he expired in September, 1143.

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Notwithstanding the absence of the empress and the death of the faithless earl, a desultory kind of war continued to be carried on for the next ten years on behalf of Henry of Anjou, son of the empress. In 1153 that prince arrived in England to fight his own battles and maintain his right to the crown, which the king had already attempted to transfer to the head of his own son Eustace. This attempt had been foiled by the refusal of the bishops, at the instigation of the pope, to perform the ceremony. The sudden death of Eustace made the king more ready to enter into negotiations for effecting a peaceful settlement.

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A compromise was accordingly effected at Winchester,(133) whereby Stephen was to remain in undisputed possession of the throne for life, and after his death was to be succeeded by Henry. The news that at last an end had come to the troubles which for nineteen years had disturbed the country, was received with universal joy, and Henry, conducted to London by the king himself, was welcomed in a manner befitting one who was now the recognised heir to the crown.(134)

CHAPTER III.

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Both London and Winchester had been laid in ashes during Stephen's reign, the former by a conflagration-which took place in 1136, again destroying St. Paul's and extending from London Bridge to the church of St. Clement Danes-the latter by the burning missiles used in the conflict between Stephen and the empress in 1141. Winchester never recovered her position, and London was left without a rival. Fitz-Stephen, who wrote an account of the city as it stood in the reign of Henry II, describes it as holding its head higher than all others; its fame was wider known; its wealth and merchandise extended further than any other; it was the capital of the kingdom (_regni Anglorum sedes_).(135)

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It was through the mediation of an intimate friend and fellow citizen of Fitz-Stephen that Archbishop Theobald had invited Henry of Anjou over from France in 1153. Thomas of London, better known as Thomas Becket, although of foreign descent, was born in the heart of the city, having first seen the light in the house of Gilbert, his father, some time Portreeve of London, situate in Cheapside on a site now occupied by the hall and chapel of the Mercers' Chapel. Having been ordained a deacon of the Church, he became in course of time clerk or chaplain to the archbishop. Vigorous and active as he was, Thomas soon made his influence felt, and it was owing to his suggestion (so it is said(136)) that the bishops had declined to be a party to the coronation of Eustace during Stephen's lifetime.

On the accession of Henry, Thomas pa.s.sed from the service of the archbishop, then advanced in years, to the service of the young king. He was raised to the dignity of chancellor, and became one of the king's most trusted advisers. By their united efforts order was once again restored throughout the kingdom. The great barons, who had established themselves in castles erected without royal licence, were brought into subjection to the crown and compelled to pull down their walls. Upon the death of the archbishop, Thomas was appointed to the vacant See (1162). From that day forward the friendship between king and archbishop began to wane. Henry found that all his attempts to establish order in his kingdom were thwarted by exemptions claimed by the archbishop on behalf of the clergy.

He found that allegiance to the Crown was divided with allegiance to the Pope, and this state of things was likely to continue so long as the archbishop lived. Becket's end is familiar to us all. His memory was long cherished by the citizens of London, who made many a pilgrimage to the scene of his martyrdom and left many an offering on his tomb in the cathedral of Canterbury. It is hard to say for which of the two, the father or the son, the citizens entertained the greater reverence. For many years after his death it was the custom for the Mayor of the City for the time being, upon entering into office, to meet the aldermen at the church of St. Thomas of Acon-a church which had been erected and endowed in honour of the murdered archbishop by his sister Agnes, wife of Thomas Fitz-Theobald of h.e.l.les(137)-and thence to proceed to the tomb of Gilbert Becket, the father, in St. Paul's churchyard, there to say a _De profundis_; after which both mayor and aldermen returned to the church of St. Thomas, and, each having made an offering of two pence, returned to his own home.(138) St. Thomas's Hospital, in Southwark, was originally dedicated to the murdered archbishop, but after its dissolution and subsequent restoration as one of the Royal Hospitals, its patron saint was no longer Thomas the Martyr, but Thomas the Apostle.

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Whilst the king and his chancellor were busy settling the kingdom, establishing a uniform administration of justice and system of revenue, and not only renewing but extending the form of government which had been inst.i.tuted by Henry I, the citizens of London, availing themselves of the security afforded by a strong government, redoubled their energy in following commercial pursuits and succeeded in raising the city, as Fitz-Stephen has told us, to a pitch of prosperity far exceeding that of any other city in the world.

They obtained a charter from Henry,(139) although of a more limited character than that granted to them by his grandfather. The later charter, for instance, although in the main lines following the older charter, makes no mention of Middles.e.x being let to ferm nor of any appointment of sheriff or justiciar being vested in the citizens. It appears as if Henry was determined to bring the citizens no less than the barons of the realm within more direct and immediate subservience to the crown. The concession made by the king's grandfather had been ignored by Stephen and the empress Matilda, each of whom in turn had granted the shrievalty of London and Middles.e.x to the Earl of Ess.e.x. For a time the appointment of sheriffs was lost to the citizens. Throughout the reigns of Henry II and his successor they were appointed by the crown. Richard's charter to the citizens makes no mention of the sheriffwick, nor is it mentioned in the first charter granted by John. When it was restored to the citizens (A.D. 1199), by John's second charter, the office of sheriff of London had lost much of its importance owing to the introduction of the communal system of munic.i.p.al government under a mayor.

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In the meantime the sheriffs of the counties, who had by reason of Henry's administrative reforms, risen to be officers of greater importance and wider jurisdiction, and who had taken advantage of their positions to oppress the people during the king's prolonged absence abroad, were also made to feel the power of the crown. A blow struck at the sheriffs was calculated to weaken the n.o.bility and the larger landowners-the cla.s.s from which it had been the custom hitherto to select these officers. Henry saw the advantage to be gained, and on his return to England in 1170 deposed most of the sheriffs and ordered a strict enquiry to be made, as to the extortions they had committed in his absence. Their places were filled for the most part by men of lower rank, and therefore likely to be more submissive. Some, however, were reinstated and became more cruel and extortionate than ever.(140)

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The last fifteen years of Henry's life were full of domestic trouble. He had always found it an easier matter to rule his kingdom than his household. His sons were for ever thwarting his will and quarrelling with each other. It was his desire to secure the succession to the crown for his eldest son Henry, and to this end he had caused him to be crowned by the Archbishop of York (14th June, 1170), who was thereupon declared excommunicated by his brother of Canterbury. The son began to clamour for his inheritance whilst his father still lived, and appealed in 1173 to the French king, whose daughter he had married, to a.s.sist him in his unholy enterprise. Whilst Henry was engaged in defending his crown against his own son on the continent, the great barons of England rose in insurrection, and the king was obliged to hasten home, where he arrived in July, 1174. The rebellion was quickly put down, and the strife between king and n.o.bles for a time ceased.

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In the city there were occasional disturbances caused by the younger n.o.bility-the young bloods of the city(141)-who infested the streets at night, broke into the houses of the rich and committed every kind of excess. In 1177 the brother of the Earl of Ferrers was waylaid and killed, and for some time the streets were unsafe at night. The chronicler records a singular outrage perpetrated three years before, by these sprigs of n.o.bility. They forcibly entered the house of a wealthy citizen whose name has not come down to us, he is simply styled the _pater-familias_. Of his courage we are left in no doubt, for we are told that he slipt on a coat of mail, armed his house-hold, and awaited the attack. He had not long to wait. The leader of the band-one Andrew Bucquinte soon made his appearance, and was met by a pan of hot coals. Swords were drawn on both sides and _pater-familias_, whose coat of mail served him well, succeeded in cutting off the right hand of his a.s.sailant. Upon the cry of thieves being raised, the delinquents took to their heels, leaving their leader a prisoner. The next day, being brought before the king's justiciar, he informed against his companions. This cowardly action on the part of Bucquinte led to many of them being taken, and among them one who is described by the chronicler as the n.o.blest and wealthiest of London citizens, but to whom the chronicler gives no other name than "John, the old man" (_Johannes Senex_). An offer was made to John to prove his innocence by what was known as the ordeal by water,(142) but the offer was declined, and he was eventually hanged. The whole story looks suspicious.