The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume VII Part 20

The ignorance of the bailiffs in lay courts, who were only possessed of some feudal maxims and the traditions of an uncertain custom, made this recourse to the spiritual courts the more necessary, where they could judge with a little more exactness by the lights of the canon and civil laws.

This jurisdiction extended itself by connivance, by necessity, by custom, by abuse, over lay persons and affairs. But the immunity of the clergy from lay cognizances was claimed, not only as a privilege essential to the dignity of their order, supported by the canons, and countenanced by the Roman law, but as a right confirmed by all the ancient laws of England.

Christianity, coming into England out of the bosom of the Roman Empire, brought along with it all those ideas of immunity. The first trace we can find of this exemption from lay jurisdiction in England is in the laws of Ethelred;[79] it is more fully established in those of Canute;[80] but in the code of Henry I. it is twice distinctly affirmed.[81] This immunity from the secular jurisdiction, whilst it seemed to encourage acts of violence in the clergy towards others, encouraged also the violence of others against them. The murder of a clerk could not be punished at this time by death; it was against a spiritual person, an offence wholly spiritual, of which the secular courts took no sort of cognizance. In the Saxon times two circ.u.mstances made such an exemption less a cause of jealousy: the sheriff sat with the bishop, and the spiritual jurisdiction was, if not under the control, at least under the inspection of the lay officer; and then, as neither laity nor clergy were capitally punished for any offence, this privilege did not create so invidious and glaring a distinction between them. Such was the power of the clergy, and such the immunities, which the king proposed to diminish.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1164.]

Becket, who had punished the ecclesiastic for his crime by ecclesiastical law, refused to deliver him over to the secular judges for farther punishment, on the principle of law, that no man ought to be twice questioned for the same offence. The king, provoked at this opposition, summoned a council of the barons and bishops at Clarendon; and here, amongst others of less moment, the following were unanimously declared to be the ancient prerogatives of the crown. And it is something remarkable, and certainly makes much for the honor of their moderation, that the bishops and abbots who must have composed so large and weighty a part of the great council seem not only to have made no opposition to regulations which so remarkably contracted their jurisdiction, but even seem to have forwarded them.

1st. A clerk accused of any crime shall appear in the king's court, that it may be judged whether he belongs to ecclesiastical or secular cognizance. If to the former, a deputy shall go into the bishop's court to observe the trial; if the clerk be convicted, he shall be delivered over to the king's justiciary to be punished.

2nd. All causes concerning presentation, all causes concerning Frankalmoign, all actions concerning breach of faith, shall be tried in the king's court.

3rd. The king's tenant _in capite_ shall not be excommunicated without the king's license.

4th. No clerk shall go out of the kingdom without giving security that he will do nothing to the prejudice of the king or nation. And all appeals shall be tried at home.

These are the most material of the Const.i.tutions or a.s.sizes of Clarendon, famous for having been the first legal check given to the power of the clergy in England. To give these const.i.tutions the greater weight, it was thought proper that they should be confirmed by a bull from the Pope. By this step the king seemed to doubt the entireness of his own authority in his dominions; and by calling in foreign aid when it served his purpose, he gave it a force and a sort of legal sanction when it came to be employed against himself. But as no negotiation had prepared the Pope in favor of laws designed in reality to abridge his own power, it was no wonder that he rejected them with indignation.

Becket, who had not been prevailed on to accept them but with infinite reluctance, was no sooner apprised of the Pope's disapprobation than he openly declared his own; he did penance in the humblest manner for his former acquiescence, and resolved to make amends for it by opposing the new const.i.tutions with the utmost zeal. In this disposition the king saw that the Archbishop might be more easily ruined than humbled, and his ruin was resolved. Immediately a number of suits, on various pretences, were commenced against him, in every one of which he was sure to be foiled; but these making no deadly blow at his fortunes, he was called to account for thirty thousand pounds which he was accused of having embezzled during his chancellorship. It was in vain that he pleaded a full acquittance from the king's son, and Richard de Lucy, the guardian and justiciary of the kingdom, on his resignation of the seals; he saw it was already determined against him. Far from yielding under these repeated blows, he raised still higher the ecclesiastical pretensions, now become necessary to his own protection. He refused to answer to the charge, and appealed to the Pope, to whom alone he seemed to acknowledge any real subjection. A great ferment ensued on this appeal. The courtiers advised that he should be thrown into prison, and that his temporalities should be seized. The bishops, willing to reduce Becket without reducing their own order, proposed to accuse him before the Pope, and to pursue him to degradation. Some of his friends pressed him to give up his cause; others urged him to resign his dignity. The king's servants threw out menaces against his life. Amidst this general confusion of pa.s.sions and councils, whilst every one according to his interests expected the event with much anxiety, Becket, in the disguise of a monk, escaped out of the nation, and threw himself into the arms of the King of France.

Henry was greatly alarmed at this secession, which put the Archbishop out of his power, but left him in full possession of all his ecclesiastical weapons. An emba.s.sy was immediately dispatched to Rome, in order to accuse Becket; but as Becket pleaded the Pope's own cause before the Pope himself, he obtained an easy victory over the king's amba.s.sadors. Henry, on the other hand, took every measure to maintain his authority: he did everything worthy of an able politician, and of a king tenacious of his just authority. He likewise took measures not only to humble Becket, but also to lower that chair whose exaltation had an ill influence on the throne: for he encouraged the Bishop of London to revive a claim to the primacy; and thus, by making the rights of the see at least dubious, he hoped to render future prelates more cautious in the exercise of them. He inhibited, under the penalty of high treason, all ecclesiastics from going out of his dominions without license, or any emissary of the Pope's or Archbishop's from entering them with letters of excommunication or interdict. And that he might not supply arms against himself, the Peter-pence were collected with the former care, but detained in the royal treasury, that matter might be left to Rome both for hope and fear. In the personal treatment of Becket all the proceedings were full of anger, and by an unnecessary and unjust severity greatly discredited both the cause and character of the king; for he stripped of their goods and banished all the Archbishop's kindred, all who were in any sort connected with him, without the least regard to s.e.x, age, or condition. In the mean time, Becket, stung with these affronts, impatient of his banishment, and burning with all the fury and the same zeal which had occasioned it, continually threatened the king with the last exertions of ecclesiastical power; and all things were thereby, and by the absence and enmity of the head of the English Church, kept in great confusion.

During this unhappy contention several treaties were set on foot; but the disposition of all the parties who interested themselves in this quarrel very much protracted a determination in favor of either side.

With regard to Rome, the then Pope was Alexander the Third, one of the wisest prelates who had ever governed that see, and the most zealous for extending its authority. However, though incessantly solicited by Becket to excommunicate the king and to lay the kingdom under an interdict, he was unwilling to keep pace with the violence of that enraged bishop.

Becket's view was single; but the Pope had many things to consider: an Antipope then subsisted, who was strongly supported by the Emperor; and Henry had actually entered into a negotiation with this Emperor and this pretended Pope. On the other hand, the king knew that the lower sort of people in England were generally affected to the Archbishop, and much under the influence of the clergy. He was therefore fearful to drive the Pope to extremities by wholly renouncing his authority. These dispositions in the two princ.i.p.al powers made way for several conferences leading to peace. But for a long time all their endeavors seemed rather to inflame than to allay the quarrel. Whilst the king, steady in a.s.serting his rights, remembered with bitterness the Archbishop's opposition, and whilst the Archbishop maintained the claims of the Church with an haughtiness natural to him, and which was only augmented by his sufferings, the King of France appeared sometimes to forward, sometimes to perplex the negotiation: and this duplicity seemed to be dictated by the situation of his affairs. He was desirous of nourishing a quarrel which put so redoubted a va.s.sal on the defensive; but he was also justly fearful of driving so powerful a prince to forget that he was a va.s.sal. All parties, however, wearied at length with a contest by which all were distracted, and which in its issue promised nothing favorable to any of them, yielded at length to an accommodation, founded rather on an oblivion and silence of past disputes than on the settlement of terms for preserving future tranquillity. Becket returned in a sort of triumph to his see. Many of the dignified clergy, and not a few of the barons, lay under excommunication for the share they had in his persecution; but, neither broken by adversity nor softened by good fortune, he relented nothing of his severity, but referred them all for their absolution to the Pope. Their resentments were revived with additional bitterness; new affronts were offered to the Archbishop, which brought on new excommunications and interdicts. The contention thickened on all sides, and things seemed running precipitately to the former dangerous extremities, when the account of these contests was brought, with much aggravation against Becket, to the ears of the king, then in Normandy, who, foreseeing a new series of troubles, broke out in a violent pa.s.sion of grief and anger,--"I have no friends, or I had not so long been insulted by this haughty priest!" Four knights who attended near his person, thinking that the complaints of a king are orders for revenge, and hoping a reward equal to the importance and even guilt of the service, silently departed; and pa.s.sing with great diligence into England, in a short time they arrived at Canterbury. They entered the cathedral; they fell on the Archbishop, just on the point of celebrating divine service, and with repeated blows of their clubs they beat him to the ground, they broke his skull in pieces, and covered the altar with his blood and brains.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1171.]

The horror of this barbarous action, increased by the sacredness of the person who suffered and of the place where it was committed, diffused itself on all sides with incredible rapidity. The clergy, in whose cause he fell, equalled him to the most holy martyrs; compa.s.sion for his fate made all men forget his faults; and the report of frequent miracles at his tomb sanctified his cause and character, and threw a general odium on the king. What became of the murderers is uncertain: they were neither protected by the king nor punished by the laws, for the reason we have not long since mentioned. The king with infinite difficulty extricated himself from the consequences of this murder, which threatened, under the Papal banners, to arm all Europe against him; nor was he absolved, but by renouncing the most material parts of the Const.i.tutions of Clarendon, by purging himself upon oath of the murder of Becket, by doing a very humiliating penance at his tomb to expiate the rash words which had given occasion to his death, and by engaging to furnish a large sum of money for the relief of the Holy Land, and taking the cross himself as soon as his affairs should admit it. The king probably thought his freedom from the haughtiness of Becket cheaply purchased by these condescensions: and without question, though Becket might have been justifiable, perhaps even laudable, for his steady maintenance of the privileges which his Church and his order had acquired by the care of his predecessors, and of which he by his place was the depository, yet the principles upon which he supported these privileges, subversive of all good government, his extravagant ideas of Church power, the schemes he meditated, even to his death, to extend it yet further, his violent and unreserved attachment to the Papacy, and that inflexible spirit which all his virtues rendered but the more dangerous, made his death as advantageous, at that time, as the means by which it was effected were sacrilegious and detestable.

Between the death of Becket and the king's absolution he resolved on the execution of a design by which he reduced under his dominion a country not more separated from the rest of Europe by its situation than by the laws, customs, and way of life of the inhabitants: for the people of Ireland, with no difference but that of religion, still retained the native manners of the original Celts. The king had meditated this design from the very beginning of his reign, and had obtained a bull from the then Pope, Adrian the fourth, an Englishman, to authorize the attempt.

He well knew, from the internal weakness and advantageous situation of this n.o.ble island, the easiness and importance of such a conquest. But at this particular time he was strongly urged to his engaging personally in the enterprise by two other powerful motives. For, first, the murder of Becket had bred very ill humors in his subjects, the chiefs of whom, always impatient of a long peace, were glad of any pretence for rebellion; it was therefore expedient, and serviceable to the crown, to find an employment abroad for this spirit, which could not exert itself without being destructive at home. And next, as he had obtained the grant of Ireland from the Pope, upon condition of subjecting it to Peter-pence, he knew that the speedy performance of this condition would greatly facilitate his recovering the good graces of the court of Rome.

Before we give a short narrative of the reduction of Ireland, I propose to lay open to the reader the state of that kingdom, that we may see what grounds Henry had to hope for success in this expedition.

Ireland is about half as large as England. In the temperature of the climate there is little difference, other than that more rain falls; as the country is more mountainous, and exposed full to the westerly wind, which, blowing from the Atlantic Ocean, prevails during the greater part of the year. This moisture, as it has enriched the country with large and frequent rivers, and spread out a number of fair and magnificent lakes beyond the proportion of other places, has on the other hand inc.u.mbered the island with an uncommon mult.i.tude of bogs and mora.s.ses; so that in general it is less praised for corn than pasturage, in which no soil is more rich and luxuriant. Whilst it possesses these internal means of wealth, it opens on all sides a great number of ports, s.p.a.cious and secure, and by their advantageous situation inviting to universal commerce. But on these ports, better known than those of Britain in the time of the Romans, at this time there were few towns, scarce any fortifications, and no trade that deserves to be mentioned.

The people of Ireland lay claim to a very extravagant antiquity, through a vanity common to all nations. The accounts which are given by their ancient chronicles of their first settlements are generally tales confuted by their own absurdity. The settlement of the greatest consequence, the best authenticated, and from which the Irish deduce the pedigree of the best families, is derived from Spain: it was called Clan Milea, or the descendants of Milesius, and Kin Scuit, or the race of Scyths, afterwards known by the name of Scots. The Irish historians suppose this race descended from a person called Gathel, a Scythian by birth, an Egyptian by education, the contemporary and friend of the prophet Moses. But these histories, seeming clear-sighted in the obscure affairs of so blind an antiquity, instead of pa.s.sing for treasuries of ancient facts, are regarded by the judicious as modern fictions. In cases of this sort rational conjectures are more to be relied on than improbable relations. It is most probable that Ireland was first peopled from Britain. The coasts of these countries are in some places in sight of each other. The language, the manners, and religion of the most ancient inhabitants of both are nearly the same. The Milesian colony, whenever it arrived in Ireland, could have made no great change in the manners or language; as the ancient Spaniards were a branch of the Celtae, as well as the old inhabitants of Ireland. The Irish language is not different from that of all other nations, as Temple and Rapin, from ignorance of it, have a.s.serted; on the contrary, many of its words bear a remarkable resemblance not only to those of the Welsh and Armoric, but also to the Greek and Latin. Neither is the figure of the letters very different from the vulgar character, though their order is not the same with that of other nations, nor the names, which are taken from the Irish proper names of several species of trees: a circ.u.mstance which, notwithstanding their similitude to the Roman letters, argues a different original and great antiquity. The Druid discipline anciently flourished in that island. In the fourth century it fell down before the preaching of St. Patrick. Then the Christian religion was embraced and cultivated with an uncommon zeal, which displayed itself in the number and consequence of the persons who in all parts embraced the contemplative life. This mode of life, and the situation of Ireland, removed from the horror of those devastations which shook the rest of Europe, made it a refuge for learning, almost extinguished everywhere else. Science flourished in Ireland during the seventh and eighth centuries. The same cause which destroyed it in other countries also destroyed it there. The Danes, then pagans, made themselves masters of the island, after a long and wasteful war, in which they destroyed the sciences along with the monasteries in which they were cultivated. By as destructive a war they were at length expelled; but neither their ancient science nor repose returned to the Irish, who, falling into domestic distractions as soon as they were freed from their foreign enemies, sunk quickly into a state of ignorance, poverty, and barbarism, which must have been very great, since it exceeded that of the rest of Europe. The disorders in the Church were equal to those in the civil economy, and furnished to the Pope a plausible pretext for giving Henry a commission to conquer the kingdom, in order to reform it.

The Irish were divided into a number of tribes or clans, each clan forming within itself a separate government. It was ordered by a chief, who was not raised to that dignity either by election or by the ordinary course of descent, but as the eldest and worthiest of the blood of the deceased lord. This order of succession, called Tanistry, was said to have been invented in the Danish troubles, lest the tribe, during a minority, should have been endangered for want of a sufficient leader.

It was probably much more ancient: but it was, however, attended with very great and pernicious inconveniencies, as it was obviously an affair of difficulty to determine who should be called the worthiest of the blood; and a door being always left open for ambition, this order introduced a greater mischief than it was intended to remedy. Almost every tribe, besides its contention with the neighboring tribes, nourished faction and discontent within itself. The chiefs we speak of were in general called Tierna, or Lords, and those of more consideration Riagh, or Kings. Over these were placed five kings more eminent than the rest, answerable to the five provinces into which the island was anciently divided. These again were subordinate to one head, who was called Monarch of all Ireland, raised to that power by election, or, more properly speaking, by violence.

Whilst the dignities of the state were disposed of by a sort of election, the office of judges, who were called Brehons, the trades of mechanics, and even those arts which we are apt to consider as depending princ.i.p.ally on natural genius, such as poetry and music, were confined in succession to certain races: the Irish imagining that greater advantages were to be derived from an early inst.i.tution, and the affection of parents desirous of perpetuating the secrets of their art in their families, than from the casual efforts of particular fancy and application. This is much in the strain of the Eastern policy; but these and many other of the Irish inst.i.tutions, well enough calculated to preserve good arts and useful discipline, when these arts came to degenerate, were equally well calculated to prevent all improvement and to perpetuate corruption, by infusing an invincible tenaciousness of ancient customs.

The people of Ireland were much more addicted to pasturage than agriculture, not more from the quality of their soil than from a remnant of the Scythian manners. They had but few towns, and those not fortified, each clan living dispersed over its own territory. The few walled towns they had lay on the sea-coast; they were built by the Danes, and held after they had lost their conquests in the inland parts: here was carried on the little foreign trade which the island then possessed.

The Irish militia was of two kinds: one called _kerns_, which were foot, slightly armed with a long knife or dagger, and almost naked; the other, _gallogla.s.ses,_ who were horse, poorly mounted, and generally armed only with a battle-axe. Neither horse nor foot made much use of the spear, the sword, or the bow. With indifferent arms, they had still worse discipline. In these circ.u.mstances, their natural bravery, which, though considerable, was not superior to that of their invaders, stood them in little stead.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1167.]

Such was the situation of things in Ireland, when Dermot, King of Leinster, having violently carried away the wife of one of the neighboring petty sovereigns, Roderic, King of Connaught and Monarch of Ireland, joined with the injured husband to punish so flagrant an outrage, and with their united forces spoiled Dermot of his territories, and obliged him to abandon the kingdom. The fugitive prince, not unapprised of Henry's designs upon his country, threw himself at his feet, implored his protection, and promised to hold of him, as his feudatory, the sovereignty he should recover by his a.s.sistance. Henry was at this time at Guienne. Nothing could be more agreeable to him than such an incident; but as his French dominions actually lay under an interdict, on account of his quarrel with Becket, and all his affairs, both at home and abroad, were in a troubled and dubious situation, it was not prudent to remove his person, nor venture any considerable body of his forces on a distant enterprise. Yet not willing to lose so favorable an opportunity, he warmly recommended the cause of Dermot to his regency in England, permitting and encouraging all persons to arm in his favor: a permission, in this age of enterprise, greedily accepted by many; but the person who brought the most a.s.sistance to it, and indeed gave a form and spirit to the whole design, was Richard, Earl of Strigul, commonly known by the name of Strongbow. Dermot, to confirm in his interest this potent and warlike peer, promised him his daughter in marriage, with the reversion of his crown.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1169.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1171.]

The beginnings of so great an enterprise were formed with a very slender force. Not four hundred men landed near Wexford: they took the town by storm. When reinforced, they did not exceed twelve hundred; but, being joined with three thousand men by Dermot, with an incredible rapidity of success they reduced Waterford, Dublin, Limerick, the only considerable cities in Ireland. By the novelty of their arms they had obtained some striking advantages in their first engagements; and by these advantages they attained a superiority of opinion over the Irish, which every success Increased. Before the effect of this first impression had time to wear off, Henry, having settled his affairs abroad, entered the harbor of Cork with a fleet of four hundred sail, at once to secure the conquest, and the allegiance of the conquerors. The fame of so great a force arriving under a prince dreaded by all Europe very soon disposed all the petty princes, with their King Roderic, to submit and do homage to Henry. They had not been able to resist the arms of his va.s.sals, and they hoped better treatment from submitting to the ambition of a great king, who left them everything but the honor of their independency, than from the avarice of adventurers, from which nothing was secure. The bishops and the body of the clergy greatly contributed to this submission, from respect to the Pope, and the horror of their late defeats, which they began to regard as judgments. A national council was held at Cashel for bringing the Church of Ireland to a perfect conformity in rites and discipline to that of England. It is not to be thought that in this council the temporal interests of England were entirely forgotten. Many of the English were established in their particular conquests under the tenure of knights' service, now first introduced into Ireland: a tenure which, if it has not proved the best calculated to secure the obedience of the va.s.sal to the sovereign, has never failed in any instance of preserving a vanquished people in obedience to the conquerors. The English lords built strong castles on their demesnes; they put themselves at the head of the tribes whose chiefs they had slain; they a.s.sumed the Irish garb and manners; and thus, partly by force, partly by policy, the first English families took a firm root in Ireland. It was, indeed, long before they were able entirely to subdue the island to the laws of England; but the continual efforts of the Irish for more than four hundred years proved insufficient to dislodge them.

Whilst Henry was extending his conquests to the western limits of the known world, the whole fabric of his power was privately sapped and undermined, and ready to overwhelm him with the ruins, in the very moment when he seemed to be arrived at the highest and most permanent point of grandeur and glory. His excessive power, his continual accessions to it, and an ambition which by words and actions declared that the whole world was not sufficient for a great man, struck a just terror into all the potentates near him: he was, indeed, arrived at that pitch of greatness, that the means of his ruin could only be found in his own family. A numerous offspring, which is generally considered as the best defence of the throne, and the support as well as ornament of declining royalty, proved on this occasion the princ.i.p.al part of the danger. Henry had in his lawful bed, besides daughters, four sons, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John, all growing up with great hopes from their early courage and love of glory. No father was ever more delighted with these hopes, nor more tender and indulgent to his children. A custom had long prevailed in France for the reigning king to crown his eldest son in his lifetime. By this policy, in turbulent times, and whilst the principles of succession were unsettled, he secured the crown to his posterity. Henry gladly imitated a policy enforced no less by paternal affection than its utility to public peace. He had, during his troubles with Becket, crowned his son Henry, then no more than sixteen years old. But the young king, even on the day of his coronation, discovered an haughtiness which threatened not to content itself with the share of authority to which the inexperience of his youth and the nature of a provisional crown confined him. The name of a king continually reminded him that he only possessed the name. The King of France, whose daughter he had espoused, fomented a discontent which grew with his years. Geoffrey, who had married the heiress of Bretagne, on the death of her father claimed to no purpose the entire sovereignty of his wife's inheritance, which Henry, under a pretence of guardianship to a son of full age, still retained in his hands. Richard had not the same plausible pretences, but he had yet greater ambition. He contended for the Duchy of Guienne before his mother's death, which, alone could give him the color of a t.i.tle to it. The queen, his mother, hurried on by her own unquiet spirit, or, as some think, stimulated by jealousy, encouraged their rebellion against her husband. The King of France, who moved all the other engines, engaged the King of Scotland, the Earl of Flanders, then a powerful prince, the Earl of Blois, and the Earl of Boulogne in the conspiracy. The barons in Bretagne, in Guienne, and even in England, were ready to take up arms in the same cause; whether it was that they perceived the uniform plan the king had pursued in order to their reduction, or were solely instigated by the natural fierceness and levity of their minds, fond of every dangerous novelty. The historians of that time seldom afford us a tolerable insight into the causes of the transactions they relate; but whatever were the causes of so extraordinary a conspiracy, it was not discovered until the moment it was ready for execution. The first token of it appeared in the young king's demand to have either England or Normandy given up to him. The refusal of this demand served as a signal to all parties to put themselves in motion. The younger Henry fled into France; Louis entered Normandy with a vast army; the barons of Bretagne under Geoffrey, and those of Guienne under Richard, rose in arms; the King of Scotland pierced into England; and the Earl of Leicester, at the head of fourteen thousand Flemings, landed in Suffolk.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1173]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1174]

It was on this trying occasion that Henry displayed a greatness independent of all fortune. For, beset by all the neighboring powers, opposed by his own children, betrayed by his wife, abandoned by one part of his subjects, uncertain of the rest, every part of his state rotten and suspicious, his magnanimity grew beneath the danger; and when all the ordinary resources failed, he found superior resources in his own courage, wisdom, and activity. There were at that time dispersed over Europe bodies of mercenary troops, called Brabancons, composed of fugitives from different nations, men who were detached from any country, and who, by making war a perpetual trade, and pa.s.sing from service to service, had acquired an experience and military knowledge uncommon in those days. Henry took twenty thousand of these mercenaries into his service, and, as he paid them punctually, and kept them always in action, they served him with fidelity. The Papal authority, so often subservient, so often prejudicial to his designs, he called to his a.s.sistance in a cause which did not misbecome it,--the cause of a father attacked by his children. This took off the ill impression left by Becket's death, and kept the bishops firm in their allegiance. Having taken his measures with judgment, he pursued the war in Normandy with vigor. In this war his mercenaries had a great and visible advantage over the feudal armies of France: the latter, not so useful while they remained in the field, entered it late in the summer, and commonly left it in forty days. The King of France was forced to raise the siege of Verneuil, to evacuate Normandy, and agree to a truce. Then, at the head of his victorious Brabancons, Henry marched into Brittany with an incredible expedition. The rebellious army, astonished as much by the celerity of his march as the fury of his attack, was totally routed. The princ.i.p.al towns and castles were reduced soon after. The custody of the conquered country being lodged in faithful hands, he flew to the relief of England. There his natural son Geoffrey, Bishop elect of Ely, faithful during the rebellion of all his legitimate offspring, steadily maintained his cause, though with forces much inferior to his zeal. The king, before he entered into action, thought it expedient to perform his expiation at the tomb of Becket. Hardly had he finished this ceremony, when the news arrived that the Scotch army was totally defeated, and their king made prisoner. This victory was universally attributed to the prayers of Becket; and whilst it established the credit of the new saint, it established Henry in the minds of his people: they no longer looked upon their king as an object of the Divine vengeance, but as a penitent reconciled to Heaven, and under the special protection of the martyr he had made. The Flemish army, after several severe checks, capitulated to evacuate the kingdom. The rebellious barons submitted soon after. All was quiet in England; but the King of France renewed hostilities in Normandy, and laid siege to Rouen. Henry recruited his army with a body of auxiliary Welsh, arrived at Rouen with his usual expedition, raised the siege, and drove the King of France quite out of Normandy. It was then that he agreed to an accommodation, and in the terms of peace, which he dictated in the midst of victory to his sons, his subjects, and his enemies, there was seen on one hand the tenderness of a father, and on the other the moderation of a wise man, not insensible of the mutability of fortune.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1176]

The war which threatened his ruin being so happily ended, the greatness of the danger served only to enhance his glory; whilst he saw the King of France humbled, the Flemings defeated, the King of Scotland a prisoner, and his sons and subjects reduced to the bounds of their duty.

He employed this interval of peace to secure its continuance, and to prevent a return of the like evils; for which reason he made many reforms in the laws and polity of his dominions. He inst.i.tuted itinerant justices, to weaken the power of the great barons, and even of the sheriffs, who were hardly more obedient,--an inst.i.tution which, with great public advantages, has remained to our times. In the spirit of the same policy he armed the whole body of the people: the English commonalty had been in a manner disarmed ever since the Conquest. In this regulation we may probably trace the origin of the militia, which, being under the orders of the crown rather in a political than a feudal respect, were judged more to be relied on than the soldiers of tenure, to whose pride and power they might prove a sort of counterpoise. Amidst these changes the affairs of the clergy remained untouched. The king had experienced how dangerous it was to attempt removing foundations so deeply laid both in strength and opinion. He therefore wisely aimed at acquiring the favor of that body, and turning to his own advantage a power he should in vain attempt to overthrow, but which he might set up against another power, which it was equally his interest to reduce.

Though these measures were taken with the greatest judgment, and seemed to promise a peaceful evening to his reign, the seeds of rebellion remained still at home, and the dispositions that nourished them were rather increased abroad. The parental authority, respectable at all times, ought to have the greatest force in times when the manners are rude and the laws imperfect. At that time Europe had not emerged out of barbarism, yet this great natural bond of society was extremely weak.

The number of foreign obligations and duties almost dissolved the family obligations. From the moment a young man was knighted, so far as related to his father, he became absolute master of his own conduct; but he contracted at the same time a sort of filial relation with the person who had knighted him. These various principles of duty distracted one another. The custom which then prevailed, of bestowing lands and jurisdictions, under the name of Appanages, to the sons of kings and the greater n.o.bility, gave them a power which was frequently employed against the giver; and the military and licentious manners of the age almost destroyed every trace of every kind of regular authority. In the East, where the rivalship of brothers is so dangerous, such is the force of paternal power amongst a rude people, we scarce ever hear of a son in arms against his father. In Europe, for several ages, it was very common. It was Henry's great misfortune to suffer in a particular manner from this disorder.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1180.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1183.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1188.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1189.]

Philip succeeded Louis, King of France. He followed closely the plan of his predecessor, to reduce the great va.s.sals, and the King of England, who was the greatest of them; but he followed it with far more skill and vigor, though he made use of the same instruments in the work. He revived the spirit of rebellion in the princes, Henry's sons. These young princes were never in harmony with each other but in a confederacy against their father, and the father had no recourse but in the melancholy safety derived from the disunion of his children. This he thought it expedient to increase; but such policy, when discovered, has always a dangerous effect. The sons, having just quarrelled enough to give room for an explanation of each other's designs, and to display those of their father, enter into a new conspiracy. In the midst of these motions the young king dies, and showed at his death such signs of a sincere repentance as served to revive the old king's tenderness, and to take away all comfort for his loss. The death of his third son, Geoffrey, followed close upon the heels of this funeral. He died at Paris, whither he had gone to concert measures against his father.

Richard and John remained. Richard, fiery, restless, ambitious, openly took up arms, and pursued the war with implacable rancor, and such success as drove the king, in the decline of his life, to a dishonorable treaty; nor was he then content, but excited new troubles. John was his youngest and favorite child; in him he reposed all his hopes, and consoled himself for the undutifulness of his other sons; but after concluding the treaty with the King of France and Richard, he found too soon that John had been as deep as any in the conspiracy. This was his last wound: afflicted by his children in their deaths and hara.s.sed in their lives, mortified as a father and a king, worn down with cares and sorrows more than with years, he died, cursing his fortune, his children, and the hour of his birth. When he perceived that death approached him, by his own desire he was carried into a church and laid at the altar's foot. Hardly had he expired, when he was stripped, then forsaken by his attendants, and left a long time a naked and unheeded body in an empty church: affording a just consolation for the obscurity of a mean fortune, and an instructive lesson how little an outward greatness and enjoyments foreign to the mind contribute towards a solid felicity, in the example of one who was the greatest of kings and the unhappiest of mankind.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Seld. t.i.thes, p. 482.

[79] LL. Ethelred. Si presbyter homicida fieret, &c.

[80] LL. c.n.u.ti, 38, De Ministro Altaris Homicida. Idem, 40, De Ordinato Capitis reo.

[81] LL. H.I. 57, De Querela Vicinorum; and 56 [66?]. De Ordinato qui Vitam forisfaciat, in Fd. Alured. et Guthurn., apud Spel. Concil.

376, 1st vol.; LL. Edw. et Guthurn., 3, De Correctione Ordinatorum.

CHAPTER VII.