henry the second 22

henry the second 22

The

popular imagination was still moved by the horror of the archbishop's

murder. The generation that remembered the miseries of the former

anarchy was now passing away, and to some of the feudal lords order

doubtless seemed the greater ill. The new king too had lavished promises

and threats to win the English nobles to his side. "There were few

barons in England who were not wavering in their allegiance to the king,

and ready to desert him at any time." The more reckless eagerly joined

the rebellion; the more prudent took refuge in France, that they might

watch how events would go; there was a timid and unstable party who held

outwardly to the king in vigilant uncertainty, haunted by fears that

they should be swept away by the possible victory of his son. Such

descendants of the Normans of the Conquest as had survived the rebellions

and confiscations of a hundred years were eager for revenge. The Earl of

Leicester and his wife were heirs of three great families, whose power had

been overthrown by the policy of the Conqueror and his sons. William of

Aumale was descended from the Count who had claimed the throne in the

Conqueror's days, and bitterly remembered the time before Henry's

accession, when he had reigned almost as king in Northern England.

Hugh of Puiset, Bishop of Durham, whose diocese stretched across

Northumberland, and who ruled as Earl Palatine of the marchland between

England and Scotland; the Earl of Huntingdon, brother of the Scot king;

Roger Mowbray, lord of the castles of Thirsk and Malessart north of York,

and of a strong castle in the Isle of Axholm; Earl Ferrers, master of

fortresses in Derby and Stafford; Hugh, Earl of Chester and Lord of Bayeux

and Avranches, joined the rebellion. So did the old Hugh Bigod, Earl of

Norfolk, who had already fought and schemed against Henry in vain twenty

years before. The Earls of Clare and Gloucester on the Welsh border were

of very doubtful loyalty. Half of England was in revolt, and north

of a line drawn from Huntingdon to Chester the king only held a few

castles--York, Richmond, Carlisle, Newcastle, and some fortresses of

Northumberland. The land beyond Sherwood and the Trent, shut off by an

almost continuous barrier of marsh and forest from the south, was still

far behind the rest of England in civilization. The new industrial

activity of Yorkshire was not yet forty years old; in a great part of

the North money-rents had scarcely crept in, and the serfs were still

toiling on under the burden of labour-dues which had been found

intolerable elsewhere. The fines, the taxes, the attempt to bring its

people under a more advanced system of government must have pressed very

hardly on this great district which was not yet ready for it; and to the

fierce anger of the barons, and the ready hostility of the monasteries,

was perhaps added the exasperation of freeholder and serf.

 

Henry, however, was absolute master of the whole central administration

of the realm. Moreover, by his decree of the year before he had set over

every shire a sheriff who was wholly under his own control, trained in

his court, pledged to his obedience, and who had firm hold of the

courts, the local forces, and the finances. The king now hastened to

appoint bishops whom he could trust to the vacant sees. Geoffrey, an

illegitimate son who had been born to him very early, probably about the

time when he visited England to receive knighthood, was sent to Lincoln;

and friends of the king were consecrated to Winchester, Ely, Bath,

Hereford, and Chichester. Prior Richard of Dover, a man "laudably

inoffensive who prudently kept within his own sphere," was made Archbishop

of Canterbury. Richard de Lucy remained in charge of the whole kingdom as

justiciar. The towns and trading classes were steadfast in loyalty, and

the baronage was again driven, as it had been before, to depend on foreign

mercenaries.

 

War first broke out in France in the early summer of 1173. Normandy and

Anjou were badly defended, and their nobles were already half in revolt,

while the forces of France, Flanders, Boulogne, Chartres, Champagne,

Poitou, and Britanny were allied against Henry. The counts of Flanders

and Boulogne invaded Normandy from the north-east, and the traitor Count

of Aumale, the guardian of the Norman border, gave into their hands his

castles and lands. Louis and Henry's sons besieged Verneuil in the

south-west. To westward the Earl of Chester and Ralph of Fougères

organized a rising in Britanny. In "extreme perplexity," utterly unable

to meet his enemies in the field, Henry could only fortify his frontier,

and hastily recall the garrison which he had left in Ireland, while he

poured out his treasure in gathering an army of hired soldiers. Meanwhile

he himself waited at Rouen, "that he might be seen by all the people,

bearing with an even mind whatever happened, hunting oftener than usual,

showing himself with a cheerful face to all who came, answering patiently

those who wished to gain anything from him; while those whom he had

nourished from days of childhood, those whom he had knighted, those who

had been his servants and his most familiar counsellors, night by night

stole away from him, expecting his speedy destruction and thinking the

dominion of his son at once about to be established." Never did the kings

show such resource and courage as in the campaign that followed. The Count

of Boulogne was killed in battle, and the invading army in the north-east

hesitated at the unlucky omen and fell back. Instantly Henry seized his

opportunity. He rode at full speed to Verneuil with his army, a hastily

collected mob of chance soldiers so dissatisfied and divided in allegiance

that he dared not risk a battle. An audacious boast saved the crafty king.

"With a fierce countenance and terrible voice" he cried to the French

messengers who had hurried out to see if the astounding news of his

arrival were true, "Go tell your king I am at hand as you see!" At the

news of the ferocity and resolution of the enemy, Louis, "knowing him to

be fierce and of a most bitter temper, as a bear robbed of its whelps

rages in the forest," hastily retreated, and Henry, as wise a general

as he was excellent an actor, fell back to Rouen. Meanwhile he sent to

Britanny a force of Brabantines, whom alone he could trust. They

surrounded the rebels at Dol; and before Henry, "forgetting food and

sleep" and riding "as though he had flown," could reach the place, most

of his foes were slain. The castle where the rest had taken refuge

surrendered, and he counted among his prisoners the Earl of Chester,

Ralph of Fougères, and a hundred other nobles. The battle of Dol

practically decided the war. It seemed vain to fight against Henry's

good luck. A few Flemings once crossed the Norman border, and were

defeated and drowned in retreat by the bridge breaking. "The very

elements fight for the Normans!" cried the baffled and disheartened

Louis. "When I entered Normandy my army perished for want of water, now

this one is destroyed by too much water." In despair he sought to save

himself by playing the part of mediator; and in September Henry met his

sons at Gisors to discuss terms of peace. His terms were refused and the

meeting broke up; but Henry remained practically master of the situation.

 

Meanwhile in England the rebellion had broken out in July. The Scottish

army ravaged the north; the Earl of Leicester, with an army of Flemings

which he had collected by the help of Louis and the younger Henry,

landed on the coast of Suffolk, where Hugh Bigod was ready to welcome

him. De Lucy and Bohun hurried from the north to meet this formidable

danger, and with the help of the Earls of Cornwall, Arundel, and

Gloucester, they defeated Leicester in a great battle at Fornham on the

17th of October. The earl himself was taken prisoner, and 10,000 of his

foreign troops were slain. He and his wife were sent by Henry's orders

to Normandy, and there thrown into prison. A truce was made with

Scotland till the end of March. The king of France and the younger Henry

abandoned hope, "for they saw that God was with the king;" and there

was a general pause in the war.

 

With the spring of 1174, however, the strife raged again on all sides.

Ireland rose in rebellion. William of Scotland marched into England

supported by a Flemish force. Roger Mowbray, and probably the Bishop of

Durham, were in league with him. Earl Ferrers fortified his castles in

Derby and Stafford; Leicester Castle was still held by the Earl of

Leicester's knights; Huntingdon by the Scot king's brother; and the Earl

of Norfolk was joined in June by a picked body of Flemings. The king's

castles at Norwich, Northampton, and Nottingham, were taken by the rebels,

and a formidable line of enemies stretched right across mid-England.

At the same time France and Flanders threatened invasion with a strong

fleet, and "so great an army as had not been seen for many years." Count

Philip, who had set his heart on the promised Kent, and on winning

entrance into the lands of the Cistercian wool-growers of Lincolnshire,

swore before Louis and his nobles that within fifteen days he would attack

England; the younger Henry joined him at Gravelines in June, and they only

waited for a fair wind to cross the Channel.

 

The justiciars were in an extremity of despair. "Seeing the evil that

was done in the land," they anxiously sent messenger after messenger to

the king. But Henry had little time to heed English complaints. Richard

had declared war in Aquitaine; Maine and Anjou were half in revolt;

Louis was on the point of invading Normandy. As a last resource his

hard-pressed ministers sent Richard of Ilchester, the bishop-elect of

Winchester, whom they knew to be favoured by the king beyond all others,

to tell him again of "the hatred of the barons, the infidelity of the

citizens, the clamour of the crowd always growing worse, the greed of

the 'new men,' the difficulty of holding down the insurrection." "The

English have sent their messengers before, and here comes even this

man!" laughed the Normans; "what will be left in England to send after

the king save the Tower of London!" Richard reached Henry on the 24th of

June, and on the same day Henry abandoned Normandy to Louis' attack, and

made ready for return. "He saw that while he was absent, and as it were

not in existence, no one in England would offer any opposition to him

who was expected to be his successor;" and he "preferred that his lands

beyond the sea should be in peril rather than his own realm of England."

Sending forward a body of Brabantines, he followed with his train of

prisoners--Queen Eleanor, Queen Margaret and her sister Adela, the

Earls of Chester and of Leicester, and various governors of castles whom

he carried with him in chains. In an agony of anxiety the king watched

for a fair wind till the 7th of July. At last the sails were spread; but

of a sudden the waves began to rise, and the storm to grow ominously.

Those who watched the face of the king saw him to be in doubt; then he

lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed before them all, "If I have set

before my eyes the things which make for the peace of clergy and people,

if the King of heaven has ordained that peace shall be restored by my

arrival, then let Him in His mercy bring me to a safe port; but if He is

against me, and has decreed to visit my kingdom with a rod, then let me

never touch the shores of the land."

 

A good omen was granted, and he safely reached Southampton. Refusing

even to enter the city, and eating but bread and water, he pressed

forward to Canterbury. At its gates he dismounted and put away from him

the royal majesty, and with bare feet, in the garb of a pilgrim and

penitent, his footsteps marked with blood, he passed on to the church.

There he sought the martyr's sepulchre, and lying prostrate with

outstretched hands, he remained long in prayer, with abundance of tears

and bitter groanings. After a sermon by Foliot the king filled up the

measure of humiliation. He made public oath that he was guiltless of the

death of the archbishop, but in penitence of his hasty words he prayed

absolution of the bishops, and gave his body to the discipline of rods,

receiving three or five strokes from each one of the seventy monks. That

night he prayed and fasted before the shrine, and the next day rode

still fasting to London, which he reached on the 14th. Three days later

a messenger rode at midnight to the gate of the palace where the king

lay ill, worn out by suffering and fatigue for which the doctors had

applied their usual remedy of bleeding. He forced his way to the door of

the king's bedchamber. "Who art thou?" cried the king, suddenly startled

from sleep. "I am the servant of Ranulf de Glanville, and I come to

bring good tidings."--"Ranulf our friend, is he well?"--"He is well, my

lord, and behold he holds your enemy, the King of Scots, captive in

chains at Richmond." The king was half stunned by the news, but as the

messenger produced Glanville's letter, he sprang from his bed, and in a

transport of emotion and tears, gave thanks to God, while the joyful

ringing of bells told the good news to the London citizens.

 

Two great dangers, in fact, had passed away while the king knelt before

the shrine at Canterbury. On that very day the Scottish army had been

broken to pieces. In the south the fleet which lay off the coast of

Flanders had dispersed. On the 18th of July, the day after the good news

had come, Henry himself marched north with the army that had been

gathered while he lay ill. Before a week was over Hugh Bigod had yielded

up his castles and banished his Flemish soldiers. The Bishop of Durham

secretly sent away his nephew, the Count of Bar, who had landed with

foreign troops. Henry's Welsh allies attacked Tutbury, a castle of the

Earl of Ferrers. Geoffrey, the bishop-elect of Lincoln, had before

Henry's landing waged vigorous war on Mowbray. By the end of July the

whole resistance was at an end. On the last day of the month the king

held a council at Northampton, at which William of Scotland stood before

him a prisoner, while Hugh of Durham, Mowbray, Ferrers, and the officers

of the Earl of Leicester came to give up their fortresses. The castles

of Huntingdon and Norfolk were already secured. The suspected Earls of

Gloucester and of Clare swore fidelity at the King's Court. Scotland was

helpless. A treaty was made with the Irish kings. Wales was secured by a

marriage between the prince of North Wales and Henry's sister.