The History of England Part 23

[FN [y] Neubrig. p 413. [z] Chron. Gerv. p. 1461. [a] Petr. Bles.

epist. 47. [b] Diceto, p. 570.]

Lewis, in order to bind the confederates in a close union, summoned at Paris an a.s.sembly of the chief va.s.sals of the crown, received their approbation of his measures, and engaged them by oath to adhere to the cause of young Henry. This prince, in return, bound himself by a like tie never to desert his French allies; and having made a new great seal, he lavishly distributed among them many considerable parts of those territories which he purposed to conquer from his father. The Counts of Flanders, Boulogne, Blois, and Eu, partly moved by the general jealousy arising from Henry's power and ambition, partly allured by the prospect of reaping advantage from the inconsiderate temper and the necessities of the young prince, declared openly in favour of the latter. William, King of Scotland, had also entered into this great confederacy; and a plan was concerted for a general invasion on different parts of the king's extensive and factious dominions.

Hostilities were first commenced by the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne on the frontiers of Normandy. Those princes laid siege to Aumale, which was delivered into their hands by the treachery of the count of that name: this n.o.bleman surrendered himself prisoner; and, on pretence of thereby paying his ransom, opened the gates of all his other fortresses. The two counts next besieged and made themselves masters of Drincourt; but the Count of Boulogne was here mortally wounded in the a.s.sault; and this incident put some stop to the progress of the Flemish arms.

[MN Wars and insurrections.]

In another quarter, the King of France, being strongly a.s.sisted by his va.s.sals, a.s.sembled a great army of seven thousand knights and their followers on horseback, and a proportionable number of infantry: carrying young Henry along with him, he laid siege to Verneuil, which was vigorously defended by Hugh de Lacy and Hugh de Beauchamp, the governors. After he had lain a month before the place, the garrison, being straitened for provisions, were obliged to capitulate; and they engaged, if not relieved within three days, to surrender the town, and to retire into the citadel. On the last of these days, Henry appeared with his army upon the heights above Verneuil. Lewis, dreading an attack, sent the Archbis.h.i.+p of Sens and the Count of Blois to the English camp, and desired that next day should be appointed for a conference, in order to establish a general peace, and terminate the difference between Henry and his sons. The king, who pa.s.sionately desired this accommodation, and suspected no fraud, gave his consent; but Lewis, that morning, obliging the garrison to surrender, according to the capitulation, set fire to the place, and began to retire with his army. Henry, provoked at this artifice, attacked the rear with vigour, put them to rout, did some execution, and took several prisoners. The French army, as their time of service was now expired, immediately dispersed themselves into their several provinces; and left Henry free to prosecute his advantages against his other enemies.

The n.o.bles of Britany, instigated by the Earl of Chester and Ralph de Fougeres, were all in arms; but their progress was checked by a body of Brabancons which the king, after Lewis's retreat, had sent against them. The two armies came to an action near Dol, where the rebels were defeated, fifteen hundred killed on the spot, and the leaders, the Earls of Chester and Fougeres, obliged to take shelter in the town of Dol. Henry hastened to form the siege of that place, and carried on the attack with such ardour, that he obliged the governor and garrison to surrender themselves prisoners. By these vigorous measures and happy successes the insurrections were entirely quelled in Britany; and the king, thus fortunate in all quarters, willingly agreed to a conference with Lewis, in hopes that his enemies, finding all their mighty efforts entirely frustrated, would terminate hostilities on some moderate and reasonable conditions.

The two monarchs met between Trie and Gisors; and Henry had here the mortification to see his three sons in the retinue of his mortal enemy. As Lewis had no other pretence for war than supporting the claims of the young princes, the king made them such offers as children might be ashamed to insist on, and could be extorted from him by nothing but his parental affection, or by the present necessity of his affairs [c]. He insisted only on retaining the sovereign authority in all his dominions; but offered young Henry half the revenues of England, with some places of surety in that kingdom; or, if he rather chose to reside in Normandy, half the revenues of that duchy, with all those of Anjou. He made a like offer to Richard in Guienne: he promised to resign Britany to Geoffrey; and if these concessions were not deemed sufficient, he agreed to add to them whatever the pope's legates, who were present, should require of him [d]. The Earl of Leicester was also present at the negotiation; and either from the impetuosity of his temper, or from a view of abruptly breaking off a conference which must cover the allies with confusion, he gave vent to the most violent reproaches against Henry, and he even put his hand to his sword, as if he meant to attempt some violence against him. This furious action threw the whole company into confusion, and put an end to the treaty [e].

[FN [c] Hoveden, p. 538. [d] Ibid. p. 536. Brompton, p. 1088. [e]

Hoveden, p. 536.]

The chief hopes of Henry's enemies seemed now to depend on the state of affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most imminent danger. One article of Prince Henry's agreement with his foreign confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and all its other fortresses, into the hands of the Earl of Flanders [f]: yet so little national or public spirit prevailed among the independent English n.o.bility, so wholly bent were they on the aggrandizement each of himself and his own family, that notwithstanding this pernicious concession, which must have produced the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of them had conspired to make an insurrection, and to support the prince's pretensions. The king's princ.i.p.al resource lay in the church and the bishops, with whom he was now in perfect agreement; whether that the decency of their character made them ashamed of supporting so unnatural a rebellion, or that they were entirely satisfied with Henry's atonement for the murder of Becket, and for his former invasion of ecclesiastical immunities. That prince, however, had resigned none of the essential rights of his crown in the accommodation; he maintained still the same prudent jealousy of the court of Rome; admitted no legate into England, without his swearing to attempt nothing against the royal prerogatives; and he had even obliged the monks of Canterbury, who pretended to a free election on the vacancy made by the death of Becket, to choose Roger, prior of Dover, in the place of that turbulent prelate [g].

[FN [f] Ibid. p. 533. Brompton, p. 1084. Neubr. p. 508. [g]

Hoveden, p. 537.]

[MN War with Scotland.]

The King of Scotland made an irruption into Northumberland, and committed great devastations; but being opposed by Richard de Lucy, whom Henry had left guardian of the realm, he retreated into his own country, and agreed to a cessation of arms. This truce enabled the guardian to march southward with his army, in order to oppose an invasion, which the Earl of Leicester, at the head of a great body of Flemings, had made upon Suffolk. The Flemings had been joined by Hugh BiG.o.d, who made them masters of his castle of Framlingham; and marching into the heart of the kingdom, where they hoped to be supported by Leicester's va.s.sals, they were met by Lucy, who, a.s.sisted by Humphrey Bohun, the constable, and the Earls of Arundel, Gloucester, and Cornwall, had advanced to Farnham, with a less numerous but braver army to oppose them. The Flemings, who were mostly weavers and artificers, (for manufactures were now beginning to be established in Flanders,) were broken in an instant, ten thousand of them were put to the sword, the Earl of Leicester was taken prisoner, and the remains of the invaders were glad to compound for a safe retreat into their own country.

[MN 1174.] This great defeat did not dishearten the malecontents; who, being supported by the alliance of so many foreign princes, and encouraged by the king's own sons, determined to persevere in their enterprise. The Earl of Ferrars, Roger de Mowbray, Architel de Mallory, Richard de Morreville, Hamo de Mascie, together with many friends of the Earls of Leicester and Chester, rose in arms: the fidelity of the Earls of Clare and Gloucester was suspected; and the guardian, though vigorously supported by Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln, the king's natural son by the fair Rosamond, found it difficult to defend himself on all quarters from so many open and concealed enemies. The more to augment the confusion, the King of Scotland, on the expiration of the truce, broke into the northern provinces with a great army [h] of eighty thousand men; which, though undisciplined and disorderly, and better fitted for committing devastation than for executing any military enterprise, was become dangerous from the present factious and turbulent spirit of the kingdom. Henry, who had baffled all his enemies in France, and had put his frontiers in a posture of defence, now found England the seat of danger; and he determined by his presence to overawe the malecontents, or by his conduct and courage to subdue them. [MN 8th July. Penance of Henry for Becket?s murder.] He landed at Southampton; and knowing the influence of superst.i.tion over the minds of the people, he hastened to Canterbury, in order to make atonement to the ashes of Thomas a Becket, and tender his submissions to a dead enemy. As soon as he came within sight of the church of Canterbury, he dismounted, walked barefoot towards it, prostrated himself before the shrine of the saint, remained in fasting and prayer during a whole day, and watched all night the holy relics. Not content with this hypocritical devotion towards a man whose violence and ingrat.i.tude had so long disquieted his government, and had been the object of his most inveterate animosity, he submitted to a penance still more singular and humiliating. He a.s.sembled a chapter of the monks, disrobed himself before them, put a scourge of discipline into the hands of each, and presented his bare shoulders to the lashes which these ecclesiastics successively inflicted upon him. Next day he received absolution; and departing for London, got soon after the agreeable intelligence of a great victory which his generals had obtained over the Scots, and which being gained, as was reported, on the very day of his absolution, was regarded as the earnest of his final reconciliation with Heaven and with Thomas a Becket.

[FN [h] Heming, p. 501.]

William, King of Scots, though repulsed before the castle of Prudhow, and other fortified places, had committed the most horrible depredations upon the northern provinces: but on the approach of Ralph de Glanville, the famous justiciary, seconded by Bernard de Baliol, Robert de Stuteville, Odonel de Umfreville, William de Vesci, and other northern barons, together with the gallant Bishop of Lincoln, he thought proper to retreat nearer his own country, and he fixed his camp at Alnwick. He had here weakened his army extremely, by sending out numerous detachments in order to extend his ravages; and he lay absolutely safe, as he imagined, from any attack of the enemy. But Glanville, informed of his situation, made a hasty and fatiguing march to Newcastle; and, allowing his soldiers only a small interval for refreshment, he immediately set out towards evening for Alnwick. [MN 13th July.] He marched that night above thirty miles; arrived in the morning, under cover of a mist, near the Scottish camp; and regardless of the great numbers of the enemy, he began the attack with his small but determined body of cavalry. William was living in such supine security that he took the English, at first, for a body of his own ravagers, who were returning to the camp; but the sight of their banners convincing him of his mistake, he entered on the action with no greater body than a hundred horse in confidence that the numerous army which surrounded him would soon hasten to his relief. [MN William, King of Scotlamd, defeated and taken prisoner.] He was dismounted on the first shock, and taken prisoner; while his troops, hearing of this disaster, fled on all sides with the utmost precipitation. The dispersed ravagers made the best of their way to their own country; and discord arising among them, they proceeded even to mutual hostilities, and suffered more from each other's sword than from that of the enemy.

This great and important victory proved at last decisive in favour of Henry, and entirely broke the spirit of the English rebels. The Bishop of Durham, who was preparing to revolt, made his submissions; Hugh BiG.o.d, though he had received a strong reinforcement of Flemings, was obliged to surrender all his castles, and throw himself on the king's mercy; no better resource was left to the Earl of Ferrars and Roger de Mowbray; the inferior rebels imitating the example, all England was restored to tranquillity in a few weeks; and as the king appeared to lie under the immediate protection of Heaven, it was deemed impious any longer to resist him. The clergy exalted anew the merits and powerful intercession of Becket; and Henry, instead of opposing this superst.i.tion, plumed himself on the new friends.h.i.+p of the saint, and propagated an opinion which was so favourable to his interests [i].

[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 539.]

Prince Henry, who was ready to embark at Gravelines, with the Earl of Flanders and a great army, hearing that his partisans in England were suppressed, abandoned all thoughts of the enterprise, and joined the camp of Lewis, who, during the absence of the king, had made an irruption into Normandy, and had laid siege to Rouen [k]. The place was defended with great vigour by the inhabitants [l]; and Lewis, despairing of success by open force, tried to gain the town by a stratagem, which, in that superst.i.tious age, was deemed not very honourable. He proclaimed in his own camp a cessation of arms, on pretence of celebrating the festival of St. Laurence; and when the citizens, supposing themselves in safety, were so imprudent as to remit their guard, he proposed to take advantage of their security.

Happily, some priests had, from mere curiosity, mounted a steeple where the alarm-bell hung; and, observing the French camp in motion, they immediately rang the bell, and gave warning to the inhabitants, who ran to their several stations. The French who, on hearing the alarm, hurried to the a.s.sault, had already mounted the walls in several places; but being repulsed by the enraged citizens, were obliged to retreat with considerable loss [m]. Next day, Henry, who had hastened to the defence of his Norman dominions, pa.s.sed over the bridge in triumph, and entered Rouen in sight of the French army. The city was now in absolute safety; and the king, in order to brave the French monarch, commanded the gates, which had been walled up, to be opened; and he prepared to push his advantages against the enemy.

Lewis saved himself from this perilous situation by a new piece of deceit, not so justifiable. He proposed a conference for adjusting the terms of a general peace, which he knew would be greedily embraced by Henry; and while the king of England trusted to the execution of his promise, he made a retreat with his army into France.

[FN [k] Brompton, p. 1096. [l] Diceto, p. 578. [m] Brompton, p.

1096. Neubrig. p. 411. Heming, p. 503.]

There was, however, a necessity on both sides for an accommodation.

Henry could no longer bear to see his three sons in the hands of his enemy; and Lewis dreaded lest this great monarch, victorious in all quarters, crowned with glory, and absolute master of his dominions might take revenge for the many dangers and disquietudes which the arms, and still more the intrigues of France had, in his disputes both with Becket and his sons, found means to raise him. After making a cessation of arms, a conference was agreed on near Tours; where Henry granted his sons much less advantageous terms than he had formerly offered, and he received their submissions. [MN The king's accommodation with his sons.] The most material of his concessions were some pensions which he stipulated to pay them, and some castles which he granted them for the place of their residence; together with an indemnity for all their adherents, who were restored to their estates and honours [n].

[FN [n] Rymer, vol. i. p. 35. Bened. Abb. p. 88. Hoveden, p. 540.

Diceto, p. 584. Brompton, p. 1098. Heming. p. 505. Chron. Dunst. p.

36.]

Of all those who had embraced the cause of the young princes, William, King of Scotland, was the only considerable loser by that invidious and unjust enterprise. Henry delivered from confinement, without exacting any ransom, about nine hundred knights whom he had taken prisoners; but it cost William the ancient independency of his crown as the price of his liberty. He stipulated to do homage to Henry for Scotland, and all his other possessions; he engaged that all the barons and n.o.bility of his kingdom should also do homage; that the bishops should take an oath of fealty; that both should swear to adhere to the King of England against their native prince, if the latter should break his engagements; and that the fortresses of Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jedburgh, should be delivered into Henry's hands, till the performance of articles [o].

[MN 1175. 10th Aug.] This severe and humiliating treaty was excuted in its full rigour. William, being released, brought up all his barons, prelates, and abbots; and they did homage to Henry in the cathedral of York, and acknowledged him and his successors for their superior lord [p]. The English monarch stretched still farther the rigour of the conditions which he exacted. He engaged the king and states of Scotland to make a perpetual cession of the fortresses of Berwick and Roxburgh, and to allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain in his hands for a limited time. This was the first great ascendancy which England obtained over Scotland; and indeed the first important transaction which had pa.s.sed between the kingdoms. Few princes have been so fortunate as to gain considerable advantages over their weaker neighbours with less violence and injustice than was practised by Henry against the King of Scots, whom he had taken prisoner in battle, and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all the neighbours of that prince, and even his own family, were, without provocation, combined against him [q].

[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 91. Chron. Dunst. p. 36. Hoveden, p. 545. M.

West. p. 251. Diceto, p. 584. Brompton, p. 1103. Rymer, vol. i. p.

39. Liber Niger Scaccarii, p. 36. [p] Bened. Abb. p. 113. [q] Some Scotch historians pretend that William paid, besides, 100,000 pounds of ransom, which is quite incredible. The ransom of Richard I., who, besides England, possessed so many rich territories in France, was only 150,000 marks, and yet was levied with great difficulty. Indeed, two-thirds of it only could he paid before his deliverance.]

[MN 1175. King?s equitable administration.]

Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with honour from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great danger, was employed for several years in the administration of justice, in the execution of the laws, and in guarding against those inconveniences, which either the past convulsions of his state, or the political inst.i.tutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned. The provisions which he made show such largeness of thought as qualified him for being a legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well for the future as the present happiness of his kingdom.

[MN 1176.] He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false coining, arson; and ordained that these crimes should be punished by the amputation of the right hand and right foot [r]. The pecuniary commutation for crimes which has a false appearance of lenity, had been gradually disused, and seems to have been entirely abolished by the rigour of these statutes. The superst.i.tious trial by water ordeal, though condemned by the church [s], still subsisted; but Henry ordained, that any man accused of murder, or any heinous felony, by the oath of the legal knights of the county, should, even though acquitted by the ordeal, be obliged to abjure the realm [t].

[FN [r] Bened. Abb. p. 132. Hoveden, p. 549. [s] Seld. Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 204. [t] Bened. Abb. p. 132.]

All advances towards reason and good sense are slow and gradual.

Henry, though sensible of the great absurdity attending the trial by duel or battle, did not venture to abolish it: he only admitted either of the parties to challenge a trial by an a.s.size or jury of twelve freeholders [u]. This latter method of trial seems to have been very ancient in England, and was fixed by the laws of King Alfred: but the barbarous and violent genius of the age had of late given more credit to the trial by battle, which had become the general method of deciding all important controversies. It was never abolished by law in England; and there is an instance of it so late as the reign of Elizabeth; but the inst.i.tution revived by this king, being found more reasonable and more suitable to a civilized people, gradually prevailed over it.

[FN [u] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 7.]

The part.i.tion of England into four divisions, and the appointment of itinerant justices to go the circuit in each division, and to decide the causes in the counties, was another important ordinance of this prince, which had a direct tendency to curb the oppressive barons, and to protect the inferior gentry and common people in their property [w]. Those justices were either prelates or considerable n.o.blemen; who, besides carrying the authority of the king's commission, were able, by the dignity of their own character, to give weight and credit to the laws.

[FN [w] Hoveden, p. 590.]

That there might be fewer obstacles to the execution of justice, the king was vigilant in demolis.h.i.+ng all the new-erected castles of the n.o.bility, in England as well as in his foreign dominions; and he permitted no fortress to remain in the custody of those whom he found reason to suspect [x].

[FN [x] Benedict. Abbas, p. 202. Diceto, p. 585.]

But lest the kingdom should be weakened by this demolition of the fortresses, the king fixed an a.s.size of arms, by which all his subjects were obliged to put themselves in a situation for defending themselves and the realm. Every man possessed of a knight's fee was ordained to have for each fee a coat of mail, a helmet, a s.h.i.+eld, and a lance; every free layman, possessed of goods to the value of sixteen marks, was to be armed in like manner; every one that possessed ten marks was obliged to have an iron gorget, a cap of iron, and a lance; all burgesses were to have a cap of iron, a lance, and a wambais; that is, a coat quilted with wool, tow, or such like materials [y]. It appears that archery, for which the English were afterwards so renowned, had not, at this time, become very common among them. The spear was the chief weapon employed in battle.

[FN [y] Bened. Abb. p. 305 Annal. Waverl. p. 161.]

The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible with a civilized, and, indeed, with any species of government. If a clergyman were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation only: if he were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but excommunication and ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned for by penances and submission [z]. Hence the a.s.sa.s.sins of Thomas a Becket himself, though guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and the most repugnant to the sentiments of that age, lived securely in their own houses, without being called to account by Henry himself, who was so much concerned, both in honour and interest, to punish that crime, and who professed, or affected on all occasions, the most extreme abhorrence of it. It was not till they found their presence shunned by every one as excommunicated persons that they were induced to take a journey to Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the pontiff, and to submit to the penances imposed upon them: after which they continued to possess, without molestation, their honours and fortunes, and seemed even to have recovered the countenance and good opinion of the public. But as the king, by the const.i.tutions of Clarendon, which he endeavoured still to maintain [a], had subjected the clergy to a trial by the civil magistrate, it seemed but just to give them the protection of that power to which they owed obedience; it was enacted, that the murderers of clergymen should be tried before the justiciary, in the presence of the bishop or his official; and besides the usual punishment for murder, should be subjected to a forfeiture of their estates, and a confiscation of their goods and chattels [b].

[FN [z] Petri Blessen. epist. 73. apud Bibl. Patr. tom. xxiv. p. 992.

[a] Chron. Gervase, p. 1433. [b] Diceto, p. 592. Chron. Gervase, 1433.]

The king pa.s.sed an equitable law, that the goods of a va.s.sal should not be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the va.s.sal be surety for the debt; and that the rents of va.s.sals should be paid to the creditors of the lord, not to the lord himself. It is remarkable that this law was enacted by the king in a council which he held at Verneuil, and which consisted of some prelates and barons of England, as well as some of Normandy, Poictou, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Britany; and the statute took place in all these last-mentioned territories [c], though totally unconnected with each other [d]; a certain proof how irregular the ancient feudal government was, and how near the sovereigns, in some instances, approached to despotism, though in others they seemed scarcely to possess any authority. If a prince, much dreaded and revered, like Henry, obtained but the appearance of general consent to an ordinance which was equitable and just, it became immediately an established law, and all his subjects acquiesced in it. If the prince was hated or despised; if the n.o.bles who supported him had small influence; if the humours of the times disposed the people to question the justice of his ordinance; the fullest and most authentic a.s.sembly had no authority. Thus all was confusion and disorder; no regular idea of a const.i.tution; force and violence decided every thing.

[FN [c] Bened. Abb. p. 248. It was usual for the kings of England, after the conquest of Ireland, to summon barons and members of that country to the English Parliament. Mollineux's case of Ireland, p.

64, 65, 66. [d] Spellman even doubts whether the law were not also extended to England. If it were not, it could only be because Henry did not choose it; for his authority was greater in that kingdom than in his transmarine dominions.]

The success which had attended Henry in his wars did not much encourage his neighbours to form any attempt against him; and his transactions with them during several years, contain little memorable.

Scotland remained in that state of feudal subjection to which he had reduced it, and gave him no farther inquietude. He sent over his fourth son, John, into Ireland, with a view of making a more complete conquest of the island; but the petulance and incapacity of this prince, by which he enraged the Irish chieftains, obliged the king soon after to recall him [e]. The King of France had fallen into an abject superst.i.tion; and was induced, by a devotion more sincere than that of Henry, to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket, in order to obtain his intercession for the cure of Philip, his eldest son. He probably thought himself well ent.i.tled to the favour of that saint on account of their ancient intimacy; and hoped that Becket, whom he had protected while on earth, would not now, when he was so highly exalted in heaven, forgot his old friend and benefactor. The monks, sensible that their saint's honour was concerned in the case, failed not to publish that Lewis's prayers were answered, and that the young prince was restored to health by Becket's intercession. That king himself was soon after struck with an apoplexy, which deprived him of his understanding: Philip, though a youth of fifteen, took on him the administration, till his father's death, which happened soon after, opened his way to the throne; and he proved the ablest and greatest monarch that had governed that kingdom since the age of Charlemagne.

The superior years, however, and experience of Henry, while they moderated his ambition, gave him such an ascendant over this prince, that no dangerous rivals.h.i.+p, for a long time, arose between them. [MN 1180.] The English monarch, instead of taking advantage of his own situation, rather employed his good offices in composing the quarrels which arose in the royal family of France; and he was successful in mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his mother and uncles.

These services were but ill requited by Philip, who, when he came to man's estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the royal family of England, and encouraged Henry's sons in their ungrateful and undutiful behaviour towards him.

[FN [e] Bened. Abb. p. 437, &c.]

Prince Henry, equally impatient of obtaining power, and incapable of using it, renewed to the king the demand of his resigning Normandy; and on meeting with a refusal, he fled with his consort to the court of France: but not finding Philip at that time disposed to enter into war for his sake, he accepted of his father's offers of reconciliation, and made him submissions. It was a cruel circ.u.mstance in the king's fortune, that he could hope for no tranquillity from the criminal enterprises of his sons but by their mutual discord and animosities, which disturbed his family, and threw his state into convulsions. Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne, and who had displayed his valour and military genius by suppressing the revolts of his mutinous barons, refused to obey Henry's orders, in doing homage to his elder brother for that duchy, and he defended himself against young Henry and Geoffrey, who, uniting their arms, carried war into his territories [f]. The king, with some difficulty, composed this difference; but immediately found his eldest son engaged in conspiracies, and ready to take arms against himself. While the young prince was conducting these criminal intrigues, he was seized with a fever at Martel, [MN 1183.] a castle near Turenne, to which he had retired in discontent; and seeing the approaches of death, he was at last struck with remorse for his undutiful behaviour towards his father. He sent a message to the king, who was not far distant; expressed his contrition for his faults; and entreated the favour of a visit, that he might at least die with the satisfaction of having obtained his forgiveness. Henry, who had so often experienced the prince's ingrat.i.tude and violence, apprehended that his sickness was entirely feigned, and he durst not intrust himself into his son's hands: but when he soon after received intelligence of young Henry's death, [MN 11th June. Death of young Henry.] and the proofs of his sincere repentance, this good prince was affected with the deepest sorrow; he thrice fainted away; he accused his own hard-heartedness in refusing the dying request of his son; and he lamented that he had deprived that prince of the last opportunity of making atonement for his offences, and of pouring out his soul in the bosom of his reconciled father [s]. This prince died in the twenty-eighth year of his age.

[FN [f] Ypod. Neust. p. 451. Bened. Abb. p. 383. Diceto, p. 617.

[g] Bened. Abb. p. 393. Hoveden, p. 621. Trivet, vol. i. p. 84.]

The behaviour of his surviving children did not tend to give the king any consolation for the loss. As Prince Henry had left no posterity, Richard was become heir to all his dominions; and the king intended that John, his third surviving son and favourite, should inherit Guienne as his appanage; but Richard refused his consent, fled into that duchy, and even made preparations for carrying on war, as well against his father as against his brother Geoffrey, who was now put in possession of Britany. Henry sent for Eleanor his queen, the heiress of Guienne, and required Richard to deliver up to her the dominion of these territories; which the prince, either dreading an insurrection of the Gascons in her favour, or retaining some sense of duty towards her, readily performed; and he peaceably returned to his father's court. No sooner was this quarrel accommodated, than Geoffrey, the most vicious perhaps of all Henry's unhappy family, broke out into violence; demanded Anjou to be annexed to his dominions of Britany; and on meeting with a refusal, fled to the court of France, and levied forces against his father [h]. [MN 1185.] Henry was freed from this danger by his son's death, who was killed in a tournament at Paris [i]. The widow of Geoffrey, soon after his decease, was delivered of a son, who received the name of Arthur, and was invested in the duchy of Britany, under the guardians.h.i.+p of his grandfather, who, as Duke of Normandy, was also superior lord of that territory. Philip, as lord paramount, disputed some time his t.i.tle to this wards.h.i.+p; but was obliged to yield to the inclinations of the Bretons, who preferred the government of Henry.

[FN [h] Neubrig. p. 422. [i] Bened. Abb. p. 451 Chron. Gervase, p.

1480.]

[MN Crusades.]

But the rivals.h.i.+p between these potent princes, and all their inferior interests, seemed now to have given place to the general pa.s.sion for the relief of the Holy Land, and the expulsion of the Saracens. Those infidels, though obliged to yield to the immense inundation of Christians in the first crusade, had recovered courage after the torrent was past; and attacking on all quarters the settlements of the Europeans, had reduced these adventurers to great difficulties, and obliged them to apply again for succours from the West. A second crusade, under the Emperor Conrade and Lewis VII., King of France, in which there perished above two hundred thousand men, brought them but a temporary relief; and those princes, after losing such immense armies, and seeing the flower of their n.o.bility fall by their side, returned with little honour into Europe. But these repeated misfortunes, which drained the western world of its people and treasure, were not yet sufficient to cure men of their pa.s.sion for those spiritual adventures; and a new incident rekindled with fresh fury the zeal of the ecclesiastics and military adventurers among the Latin Christians. Saladin, a prince of great generosity, bravery, and conduct, having fixed himself on the throne of Egypt, began to extend his conquests over the East; and finding the settlement of the Christians in Palestine an invincible obstacle to the progress of his arms, he bent the whole force of his policy and valour to subdue that small and barren, but important territory. Taking advantage of dissensions which prevailed among the champions of the cross, and having secretly gained the Count of Tripoli, who commanded their armies, he invaded the frontiers with a mighty power; and, aided by the treachery of that count, gained over them at Tiberiade a complete victory, which utterly annihilated the force of the already languis.h.i.+ng kingdom of Jerusalem. The holy city itself fell into his hands, after a feeble resistance; the kingdom of Antioch was almost entirely subdued; and except some maritime towns, nothing considerable remained of those boasted conquests, which, near a century before, it had cost the efforts of all Europe to acquire [k].

[FN [k] M. Paris, p. 100.]

[MN 1187.] The western Christians were astonished on receiving this dismal intelligence. Pope Urban III, it is pretended, died of grief, and his successor, Gregory VIII., employed the whole time of his short pontificate in rousing to arms all the Christians who acknowledged his authority. The general cry was, that they were unworthy of enjoying any inheritance in heaven, who did not vindicate from the dominion of the infidel the inheritance of G.o.d on earth, and deliver from slavery that country which had been consecrated by the footsteps of their Redeemer. [MN 1188. 21st Jan.] William, Archbishop of Tyre, having procured a conference between Henry and Philip near Gisors, enforced all these topics; gave a pathetic description of the miserable state of the eastern Christians, and employed every argument to excite the ruling pa.s.sions of the age, superst.i.tion and jealousy of military honour [l]. The two monarchs immediately took the cross; many of their most considerable va.s.sals imitated the example [m]; and as the Emperor Frederick I. entered into the same confederacy, some well-grounded hopes of success were entertained; and men flattered themselves that an enterprise which had failed under the conduct of many independent leaders, or of impruddent princes, might, at last, by the efforts of such potent and able monarchs, be brought to a happy issue.

[FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 531. [m] Neubrig. p. 435. Heming, p. 512.]

The kings of France and England imposed a tax, amounting to the tenth of all moveable goods on such as remained at home [n]; but as they exempted from this burden most of the regular clergy, the secular aspired to the same immunity; pretended that their duty obliged them to a.s.sist the crusade with their prayers alone; and it was with some difficulty they were constrained to desist from an opposition, which in them who had been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises, appeared with the worst grace imaginable [o]. This backwardness of the clergy is perhaps a symptom, that the enthusiastic ardour which had at first seized the people for crusades, was now by time and ill success considerably abated; and that the frenzy was chiefly supported by the military genius and love of glory in the monarchs.

[FN [n] Bened. Abb. p. 498. [o] Petri Blessen. epist. 112.]