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Mortaigne, the king's uncle, having given matter of sus- 1103. picion against him, lost all the vast acquisitions of his family in England. Though the usual violence and tyranny of the Norman barons afforded a plausible pretence for those prosecutions, and it is probable that none of the sentences pronounced against these noblemen was wholly iniquitous, men easily saw, or conjectured, that the chief part of their guilt was not the injustice or illegality of their conduct. Robert, enraged at the fate of his friends, imprudently ventured to come into England; and he remonstrated with his brother, in severe terms, against this breach of treaty; but met with so bad a reception, that he began to apprehend danger to his own liberty, and was glad to purchase an escape by resigning his pension.

The indiscretion of Robert soon exposed him to more fatal injuries. This prince, whose bravery and candour procured him respect while at a distance, had no sooner attained the possession of power and enjoyment of peace, than all the vigour of his mind relaxed; and he fell into contempt among those who approached his person, or were subjected to his authority. Alternately abandoned to dissolute pleasures and to womanish superstition, he was so remiss, both in the care of his treasure and the exercise of his government, that his servants pillaged his money with impunity, stole from him his very clothes, and proceeded thence to practise every species of extortion on his defenceless subjects. The barons, whom a severe Attack of administration alone could have restrained, gave reins to Normandy. their unbounded rapine upon their vassals, and inveterate animosities against each other; and all Normandy, during the reign of this benign prince, was become a scene of violence and depredation. The Normans at last, observing the regular government which Henry, notwithstanding his usurped title, had been able to establish in England, applied to him, that he might use his authority for the suppression of these disorders; and they thereby afforded him a pretence for interposing in the affairs of Normandy. Instead of employing his mediation to render his brother's government respectable, or to redress

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1103.

1105.

Normandy.

the grievances of the Normans; he was only attentive to support his own partisans, and to increase their number by every art of bribery, intrigue, and insinuation. Having found, in a visit which he made to that duchy, that the nobility were more disposed to pay submission to him than to their legal sovereign; he collected, by arbitrary extortions on England, a great army and treasure, and returned next year to Normandy, in a situation to obtain, either by violence or corruption, the dominion of that province. He took Baieux by storm, after an obstinate siege; he made himself master of Caen, by the voluntary submission of the inhabitants: but being repulsed at Falaise, and obliged, by the winter season, to raise the siege, he returned into England; after giving assurances to his adherents, that he would persevere in supporting and protecting them.

1106. Next year he opened the campaign with the siege of Conquest of Tenchebray; and it became evident, from his preparations and progress, that he intended to usurp the entire possession of Normandy. Robert was at last roused from his lethargy; and being supported by the earl of Mortaigne and Robert de Belesme, the king's inveterate enemies, he raised a considerable army, and approached his brother's camp, with a view of finishing, in one decisive battle, the quarrel between them. He was now entered on that scene of action in which alone he was qualified to excel; and he so animated his troops by his example, that they threw the English into disorder, and had nearly obtained the victory', when the flight of Belesme spread a panic among the Normans, and occasioned their total defeat. Henry, besides doing great execution on the enemy, made near ten thousand prisoners; among whom was duke Robert himself, and all the most considerable barons, who adhered to his interests". This victory was followed by the final reduction of Normandy: Rouen immediately submitted to the conqueror: Falaise, after some negotiation, opened its gates; and by this acquisition, beBrompton, p. 1002. Order. Vitalis, p. 821.

H. Hunting. p. 379. M. Paris, p. 43. " Eadmer, p. 90. Chron. Sax. p. 214.

sides rendering himself master of an important fortress, he got into his hands prince William, the only son of Robert: he assembled the states of Normandy; and having received the homage of all the vassals of the duchy, having settled the government, revoked his brother's donations, and dismantled the castles lately built, he returned into England, and carried along with him the duke as prisoner. That unfortunate prince was detained in custody during the remainder of his life, which was no less than twenty-eight years, and he died in the castle of Cardiff in Glamorganshire; happy if, without losing his liberty, he could have relinquished that power which he was not qualified either to hold or exercise. Prince William was committed to the care of Helie de St. Saen, who had married Robert's natural daughter, and who, being a man of probity and honour, beyond what was usual in those ages, executed the trust with great affection and fidelity. Edgar Atheling, who had followed Robert in the expedition to Jerusalem, and who had lived with him ever since in Normandy, was another illustrious prisoner taken in the battle of Tenchebray *. Henry gave him his liberty, and settled a small pension on him, with which he retired; and he lived to a good old age in England, totally neglected and forgotten. This prince was distinguished by personal bravery: but nothing can be a stronger proof of his mean talents in every other respect, than that, notwithstanding he possessed the affections of the English, and enjoyed the only legal title to the throne, he was allowed, during the reigns of so many violent and jealous usurpers, to live unmolested, and go to his grave in peace.

1106.

Continua

Anselm the

A little after Henry had completed the conquest of 1107. Normandy, and settled the government of that province, tion of the he finished a controversy which had been long depending quarrel with between him and the pope, with regard to the investitures primate. in ecclesiastical benefices; and though he was here obliged to relinquish some of the ancient rights of the crown, he extricated himself from the difficulty on easier terms than * Chron. Sax. p. 214. Annal. Waverl. p. 144.

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most princes, who in that age were so unhappy as to be engaged in disputes with the apostolic see. The king's situation in the beginning of his reign, obliged him to pay great court to Anselm: the advantages which he had reaped from the zealous friendship of that prelate, had made him sensible how prone the minds of his people were to superstition, and what an ascendant the ecclesiastics had been able to assume over them. He had seen, on the accession of his brother Rufus, that though the rights of primogeniture were then violated, and the inclinations of almost all the barons thwarted, yet the authority of Lanfranc the primate had prevailed over all other considerations: his own case, which was still more unfavourable, afforded an instance in which the clergy had more evidently shown their influence and authority. These recent examples, while they made him cautious not to offend that powerful body, convinced him at the same time that it was extremely his interest to retain the former prerogative of the crown in filling offices of such vast importance, and to check the ecclesiastics in that independence to which they visibly aspired. The choice which his brother, in a fit of penitence, had made of Anselm, was so far unfortunate to the king's pretensions, that this prelate was celebrated for his piety and zeal, and austerity. of manners; and though his monkish devotion and narrow principles prognosticated no great knowledge of the world or depth of policy, he was, on that very account, a more dangerous instrument in the hands of politicians, and retained a greater ascendant over the bigoted populace. The prudence and temper of the king appear in nothing more conspicuous than in the management of this delicate affair; where he was always sensible that it had become necessary for him to risk his whole crown, in order to preserve the most invaluable jewel of it".

Anselm had no sooner returned from banishment, than his refusal to do homage to the king raised a dispute, which Henry evaded at that critical juncture, by promising to send a messenger, in order to compound the matter

Eadmer, p. 56.

with Pascal the second, who then filled the papal throne.
The messenger, as was probably foreseen, returned with
an absolute refusal of the king's demands"; and that for-
tified by many reasons which were well qualified to operate
on the understandings of men in those ages. Pascal
quoted the scriptures to prove that Christ was the door;
and he thence inferred that all ecclesiastics must enter
into the church through Christ alone, not through the
civil magistrate, or any profane laymena.
"It is mon-
strous," added the pontiff, "that a son should pretend to
beget his father, or a man to create his God: priests are
called gods in scripture, as being the vicars of God: and
will you, by your abominable pretensions to grant them
their investiture, assume the right of creating them "?"
. But how convincing soever these arguments, they could
not persuade Henry to resign so important a prerogative;
and perhaps, as he was possessed of great reflection and
learning, he thought that the absurdity of a man's creating
his God, even allowing priests to be gods, was not urged
with the best grace by the Roman pontiff. But as he
desired still to avoid, at least to delay, the coming to any
dangerous extremity with the church, he persuaded
Anselm that he should be able, by farther negotiation, to
attain some composition with Pascal; and for that pur-
pose he despatched three bishops to Rome, while Anselm
sent two messengers of his own, to be more fully assured
of the pope's intentions. Pascal wrote back letters equally
positive and arrogant, both to the king and primate; urging
to the former that, by assuming the right of investitures,
he committed a kind of spiritual adultery with the church,
who
was the spouse of Christ, and who must not admit of
such a commerce with any other person; and insisting
with the latter, that the pretension of kings to confer bene-

b

P.

z W. Malms. P. 225. a Eadmer, p. 60. This topic is farther enforced in p. 73, 74. See also W. Malms. p. 163. Eadmer, 61. I much suspect that this text of scripture is a forgery of his holiness: for I have not been able to find it. Yet it passed current in those ages, and was often quoted by the clergy as the foundation of their power. See Epist. St. Thom. p. 169. c Eadmer, p. 62. W. Malms. p. 225. d Eadmer, p. 63.

1107. N

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