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1120.

King's se

cond marriage.

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The death of William may be regarded, in one respect, as a misfortune to the English; because it was the immediate source of those civil wars which, after the demise of the king, caused such confusion in the kingdom: but it is remarkable, that the young prince had entertained a violent aversion to the natives; and had been heard to threaten, that when he should be king he would make them draw the plough, and would turn them into beasts of burthen. These prepossessions he inherited from his father; who, though he was wont, when it might serve his purpose, to value himself on his birth, as a native of England, showed, in the course of his government, an extreme prejudice against that people. All hopes of preferment to ecclesiastical as well as civil dignities were denied them during this whole reign; and any foreigner, however ignorant or worthless, was sure to have the preference in every competition'. As the English had given no disturbance to the government during the course of fifty years, this inveterate antipathy in a prince of so much temper as well as penetration, forms a presumption that the English of that age were still a rude and barbarous people even compared to the Normans, and impresses us with no very favourable idea of the Anglo-Saxon manners.

Prince William left no children; and the king had not now any legitimate issue, except one daughter, Matilda, whom, in 1110, he had betrothed, though only eight years of age, to the emperor Henry the fifth, and whom he had then sent over to be educated in Germany'. But as her absence from the kingdom, and her marriage into a foreign family, might endanger the succession, Henry, who was now a widower, was induced to marry, in hopes of having male heirs; and he made his addresses to Adelais, daughter of Godfrey, duke of Lovaine, and niece of pope Calixtus, a young princess of an amiable person". But Adelais brought him no children; and the prince who was most likely to dispute the succession, and even the

h Gul. Neubr. lib. i. cap. 3. p. 215. W. Malms. p. 166. the end of the volume.

i Eadmer, p. 110. Order. Vitalis, p. 83.

k Chron. Sax. 1 See note M, at

Chron. Sax. p. 223. W. Malms. p. 165.

immediate possession of the crown, recovered hopes of subverting his rival, who had successively seized all his patrimonial dominions. William, the son of duke Robert, was still protected in the French court; and as Henry's connexions with the count of Anjou were broken off by the death of his son, Fulk joined the party of the unfortunate prince, gave him his daughter in marriage, and aided him in raising disturbances in Normandy. But Henry found the means of drawing off the count of Anjou, by forming anew with him a nearer connexion than the former, and one more material to the interests of that count's family. The emperor, his son-in-law, dying without issue, he bestowed his daughter on Geoffrey, the eldest son of Fulk, and endeavoured to ensure her succession, by having her recognised heir to all his dominions, and obliging the barons both of Normandy and England to swear fealty to her. He hoped that the choice of this husband would be more agreeable to all his subjects than that of the emperor; as securing them from the danger of falling under the dominion of a great and distant potentate, who might bring them into subjection, and reduce their country to the rank of a province: but the barons were displeased that a step so material to national interests had been taken without consulting them"; and Henry had too sensibly experienced the turbulence of their disposition not to dread the effects of their resentment. It seemed probable that his nephew's party might gain force from the increase of the malcontents: an accession of power, which that prince acquired a little after, tended to render his pretensions still more dangerous. Charles, earl of Flanders, being assassinated during the celebration of divine service, king Lewis immediately put the young prince in possession of that county, to which he had pretensions in the right of his grandmother Matilda, wife to the Conqueror. But William survived a very little time this piece of good fortune, which seemed to open the way to still farther prosperity. He was killed

n W. Malms. p. 175. The annals of Waverly, p. 150, say that the king

asked and obtained the consent of all the barons.

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in a skirmish with the landgrave of Alsace, his competitor for Flanders; and his death put an end, for the present, to the jealousy and inquietude of Henry.

The chief merit of this monarch's government consists in the profound tranquillity which he established and maintained throughout all his dominions during the greater part of his reign. The mutinous barons were retained in subjection; and his neighbours, in every attempt which they made upon him, found him so well prepared that they were discouraged from continuing or renewing their enterprises. In order to repress the incursions of the Welsh, he brought over some Flemings in the year 1111, and settled them in Pembrokeshire, where they long maintained a different language, and customs, and manners, from their neighbours. Though his government seems to have been arbitrary in England, it was judicious and prudent; and was as little oppressive as the necessity of his affairs would permit. He wanted not attention to the redress of grievances; and historians mention in particular the levying of purveyance, which he endeavoured to moderate and restrain. The tenants in the king's demesne lands were at that time obliged to supply, gratis, the court with provisions, and to furnish carriages on the same hard terms, when the king made a progress, as be did frequently, into any of the counties. These exactions were so grievous, and levied in so licentious a manner, that the farmers, when they heard of the approach of the court, often deserted their houses, as if an enemy had invaded the country°; and sheltered their persons and families in the woods, from the insults of the king's retinue. Henry prohibited those enormities, and punished the persons guilty of them by cutting off their hands, legs, or other members P. But the prerogative was perpetual; the remedy applied by Henry was temporary; and the violence itself of this remedy, so far from giving security to the people, was only a proof of the ferocity of the government, and threatened a quick return of like abuses. One great and difficult object of the king's prudence • Eadmer, p. 94. Chron. Sax. P. 212. P Eadmer, p. 94.

was, the guarding against the encroachments of the court
of Rome, and protecting the liberties of the church of
England. The pope, in the year 1101, had sent Guy,
archbishop of Vienne, as legate into Britain; and though
he was the first that for many years had appeared there in
that character, and his commission gave general surprise,
the king, who was then in the commencement of his
reign, and was involved in many difficulties, was obliged
to submit to this encroachment on his authority. But in
the year 1116, Anselm, abbot of St. Sabas, who was
coming over with a like legantine commission, was pro-
hibited from entering the kingdom'; and pope Calixtus,
who in his turn was then labouring under many dif
ficulties, by reason of the pretensions of Gregory, an an-
tipope, was obliged to promise that he never would for
the future, except when solicited by the king himself,
send any legate into England. Notwithstanding this
engagement, the pope, as soon as he had suppressed his
antagonist, granted the cardinal de Crema a legantine
commission over that kingdom; and the king, who, by
reason of his nephew's intrigues and invasions, found
himself at that time in a dangerous situation, was obliged
to submit to the exercise of this commission. A synod
was called by the legate at London; where, among other
canons, a vote passed enacting severe penalties on the
marriages of the clergy". The cardinal, in a public
harangue, declared it to be an unpardonable enormity,
that a priest should dare to consecrate and touch the
body of Christ immediately after he had risen from the
side of a strumpet: for that was the decent appellation
which he gave to the wives of the clergy. But it hap-
pened, that the very next night the officers of justice,
breaking into a disorderly house, found the cardinal in
bed with a courtezan; an incident which threw such
ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of the
Eadmer, p. 58.
r Hoveden, p. 474.
Eadmer, p. 125.
137, 138.
t Chron. Sax. p. 229.
" Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p.
34.
* Hoveden, p. 478. M. Paris, p. 48. M. West. ad. ann. 1125. H. Hunting.
p. 382, It is remarkable that this last writer, who was a clergyman as well

1128.

1128.

1131.

1132.

kingdom: the synod broke up; and the canons against the marriage of clergymen were worse executed than every.

Henry, in order to prevent this alternate revolution of concessions and encroachments, sent William, then archbishop of Canterbury, to remonstrate with the court of Rome against those abuses, and to assert the liberties of the English church. It was a usual maxim with every pope, when he found that he could not prevail in any pretension, to grant princes or states a power which they had always exercised, to resume at a proper juncture the claim which seemed to be resigned, and to pretend that the civil magistrate had possessed the authority only from a special indulgence of the Roman pontiff. After this manner, the pope, finding that the French nation would not admit his claim of granting investitures, had passed a bull, giving the king that authority; and he now practised a like invention to elude the complaints of the king of England. He made the archbishop of Canterbury his legate, renewed his commission from time to time, and still pretended that the rights which that prelate had ever exercised as metropolitan, were entirely derived from the indulgence of the apostolic see. The English princes, and Henry in particular, who were glad to avoid any immediate contest of so dangerous a nature, commonly acquiesced by their silence in these pretensions of the court of Rome 2.

As every thing in England remained in tranquillity, Henry took the opportunity of paying a visit to Normandy, to which he was invited, as well by his affection for that country as by his tenderness for his daughter the empress Matilda, who was always his favourite. Some time after, that princess was delivered of a son, who received the name of Henry; and the king, farther to ensure her succession, made all the nobility of England

as the others, makes an apology for using such freedom with the fathers of the
church; but says, that the fact was notorious, and ought not to be concealed.
y Chron. Sax. p. 234.
z See note N, at the end of the volume.

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