all hazards, rather than resign a prerogative of such importance, which had been enjoyed by all his predecessors; and it seemed probable, from his great prudence and abilities, that he might be able to sustain his rights, and finally prevail in the contest. While Pascal and Henry thus stood mutually in awe of each other, it was the more easy to bring about an accommodation between them, and to find a medium in which they might agree. Before bishops took possession of their dignities, they had formerly been accustomed to pass through two ceremonies : they received from the hands of the sovereign a ring and crosier, as symbols of their office; and this was called their investiture: they also made those submissions to the prince which were required of vassals by the rites of the feudal law and which received the name of homage. And as the king might refuse both to grant the investiture and to receive the homage, though the chapter had, by some canons of the middle age, been endowed with the right of election, the sovereign had in reality the sole power of appointing prelates. Urban II. had equally deprived laymen of the rights of granting investiture and of receiving homage :* the emperors never were able, by all their wars and negotiations, to make any distinction be admitted between them: the interposition of profane laymen, in any particular, was still represented as impious and abominable; and the church openly aspired to a total independence on the state. But Henry had put England, as well as Normandy, in such a situation as gave greater weight to his negotiations, and Pascal was for the present satisfied with his resigning the right of granting investitures, by which the spiritual dignity was supposed to be conferred; and he allowed the bishops to do homage for their temporal properties and privileges. The pontiff was well pleased to have made this acquisition, which, he hoped, would in time involve the whole; and the king, anxious to procure an escape from a very dangerous situation was content to retain some, though a more precarious author ity, in the election of prelates. After the principal controversy was accommodated, it was not difficult to adjust the other differences. The pope allowed * Eadmer, p. 91. W. Malms. p. 163. Eadmer, p. 91. W. Malms. p. 164. M. Paris, p. 43. T. Rudborne, p. 274. kins, p. 303. Chron. Dunst. p. 21. Sim. Dunelm. p. 230. 227. Hoveden, p. 471, Brompton, p. 1000. · Wil Anselm to communicate with the prelates who had already received investitures from the crown; and he only required of them some submissions for their past misconduct.* He also granted Anselm a plenary power of remedying every other disorder, which, he said, might arise from the barbarousness of the country. Such was the idea which the popes then entertained of the English; and nothing can be a stronger proof of the miserable ignorance in which that people were then plunged, than that a man who sat on the papal throne, and who subsisted by absurdities and nonsense, should think himself entitled to treat them as barbarians. During the course of these controversies, a synod was held at Westminster, where the king, intent only on the main dispute, allowed some canons of less importance to be enacted, which tended to promote the usurpations of the clergy. The celibacy of priests was enjoined; a point which it was still found very difficult to carry into execution; and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of affinity. By this contrivance, the pope augmented the profits which he reaped from granting dispensations, and likewise those from divorces. For as the art of writing was then rare, and parish registers were not regularly kept, it was not easy to ascertain the degrees of affinity even among people of rank, and any man, who had money sufficient to pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on pretence that his wife was more nearly related to him than was permitted by the canons. The synod also passed a vote, prohibiting the laity from wearing long hair. The aversion of the clergy to this mode was not confined to England. When the king went to Normandy, before he had conquered that province, the bishop of Seeze, in a formal harangue, earnestly exhorted him to redress the manifold disorders under which the government labored, and to oblige the people to poll their hair in a decent form. Henry, though he would not resign his prerogatives to the church, willingly parted with his hair: he cut it in the form which they required of him, and obliged all the courtiers to imitate nis example.|| The acquisition of Normandy was a great point of Henry's ambition; being the ancient patrimony of his family, and the *Eadmer, p. 87. Eadmer, p. 91. Order. Vitalis, p. 816. Eadmer, p. 67, 68. Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p. 22. only territory which, while in his possession, gave him any weight or consideration on the continent: but the injustice of his usurpation was the source of great inquietude, involved him in frequent wars, and obliged him to impose on his English subjects those many heavy and arbitrary taxes, of which all the historians of that age unanimously complain.* His nephew William was but six years of age when he committed him to the care of Helie de St. Saen; and it is probable that his reason for intrusting that important charge to a man of so unblemished a character, was to prevent all malignant suspicions, in case any accident should befall the life of the young prince. [1110.] He soon repented of his choice; but when he desired to recover possession of William's person, Helie withdrew his pupil, and carried him to the court of Fulk, count of Anjou, who gave him protection. In proportion as the prince grew up to man's estate, he discovered virtues becoming his birth; and wandering through different courts of Europe, he excited the friendly compassion of many princes, and raised a general indignation against his uncle, who had so unjustly bereaved him of his inheritance. Lewis the Gross son of Philip, was at this time king of France, a brave and generous prince, who, having been obliged, during the lifetime of his father, to fly into England, in order to escape the persecutions of his step-mother Bertrude, had been protected by Henry, and had thence conceived a personal friendship for him. But these ties were soon dissolved after the accession of Lewis, who found his interests to be, in so many particulars opposite to those of the English monarch, and who became sensible of the danger attending the annexation of Normandy to England. He joined, therefore, the counts of Anjou and Flanders in giving disquiet to Henry's government; and this monarch, in order to defend his foreign dominions, found himself obliged to go over to Normandy, where he resided two years. The war which ensued among those princes was attended with no memorable event, and produced only slight skirmishes on the frontiers, agreeably to the weak condition of the sovereigns in that age, whenever their subjects were not roused by some great and urgent occasion. Henry, by contracting his eldest son, William, to the daughter of Fulk, * Eadmer, p. 83. Chron. Sax. p. 211, 212, 213, 219, 220, 228. H Hunting. p. 380. Hoveden, p. 470. Annal. Waverl. p. 143. + Order. Vitalis, p. 837. detached that prince from the alliance, and obliged the others o come to an accommodation with him. This peace was not of long duration. His nephew William retired to the court of Baldwin, earl of Flanders, who espoused his cause; and the king of France, having soon after, for other reasons, joined the party, a new war was kindled in Normandy, which produced no event more memorable than had attended the former. [1118.] At last the death of Baldwin, who was slain in an action near Eu, gave some respite to Henry, and enabled him to carry on war with more advantage against his enemies. Lewis, finding himself unable to wrest Normandy from the king by force of arms, had recourse to the dangerous expedient of applying to the spiritual power, and of affording the ecclesiastics a pretence to interpose in the temporal concerns of princes. [1019.] He carried young William to a general council, which was assembled at Rheims, by Pope Calixtus II., presented the Norman prince to them, complained of the manifest usurpation and injustice of Henry, craved the assistance of the church for reinstating the true heir in his dominions, and represented the enormity of detaining in captivity so brave a prince as Robert, one of the most eminent champions of the cross, and who, by that very quality, was placed under the immediate protection of the holy see. Henry knew how to defend the rights of his crown with vigor, and yet with dexterity. He had sent over the English bishops to this synod; but at the same time had warned them, that, if any further claims were started by the pope or the ecclesiastics, he was determined to adhere to the laws and customs of England, and maintain the prerogatives transmitted to him by his predecessors. Go," said he to them, "salute the pope in my name; hear his apostolical precepts; but take care to bring none of his new inventions into my kingdom." Finding, however, that it would be easier for him to elude than oppose the efforts of Calixtus, he gave his ambassadors orders to gain the pope and his favorites by liberal presents and promises. The complaints of the Norman prince were thenceforth heard with great coldness by the council; and Calixtus confessed, after a conference which he had the same summer with Henry, and when that prince probably renewed his presents, that, of all men whom he had ever yet been acquainted with, he was, beyond comparison, the most eloquent and persuasive. The warlike measures of Lewis proved as ineffectual as his intrigues. He had laid a scheme for surprising Noyon; but Henry, having received intelligence of the design, marched to the relief of the place, and suddenly attacked the French at Brenneville, as they were advancing towards it. A sharp conflict ensued, where Prince William behaved with great bravery, and the king himself was in the most imminent danger. He was wounded in the head by Crispin, a gallant Norman officer, who had followed the fortunes of William ; * but being rather animated than terrified by the blow, he immediately beat his antagonist to the ground, and so encouraged his troops by the example, that they put the French to total rout, and had very nearly taken their king prisoner. The dignity of the persons. engaged in this skirmish rendered it the most memorable action of the war; for in other respects it was not of great importance. There were nine hundred horsemen who fought on both sides, yet were there only two persons slain. The rest were defended by that heavy armor worn by the cavalry in those times.† An accommodation soon after ensued between the kings of France and England, and the interests of young William were entirely neglected in it. [1120.] But this public prosperity of Henry was much overbalanced by a domestic calamity, which befell him. His only son, William, had now reached his eighteenth year; and the king, from the facility with which he himself had usurped the crown, dreading that a like revolution might subvert his family, had taken care to have him recognized successor by the states of the kingdom, and had carried him over to Normandy, that he might receive the homage of the barons of that duchy. The king, on his return, set sail from Barfleur, and was soon carried by a fair wind out of sight of land. The prince was detained by some accident; and his sailors, as well as their captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephens, having spent the interval in drinking, were so flustered, that, being in a hurry to follow the king, they heedlessly carried the ship on a rock, where she immediately foundered. William was put into the long boat, and had got clear of the ship; when, hearing the cries of his natural sister, the countess of Perche, he ordered the seamen to row back, in hopes of saving her: but the numbers who then crowded in, soon sunk the boat; and the prince with all his retinne perished. Above a hundred and forty young noblemen, of the principal families of * H. Hunting. p. 381. M. Paris. p. 47. Diceto, p. 503. |