A England and Normandy, were lost on this occasion. butcher of Rouen was the only person on board who es caped : * he clung to the mast, and was taken up next morning by fishermen. Fitz-Stephens also took hold of the mast; but being informed by the butcher that Prince William had perished, he said that he would not survive the disaster; and he threw himself headlong into the sea. Henry entertained hopes for three days that his son had put into some distant port of England; but when certain intelligence of the calamity was brought him, he fainted away; and it was remarked, that he never after was seen to smile, nor ever recovered his wonted cheerfulness.‡ 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 burden. 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 favorable 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 V., and whom he had then sent over to be * Sim. Dunelm. p. 242. Alured. Beverl. p. 148. Chron. Sax. p. 215. W. Malms. p. 166. Eadmer, p. 110. Order. Vitalis, p 83. educated in Germany.* But as her absence from the king dom, 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. [1121.] But Adelais brought him no children; and the prince who was most likely to dispute the succession and even the 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 connections 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 connection than the former, and one more material to the interests of that count's family. [1127.] The emperor, his son-in-law, dying without issue, he bestowed his daughter on Geoffrey, the eldest son of Fulk, and endeavored to insure her succession, by having her recognized 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, [1128.] 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 malecontents; 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 imme * See note M, at the end of the volume. Chron. Sax. p. 223. W. Malms. p. 165. W. Malms. p. 175. The Annals of (Waverly p. 150) say that the king asked and obtained the consent of all the barons. diately 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 further prosperity. He was killed 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 neighbors, 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 neighbors. 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 endeavored 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 he did frequently into any of the counties. These exactions were so grievous and levied in so licentious a manner, that the farmers, wher they heard of the approach of the court, often deserted thei houses, as if an enemy had invaded the country; anu sheltered their persons and families in the woods, from the insults of the king's retinue. Henry prohibited those enormi ties, and punished the persons guilty of them by cutting off their hands, legs, or other members. But the prerogative was perpetual; the remedy applied by Henry 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. was * Eadmer, p. 94. Chron. Sax. p. 212. † Eadmer, p. 94. * One great and difficult object of the king's prudence 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 prohibited from entering the kingdom; † and Pope Calixtus, who in his turn was then laboring under many difficulties, by reason of the pretensions of Gregory, an antipope, 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 happened, that the very next night the officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly house, found the cardinal in bed with a courtesan;¶ an incident which threw such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of the kingdom; the synod broke up; and the canons against the marriage of clergymen were worse executed than ever. * Eadmer, p. 58. Eadmer, p. 125, 137, 138. ** + Hoveden, p. 474. ¶ 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 lergyman as well as the others, makes an apology for using sucn freedom with the fathers of the church; but says, that the fact was aotorious, and ought not to be concealed, ** Chron. Sax. p. 234. VOL. T 23 H 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.* [1131] As every thing in England remained in tranquillity, Henry took the opportunity of paying a visit to Nor mandy, 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 favorite. Some time after, that princess was delivered of a son, [1132.] who received the name of Henry; and the king, further to insure her succession, made all the nobility of England and Normandy renew the oath of fealty, [1135,] which they had already sworn to her. The joy of this event, and the satisfaction which he reaped from his daughter's company, who bore successively two other sons, made his residence in Normandy very agreeable to him; and he seemed determined to pass the remainder of his days in that country, when an incursion of the Welsh obliged him to think of returning into England. He was preparing for the journey, but was seized with a sudden illness at St. Dennis le Forment, from eating too plentifully of lampreys, a food which always agreed better with his palate than his constitution. He died in the sixty-seventh year of his age * See note N, at the end of the volume. W. Malms. p. 177. § H. Hunting. p. 385. M. Paris p. 50. H. Hunting. p. 315 |