with the feudal law.

This was the end of serious rebellion against King William
Rufus. Seven years later, in 1095, a conspiracy was formed
by some of the barons who had been pardoned for their
earHer rebellion, which might have resulted in a widespread
insurrection but for the prompt action of William. Robert
of Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, who had inherited the
280 manors of his uncle, the Bishop of Coutances, and was
now one of the most powerful barons of the kingdom, had
been summoned to the king's court, probably because the
conspiracy was suspected, since it was for a fault which
would ordinarily have been passed over without remark, and
he refused to appear. The king's hands were for the moment
free, and he marched at once against the earl. By degrees
the details of the conspiracy came out. From Notting-
ham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was accompany-
ing the march, was sent back to Kent to hold himself in
readiness at a moment's notice to defend that part of Eng-
land against an expected landing from Normandy. This
time it had been planned to make Stephen of Aumale, a
nephew of the Conqueror, king in William's place ; but no
Norman invasion occurred. The war was begun and ended
by the siege and surrender of Mowbray's two castles of
Tynemouth and Bamborough. In the siege of the latter,
Mowbray himself was captured by a trick, and his newly
married wife was forced to surrender the castle by the threat
of putting out his eyes. The earl was thrown into prison,
where, according to one account, he was held for thirty years.
Treachery among the traitors revealed the names of the
leaders of the plot, and punishments were inflicted more
generally than in 1088, but with no pretence of impartiality.
A man of so high rank and birth as William of Eu was
barbarously mutilated ; one man of minor rank was hanged ;
banishment and fines were the jpenalties in other cases.



8o FEUDALISM AND A STRONG KING 1095

CHAP. William of St. Calais, who had been restored to his see, fell
^^ again under the suspicion of the king, and was summoned to
stand another trial, but he was already ill when he went up to
the court, and died before he could answer the charges against
him. There were reasons enough in the heavy oppressions
of the reign why men should wish to rebel against William,
but he was so fixed in power, so resolute in action, and
so pitiless towards the victims of his policy, that the form-
ing of a dangerous combination against him was practically
impossible.

The contemporary historians of his reign tell us much of
William's personality, both in set descriptions and in occa-
sional reference and anecdote. It is evident that he impressed
in an unusual degree the men of his own time, but it is evi-
dent also that this impression was not so much made by his
genius as a ruler or a soldier, by the possession of the gifts
which a great king would desire, as by something in his spirit
and attitude towards life which was new and strange, some-
thing out of the common in words and action, which startled
or shocked men of the common level and seemed at times to
verge upon the awful. In body he was shorter than his father,
thick-set and heavy, and his red face gave him the name Rufus
by which he was then and still is commonly known. Much
of his father's political and military ability and strength of
will had descended to him, but not his father's character and
high purpose. Every king of those times thought chiefly of
himself, and looked upon the state as his private property ;
but the second William more than most. The money which
he wrung from churchman and layman he used in attempts
to carry out his personal ambitions in Normandy, or scattered
with a free hand among his favourites, particularly among
the mercenary soldiers from the continent, with whom he espe-
cially loved to surround himself, and whose licensed plunder-
ings added greatly to the burden and tyranny of his reign.
But the ordinary doings of a tyrant were not the worst things
about William Rufus. Effeminate fashions, vices horrible
and unheard-of in England, flourished at his court and threat-
ened to corrupt the nation. The fearful profanity of the king,
his open and blasphemous defiance of God, made men tremble,
and those who were nearest to him testified '^that he every



io8g THE DEATH OF LANFRANC gi

morning got up a worse man than he lay down, and every chap.
evening lay down a worse man than he got up." ^^

In the year after the suppression of the first attempt of the
barons against the king, but before other events of political
importance had occurred, on May 28, 1089, died Lanfranc,
the great Archbishop of Canterbury, after nearly nineteen
years of service in that office. Best of all the advisers of the
first William, he was equally with him conqueror of England,
in that conquest of laws and civilization which followed the
mere conquest of arms. Not great, though famous as a theo-
logian and writer, his powers were rather of a practical
nature. He was skilful in the management of men ; he
had a keen appreciation of legal distinctions, and that com-
prehensive sight at the same time of ends and means which
we call the organizing power. He was devoted to that
great reformation in the rehgious and ecclesiastical world
which occurred during his long life, but he was devoted to it
in his own way, as his nature directed. He saw clearly, for
one thing, that the success of that reformation in England
depended on the maintenance of the strong government of
the Norman kings ; and from his loyalty to them he never
swerved, serving them with wise counsel and with all the
resources at his command. Less of a theologian and idealist
than his successor Anselm, more of a lawyer and statesman, he
could never have found himself, for another thing, in that
attitude of opposition to the king which fills so much of his
successor's pontificate.

As his life had been of constant service to England, his
death was an immediate misfortune. We cannot doubt the
opinion expressed by more than one of the writers of the
next reign, that a great change for the worse took place in
the actions of the king after the death of Lanfranc. The
aged archbishop, who had been in authority since his child-
hood, who might seem to prolong in some degree the reign
or the influence of his father, acted as a restraining force,
and the true character of William expressed itself freely only
when this was removed. In another way also the death of
Lanfranc was a misfortune to England. It dates the rise to
influence with the king of Ranulf Flambard, whose name is
closely associated with the tyranny of Rufus ; or if this may
VOL. II. 6



82 FEUDALISM AND A STRONG KING 1089

CHAP, already have begun, it marks his very speedy attainment of
^^ what seems to have been the complete control of the admin-
istrative and judicial system of the kingdom. Of the early
history of Ranulf Flambard we know but little with certainty.
He was of low birth, probably the son of a priest, and he
rose to his position of authority by the exercise of his own
gifts, which were not small. A pleasing person, ingratiating
manners, much quickness and ingenuity of mind, prodigaHty
of flattery, and great economy of scruples, — these were traits
which would attract the attention and win the favour of a
man like William II. In Ranulf Flambard we have an in-
stance of the constantly recurring historical fact, that the
holders of absolute power are always able to find in the
lower grades of society the ministers of their designs who
serve them with a completeness of devotion and fidelity which
the master rarely shows in his own interest, and often with a
genius which he does not himself possess.

Our knowledge of the constitutional details of the reign
either of WiUiam I or WilHam II is very incomplete, and it is
therefore difficult for us to understand the exact nature of the
innovations made by Ranulf Flambard. The chroniclers leave
us no doubt of the general opinion of contemporaries, that
important changes had been made, especially in the treatment
of the lands of the Church, and that these changes were all in
the direction of oppressive exactions for the benefit of the king.
The charter issued by Henry I at the beginning of his reign,
promising the reform of various abuses of his brother's
reign, confirms this opinion. But neither the charter nor
the chroniclers enable us to say with confidence exactly in
what the innovations consisted. The feudal system as a
system of military tenures and of judicial organization had
certainly been introduced by William the Conqueror, and
applied to the great ecclesiastical estates of the kingdom very
early in his reign. That all the logical deductions for the
benefit of the crown which were possible from this system,
especially those of a financial nature, had been made so early,
is not so certain. In the end, and indeed before very long,
the feudal system as it existed in England became more logi-
cal in details, more nearly an ideal feudalism, with reference
to the rights of the crown, than anywhere else in Christen-



io89 RANULF FLAM BARD 83

dom. It is quite within the bounds of possibiHty that Ranulf chap.
Flambard, keen of mind, working under an absolute king, ^^
whose reign was followed by the longer reign of another
absolute king, not easily forced to keep the promises of his
coronation charter, may have had some share in the logical
carrying out of feudal principles, or in their more com-
plete application to the Church, which would be likely to
escape feudal burdens under a king of the character of
the first William. Indeed, such a complete application of
the feudal rights of the crown to the Church, the development
of the so-called regalian rights, was at this date incomplete
in Europe as a whole, and according to the evidence which
we now have, the Norman in England was a pioneer in that
direction.

The loudest complaints of these oppressions have come
down to us in regard to Canterbury and the other ecclesiasti-
cal baronies which fell vacant after the death of Lanfranc.
This is what we should expect : the writers are monks. It
seems from the evidence, also, that in most cases no exact
division had as yet been made between those lands belonging
to a monastic bishop or an abbot, which should be consid-
ered particularly to form the barony, and those which should
be assigned to the support of the monastic body. Such a
division was made in time, but where it had not been made
before the occurrence of a vacancy, it was more than likely
that the monks were placed on very short commons, and the
right of the king to the revenues interpreted in the most
ample sense. The charter of Henry I shows that in the
case of lay fiefs the rights of the king, logically involved in
the feudal system, had been stretched to their utmost limit,
and even beyond. It would be very strange if this were not
still more true in the case of ecclesiastical fiefs. The monks,
we may be sure, had abundant grounds for their complaints.
But we should notice that what they have in justice to com-
plain of is the oppressive abuse of real rights. The system
of Ranulf Flambard, so far as we can determine what it was,
does not differ in its main features from that which was in
operation without objection in the time of Henry II. The
vacant ecclesiastical, like the vacant lay, fief fell back into
the king's domain. It is difficult to determine just what its

6*



84 FEUDALISM AND A STRONG KING 1089

CHAP, legal status was then considered to be, but it was perhaps
IV regarded as a fief reverting on failure of heirs. Certainly it
was sometimes treated as only an escheated or forfeited lay
fief would be treated. Its revenues might be collected by
the ordinary machinery, as they had been under the bishop,
and turned into the king's treasury ; or it might be farmed
out as a whole to the highest bidder. There could be no
valid objection to this. If the legal position which Lanfranc
had so vigorously defended was correct, that a bishop might
be tried as a baron by a lay court and a lay process, with no
infringement of his ecclesiastical rights, then there could be
no defence against this further extension of feudal principles.
Relief, wardship, and escheat were perfectly legitimate feudal
rights, and there was no reason which the state would consider
valid why they should not be enforced in all fiefs alike. The
case of the Bishop of Durham, in 1088, had already estab-
lished a precedent for the forfeiture of an ecclesiastical barony
for the treason of its holder, and in that case the king had
granted fiefs within that barony to his own vassals. Still more
clearly would such a fief return to the king's hands, if it were
vacant. But if the right was clear, it might still be true that
the enforcement of it was new and accompanied with great
practical abuses. Of this much probably we must hold Ranulf
^ Flambard guilty.

The extension and abuse of feudal law, however, do not
fill up the measure of his guilt. Another important source of
royal revenue, the judicial system, was put under his control,
and was forced to contribute the utmost possible to the king's
income. That the justiciarship was at this time as well
defined an office, or as regularly recognized a part of the
state machinery, as it came to be later, is hardly likely. But
that some officer should be clothed with the royal authority
for a special purpose, or in the absence of the king for
general purposes, was not an uncommon practice. In some
such way as this Ranulf Flambard had been given charge of
the king's interests in the judicial system, and had much to do
by his activities in that position with the development of the
office of justiciar. Exactly what he did in this field is as un-
certain as in that of feudal law, though the one specific
instance which we have on record shows him acting in a



io89 CHARACTER OF DUKE ROBERT 85

capacity much like that of the later itinerant justice. However chap.
this may be, the recorded complaints of his oppressions as ^^
judge, though possibly less numerous and detailed than of
his mistreatment of the Church, are equally bitter. He was
the despoiler of the rich, the destroyer of the poor. Exac-
tions already heavy and unjust he doubled. Money alone
decided cases in the courts. Justice and the laws disappeared.
The rope was loosened from the very neck of the robber if
he had anything of value to promise the king ; while the
popular courts of shires and hundreds were forced to become
engines of extortion, probably by the employment of the
sheriffs, who were allowed to summon them, not according
to the old practice, but when and where it suited their con-
venience. The machinery of the state and the interpretation
of its laws were, in days like these, completely at the mercy
of a tyrannous king and an unscrupulous minister. No
system of checks on absolute power had as yet been devised ;
there were no means of expressing public discontent, nor any
form of appeal but insurrection, and that was hopeless against
a king so strong as Rufus. The land could only suffer and
wait, and at last rejoice that the reign was no longer.

In the meantime, from the beginning of Robert's rule in
the duchy across the channel, the condition of things there
had been a standing invitation to his brother to interfere.
Robert is a fair example of the worst type of men of the
Norman-Angevin blood. Not bad in intention, and not with-
out abilities, he was weak with that weakness most fatal of
all in times when the will of the ruler gave its only force to
law, the inability to say no, the lack of firm resisting power.
The whole eleventh century had been nourishing the growth,
in the favouring soil of feudahsm, of the manners and morals
of chivalry. The generation to which William and Robert
belonged was more strongly influenced in its standards of
conduct by the ideals of chivalry than by any other ethical
code, and both these princes are examples of the superior
power of these ideals. In the age of chivalry no princely
virtue was held of higher worth than that of " largesse," the
royal generosity which scattered gifts on all classes with
unstinted hand ; but Robert's prodigality of gifts was greater
than the judgment of his own time approved, and, combined



86 FEUDALISM AND A STRONG KING 1088

CHAP, with the inability to make himself respected or obeyed, which

^^ often goes with such generosity, it was the source of most of

his difficulties. His ideal seemed to be that every man should

have what he wanted, and soon it was apparent that he had

retained very little for himself.

The castles of Normandy were always open to the duke,
and William the Conqueror had maintained garrisons of his
own in the most important of them, to insure the obedience
of their holders. The first move that was made by the barons
of Normandy, on the news of William's death, was to expel
these garrisons and to substitute others of their own. The
example was set by Robert of Belleme, the holder of a power-
ful composite lordship on the south-west border and partly
outside the duchy. On his way to William's court, he heard
of the duke's death, and he instantly turned about, not merely
to expel the ducal garrisons from the castles of his own fiefs,
but to seize the castles of his neighbours which he had reason
to desire, and some of these he destroyed and some he held
for himself. This action is typical of the influence of Rob-
ert's character on government in Normandy. Contempt for
the authority of the duke meant not merely that things which
belonged to him would be seized upon and his rights denied,
but also that the property and rights of the weak, and even of
those who were only a little weaker than their neighbours,
were at the mercy of the stronger.

Duke Robert's squandering of his resources soon brought
him to a want of ready money intolerable to a prince of his
nature, and his mind turned at once with desire to the large
sum in cash which his father had left to Henry. But Henry
was not at all of the stamp of Robert. He was perfectly
clear headed, and he had no foolish notions about the virtue
of generosity. He preferred to buy rather than to give away.
A bargain was struck between them, hardly six months after
their father's death, and the transaction is characteristic of
the two brothers. For three thousand pounds of silver, Henry
purchased what people of the time regarded as a third of
Robert's inheritance, the lordship of the Cotentin, with its
important castles, towns, and vassals. The chroniclers call
him now Count of the Cotentin, and he there practised the
art of government for a time, and, in sharp contrast to Robert,



io88 WILLIAM IN NORMANDY 87

maintained order with a strong hand. During the same chap.
summer, of 1088, Henry crossed over to England to get pos- ^^
session of the lands of his mother Matilda, which she had
bequeathed to him on her death. This inheritance he does
not seem to have obtained, at least not permanently ; but there
was no quarrel between him and William at that time. In
the autumn he returned to Normandy, taking with him Robert
of Belleme. Robert had been forgiven his rebellion by the
king, and so clear was the evidence that Henry and Robert
of Belleme had entered into some kind of an arrangement
with King William to assist his designs on Normandy, or so
clear was it made to seem to Duke Robert, that on their
landing he caused them both to be arrested and thrown into
prison. On the news of this the Earl of Shrewsbury, the
father of Robert of Belleme, crossed over from England to
the aid of his son, and a short civil war followed, in the early
part of the next year, in which the military operations were
favourable to the duke, but his inconstancy and weakness of
character were shown in his releasing Robert of Belleme at
the close of the war as if he had himself been beaten. Henry
also was soon released, and took up again his government of
the Cotentin.

William may have felt that Robert's willingness to accept
the crown of England from the rebel barons gave him the
right to take what he could get in Normandy, though pro-
bably he was not particularly troubled by the question of^ any
moral justification of his conduct. Opportunity would be for
him the main consideration, and the growing anarchy in the
duchy furnished this. Private war was carried on without
restraint in more than one place, and though the reign of a
weak suzerain was to the advantage of the rapacious feudal
baron, many of the class preferred a stronger rule. The
arguments also in favour of a union of the kingdom and the
duchy, which had led to the rebellion against William, would
now, since that attempt had failed, be equally strong against
Robert. For WilUam no motive need be sought but that of
ambition, nor have we much right to say that in such an
age the ambition was improper. The temptation which the
Norman duchy presented to a Norman king of England was
natural and irresistible, and we need only note that with



^



88 FEUDALISM AND A STRONG KING 1090

CHAP. William II begins that determination of the English kings
^^ to rule also in continental dominions which influences so
profoundly their own history, and hardly less profoundly the
history of their island kingdom, for centuries to come. To
William the Conqueror no such question could ever present
itself, but the moment that the kingdom and the duchy were
separated in different hands it must have arisen in the mind
of the king.

But if William did not himself care for any moral justifi-
cation of his plans, he must make sure of the support of
his English vassals in such an undertaking ; and the policy
of war against Robert was resolved upon in a meeting of the
court, probably the Easter meeting of 1090. But open war
did not begin at once. William contented himself for some
months with sending over troops to occupy castles in the
north-eastern portion of Normandy, which were opened to him
by barons who were favourable to his cause or whose sup-
port was purchased. The alarm of Robert was soon excited
by these defections, and he appealed to his suzerain. King
Philip I of France, for aid. If the poUcy of ruling in Nor-
mandy was natural for the English king, that of keeping
kingdom and duchy in different hands was an equally natural
policy for the French king. It is hardly so early as this,
however, that we can date the beginning of this which comes
in the end to be a ruling motive of the Capetian house.
Philip responded to his vassal's call with a considerable army,
but the money of the king of England quickly brought him
to a different mind, and he retired from the field, where he
had accomplished nothing.

In the following winter, early in February of 1 091, William
crossed over into Normandy to look after his interests in person.
The money which he was wringing from England by the
ingenuity of Ranulf Flambard he scattered in Normandy
with a free hand, to win himself adherents, and with success.
Robert could not command forces enough to meet him in the
field, and was compelled to enter into a treaty with him, in
which, in return for some promises from William, he not
merely accepted his occupation of the eastern side of the
duchy, which was already accomplished, but agreed to a
similar occupation by William of the north-western corner.



I092 THE OCCUPATION OF CARLISLE 89

Cherbourg and Mont-Saint-Michel, two of the newly ceded chap.
places, belonged to the dominions which " Count " Henry ^^
had purchased of his brother, and must be taken from him
by force. William and Robert marched together against him,
besieged him in his castle of Mont-Saint-Michel, and stripped
him of his lordship. Robert received the lion's share of the
conquest, but William obtained what he wished. Henry was
once more reduced to the condition of a landless prince, but
when William returned to England in August of this year
both his brothers returned with him, and remained there for
some time.

William had been recalled to England by the news that
King Malcolm of Scotland had invaded England during his
absence and harried Northumberland almost to Durham.
Malcolm had already refused to fulfil his feudal obligations
to the new king of England, and William marched against
him immediately on his return, taking his two brothers with
him. At Durham Bishop William of St. Calais, who had
found means to reconcile himself with the king, was restored
to his rights after an exile of three years. The expedition to
Scotland led to no fighting. William advanced with his army