rules of the country. Besides, the king or tenant-in-chief had the right to levy taxes called tallages or tailles on their vassals. William's This was the ideal of feudalism, but in England it never existed in perfection. There had been traces of it before the Conquest, and after the Conquest all land was certainly held by the king's grant; but in other respects the practice varied. Besides the Salisbury oath, the importance of which has been pointed out, the preservation in England of the witenagemot, and of the courts of the shire and the hundred, prevented the feudal courts from engrossing jurisdiction; and the Norman kings and their successors were quick to perceive Modificathat their true interest lay in preserving every institution which could be used to check the power of the great vassals. Still, for one hundred years the struggle between the king and the barons took the form of a contest as to how far the barons should introduce into this country the forms of Continental feudalism. The first blow was struck at their plan by the division of estates, the second by the oath of Salisbury. tions of Feudalism. During the whole of his reign William was engaged in more or less open hostility with Philip, king of France, who naturally looked askance at the successes of his powerful vassal. In 1073 an English army attacked Maine, a French province lying between Normandy and Anjou, and effected its capture; in 1079 we saw Philip giving his Wars with countenance and aid to William's rebellious son. In 1087 France. William, stung by a coarse joke of the French monarch, invaded the Vexin, the district between Normandy and Paris, of which the chief town is Nantes on the Seine. This William burned, and while riding through the streets his horse plunged on some hot cinders William's and threw his rider violently against the high iron pummel Death. of the saddle, causing a fatal internal injury. For six weeks William lingered at Rouen, attended by his sons William and Henry; and then, after releasing his prisoners and making a disposition of his property, he died. William was a harsh ruler, and it is impossible, on moral grounds, to justify his invasion of England and the atrocities to which it gave rise; but, nevertheless, he bestowed on the country a great boon, William's for he made England a united kingdom, in a sense which Character. she had never been before. He arrived at a critical moment of history, when the great earls were developing a system of local independence which in all probability would have run the same course as a like movement did in France and in Germany, and produced the same weakness in the crown, the same oppression for the people. From this fate William saved England; and by making the crown powerful, and relying on the English and the clergy against the barons, and enforcing one law and one allegiance, he took a great step towards making her a strong and united kingdom. It cannot, however, be doubted that his character was sullied by terrible crimes. The judicial murder of Waltheof cannot be defended on the evidence known to us; and his barbarous action of laying waste a vast area of cultivated Hampshire to create the New Forest was a sin against civilisation. Churches and villages alike were levelled to make room for the 'tall deer,' whom the king was said to love 'as though he were their father.' Still, on the whole, William must be reckoned as one who, according to his lights, strove to do what was right, and whose best deeds have left a mark more enduring than his crimes. Among the changes of this reign, the waste lands not enclosed in any manor or township began to be called the Forest, and were reserved for the king's sport. The bishoprics, which the English had usually placed in villages, were transferred to towns, as Dorchester to Lincoln and Crediton to Exeter. The name township, though retained, was usually superseded by the manor. Contest with the Barons continued-The enforcement of the Feudal Dues The first Crusade. The Con IN disposing of his property, William the Conqueror followed the ideas of the time, which happened to agree with his own. To his eldest son Robert he bequeathed his hereditary duchy of Normandy, with the adjoining county of Maine. The second, William, queror's he despatched to England with his dying recommendation to the primate Lanfranc to secure his election to the crown. The third, Henry, a lad of nineteen, had to content himself for the present with a legacy of £5000. Will. Lanfranc had been tutor to the younger William, and had knighted him. He knew well both the abilities and the vices of his pupil; and while, in accordance with the request of the late king, he summoned such an assembly of magnates as might constitute a witenagemot, and recommended William for election, he was careful to exact Election of a solemn oath that the new sovereign would 'preserve william justice, fairness, and mercy in every transaction,' would defend 'the peace, liberty, and security of the church,' and would in all cases be guided by the advice and counsels' of Lanfranc himself. Rufus. William II., who was called Rufus from his ruddy countenance, is generally admitted to have been a man of bad life, though it must be remembered that his character was drawn by monks, to His whom he was no friend; but his abilities, especially for Character. war, were decidedly great, and during the thirteen years of his short reign he not only retained the hold which his father had won over his newly acquired dominions, but in many directions made himself more powerful and more secure than his father had ever been. The instinct of self-preservation made him the natural foe of the great barons, whose tendency to make themselves omnipotent in their own districts was the greatest danger to civilisation; and his steady check on castle-building and rigid enforcement of the king's peace were of the greatest service to the townspeople, on whose prosperity the advancement of the country ultimately depended. Moreover, his struggle with the barons compelled him to secure as far as possible the goodwill of the English; and so circumstances obliged him, whether designedly or not, to follow such measures as would in the end advance the unity and prosperity of the land. During the first six years of the reign, the chief attention of William had to be given to the movements of his brother Robert and of the Trouble with barons with whom he was in alliance. As these had lands Robert. both in Normandy and in England, their policy consisted in preventing either a war or a separation between the kingdom and the duchy; but as most were of opinion that the yoke of the easygoing and affable Robert would be lighter than that of his brother, Robert had no difficulty in finding adherents who would help him against William. Of these the most formidable were Odo, bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, whom the Conqueror's death had released from prison, Roger of Montgomery and his turbulent son Robert of Bellême, and Robert Odo's Con- Mowbray. Odo took the lead, and, bargaining with Robert spiracy. for the aid of a Norman army, organised in England a vast conspiracy which was to include risings in no less than seven districts. He himself led the Kentish insurgents, and, intrusting Rochester to Eustace of Boulogne, awaited in Arundel Castle the landing of Robert. William's first care was to secure the person of Odo, and after a siege of seven weeks Arundel Castle was taken; Odo was then despatched to order the surrender of Rochester, but he treacherously threw himself into the castle and made a most formidable resistance. In these circumstances William saw that his best chance was to appeal to the English, who naturally regarded the tyranny of a host of petty chieftains as Siege of worse than that of a single king. Accordingly, he sumRochester. moned the 'brave and honourable English,' and called on them to lead their countrymen to his aid, declaring at the same time that any who held back would be branded with the name of 'nithing,' or good-for-nothing fellow,' which the English regarded as disgraceful, and accordingly flocked to his standard in crowds. By their aid the castle was taken; but even William dared not proceed to extremities against his uncle, and, much to the disappointment of the English, who wished to hang him, contented himself with driving Odo into an ignominious exile. Meanwhile, Robert had dallied in Normandy, partly through indolence, partly from want of money; and many of his followers who had ventured over by themselves had fallen into the hands of privateers whom William had permitted to be fitted out by the English ports. The conspiracy, therefore, completely failed, for all the local risings had been put down by the king's men. Roger Montgomery made his submission; and though Robert Mowbray in the north was still unsubdued, southern England was completely in William's grasp. Robert. Seeing that he was the stronger, some of the barons were now ready to aid him to dispossess Robert of Normandy; and in 1091 William himself appeared with an army in the duchy. The French king Philip, however, offered his mediation, and the barons negotiated a treaty between the brothers by which Robert renounced all claim to Eng- Treaty with land, and agreed in consideration of the grant of some English estates to allow William to retain several strong castles in Normandy. A provision was also inserted that whichever brother survived should succeed to both Normandy and England. As William repeatedly delayed to hand over Robert's indemnity, war again broke out, and William was carrying all before him when the French king again interfered. In the emergency William ordered an English force of foot-soldiers to be assembled at Hastings; but when they arrived his justiciar Ranulf commuted their services for a payment of ten shillings per man, and sent the money to the king. With it William bought off the French king, and was again driving Robert to extremity when the serious state of affairs on the Welsh border forced him to return to England in 1094. the Welsh. His presence was sorely needed, for the Welsh had seized Montgomery Castle, and, the barrier being thus broken, had poured out of their fastnesses over Cheshire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire. William met the danger by an organised invasion of the mountains. Wars with It was, however, a failure, for he had not yet learned by experience that his heavy cavalry were no match for the agile Welshmen, who, refusing all offers of a pitched battle, contented themselves with cutting off stragglers in their mountains and ravines; and a second invasion in 1095 met with no better success. Thus baffled, William left the war to be carried on by less regular though more effective methods, and, having arranged that all lands taken from the Welsh should be held by its conqueror as a free grant, he departed. This plan afforded occupation to the unruly barons of the border, and was so successful that in a short time almost all the lowlands of Wales and the southern coast |