Conciliatory measures-Suppression of the Barons-The Investiture questionReorganisation of the central Government-Social progress.

Henry's early

career.

THE sudden death of William and the absence of Robert in the East left the throne vacant for the Atheling Henry, the only one of the Conqueror's sons born after he became king. Left landless by his father, Henry's cool and calculating nature had shown him how to make his own fortune out of the quarrels and weaknesses of his brothers. He invested three thousand pounds of his father's legacy in buying from the spendthrift Robert the investiture of Mont-Saint-Michel and the surrounding district; and he soon showed William that it was better to have him as a friend than a foe in his wars with his elder brother. Accordingly, after 1095, Henry had lived for the most part in England, and was now ready when the opportunity came. His first act was to gallop to Winchester and seize the treasury, his next to get together a hurried meeting of the witena- Elected gemot and secure the form of election. From the first he King. was well aware that he would have to fight for his crown against Robert, and for the dignity of the throne against the barons; so his Conciliatory next steps were all directed to secure a party for himself. measures. His main hope was from the English, and, to secure their goodwill, he married Matilda of Scotland, niece of Edgar Atheling and the heiress of the claims of the old English line, in order that his children, as descendants of William the Conqueror and of Alfred, might have an equal claim to the goodwill and allegiance of both He also hoped to conciliate the barons by imprisoning Ranulf

races.

Marriage.

Flambard, and by the issue of a Charter of Liberties; and he delighted churchmen by recalling the saintly Anselm.

His Charter.

Henry's Charter is a very important document; for it shows us what were the chief grievances of which the nobles and clergy complained, and the way in which they might be remedied. After boldly stating that he had been crowned by the 'common counsel of the barons of the whole realm,' Henry declared that the church should be free, and that on the death of archbishops, bishops, or abbots he would exact nothing from their lands, or from their men, until a successor had entered upon possession. In regard to feudal dues, the heirs of tenants were not, as in the time of his brother,' to pay an extortionate sum, but a just and legal relief; and the tenants-in-chief were to observe the same rule with regard to their subtenants. Barons were to notify to the king the intended marriage of their female relations (as in the case of Roger of Breteuil), but the king would neither exact a fee nor forbid the match, unless the proposed husband was an enemy. Heiresses were to be given in marriage according to the advice of the barons; and childless widows should not be married except at their own pleasure. Similar treatment was to be given by the tenants-in-chief to their subtenants. The king's sole right to coin money was to be maintained. Money and personal property might be disposed of by will. Forfeitures were not necessarily to forfeit a man's whole estate, as they had done under the two Williams, but should be moderate in amount. Lastly, the law of King Edward, with the improvements of the Conqueror, was to be restored. These arrangements were a distinct improvement, and show the king in his best light as the medium of securing even justice between one class and another. In one particular, however, a most dangerous privilege was introduced. Lands held on military tenure, so long as the nobles kept themselves well furnished with horses and weapons for the king's wars, were to be free from any other tax or service. The danger of this enactment lay in its creating a non-taxpaying class, who, if the feudal service fell into disuse, as it subsequently did, would be relieved from contributing to the expenses of the country, as actually happened in the case of the French nobles.

The imprisonment of Ranulf Flambard was pleasing to churchmen, nobles, and people alike. It was said that he had not only fleeced but flayed the flock. His ill-gotten wealth, however, helped ment of him to get a rope conveyed into the Tower in a jar of wine, and with it he managed to escape and fled to Normandy, where he soon occupied himself with intrigues against Henry.

Imprison-
Flambard.

Crown.

The need of all these concessions was shown when, at the close of 1100, Robert returned to Normandy. For he was at once invited to attack his brother, both by Ranulf Flambard and by a majority of Robert the barons of England, who begged him to come and be claims the their king, and to rid them of the goodman Godric and his wife Godiva, as they called Henry and Matilda, after some English story. But, though the barons were faithless, Anselm and the English, who rejoiced in Henry's marriage and made much of his English birth, were loyal, and declared that if Henry put himself at their head they had no fear of meeting the Normans. Accordingly, when Robert landed at Portsmouth, Henry met him at Alton with a powerful army, and the issue was so doubtful that terms were made. Robert gave Compromise up his claim in exchange for a yearly pension of £2000;

arranged.

Henry handed over to Robert almost all his Norman possessions ; and it was arranged that the survivor should inherit the dominions of the other if the deceased left no lawful heirs. Robert then went home.

The invasion, however, had shown Henry which of his barons were faithless, and he methodically set himself to deprive them of their dangerous power. The strongest and most turbulent of all was Robert of Robert of Bellême, now earl of Shrewsbury, whose castles Bellême. in Sussex and on the Welsh border, and especially that of Bridgenorth, made him a most formidable subject. Forty-five charges of treason were brought against him, and, as he failed to appear when called on, Henry at once marched on Bridgenorth, and in three weeks it surrendered, The fall of Shrewsbury and Arundel quickly followed, and Robert was forced into exile in 1102. All England rejoiced at the oppressor's departure, and cried with one voice: 'Rejoice, King Henry, and praise the Lord God because you have begun to reign in freedom, now that you have conquered Robert of Bellême, and driven him out of the country.' Similar justice overtook others. Ivo, of Grantmesnil, who boasted that he was the first man in England who had 'declared war on a neighbour,' was heavily fined, to hinder others from tloing the like; William of Mortain, the unworthy son of the great Robert, was also banished; so that, of William the Conqueror's great earldoms, the bishopric of Durham and the earldom of Chester alone were left.

The troubles with Normandy, however, were not yet concluded. The clever Robert of Bellême contrived to win Duke Robert to his side, and in 1104 war again broke cut between the brothers. For Invasion of some time no decisive battle was fought; but in 1106 Normandy. Henry, fighting on foot, English fashion, at the head of an army composed

H

Battle of

of Anglo-Norman barons and English footmen, defeated Robert and his Norman chivalry. This battle was fought on September 29th, the fortieth anniversary of the landing of Duke William; and the English Tenchebrai. are said to have regarded Tenchebrai as a proper revenge for Hastings. Indeed, these wars between the English kings and the Norman dukes must be regarded as chiefly important because they fostered an English, as against a Norman, feeling, so that the sons and grandsons of the victors of Hastings began to regard themselves as Englishmen when matched against the barons of Normandy. In the battle Robert was taken prisoner, and lodged in Cardiff Castle, where he remained till his death in 1135. Henry was now undisputed king of England and duke of Normandy. With Scotland he was on friendly terms, as brother-inlaw of its king. The Welsh princes, bridled in their mountains by a ring of castles, were giving no trouble; and the Teutonic element west of the Severn was further strengthened in 1105, when Henry liberally gave homes in Pembrokeshire to a colony of Flemings whom a sudden inroad of the sea had deprived of their native district. For more than ten years the whole of Henry's lands enjoyed peace.

Investiture

The year 1107 witnessed a most important alteration in the method of appointing bishops and abbots. The question how this should be done had for some years been the subject of a struggle between Question. the popes and the emperors, generally known as the 'contest about investitures'; and Anselm, during his residence abroad, had imbibed the papal views on the subject. At that date a bishop or abbot filled two different positions. As a churchman, his functions were those of an ecclesiastical authority, and of a sacred character; as a landholder, he was a feudal vassal of the king and a leader of soldiers. The two were obviously incompatible; but, as such was the case, it was of the utmost importance to the king that bishop or abbot should not be one of his enemies to the church, that he should not be a mere partisan soldier of the king. The difficulty, in fact, was not unlike that raised by the marriage of heiresses, in which a voice in the choice of a husband was claimed both by the king and by the lady. Before the Conquest such elections had been made in the witenagemot, practically in deference to the wishes of the king; and a similar practice had been in use under the Conqueror. Anselm now wished that the bishop or abbot should be elected by the clergy, and that he should receive the ring and crozier, the insignia of his office, not from the king, but from the archbishop. For some time neither Henry nor Anselm would give way, and Anselm again left England. But as Henry and Anselm were both reasonable and far-sighted men, who knew well how much each had to lose by a

quarrel with the other, a compromise was arrived at in 1107. The election of bishops was to be in the hands of the cathedral chapters, or in the case of Canterbury of the monks of Christ Church, but was Settled by to be held at the king's court. On election, the new bishop Compromise. was to do homage to the king for his lands, and, that done, he was to be consecrated by the archbishop and bishops and receive the ring and crozier. In this way the spiritual rights of the church were secured, and due stress laid on the ecclesiastical character of its prelates, while the royal influence was paramount at the election, and his rights as feudal superior were fully guarded. This arrangement was afterwards adopted as the basis of the settlement of the same question on the Continent between Pope Calixtus II. and Henry's son-in-law, Henry v. The contest about investitures was only one phase of the great question of the proper relation between church and state. During the middle ages it was the constant aim of the clergy to raise the church into a selfgoverning corporation, as far as possible independent of the state. complete their scheme, they required to elect their own officers, to make their own laws, to try their own criminals, and to pay taxes Aims of the only to ecclesiastical authorities; and at one time or another every one of these became the subject of a struggle with the English kings. It was a part of the same scheme to separate the clergy, as far as possible, from all external interests and connections; and for that purpose the more advanced thinkers among them were for rigidly enforcing the celibacy of the clergy. In 1102 Anselm attempted to enforce this rule in England; but it was long before it was very strictly observed by the beneficed clergy. In England the gift of parishes was usually in the hands of the lord of the manor, and consequently the laity always retained a strong hold over the secular clergy, both in the upper and lower ranks.

Church.

To

The first bishopric to which an election was made, according to the new method, was that of Salisbury; and the choice showed the working of the new system, for it fell upon Henry's chaplain and treasurer, Roger, whom he had originally engaged on the ground of the Roger of extreme rapidity with which he could perform the Mass, Salisbury. which it was then usual to hear daily. Roger, however, soon showed himself to be an excellent man of business, equal to everything placed in his hands, and after Henry's accession he became the king's right-hand man in everything which concerned the business of the kingdom. Henry delighted in order, and the years of peace that followed the battle of Tenchebrai gave him the opportunity he desired of putting both the local and central government of the country on an orderly footing.