name. Every one at Henry's court talked French, and 'Eadgyth' was unpronounceable in French. The new queen was therefore known as Matilda, or Maud. The English called her the good queen. The Normans mocked her husband and herself by giving them the English nicknames of Godric and Godgifu.

2. Invasion of Robert. 1101.-One danger at least Henry had to face. The Norman barons yearned after the weak rule of Robert, who was again in possession of Normandy. Once, we are told, he had to stay in bed till noon, because his favourites had carried off his clothes, and he had no others to put on. A duke who could not keep his own clothes was not likely to be able to rule his duchy, and Normandy was again the scene of fightings and plunderings which he made no effort to suppress. Flambard, having escaped from prison, fled to Normandy, and urged Robert to claim England as the heritage of the eldest on of the Conqueror. Robert listened to the tempter and sailed for England. When he landed at Porchester he found that the Church and the English had rallied to Henry. Robert's position was hopeless, and he made a treaty with his brother, abandoning all claim to the crown.

3. Revolt of Robert of Bellême. 1102.-Henry knew that the great barons wished well to Robert, and on one pretext or another he stripped most of them of power. Robert of Bellême, the strongest and wickedest of them all, rose in revolt. After capturing many of his castles, Henry laid siege to his great fortress at Bridgenorth. The barons who served under Henry urged him to spare a rebel who was one of their own class. The Englishmen and the inferior Norman knights thought otherwise. "Lord King Henry," they cried, "trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice. . . . Behold, we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to serve and help you in all things. Attack the castle vigorously; shut in the traitor on all sides, and make no peace with him till you have him alive or dead in your hands." Bridgenorth was taken, and Robert of Bellême, having been stripped of his English land, was sent off to Normandy. Henry was now, in very truth, king of the English. "Rejoice, King Henry," ran a popular song, "and give thanks to the Lord God, because thou art a free king since thou hast overthrown Robert of Bellême, and hast driven him from the borders of thy kingdom." Never again during Henry's reign did the great Norman lords dare to lift hand against him.

4. The Battle of Tinchebrai. 1105. It was impossible for Henry to avoid interference in Normandy. Many of his vassals in

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125

England possessed lands in Normandy as well, where they were exposed to the violence of Robert of Bellême and of others who had been expelled from England. The Duke of the Normans would do nothing to keep the peace, and Henry crossed the sea to protect his own injured subjects.

Duke Robert naturally resisted him, and at last, in 1106, a great battle was fought at Tinchebrai, in which Robert was utterly defeated. Duke Robert was kept for the remainder of his life a prisoner in Cardiff Castle, where he died after an imprisonment of twenty-eight years. Henry became Duke of the Normans as well as king of the English, and all Normandy was the better for the

Seal of Milo of Gloucester, showing mounted armed
figure in the reign of Henry I.

change. Robert of Bellême was thrown into prison, and the cruel oppressor thus shared the fate of the weak ruler whose remissness had made his oppressions possible.

5. Henry and Anselm. 1100-1107.--Though Anselm had done everything in his power to support Henry against Robert of Bellême, he was himself engaged in a dispute with the king which lasted for some years. A bishop in Anselm's time was not only a great Church officer, whose duty it was to maintain a high standard of religion and morality amongst the clergy. He was also one of the king's barons, because he was possessed of large estates, and was therefore bound like any other baron to send knights to the king when they were needed. Consequently, when Anselm became archbishop he had not only received investiture from William II. by accepting from him the ring and the staff which were the signs of ecclesiastical authority, but also did homage, thus acknowledging himself to be the king's man, and obliging himself, not indeed to fight for him in person, but to send knights to fight under his orders. When, however, Henry came to the throne, and asked Anselm to repeat the homage which he had done to William,

Anselm not only refused himself to comply with the king's request, but also refused to consecrate newly-chosen bishops who had received investiture from Henry. During the time of his exile Anselm had taken part in a council of the Church, in which bishops and abbots nad been forbidden by the Pope and the council either to receive investiture from laymen or to do homage to them. These decrees had not been issued merely to serve the purpose of papal ambition. At that time all zealous ecclesiastics thought that the only way to stop the violence of kings in their dealings with the Church was to make the Church entirely independent. Anselm's experience of the Red King's wickedness must have made him ready to concur with this new view, and there can be no doubt that it was from the most conscientious motives that he refused to do homage to Henry. On the other hand, Henry, wishing to rule justly, thought it very hard that the archbishop should insist upon the independence of the bishops, especially as in consequence of their large estates they had so many knights to send into the field. Though the dispute was a hot one, it was carried on without any of the violence which had characterised the dispute between Anselm and the Red King, and it ended in a compromise. Henry abandoned all claim to give the ring and the pastoral staff which were the signs of a bishop's or an abbot's spiritual jurisdiction, whilst Anselm consented to allow the new bishop or abbot to render the homage which was the sign of his readiness to employ all his temporal wealth and power on the king's behalf. The bishop was to be chosen by the chapter of his cathedral, the abbot by the monks of his abbey, but the election was to take place in the king's presence, thus giving him influence over their choice. Whether this settlement would work in favour of the king or the clergy depended on the character of the kings and the clergy. If the kings were as riotous as the Red King and the clergy as self-denying as Anselm, the clergy would grow strong in spite of these arrangements. If the kings were as just and wise as Henry, and the clergy as wicked as Ralph Flambard, all advantage would be on the side of the king.

6. Roger of Salisbury.—After the defeat of the Norman barons the Great Council ceased for a time to have any important influence on the government. Henry was practically an absolute king, and it was well that he should be so, as the country wanted order more than discussion. Henry, however, loved to exercise absolute power in an orderly way, and he chose for his chief minister Roger, whom he made Bishop of Salisbury. Roger had first attracted his notice when he was going out hunting, by saying mass in a shorter time

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ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER

127

than any other priest, but he retained his favour by the order and
system which he introduced into the government. A special body
of officials and councillors was selected by the king-perhaps a
similar body had been selected by his predecessor-to sit in judg-
ment over cases in which tenants-in-chief were concerned, as well
as over other cases which were, for one reason or another, trans-
ferred to it from the Baronial Courts. This council or committee
was called the Curia Regis (the
King's Court). The members of this
Curia Regis met also in the Exche-
quer, so called from the chequered
cloth which covered the table at
which they sat. They were then
known as Barons of the Exchequer,
and controlled the receipts and out-
goings of the treasury. The Justiciar
presided in both the Curia Regis
and the Exchequer. Amongst those
who took part in these proceedings
was the Chancellor, who was then
a secretary and not a judge, as well
as other superior officers of the
king. A regular system of finance
was introduced, and a regular sys-
tem of justice accompanied it. At
last the king determined to send
some of the judges of his court to
go on circuit into distant parts of the
kingdom. These itinerant Justices
Justitiarii errantes) brought the
royal power into connection with
the local courts. Their business
was of a very miscellaneous charac-
ter. They not only heard the cases
in which the king was concerned-
the pleas of the crown, as they
were called-but they made assessments for purposes of taxation,
listened to complaints, and conveyed the king's wishes to his
people.

7. Growth of Trade.-Though Henry's severe discipline was not liked, yet the law and order which he maintained told on the prosperity of the country, and the trade of London flourished so

"

much as to attract citizens from Normandy to settle in it. Flemings too, trained in habits of industry, came in crowds, and with the view of providing a bulwark against the Welsh, Henry settled a colony of them in South Pembrokeshire, which has since been known as Little England beyond Wales. The foreigners were not popular, but the Jews, to whom Henry continued the protection which William had given them, were more unpopular still.

8. The Benedictines. In the midst of this busy life the Benedictine monasteries were still harbours of refuge for all who did not care to fight or trade. They were now indeed wealthier than they had once been, as gifts, usually of land, had been made to the monks by those who reverenced their piety. Sometimes these gifts took a shape which afterwards caused no little evil. Landowners who had churches on their lands often gave to a monastery the tithes which had hitherto been paid for the support of the parish priest, and the monastery stepped into the place of the parish priest,