the sovereignty of Rome, where he abolished the name of consul, which had subsisted to this time; and Innocent found himself possessed of a power which was supreme in every sense of the

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CHAPTER VIII.

HISTORY OF ENGLAND during the Eleventh, Twelfth, and part of the Thir teenth Centuries:-Reign and Character of William the Conqueror-Dooms day book-William Rufus-Henry I.-Stephen-Henry II. (Plantagenet) Richard Cœur de Lion-King John-MAGNA Charta.

THE Consequence of the battle of Hastings, which was fought on the 14th of October, 1066, was the submission of all England to William the Conqueror. William advanced by rapid marches to London, and before he had come within sight of the city, he received the submission of the clergy and the chief nobility, among whom was Edgar Atheling, the nephew of Edward the Confessor, and the last male of the Saxon line. This prince had just before been acknowledged as king upon the intelligence of the death of Harold, but he wanted both spirit and abilities to make good his title. William accepted the crown upon the same terms on which it was usually conferred on the Saxon monarchs; which were, that he should govern according to the established customs of the kingdom: for this politic prince, who might have ruled upon any conditions, was pleased that his usurpation should receive the sanction of something like a free consent of his subjects. From the beginning of his reign, however, his partiality to his countrymen, the Normans, was abundantly conspicuous. They were promoted to all offices of honor and emolument, and he gave extreme disgust to the English by the partition which he made among these foreigners of the lands of the most illustrious nobility of the kingdom, as a punishment for having adhered to the defence of their king and country. A visit which William paid to his Norman dominions gave these discontents time to ripen and break out, and a conspiracy is said to have been secretly formed for destroying at once all the Normans by a general massacre, upon Ash Wednesday, 1068. The return, however, of William soon silenced these discontents; the chief persons accused of promoting this conspiracy fled over sea, and the body of the people were intimidated into tranquillity.

From that time forward William lost all confidence in his sup

jects of England. He determined to treat them as a conquered nation, and to secure his power by humbling all who were able to make resistance. This policy, however, embroiled him in perpetual commotions. Malcolm Caninore, king of Scotland, and Sweyn, king of Denmark, with the chief of the old Saxon nobility, excited a most formidable insurrection in the north. The activity of William, however, disconcerted their measures before they were ripe for execution; he made peace with the Scottish king, and showed an unusual instance of clemency, in accepting the submission of his rebellious subjects. These instances of rebellion must have sufficiently informed him of their disposition; but they did not alter the general tenor of his conduct; he continued to treat the English with distance, reserve, and severity. New vexations and impositions brought on new insurrections, and William was obliged in person to make several progresses through the kingdom, which generally reduced matters only to a temporary tranquillity. In short, he had no great reason to love his subjects of England, and he was heartily detested by them. He was a prince to whom nature had denied the requisites of making himself beloved, and who, therefore, made it his first object to render himself feared. Even the Normans, instigated probably by the French, endeavored to withdraw themselves from his yoke. To establish order in that country, he carried over an army of Englishmen; thus, by a capricious vicissitude of fortune, we see the Normans brought over for the conquest of the English, and the English sent back to conquer the Normans. With these troops he reduced the rebels to submission, and returned to England to be again embroiled in conspiracies and rebellion. The last and severest of his troubles arose from his own children. His eldest son, Robert, had been promised by his father the sovereignty of Maine, a province of France, which had submitted to William; he claimed the performance in his father's lifetime, who contemptuously told him, he thought it was time enough to throw off his clothes when he went to bed. Robert, who was of a most violent temper, instantly withdrew to Normandy, when in a short time he engaged all the young nobility to espouse his quarrel. Brittany, Anjou, and Maine likewise took part against William, who brought over another army of the English to subdue the rebellion. The father and son met in fight, and being clad in armor did not know each other, till Robert, having wounded his father and thrown him from his horse, his voice (calling out for assistance) discovered him to his antagonist. Stung with consciousness of the crime, Robert fell at his feet, and in the most submissive manner entreated his forgiveness. The indignation of William was not to be appeased: he gave his son his malediction instead of his pardon; and though he afterwards employed him in his service and left him heir to his Norman dominions, it does not appear that the prince was ever received into favor.

The last of the enterprises of William was against France, to which he had been excited by some railleries which Philip I. had vented on occasion of his personal infirmities. William, to convince him that he could yet make himself formidable, entered that province of the kingdom called the Isle of France with an immense army, and destroyed, burnt, and plundered all that lay in his way. An accident, however, put an end to his life. He was thrown from his horse, and carried to a small village near Rouen, where he died. He bequeathed the kingdom of England to his youngest son, William, who had always been his favorite. This bequest would have availed little, but for a concurrence of favorable circumstances. The English people hated Robert, the eldest son, who had lived little among them, and whose rebellion they disapproved. Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, was the friend of William Rufus, and the principal nobility of the kingdom were attached to his interest. To Robert he left Normandy; and to Henry, his second son, he left the effects of his mother Matilda, without any inheritance in territory.

William the Conqueror, though not an amiable, was certainly a great prince. He possessed extreme vigor of mind, and a bold and enterprising spirit, which was always regulated by prudence. The maxins of his administration were severe, but enforced with consummate policy. He introduced into England the feudal law, which he had found established in France, and which, during that age, was the foundation both of the stability and of the disorders in most of the monarchical governments of Europe. He divided all the lands of England, with a very few exceptions besides the royal demesnes, into baronies; and he bestowed these, with the reservation of stated services and payments, on his Norman followers. From these Norman barons are descended some of the most ancient and noble families of England. William, in short, through the whole of his reign, considered the English as a conquered nation. Under the Anglo-Saxon government the people had enjoyed a very considerable portion of freedom. The greater barons, perhaps even some of the landholders, had their share in the government, by their place in the Wittenagemot, or assembly of the states. Under William, the rights and privileges of all the orders of the state seem to have been annihilated and overpowered by the weight of the crown; but this very circumstance, unfavorable as it may appear to the people's liberties, was, in fact, the very cause of the subsequent freedom of the English constitution. It was the excessive power of the crown that gave rise to a spirit of union among the people in all their efforts to resist it; and from the want of that spirit of union in the other feudal kingdoms of the continent, a spirit which was not excited in them by a total extinction of their liberties as it was in England by the whole career of William the Conqueror,-we can easily account for the great difference at this day between their constitutions and ours. with respect to political freedom.

One of the most oppressive measures of William the Conqueror was the enactment of the forest laws. He reserved to himself the exclusive privilege of killing game throughout all England, and enacted the most severe penalties on all who should attempt it without his permission. Not satisfied with this severe and most impolitic measure, William, to gratify his passion for the chase, laid waste a country of about fifty miles in circuit, drove out all the inhabitants, and threw down the villages, and even churches, to make the New Forest in Hampshire; thus exterminating at once above 100,000 inhabitants, many of whom perished from famine. It is not, therefore, without reason that Lord Lyttelton remarks, "that Attila himself did not more justly deserve to be named the Scourge of God, than this merciless Norman. It was this severe restriction of the forest lawsthis mark of servitude that, above every other circumstance, lay heavy on the English, and, in the reign of the succeeding prince, excited at length those vigorous efforts which produced the most favorable concessions for the general liberty.

Preparatory to William's plan of reducing England entirely under the feudal government, he found it necessary to engage in and complete a very great undertaking. This was a general survey of all the kingdom, an account of its extent, its proprietors, their tenures, and their values; the quantity of meadow, pasture, wood, and arable land which they contained; the number of tenants, cottagers, and servants of all denominations who lived upon then. Commissioners were appointed for this purpose, who, after six years employed in the survey, brought him an exact account of the whole property in the kingdom. This monument, called Doomsday book, the most valuable piece of antiquity possessed by any nation, is at this day in existence, and is preserved in the English Exchequer. It was, in the year 1782, printed by an order of parliament. It may easily be conceived how much it must tend to illustrate the ancient state of the kingdom.

William II., surnamed Rufus, had all his father's vices without his good qualities. No action of importance signalized his reign, which was of thirteen years' duration. The red king was a violent and tyrannical prince; arbitrary and overbearing to his subjects, and unkind to his relations. The despotism of his authority, however, kept the kingdom in peaceable submission. He indulged without reserve that domineering policy which suited his temper; and which, if supported, as it was in him, with courage and vigor, proves often more successful in disorderly times than the deepest foresight and the most refined political wisdom. He left some laudable memorials of a truly royal spirit in the building of the Tower of London, Westminster Hall, and London Bridge.

While hunting the stag, he was killed by a random shot of an

arrow, and leaving no legitimate issue, the succession devolved, of course, on Robert of Normandy, his elder brother; but he was then too distant to assert his pretensions. This valiant prince was at that time distinguishing himself by his heroism in the first crusade against the infidels in Palestine, and the throne of England was, in the meantime, occupied by Henry, his younger brother, without opposition. The circumstances in which Henry I. had acquired the crown had their influence upon the whole tenor of his life; so true it is, that fortune and accident often decide what shall be a man's character. Had Henry I..mounted the throne, as the nearest heir to the preceding monarch, it is not to be doubted, that from the dispositions which he certainly possessed, he would have been a great, perhaps a good and virtuous prince; but his cause was a bad one, and was not easily to be supported with a good conscience and a virtuous character. Not satisfied with the usurpation of the crown of England, he determined to strip his elder brother, likewise, of his dominions. of Normandy. Robert returned with all speed from his Eastern expedition, but his army was defeated, and he himself taken prisoner. Henry carried him in triumph to England, where he ungenerously detained him in close confinement in Wales during the remainder of his life.

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An usurper must secure his power by acts of popularity. Henry, soon after his accession to the throne, granted a charter, extremely favorable to the liberties of the people, and which has been justly regarded as the groundwork of the claim of privileges made by the English barons in the reign of king John, which he confirmed by Magna Charta. These privileges, it is even contended by the zealous advocates for the rights of the people, were of a much more ancient date. "Henry I.," "Henry I.," says Lord Lyttelton, by this charter restored the Saxon laws which were in use under Edward the Confessor;" but with such alterations, or, as he styled them, emendations, as had been made by his father, with the advice of his parliament; at the same time, annulling all civil customs and illegal exactions, by which the realm had been unjustly oppressed. The charter also contained very considerable mitigations of those feudal rights claimed by the king over his tenants, and by them over theirs, which either were the most burdensome in their own nature, or had been made so by an abusive extension. In short, all the liberty that could well be consistent with the safety and interest of the lord in his fief was allowed to the vassal by this charter, and the profits due to the former were settled according to a determined and moderate rule of law. "It was," says Sir Henry Spelman, "the original of king John's Magna Charta, containing most of the

* For the provisions of this charter, see Carte's History of England, b. v., § 48.