Henry William Carless Davis

“ It may be in part the fault of our authorities that the reign of Rufus presents itself to us as a series of episodes between which the connexion is often of the slightest. In his domestic administration we can trace a certain continuity of purpose, and in his dealings with the Welsh and Scots he proceeded, though intermittently, along the broad lines of policy which his father had marked out. Beyond the Channel he busied himself with schemes, first for the reunion of England and Normandy, then for the aggrandisement of Normandy at the expense of France. ”

“ He was his mother’s favourite, and she bequeathed to him her English estates, which, however, he was not permitted to hold in his father’s lifetime. Henry received a good education, of which in later life he was proud; he is credited with the saying that an unlettered king is only a crowned ass. His attainments included Latin, which he could both read and write; he knew something of the English laws and language, and it may have been from an interest in natural history that he collected, during his reign, the Woodstock menagerie which was the admiration of his subjects. ”

“ But the young Orderic felt for some time, as he tells us, like Joseph in a strange land. He did not know a word of French when he reached Normandy; his book, though written many years later, shows that he never lost his English cast of mind or his attachment to the country of his birth. His superiors rechristened him Vitalis (after a member of the legendary Theban legion) because they found a difficulty in pronouncing his baptismal name. But, in the title of his Ecclesiastical History he prefixes the old to the new name and proudly adds the epithet Angligena. ”

“ So began the period of misrule by which Henry III. is chiefly remembered in history. The Poitevins fell in 1234; they were removed at the demand of the barons and the primate Edmund Rich, who held them responsible for the tragic fate of the rebellious Richard Marshal. But the king replaced them with a new clique of servile and rapacious favourites. Disregarding the wishes of the Great Council, and excluding all the more important of the barons and bishops from office, he acted as his own chief minister and never condescended to justify his policy except when he stood in need of subsidies. ”

“ His tastes were literary, and the earliest fact which he records of his career is that he assisted Abbot Godfrey (1081–1105) in collecting a library for the use of the community. The education which he received at Malmesbury included a smattering of logic and physics; but moral philosophy and history, especially the latter, were the subjects to which he devoted most attention. Later he made for himself a collection of the histories of foreign countries, from reading which he conceived an ambition to produce a popular account of English history, modelled on the great work of Bede. ”

“ His itinerant justices were not altogether a novelty in England or Normandy. It is characteristic of the man that the exchequer should be the chief institution created in his reign. The eulogies of the last Peterborough Chronicle on his government were written after the anarchy of Stephen’s reign had invested his predecessor’s “good peace” with the glamour of a golden age. Henry was respected and not tyrannous. He showed a lofty indifference to criticism such as that of Eadmer in the Historia novorum, which was published early in the reign. ”

“ FLAMBARD, RANULF, or Ralph (d. 1128) , bishop of Durham and chief minister of William Rufus, was the son of a Norman parish priest who belonged to the diocese of Bayeux. Migrating at an early age to England, the young Ranulf entered the chancery of William I. and became conspicuous as a courtier. ”

“ He is prejudiced against the Saracens, against the French, and against all the rivals or enemies of his master; but he is never guilty of deliberate misrepresentation. He is rather to be treated as a biographer than as a historian of the Crusade in its broader aspects. None the less he is the chief authority for the events of the years 1190–1192, so far as these are connected with the Holy Land. The Itinerarium Regis Ricardi (formerly attributed to Geoffrey Vinsauf, but in reality the work of Richard, a canon of Holy Trinity, London) is little more than a free paraphrase of Ambrose. ”

“ His Morte d’Arthur, printed by Caxton in 1485, epitomizes the rich mythology which Geoffrey’s work had first called into life, and gave the Arthurian story a lasting place in the English imagination. The influence of the Historia Britonum may be illustrated in another way, by enumerating the more familiar of the legends to which it first gave popularity. ”

“ Grosseteste, the most eminent of the bishops, died in 1253, when he was on the point of becoming a popular hero. Among the lay barons, the first place naturally belonged to Richard of Cornwall who, as the king’s brother, was unwilling to take any steps which might impair the royal prerogative; while Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, the ablest man of his order, was regarded with suspicion as a foreigner, and linked to Henry’s cause by his marriage with the princess Eleanor. ”

“ ALREDUS, Alured or Aluredus, OF BEVERLEY, was sacristan of the church of Beverley in the first half of the 12th century. He wrote, apparently about the year 1143, a chronicle entitled Annales sive Historia de gestis regum Britanniae, which begins with Brutus and carries the history of England down to 1129. ”

“ But he gives us much invaluable information for which we should search the more methodical chroniclers in vain. He throws a flood of light upon the manners and ideas of his own age; he sometimes comments with surprising shrewdness upon the broader aspects and tendencies of history. ”

“ In 1163 Henry returned to England, and almost immediately embarked on that quarrel with the Church which is the keynote to the middle period of the reign.
Henry had good cause to complain of the ecclesiastical courts, and had only awaited a convenient season to correct abuses which were admitted by all reasonable men. But he allowed the question to be complicated by personal issues. He was bitterly disappointed that Becket, on whom he bestowed the primacy, left vacant by the death of Theobald (1162) , at once became the champion of clerical privilege ”

“ BURGH, HUBERT DE (d. 1243) , chief justiciar of England in the reign of John and Henry III., entered the royal service in the reign of Richard I. He traced his descent from Robert of Mortain, half brother of the Conqueror and first earl of Cornwall; he married about 1200 the daughter of William de Vernon, earl of Devon; and thus, from the beginning of his career, he stood within the circle of the great ruling families. But he owed his high advancement to exceptional ability as an administrator and a soldier. ”

“ As to the oppression of the church we are more fully informed; after allowing for exaggeration there still remains evidence enough to prove that the ecclesiastical policy of Rufus was unscrupulously venal. Vacant sees and abbacies were either kept for years in the hands of the king, who claimed the right of a feudal guardian to appropriate the revenues so long as the vacancy continued; or they were openly sold to the highest bidder. The history of Anselm's relations with the king is fully narrated by the biographer Eadmer. ”

“ Among later historians who were deceived by the Historia Britonum it is only needful to mention Higdon, Hardyng, Fabyan (1512) , Holinshed (1580) and John Milton. Still greater was the influence of Geoffrey upon those writers who, like Warner in Albion’s England (1586) , and Drayton in Polyolbion (1613) , deliberately made their accounts of English history as poetical as possible. The stories which Geoffrey preserved or invented were not infrequently a source of inspiration to literary artists. ”

“ BENEDICTUS ABBAS (d. 1194) , abbot of Peterborough, whose name is accidentally connected with the Gesta Henrici Regis Secundi, one of the most valuable of English 12th-century chronicles. He first makes his appearance in 1174, as the chancellor of Archbishop Richard, the successor of Becket in the primacy. In 1175 Benedictus became prior of Holy Trinity, Canterbury; in 1177 he received from Henry II. the abbacy of Peterborough, which he held until his death. As abbot he distinguished himself by his activity in building, in administering the finances of his house and in collecting a library. ”

“ Before his death the Historia Britonum had already become a model and a quarry for poets and chroniclers. The list of imitators begins with Geoffrey Gaimar, the author of the Estorie des Engles (c. 1147) , and Wace, whose Roman de Brut (1155) is partly a translation and partly a free paraphrase of the Historia. In the next century the influence of Geoffrey is unmistakably attested by the Brut of Layamon, and the rhyming English chronicle of Robert of Gloucester. ”

“ The Savoyards encouraged his natural tendency to support the Papacy against the Empire; at an early date in the period of misrule he entered into a close alliance with Rome, which resulted in heavy taxation of the clergy and gave great umbrage to the barons. A cardinal-legate was sent to England at Henry’s request, and during four years (1237–1241) administered the English Church in a manner equally profitable to the king and to the pope. ”

“ The Bohuns came into England at, or shortly after, the Norman Conquest; but their early history there is obscure. The founder of their greatness was Humphrey III., who in the latter years of Henry I., makes his appearance as a dapifer, or steward, in the royal household. He married the daughter of Milo of Gloucester, and played an ambiguous part in Stephen’s reign, siding at first with the king and afterwards with the empress. ”

“ Becket’s fate, though it supplied an excuse, was certainly not the real cause of the troubles with his sons which disturbed the king’s later years (1173–1189) . But Henry’s misfortunes were largely of his own making. Queen Eleanor, whom he alienated by his faithlessness, stirred up her sons to rebellion; and they had grievances enough to be easily persuaded. Henry was an affectionate but a suspicious and close-handed father. ”

“ Henry, like his grandfather, gained in popularity with every year of his reign. In 1183 the death of Prince Henry, the heir-apparent, while engaged in a war against his brother Richard and their father, secured a short interval of peace. But in 1184 Geoffrey of Brittany and John combined with their father’s leave to make war upon Richard, now the heir-apparent. After Geoffrey’s death (1186) the feud between John and Richard drove the latter into an alliance with Philip Augustus of France. The ill-success of the old king in this war aggravated the disease from which he was suffering ”

“ Local risings in Norfolk, Somerset and the Welsh marches were easily repressed by the king's lieutenants. The castles of Kent and Sussex offered a more formidable resistance, since their lords were in direct communication with Robert of Normandy, and were led by the able Odo of Bayeux (q.v.) , the king's uncle, who had been released from prison at the opening of the reign. Rufus, however, made an earnest appeal to the native English, promising good laws, the abolition of unjust taxes and redress for those who had suffered by the afforestments of the late king. ”

“ The succeeding age saw the Arthurian story popularized, through translations of the French romances, as far afield as Germany and Scandinavia. It produced in England the Roman du Saint Graal and the Roman de Merlin, both from the pen of Robert de Borron; the Roman de Lancelot; the Roman de Tristan, which is attributed to a fictitious Lucas de Gast. In the reign of Edward IV. Sir Thomas Malory paraphrased and arranged the best episodes of these romances in English prose. ”

“ The Great Council of England did homage to her under considerable pressure. Their reluctance to acknowledge a female sovereign was increased when Henry gave her in marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet, the heir of Anjou and Maine (1129) ; nor was it removed by the birth of the future Henry II. in 1133. On the old king’s death both England and Normandy accepted his nephew, Stephen, of Mortain and Boulogne. Matilda and her husband were in Anjou at the time. They wasted the next few years in the attempt to win Normandy ”

“ The empress in consequence reigned for six months as "Lady (Domino) of the English"; save for her faults of temper the cause of Stephen would never have been retrieved. But, later in the year, his supporters were able to procure his release in exchange for the earl of Gloucester. After an obstinate siege he expelled Matilda from Oxford (Dec. 1142) and compelled her to fall back upon the west. The next five years witnessed anarchy such as England had never before experienced. England north of the Ribble and the Tyne had passed into the hands if David of Scotland and his son, Prince Henry ”

“ Thus Orderic, though he witnessed no great events, was often well informed about them. In spite of a cumbrous and affected style, he is a vivid narrator; and his character sketches are admirable as summaries of current estimates. ”

“ The historical works of William of Malmesbury were edited by Savile in his Scriptores post Bedam (London, 1536) ; but the text of that edition is full of errors. Sir T. D. Hardy edited the Gesta regum and Historia novella for the English Historical Society in 1840, and put the criticism of the manuscripts on a sound basis. But the standard edition of these works is that of W. Stubbs in the “Rolls” series (1 vol., in 2, 1887–1889) ; the second part of this edition contains a valuable introduction on the sources and value of the chronicler. ”

“ HENRY OF HUNTINGDON, English chronicler of the 12th century, was born, apparently, between the years 1080 and 1090. His father, by name Nicholas, was a clerk, who became archdeacon of Cambridge, Hertford and Huntingdon, in the time of Remigius, bishop of Lincoln (d. 1092) . ”

“ BECKET, THOMAS (c. 1118–1170) , by his contemporaries more commonly called Thomas of London, English chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury under Henry II., was born about the year 1118 in London. His mother was a native of Caen; his father, who came of a family of small Norman landowners, had been a citizen of Rouen, but migrated to London before the birth of Thomas, and held at one time the dignified office of portreeve, although he ended his life in straitened circumstances. The young Thomas received an excellent education. ”

“ The master of a good Latin style, he shows literary instincts which are, for his time, remarkably sound. But his contempt for the annalistic form makes him at times careless in his chronology and arbitrary in his method of arranging his material; he not infrequently flies off at a tangent to relate stories which have little or no connexion with the main narrative; his critical faculty is too often allowed to lie dormant. ”