CHAPTER X--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-SCHOLAR
Fine-scholar, on hearing of the Red King's death, hurried to Winchesterwith as much speed as Rufus himself had made, to seize the Royaltreasure. But the keeper of the treasure who had been one of the hunting-party in the Forest, made haste to Winchester too, and, arriving there atabout the same time, refused to yield it up. Upon this, Fine-Scholardrew his sword, and threatened to kill the treasurer; who might have paidfor his fidelity with his life, but that he knew longer resistance to beuseless when he found the Prince supported by a company of powerfulbarons, who declared they were determined to make him King. Thetreasurer, therefore, gave up the money and jewels of the Crown: and onthe third day after the death of the Red King, being a Sunday,Fine-Scholar stood before the high altar in Westminster Abbey, and made asolemn declaration that he would resign the Church property which hisbrother had seized; that he would do no wrong to the nobles; and that hewould restore to the people the laws of Edward the Confessor, with allthe improvements of William the Conqueror. So began the reign of KINGHENRY THE FIRST.
The people were attached to their new King, both because he had knowndistresses, and because he was an Englishman by birth and not a Norman.To strengthen this last hold upon them, the King wished to marry anEnglish lady; and could think of no other wife than MAUD THE GOOD, thedaughter of the King of Scotland. Although this good Princess did notlove the King, she was so affected by the representations the nobles madeto her of the great charity it would be in her to unite the Norman andSaxon races, and prevent hatred and bloodshed between them for thefuture, that she consented to become his wife. After some disputingamong the priests, who said that as she had been in a convent in heryouth, and had worn the veil of a nun, she could not lawfully bemarried--against which the Princess stated that her aunt, with whom shehad lived in her youth, had indeed sometimes thrown a piece of blackstuff over her, but for no other reason than because the nun's veil wasthe only dress the conquering Normans respected in girl or woman, and notbecause she had taken the vows of a nun, which she never had--she wasdeclared free to marry, and was made King Henry's Queen. A good Queenshe was; beautiful, kind-hearted, and worthy of a better husband than theKing.
For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm and clever. Hecared very little for his word, and took any means to gain his ends. Allthis is shown in his treatment of his brother Robert--Robert, who hadsuffered him to be refreshed with water, and who had sent him the winefrom his own table, when he was shut up, with the crows flying below him,parched with thirst, in the castle on the top of St. Michael's Mount,where his Red brother would have let him die.
Before the King began to deal with Robert, he removed and disgraced allthe favourites of the late King; who were for the most part basecharacters, much detested by the people. Flambard, or Firebrand, whomthe late King had made Bishop of Durham, of all things in the world,Henry imprisoned in the Tower; but Firebrand was a great joker and ajolly companion, and made himself so popular with his guards that theypretended to know nothing about a long rope that was sent into his prisonat the bottom of a deep flagon of wine. The guards took the wine, andFirebrand took the rope; with which, when they were fast asleep, he lethimself down from a window in the night, and so got cleverly aboard shipand away to Normandy.
Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar came to the throne, was stillabsent in the Holy Land. Henry pretended that Robert had been madeSovereign of that country; and he had been away so long, that theignorant people believed it. But, behold, when Henry had been some timeKing of England, Robert came home to Normandy; having leisurely returnedfrom Jerusalem through Italy, in which beautiful country he had enjoyedhimself very much, and had married a lady as beautiful as itself! InNormandy, he found Firebrand waiting to urge him to assert his claim tothe English crown, and declare war against King Henry. This, after greatloss of time in feasting and dancing with his beautiful Italian wifeamong his Norman friends, he at last did.
The English in general were on King Henry's side, though many of theNormans were on Robert's. But the English sailors deserted the King, andtook a great part of the English fleet over to Normandy; so that Robertcame to invade this country in no foreign vessels, but in English ships.The virtuous Anselm, however, whom Henry had invited back from abroad,and made Archbishop of Canterbury, was steadfast in the King's cause; andit was so well supported that the two armies, instead of fighting, made apeace. Poor Robert, who trusted anybody and everybody, readily trustedhis brother, the King; and agreed to go home and receive a pension fromEngland, on condition that all his followers were fully pardoned. Thisthe King very faithfully promised, but Robert was no sooner gone than hebegan to punish them.
Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on being summoned by the Kingto answer to five-and-forty accusations, rode away to one of his strongcastles, shut himself up therein, called around him his tenants andvassals, and fought for his liberty, but was defeated and banished.Robert, with all his faults, was so true to his word, that when he firstheard of this nobleman having risen against his brother, he laid wastethe Earl of Shrewsbury's estates in Normandy, to show the King that hewould favour no breach of their treaty. Finding, on better information,afterwards, that the Earl's only crime was having been his friend, hecame over to England, in his old thoughtless, warm-hearted way, tointercede with the King, and remind him of the solemn promise to pardonall his followers.
This confidence might have put the false King to the blush, but it didnot. Pretending to be very friendly, he so surrounded his brother withspies and traps, that Robert, who was quite in his power, had nothing forit but to renounce his pension and escape while he could. Getting hometo Normandy, and understanding the King better now, he naturally alliedhimself with his old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had still thirtycastles in that country. This was exactly what Henry wanted. Heimmediately declared that Robert had broken the treaty, and next yearinvaded Normandy.
He pretended that he came to deliver the Normans, at their own request,from his brother's misrule. There is reason to fear that his misrule wasbad enough; for his beautiful wife had died, leaving him with an infantson, and his court was again so careless, dissipated, and ill-regulated,that it was said he sometimes lay in bed of a day for want of clothes toput on--his attendants having stolen all his dresses. But he headed hisarmy like a brave prince and a gallant soldier, though he had themisfortune to be taken prisoner by King Henry, with four hundred of hisKnights. Among them was poor harmless Edgar Atheling, who loved Robertwell. Edgar was not important enough to be severe with. The Kingafterwards gave him a small pension, which he lived upon and died upon,in peace, among the quiet woods and fields of England.
And Robert--poor, kind, generous, wasteful, heedless Robert, with so manyfaults, and yet with virtues that might have made a better and a happierman--what was the end of him? If the King had had the magnanimity to saywith a kind air, 'Brother, tell me, before these noblemen, that from thistime you will be my faithful follower and friend, and never raise yourhand against me or my forces more!' he might have trusted Robert to thedeath. But the King was not a magnanimous man. He sentenced his brotherto be confined for life in one of the Royal Castles. In the beginning ofhis imprisonment, he was allowed to ride out, guarded; but he one daybroke away from his guard and galloped of. He had the evil fortune toride into a swamp, where his horse stuck fast and he was taken. When theKing heard of it he ordered him to be blinded, which was done by puttinga red-hot metal basin on his eyes.
And so, in darkness and in prison, many years, he thought of all his pastlife, of the time he had wasted, of the treasure he had squandered, ofthe opportunities he had lost, of the youth he had thrown away, of thetalents he had neglected. Sometimes, on fine autumn mornings, he wouldsit and think of the old hunting parties in the free Forest, where he hadbeen the foremost and the gayest. Sometimes, in the still nights, hewould wake, and mourn for the many nights that had stolen past him at thegaming-table; sometimes, would seem to hear, upon the melancholy wind,the old songs of the minstrels; sometimes, would dream, in his blindness,of the light and glitter of the Norman Court. Many and many a time, hegroped back, in his fancy, to Jerusalem, where he had fought so well; or,at the head of his brave companions, bowed his feathered helmet to theshouts of welcome greeting him in Italy, and seemed again to walk amongthe sunny vineyards, or on the shore of the blue sea, with his lovelywife. And then, thinking of her grave, and of his fatherless boy, hewould stretch out his solitary arms and weep.
At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel and disfiguringscars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his jailer's sight, but on whichthe eternal Heavens looked down, a worn old man of eighty. He had oncebeen Robert of Normandy. Pity him!
{Duke Robert of Normandy: p52.jpg}
At the time when Robert of Normandy was taken prisoner by his brother,Robert's little son was only five years old. This child was taken, too,and carried before the King, sobbing and crying; for, young as he was, heknew he had good reason to be afraid of his Royal uncle. The King wasnot much accustomed to pity those who were in his power, but his coldheart seemed for the moment to soften towards the boy. He was observedto make a great effort, as if to prevent himself from being cruel, andordered the child to be taken away; whereupon a certain Baron, who hadmarried a daughter of Duke Robert's (by name, Helie of Saint Saen), tookcharge of him, tenderly. The King's gentleness did not last long. Beforetwo years were over, he sent messengers to this lord's Castle to seizethe child and bring him away. The Baron was not there at the time, buthis servants were faithful, and carried the boy off in his sleep and hidhim. When the Baron came home, and was told what the King had done, hetook the child abroad, and, leading him by the hand, went from King toKing and from Court to Court, relating how the child had a claim to thethrone of England, and how his uncle the King, knowing that he had thatclaim, would have murdered him, perhaps, but for his escape.
The youth and innocence of the pretty little WILLIAM FITZ-ROBERT (forthat was his name) made him many friends at that time. When he became ayoung man, the King of France, uniting with the French Counts of Anjouand Flanders, supported his cause against the King of England, and tookmany of the King's towns and castles in Normandy. But, King Henry,artful and cunning always, bribed some of William's friends with money,some with promises, some with power. He bought off the Count of Anjou,by promising to marry his eldest son, also named WILLIAM, to the Count'sdaughter; and indeed the whole trust of this King's life was in suchbargains, and he believed (as many another King has done since, and asone King did in France a very little time ago) that every man's truth andhonour can be bought at some price. For all this, he was so afraid ofWilliam Fitz-Robert and his friends, that, for a long time, he believedhis life to be in danger; and never lay down to sleep, even in his palacesurrounded by his guards, without having a sword and buckler at hisbedside.
To strengthen his power, the King with great ceremony betrothed hiseldest daughter MATILDA, then a child only eight years old, to be thewife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of Germany. To raise her marriage-portion, he taxed the English people in a most oppressive manner; thentreated them to a great procession, to restore their good humour; andsent Matilda away, in fine state, with the German ambassadors, to beeducated in the country of her future husband.
And now his Queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It was a sad thoughtfor that gentle lady, that the only hope with which she had married a manwhom she had never loved--the hope of reconciling the Norman and Englishraces--had failed. At the very time of her death, Normandy and allFrance was in arms against England; for, so soon as his last danger wasover, King Henry had been false to all the French powers he had promised,bribed, and bought, and they had naturally united against him. Aftersome fighting, however, in which few suffered but the unhappy commonpeople (who always suffered, whatsoever was the matter), he began topromise, bribe, and buy again; and by those means, and by the help of thePope, who exerted himself to save more bloodshed, and by solemnlydeclaring, over and over again, that he really was in earnest this time,and would keep his word, the King made peace.
One of the first consequences of this peace was, that the King went overto Normandy with his son Prince William and a great retinue, to have thePrince acknowledged as his successor by the Norman Nobles, and tocontract the promised marriage (this was one of the many promises theKing had broken) between him and the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Boththese things were triumphantly done, with great show and rejoicing; andon the twenty-fifth of November, in the year one thousand one hundred andtwenty, the whole retinue prepared to embark at the Port of Barfleur, forthe voyage home.
On that day, and at that place, there came to the King, Fitz-Stephen, asea-captain, and said:
'My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon the sea. Hesteered the ship with the golden boy upon the prow, in which your fathersailed to conquer England. I beseech you to grant me the same office. Ihave a fair vessel in the harbour here, called The White Ship, manned byfifty sailors of renown. I pray you, Sire, to let your servant have thehonour of steering you in The White Ship to England!'
'I am sorry, friend,' replied the King, 'that my vessel is alreadychosen, and that I cannot (therefore) sail with the son of the man whoserved my father. But the Prince and all his company shall go along withyou, in the fair White Ship, manned by the fifty sailors of renown.'
An hour or two afterwards, the King set sail in the vessel he had chosen,accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all night with a fair andgentle wind, arrived upon the coast of England in the morning. While itwas yet night, the people in some of those ships heard a faint wild crycome over the sea, and wondered what it was.
Now, the Prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of eighteen, whobore no love to the English, and had declared that when he came to thethrone he would yoke them to the plough like oxen. He went aboard TheWhite Ship, with one hundred and forty youthful Nobles like himself,among whom were eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank. All this gaycompany, with their servants and the fifty sailors, made three hundredsouls aboard the fair White Ship.
'Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen,' said the Prince, 'to the fiftysailors of renown! My father the King has sailed out of the harbour.What time is there to make merry here, and yet reach England with therest?'
'Prince!' said Fitz-Stephen, 'before morning, my fifty and The White Shipshall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your father the King,if we sail at midnight!'
Then the Prince commanded to make merry; and the sailors drank out thethree casks of wine; and the Prince and all the noble company danced inthe moonlight on the deck of The White Ship.
When, at last, she shot out of the harbour of Barfleur, there was not asober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, and the oars allgoing merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. The gay young nobles and thebeautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various bright colours to protectthem from the cold, talked, laughed, and sang. The Prince encouraged thefifty sailors to row harder yet, for the honour of The White Ship.
Crash! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. It was the crythe people in the distant vessels of the King heard faintly on the water.The White Ship had struck upon a rock--was filling--going down!
Fitz-Stephen hurried the Prince into a boat, with some few Nobles. 'Pushoff,' he whispered; 'and row to land. It is not far, and the sea issmooth. The rest of us must die.'
But, as they rowed away, fast, from the sinking ship, the Prince heardthe voice of his sister MARIE, the Countess of Perche, calling for help.He never in his life had been so good as he was then. He cried in anagony, 'Row back at any risk! I cannot bear to leave her!'
They rowed back. As the Prince held out his arms to catch his sister,such numbers leaped in, that the boat was overset. And in the sameinstant The White Ship went down.
Only two men floated. They both clung to the main yard of the ship,which had broken from the mast, and now supported them. One asked theother who he was? He said, 'I am a nobleman, GODFREY by name, the son ofGILBERT DE L'AIGLE. And you?' said he. 'I am BEROLD, a poor butcher ofRouen,' was the answer. Then, they said together, 'Lord be merciful tous both!' and tried to encourage one another, as they drifted in the coldbenumbing sea on that unfortunate November night.
By-and-by, another man came swimming towards them, whom they knew, whenhe pushed aside his long wet hair, to be Fitz-Stephen. 'Where is thePrince?' said he. 'Gone! Gone!' the two cried together. 'Neither he,nor his brother, nor his sister, nor the King's niece, nor her brother,nor any one of all the brave three hundred, noble or commoner, except wethree, has risen above the water!' Fitz-Stephen, with a ghastly face,cried, 'Woe! woe, to me!' and sunk to the bottom.
The other two clung to the yard for some hours. At length the youngnoble said faintly, 'I am exhausted, and chilled with the cold, and canhold no longer. Farewell, good friend! God preserve you!' So, hedropped and sunk; and of all the brilliant crowd, the poor Butcher ofRouen alone was saved. In the morning, some fishermen saw him floatingin his sheep-skin coat, and got him into their boat--the sole relater ofthe dismal tale.
For three days, no one dared to carry the intelligence to the King. Atlength, they sent into his presence a little boy, who, weeping bitterly,and kneeling at his feet, told him that The White Ship was lost with allon board. The King fell to the ground like a dead man, and never, neverafterwards, was seen to smile.
But he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and bought again, inhis old deceitful way. Having no son to succeed him, after all his pains('The Prince will never yoke us to the plough, now!' said the Englishpeople), he took a second wife--ADELAIS or ALICE, a duke's daughter, andthe Pope's niece. Having no more children, however, he proposed to theBarons to swear that they would recognise as his successor, his daughterMatilda, whom, as she was now a widow, he married to the eldest son ofthe Count of Anjou, GEOFFREY, surnamed PLANTAGENET, from a custom he hadof wearing a sprig of flowering broom (called Genet in French) in his capfor a feather. As one false man usually makes many, and as a false King,in particular, is pretty certain to make a false Court, the Barons tookthe oath about the succession of Matilda (and her children after her),twice over, without in the least intending to keep it. The King was nowrelieved from any remaining fears of William Fitz-Robert, by his death inthe Monastery of St. Omer, in France, at twenty-six years old, of a pike-wound in the hand. And as Matilda gave birth to three sons, he thoughtthe succession to the throne secure.
He spent most of the latter part of his life, which was troubled byfamily quarrels, in Normandy, to be near Matilda. When he had reignedupward of thirty-five years, and was sixty-seven years old, he died of anindigestion and fever, brought on by eating, when he was far from well,of a fish called Lamprey, against which he had often been cautioned byhis physicians. His remains were brought over to Reading Abbey to beburied.
You may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking of King Henry theFirst, called 'policy' by some people, and 'diplomacy' by others. Neitherof these fine words will in the least mean that it was true; and nothingthat is not true can possibly be good.
His greatest merit, that I know of, was his love of learning--I shouldhave given him greater credit even for that, if it had been strong enoughto induce him to spare the eyes of a certain poet he once took prisoner,who was a knight besides. But he ordered the poet's eyes to be torn fromhis head, because he had laughed at him in his verses; and the poet, inthe pain of that torture, dashed out his own brains against his prisonwall. King Henry the First was avaricious, revengeful, and so false,that I suppose a man never lived whose word was less to be relied upon.