Part 12

The Conquest was hardly over when the struggle between the baronage and the crown began. The wisdom of William’s policy in the destruction of the great earldoms which had overshadowed the throne was shown in an attempt at their restoration made by Roger, the son of his minister, William Fitz-Osbern, and by the Breton Ralf de Guader, whom the king had rewarded for his services at Senlac with the earldom of Norfolk. The rising was quickly suppressed, Roger thrown into prison, and Ralf driven over sea; but the intrigues of the baronage soon found another leader in William’s half-brother, the Bishop of Bayeux. Under pretense of aspiring by arms to the papacy, Bishop Odo collected money and men; but the treasure was at once seized by the royal officers, and the bishop arrested in the midst of the court. Even at the king’s bidding no officer would venture to seize on a prelate of the Church; it was with his own hands that William was forced to effect his arrest. “I arrest not the bishop, but the Earl of Kent,” laughed the Conqueror, and Odo remained a prisoner till William’s death.

It was, in fact, this vigorous personality of William which proved the chief safeguard of his throne. “Stark he was,” says the English chronicler, “to men that withstood him. Earls that did aught against his bidding he cast into bonds; bishops he stripped of their bishoprics, abbots of their abbacies. He spared not his own brother; first he was in the land, but the king cast him into bondage. If a man would live and hold his lands, need it were that he should follow the king’s will.” But, stern as his rule was, it gave peace to the land. Even amid the sufferings which necessarily sprang from the circumstances of the Conquest itself, from the erection of castles, or the inclosure of forests, or the exactions which built up the great hoard at Winchester, Englishmen were unable to forget “the good peace he made in the land, so that a man might fare over his realm with a bosom full of gold.” Strange touches of a humanity far in advance of his age contrasted with the general temper of his government. One of the strongest traits in his character was his aversion to shed blood by process of law; he formally abolished the punishment of death, and only a single execution stains the annals of his reign. An edict yet more honorable to him put an end to the slave-trade which had till then been carried on at the port of Bristol. The pitiless warrior, the stern and awful king was a tender and faithful husband, an affectionate father. The lonely silence of his bearing broke into gracious converse with pure and sacred souls like Anselm. If William was “stark” to rebel and baron, men noted that he was “mild to those that loved God.”

ROBERT GUISCARD.

BY EDWARD GIBBON.

[Born about 1015, died 1085. This Norman adventurer, the sixth son of a small baron, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in Italy by conquest, and founded the Kingdom of Naples, which existed till 1860. Equally distinguished by personal prowess, generalship, and diplomatic astuteness, he filled a large figure in the affairs of his time, and was one of the stoutest bulwarks against Saracenic aggression.]

The pedigree of Robert Guiscard is variously deduced from the peasants and the dukes of Normandy--from the peasants, by the pride and ignorance of a Grecian princess; from the dukes, by the ignorance and flattery of the Italian subjects. His genuine descent may be ascribed to the second or middle order of private nobility. He sprang from a race of _valvassors_ or _bannerets_, of the diocese of Coutances, in the lower Normandy; the castle of Hauteville was their honorable seat, his father Tancred was conspicuous in the court and army of the duke, and his military service was furnished by ten soldiers or knights. Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his own, made him the father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by the impartial tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was insufficient for this numerous and daring progeny; they saw around the neighborhood the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and resolved to seek in foreign wars a more glorious inheritance. Two only remained to perpetuate the race and cherish their father’s age; their ten brothers, as they successively attained the vigor of manhood, departed from the castle, passed the Alps, and joined the Apulian camp of the Normans.

The elder were prompted by native spirit; their success encouraged their younger brethren, and the three first in seniority--William, Drogo, and Humphrey--deserved to be the chiefs of their nation and the founders of the new republic. Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the second marriage, and even the reluctant praise of his foes has endowed him with the heroic qualities of a soldier and a statesman. His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army; his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength and gracefulness, and to the decline of life he maintained the patient vigor of health and the commanding dignity of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair and beard were long and of a flaxen color, his eyes sparkled with fire, and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror amid the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry such qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historian. They may observe that Robert at once, and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and that in the close of that memorable day he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valor from the warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the consciousness of superior worth; in the pursuit of greatness he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of humanity. Though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of _Guiscard_[21] was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of military frankness; in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous to his fellow-soldiers, and, while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion of his country.

He grasped with a rapacious, that he might distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive indigence had taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention, and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with only five followers on horseback and thirty on foot; yet even this allowance appears too bountiful. The sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and his first military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His brothers and countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia, but they guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the aspiring youth was driven forward to the mountains of Calabria, and in his first exploits against the Greeks and the natives it is not easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To surprise a castle or a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to plunder the adjacent villages for necessary food, were the obscure labors which formed and exercised the powers of his mind and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard; and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and character of Normans.

As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened the jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient quarrel, his life was threatened and his liberty restrained. After the death of Humphrey the tender age of his sons excluded them from the command; they were reduced to a private estate by the ambition of their guardian and uncle, and Guiscard was exalted on a buckler and saluted Count of Apulia and general of the republic. With an increase of authority and of force he resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that should raise him forever above the heads of his equals. By some acts of rapine or sacrilege he had incurred a papal excommunication, but Nicholas II was easily persuaded that the divisions of friends could terminate only in their mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions of the Holy See, and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred bishops was convened at Melphi, and the count interrupted an important enterprise to guard the person and execute the decrees of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on Robert and his posterity the ducal title, with the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both in Italy and Sicily, which his sword could rescue from the schismatic Greeks and the unbelieving Saracens. This apostolic sanction might justify his arms, but the obedience of a free and victorious people could not be transferred without their consent, and Guiscard dissembled his elevation till the ensuing campaign had been illustrated by the conquest of Consenza and Reggio. In the hour of triumph he assembled his troops, and solicited the Normans to confirm by their suffrage the judgment of the vicar of Christ; the soldiers hailed with joyful acclamations their valiant duke, and the counts, his former equals, pronounced the oath of fidelity with hollow smiles and secret indignation.

After this inauguration Robert styled himself, “by the grace of God and St. Peter, Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of Sicily”; and it was the labor of twenty years to deserve and realize these lofty appellations. Such tardy progress in a narrow space may seem unworthy of the abilities of the chief and the spirit of the nation, but the Normans were few in number, their resources were scanty, their service was voluntary and precarious. The bravest designs of the duke were sometimes opposed by the free voice of his parliament of barons; the twelve counts of popular election conspired against his authority, and against their perfidious uncle the sons of Humphrey demanded justice and revenge. By his policy and vigor Guiscard discovered their plots, suppressed their rebellions, and punished the guilty with death or exile; but in these domestic feuds his years and the national strength were unprofitably consumed. After the defeat of his foreign enemies--the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens--their broken forces retreated to the strong and populous cities of the sea-coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and defense; the Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the field, and their rude attempts could only succeed by the efforts of persevering courage. The resistance of Salerno was maintained above eight months; the siege or blockade of Bari lasted nearly four years. In these actions the Norman duke was the foremost in every danger; in every fatigue the last and most patient. As he pressed the citadel of Salerno a huge stone from the rampart shattered one of his military engines, and by a splinter he was wounded in the breast. Before the gates of Bari he lodged in a miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches, and thatched with straw--a perilous station, on all sides open to the inclemency of the winter and the spears of the enemy.

The Italian conquests of Robert correspond with the limits of the present kingdom of Naples, and the countries united by his arms have not been dissevered by the revolutions of seven hundred years.

THOMAS À BECKET, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

BY DAVID HUME.

[Born in 1119, died by assassination in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury in 1170. For a long time the Chancellor of England and favorite adviser of the king, Henry II, he became on his installation as archbishop the resolute advocate of papal aggression against the rights and claims of the English kings to the supreme control of national affairs.]

Thomas à Becket, the first man of English descent who, since the Norman conquest, had, during the course of a whole century, risen to any considerable station, was born of reputable parents in the city of London; and being endowed both with industry and capacity, he early insinuated himself into the favor of Archbishop Theobald, and obtained from that prelate some preferments and offices. By their means he was enabled to travel for improvement to Italy, where he studied the civil and canon law at Bologna; and on his return, he appeared to have made such proficiency in knowledge that he was promoted by his patron to the Archdeaconry of Canterbury, an office of considerable trust and profit. He was afterward employed with success by Theobald in transacting business at Rome; and, on Henry’s accession, he was recommended to that monarch as worthy of further preferment. Henry, who knew that Becket had been instrumental in supporting that resolution of the archbishop which had tended so much to facilitate his own advancement to the throne, was already prepossessed in his favor; and finding, on further acquaintance, that his spirit and abilities entitled him to any trust, he soon promoted him to the dignity of chancellor, one of the first civil offices in the kingdom. The chancellor, in that age, beside the custody of the great seal, had possession of all vacant prelacies and abbeys; he was the guardian of all such minors and pupils as were the king’s tenants; all baronies which escheated to the crown were under his administration; he was entitled to a place in council, even though he were not particularly summoned; and as he exercised also the office of secretary of state, and it belonged to him to countersign all commissions, writs, and letters patent, he was a kind of prime minister, and was concerned in the dispatch of every business of importance. Besides exercising this high office, Becket, by the favor of the king or archbishop, was made Provost of Beverley, Dean of Hastings, and Constable of the Tower; he was put in possession of the honors of Eye and Berkham, large baronies that had escheated to the crown; and, to complete his grandeur, he was intrusted with the education of Prince Henry, the king’s eldest son and heir of the monarchy.

The pomp of his retinue, the sumptuousness of his furniture, the luxury of his table, the munificence of his presents, corresponded to these great preferments; or rather exceeded anything that England had ever before seen in any subject. His historian and secretary, Fitz-Stephens, mentions, among other particulars, that his apartments were every day in winter covered with clean straw or hay, and in summer with green rushes or boughs, lest the gentlemen who paid court to him, and who could not, by reason of their great number, find a place at table, should soil their fine clothes by sitting on a dirty floor. A great number of knights were retained in his service; the greatest barons were proud of being received at his table; his house was a place of education for the sons of the chief nobility; and the king himself frequently vouchsafed to partake of his entertainments. As his way of life was splendid and opulent, his amusements and occupations were gay, and partook of the cavalier spirit, which, as he had only taken deacon’s orders, he did not think unbefitting his character. He employed himself at leisure hours in hunting, hawking, gaming, and horsemanship; he exposed his person in several military actions; he carried over, at his own charge, seven hundred knights to attend the king in his wars at Toulouse; in the subsequent wars on the frontiers of Normandy he maintained, during forty days, twelve hundred knights, and four thousand of their train; and in an embassy to France with which he was intrusted he astonished that court with the number and magnificence of his retinue.

Becket, who, by his complaisance and good humor, had rendered himself agreeable, and by his industry and abilities useful, to his master, appeared to him the fittest person for supplying the vacancy made by the death of Theobald. As he was well acquainted with the king’s intentions of retrenching, or rather confining within the ancient bounds, all ecclesiastical privileges, and always showed a ready disposition to comply with them, Henry, who never expected any resistance from that quarter, immediately issued orders for electing him Archbishop of Canterbury. But this resolution, which was taken contrary to the opinion of Matilda and many of the ministers, drew after it very unhappy consequences; and never prince of so great penetration appeared, in the issue, to have so little understood the genius and character of his minister.

No sooner was Becket installed in this high dignity, which rendered him for life the second person in the kingdom, with some pretentions of aspiring to be the first, than he totally altered his demeanor and conduct, and endeavored to acquire the character of sanctity, of which his former busy and ostentatious course of life might, in the eyes of the people, have naturally bereaved him. Without consulting the king, he immediately returned into his hands the commission of chancellor, pretending that he must thenceforth detach himself from secular affairs and be solely employed in the exercise of his spiritual function, but in reality, that he might break off all connections with Henry, and apprise him that Becket, as Primate of England, was now become entirely a new personage. He maintained in his retinue and attendants alone his ancient pomp and luster, which was useful to strike the vulgar; in his own person he affected the greatest austerity and most rigid mortification, which, he was sensible, would have an equal or a greater tendency to the same end. He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care to conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all the world; he changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin; his usual diet was bread, his drink water, which he even rendered further unpalatable by the mixture of unsavory herbs; he tore his back with the frequent discipline which he inflicted on it; he daily on his knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen beggars, whom he afterward dismissed with presents; he gained the affection of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and hospitals; every one who made profession of sanctity was admitted to his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility as well as on the piety and mortification of the holy primate; he seemed to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or in perusing religious discourses; his aspect wore the appearance of seriousness and mental recollection and secret devotion; and all men of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design, and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned itself toward a new and more dangerous object.

Four gentlemen of the king’s household, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Traci, Hugh de Moreville, and Richard Brito, taking certain passionate expressions to be a hint for Becket’s death, immediately communicated their thoughts to each other, and, swearing to avenge their prince’s quarrel, secretly withdrew from court. Some menacing expressions which they had dropped gave a suspicion of their design, and the king dispatched a messenger after them, charging them to attempt nothing against the person of the primate; but these orders arrived too late to prevent their fatal purpose. The four assassins, though they took different roads to England, arrived nearly about the same time at Saltwoode, near Canterbury, and being there joined by some assistants they proceeded in great haste to the archiepiscopal palace. They found the primate, who trusted entirely to the sacredness of his character, very slenderly attended; and, though they threw out many menaces and reproaches against him, he was so incapable of fear that, without using any precautions against their violence, he immediately went to St. Benedict’s Church to hear vespers. They followed him thither, attacked him before the altar, and having cloven his head with many blows retired without meeting any opposition. This was the tragical end of Thomas à Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible spirit, who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself, the enterprises of pride and ambition under the disguise of sanctity and of zeal for the interests of religion: an extraordinary personage, surely, had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had directed the vehemence of his character to the support of law and justice, instead of being engaged, by the prejudices of the times, to sacrifice all private duties and public connections to ties which he imagined or represented as superior to every civil and political consideration. But no man who enters into the genius of that age can reasonably doubt of this prelate’s sincerity.

SALADIN.

BY EDWARD GIBBON.

[MALEK AL-NASIR SALAH ED-DIN ABU MODHAFER YUSUF, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, born 1137, died 1193. Of Kurdish descent he finally rose from a subordinate rank to royal power. His name stands embalmed in history and tradition as the most noble and chivalrous of those Saracen rulers whom the Christian powers fought against during the Crusades.]

The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral tribes of the Kurds, a people hardy, strong, savage, impatient of the yoke, addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems to identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; and they still defend against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they asserted against the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers; the service of his father and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin, and the son of Job or Ayub, a simple Kurd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. So unconscious was Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house that he constrained the reluctant youth to follow his Uncle Shiracouh into Egypt; his military character was established by the defense of Alexandria, and, if we may believe the Latins, he solicited and obtained from the Christian general the _profane_ honors of knighthood. On the death of Shiracouh, the office of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest and least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom he invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals, and attached the army to his person and interest. While Noureddin lived, these ambitious Kurds were the most humble of his slaves; and the indiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who loudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead his son in chains to the foot of the throne. “Such language,” he added in private, “was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; but we are now above fear and obedience, and the threats of Noureddin shall not extort the tribute of a sugar-cane.” His seasonable death relieved them from the odious and doubtful conflict; his son, a minor of eleven years of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus, and the new lord of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title that could sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people.