A Student's History of England Volume I Part 9

She was as much too harsh as Stephen was too good-natured. She seized the lands of the Church, and ordered the Londoners to pay a heavy fine for having supported Stephen. On this the Londoners rang their bells, and the citizens in arms swarmed out of their houses 'like bees out of a hive.' Matilda fled to Winchester before them. Bishop Henry then turned against her. Robert of Gloucester was taken prisoner, and after a while Matilda was obliged to set free King Stephen in exchange for her brother. Fighting continued for some time. On all sides men were longing for peace. The fields were untilled because no man could tell who would reap the harvest. Thousands perished of starvation. If peace there was to be, it could only come by Stephen's victory. It was now known that Matilda was even less fit to govern than Stephen. Stephen took one castle after another. In =1147= Earl Robert died, and in =1148= Matilda gave up the struggle and left England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tower of Castor Church, Northamptons.h.i.+re. Built about 1145. (The parapet and spire are later.)]

17. =Henry, Duke of the Normans. 1149.=--Whilst Matilda had been losing England her husband had been conquering Normandy, and for a little while it seemed possible that England and Normandy would be separated; England remaining under Stephen and his heirs, and Normandy united with Anjou under the Angevin Geoffrey and his descendants. That the separation did not yet take place was partly owing to the different character of the two heirs. Stephen's son, Eustace, was rough and overbearing. Geoffrey's son, Henry, was shrewd and prudent. Henry had already been in England when he was still quite young, and had learnt something of English affairs from his uncle, Robert of Gloucester. He returned to his father in =1147=, and in =1149= Geoffrey gave up to him the duchy of Normandy. He was then sent to try his fortune in England in his mother's stead, but he was only a boy of sixteen, and too young to cope with Stephen. In =1150= he abandoned the struggle for a time. In his absence Stephen had still rebels to put down and castles to besiege, but he had the greater part of the kingdom at his back, and if Henry had continued to leave him alone he would probably have reduced all his enemies to submission.

18. =The Last Days of Stephen. 1153--1154.=--In =1150= Geoffrey died, and Henry became Count of Anjou as well as Duke of Normandy. Before long he acquired a much wider territory than either Anjou or Normandy.

Louis VII. of France had to wife Eleanor, the d.u.c.h.ess of Aquitaine, and through her had added to his own scanty dominions the whole of the lands between the Loire and the Pyrenees. Louis, believing that she was unfaithful to him, had divorced her on the pretext that she was too near of kin. Henry was not squeamish about the character of so great an heiress, and in =1152= married the d.u.c.h.ess of Aquitaine for the sake of her lands. Thus strengthened, he again returned to England. He was now a young man of nineteen; his vigour was as great as that of Stephen, and his skill greater. He won fortress after fortress. Before the end of =1153= Eustace died, and Stephen had no motive for prolonging the strife if his personal interests could be saved. It was arranged by the treaty of Wallingford that Stephen should retain the crown for life, and that Henry should be his heir.

The castles which had sprung up during the civil war without the licence of the king--the 'adulterine castles,' as they were called--and there were no less than 365[10] of them--were to be destroyed, and order and good government were to return. For five months Henry remained in England. The robber barons could not hold out against the two rivals now united. Many of the castles were demolished, and 'such good peace as never was here' was established.

In =1154= Stephen died, and young Henry ruled England in his own name.

[Footnote 10: The number usually given, '1,115,' is probably an error.]

CHAPTER X.

HENRY II. =1154--1189=.

LEADING DATES

Accession of Henry II. 1154 Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury 1162 The Const.i.tutions of Clarendon 1164 Murder of Archbishop Thomas 1172 The a.s.size of Arms 1181 Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem 1187 Death of Henry II. 1189

1. =Henry's Accession. 1154.=--Henry II. was but twenty-one when he returned, after Stephen's death, to govern England. He had before him the difficult task of establis.h.i.+ng order where anarchy had prevailed, but it was a task for which he was specially suited. His frame was strong and thick-set, and he was as active as he was strong. His restlessness was the dismay of his courtiers. Eager to see everything for himself, and having to rule a territory extending from the Pyrenees to the Scottish border, he was always on the move. His followers were not allowed to know till he started in the morning where he intended to sleep at night, and he frequently changed his mind even after he had set out. He was as busy with his mind as he was with his body, as fond of a book as of a horse, and ready to chat with any one of whatever rank. Even when he was at ma.s.s he either drew pictures to amuse himself or conversed in whispers with his neighbours. His ceaseless energy was combined with a strong will, a clear perception of the limits beyond which action would be unwise, a good eye for ability in others, and a power of utilising their ability in his own service. On the Continent his sagacity appeared in his resolution to be content with the dominions which he had acquired without making further conquests. In England his main object was the same as that of his predecessors, to establish the king's authority over the great barons. What especially distinguished him was his clear perception of the truth that he could only succeed by securing, not merely the pa.s.sive goodwill, but the active co-operation of those who, whether they were of Norman or of English descent, were inferior in wealth and position to the great barons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Effigies of Henry II. and Queen Eleanor at Fontevrault.]

2. =Pacification of England.=--Henry's first year was spent in completing the work which he had begun after the treaty of Wallingford. He sent Stephen's mercenaries over the sea and completed the destruction of the 'adulterine castles.' One great rebel after another was forced to submit and have his strong walls pulled down. There were to be no more dens of robbers in England, but all men were to obey the king and the law. What castles remained were the king's, and as long as they were his rebellions would not be likely to be successful. Henry even regained from Malcolm IV., king of the Scots, Northumberland and c.u.mberland, which had been surrendered by Stephen (see p. 133). In his government Henry did his best to carry out the plans of his grandfather, Henry I. It was perhaps because he was afraid that one Justiciar would be too powerful, that he appointed two, Richard de Lucy and the Earl of Leicester, to see that justice was executed and the government maintained whether the king were absent or present. The old Bishop Nigel of Ely was reappointed Treasurer, and presided over the Exchequer at Westminster. Thomas of London, known in later times by the name of Becket,[11] an active and vigorous man, fifteen years older than the king, who had been ordained a deacon, but had nothing clerical about him except the name, was made Chancellor. Thomas was the king's chosen friend, and the two together delighted in the work of restoring order. Thomas liked sumptuous living, and the magnificence of his housekeeping and of his feasts was the talk of the whole country. Yet though he laughed and jested in the midst of his grandeur, he kept himself from every kind of vice. Henry was fond of horseplay, and once on a bitter winter's day, when he was riding with Thomas, he s.n.a.t.c.hed at a fine new scarlet mantle from the Chancellor's neck to throw to a beggar. Thomas struggled hard, and the two men nearly pulled one another off their horses, but in the end the beggar got the mantle.

[Footnote 11: His father's name was Becket, but at that time hereditary surnames had not come into use. He was once called Thomas Becket in his lifetime by one of his murderers as an insult.]

3. =Henry and Feudality.=--It was princ.i.p.ally with Thomas the Chancellor that Henry consulted as to the best means of establis.h.i.+ng his authority. He resolved not only to renew but to extend the administrative system of Henry I. The danger which threatened him came from the great barons, and as the great barons were as dangerous to the lesser ones and to the bulk of the people as they were to the king, Henry was able to strengthen himself by winning the affections of the people. Feudality in itself was only a method of owning land; but it was always threatening to pa.s.s into a method of government. In France the great feudal lords ruled their own territories with very little regard for the wishes of the king, and the smaller feudal lords had their own courts in which they hanged and imprisoned their villeins. In Stephen's time an attempt had been made to introduce this system into England, with evil consequences both to king and people.

Before the Conquest great landowners had often received permission from the king to exercise criminal jurisdiction in the Manor Courts on their own estates, whilst the vast extent of their landed property gave them a preponderant voice in the proceedings of the s.h.i.+re-moots, now known by the Normans as County Courts. Henry resolved to attack the evil at both ends: in the first place to make the barons support the king's government instead of setting up their own; in the second place, to weaken the Manor and County Courts and to strengthen courts directly proceeding from himself.

4. =The Great Council and the Curia Regis.=--Henry in the early years of his reign revived the importance of the Great Council, taking care that it should be attended not only by the great barons, but by va.s.sals holding smaller estates, and therefore more dependent on himself. He summoned the Great Council oftener than his predecessors had done. In this way even the greater barons got the habit of sharing in the government of England as a whole, instead of seeking to split up the country, as France was split up, into different districts, each of which might be governed by one of themselves. It was in consequence of the increasing habit of consulting with the king that the Great Council, after many changes, ultimately grew into the modern Parliament. It was of no less importance that Henry II. strengthened the _Curia Regis_, which had been established in the reign of Henry I.

(see p. 127) to collect the king's revenue, to give him political advice, and to judge as many questions as it could possibly get hold of. It was especially by doing justice that the _Curia Regis_ was likely to acquire strength, and the strength of the _Curia Regis_ was in reality the strength of the king.

5. =Scutage.=--If Henry was to carry out justice everywhere it would be necessary for him to weaken still further the power of the barons.

He reintroduced a plan which had been first adopted by his grandfather, which had the double merit of strengthening the king upon the Continent and of weakening the barons in England. Henry needed an army to defend his Continental possessions against the king of France.

The fyrd, or general levy of Englishmen, was not bound to fight except at home, and though the feudal va.s.sals were liable to serve abroad, they could only be made to serve for forty days in the year, which was too short a time for Henry's purposes. He accordingly came to an agreement with his va.s.sals. The owner of every knight's fee was to pay a sum of money known as scutage (_s.h.i.+eld-money_) in lieu of service.

Both parties gained by the arrangement. The king got money with which he paid mercenaries abroad, who would fight for him all the year round, and the va.s.sal escaped the onerous duty of fighting in quarrels in which he took no interest. Indirectly the change weakened the feudal va.s.sals, because they had now less opportunity than before of acquiring a military training in actual war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ecclesiastical costume in the twelfth century.]

6. =Archbishop Thomas. 1162.=--Henry, who meditated great judicial reforms, foresaw that the clergy would be an obstacle in his way. He was eager to establish one law for his whole kingdom, and the clergy, having been exempted by the Conqueror from the jurisdiction of the ordinary law courts in all ecclesiastical matters, had, during the anarchy of Stephen's reign, encroached on the royal authority, and claimed to be responsible, even in criminal cases, only to the ecclesiastical courts, which were unable to inflict the penalty of death, so that a clerk who committed a murder could not be hanged like other murderers. As large numbers of clerks were only in the lower orders, and as many of them had only taken those orders to escape from the hards.h.i.+ps of lay life, their morals were often no better than those of their lay neighbours. A vacancy occurring in the Archbishopric of Canterbury, Henry, who wished to make these clerks punishable by his own courts, thought that the arrangement would easily be effected if Thomas, who had hitherto been active as a reformer in his service, were Archbishop as well as Chancellor. It was in vain that Thomas remonstrated. "I warn you," he said to Henry, "that, if such a thing should be, our friends.h.i.+p would soon turn to bitter hate." Henry persisted in spite of the warning, and Thomas became Archbishop.

7. =Breach between Henry and Thomas.=--The first act of the new Archbishop was to surrender his Chancellors.h.i.+p. He was unable, he said, to serve two masters. It is not difficult to understand his motives. The Church, as the best men of the twelfth century believed, was divinely inst.i.tuted for the guidance of the world. It was but a short step for the n.o.bler spirits amongst the clergy to hold it necessary that, in order to secure the due performance of such exalted duties, the clergy should be exempted from the so-called justice of laymen, which was often only another name for tyranny, even if the exemption led to the infliction upon wicked clerks of lesser punishments than were meet. In this way the clergy would unconsciously fall into the frame of mind which might lead them to imagine it more to the honour of G.o.d that a wicked clerk should be insufficiently punished than that he should be punished by a layman. Of all men Archbishop Thomas was the most likely to fall into this mistake. He was, as Chancellor, p.r.o.ne to magnify his office, and to think more of being the originator of great reforms than of the great reforms themselves. As Archbishop he would also be sure to magnify his office, and to think less, as Anselm would have thought, of reconciling the true interests of the kingdom with the true interests of the Church, than of making the Archbishop's authority the centre of stirring movement, and of raising the Church, of which he was the highest embodiment in England, to a position above the power of the king. All this he would do with a great, if not a complete, sincerity. He would feel that he was himself the greater man because he believed that he was fighting in the cause of G.o.d.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A bishop ordaining a priest. (From a MS. of the latter part of the twelfth century.)]

8. =The Const.i.tutions of Clarendon. 1164.=--Between a king eager to a.s.sert the rights of the crown and an archbishop eager to a.s.sert the rights of the clergy a quarrel could not be long deferred. Thomas's first stand, however, was on behalf of the whole country. At a Great Council at Woodstock he resisted the king's resolution to levy the old tax of Danegeld, and in consequence Danegeld was never levied again.

Henry had for some time been displeased because, without consulting him, the Archbishop had seized on lands which he claimed as the property of the see of Canterbury, and had excommunicated one of the king's tenants. Then a clerk who had committed a rape and a murder had been acquitted in an ecclesiastical court. On this, Henry called on the bishops to promise to obey the customs of the realm. Thomas, being told that the king merely wanted a verbal promise to save his dignity, with some reluctance consented. He soon found that he had been tricked. In =1164= Henry summoned a Great Council to meet at Clarendon, and directed some of the oldest of his barons to set down in writing the customs observed by his grandfather. Their report was intended to settle all disputed points between the king and the clergy, and was drawn up under sixteen heads known as the Const.i.tutions of Clarendon. The most important of them declared that beneficed clergy should not leave the realm without the king's leave; that no tenant-in-chief of the king should be excommunicated without the king's knowledge; that no villein should be ordained without his lord's consent; that a criminous clerk should be sent to the ecclesiastical court for trial, and that after he had been there convicted or had pleaded guilty the Church should deprive him and leave him to the lay court for further punishment. It was for the _Curia Regis_ to determine what matters were properly to be decided by the ecclesiastical courts; and no appeal to Rome was to be allowed without its permission. To all this Thomas was violently opposed, maintaining that the sentence of deprivation, which was all that an ecclesiastical court was empowered to inflict, was so terrible, that one who had incurred it ought not to be sentenced to any further penalty by a lay court. After six days' struggle he left the Council, refusing to a.s.sent to the Const.i.tutions.

9. =The Persecution of Archbishop Thomas. 1164.=--Unluckily for himself, Henry could not be content firmly and quietly to enforce the law as it had been declared at Clarendon. He had in his character much of the orderly spirit of his grandfather, Henry I., but he had also something of the violence of his great-uncle, William II. A certain John the Marshal had a suit against the archbishop, and when the archbishop refused to plead in a lay court, the king's council sentenced him to a fine of 500_l._ Then Henry summoned the archbishop to his castle at Northampton to give an account of all the money which, when he was Chancellor, he had received from the king--a claim which is said to have amounted to 30,000_l._, a sum equal in the money of these days to not much less than 400,000_l._ now. Thomas, with the crucifix in his hand, awaited in the hall the decision of Henry, who with the council was discussing his fate in an upper chamber. When the Justiciar came out to tell him that he had been declared a traitor he refused to listen, and placed himself under the Pope's protection. Hot words were bandied on either side as he walked out of the hall. "This is a fearful day," said one of his attendants. "The Day of Judgment,"

replied Thomas, "will be more fearful." Thomas made his way to the coast and fled to France. Henry in his wrath banished no less than four hundred of the archbishop's kinsmen and friends. Thomas found less help in France than he had expected. There were once more two rival Popes--Alexander III., who was acknowledged by the greater part of the clergy and by the kings of England and France, and Calixtus III., who had been set up by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Alexander was too much afraid lest Henry should take the part of Calixtus to be very eager in supporting Thomas. He therefore did his best to effect a reconciliation between Henry and Thomas, but for some years his efforts were of no avail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Small s.h.i.+p of the latter part of the twelfth century.]

10. =The a.s.size of Clarendon. 1166.=--Henry, being temporarily disembarra.s.sed of Thomas's rivalry, was able to devote his time to carrying out still further the judicial organisation of the country.

In =1166= he held a Great Council at Clarendon, and with its approval issued a set of decrees known as the a.s.size of Clarendon. By this a.s.size full force was given to a change which had for some time been growing in the judicial system. The old English way of dealing with criminals had been by calling on an accused person to swear to his own innocence and to bring compurgators to swear that his oath was true.

If the accused failed to find compurgators he was sent to the ordeal.

According to the new way there was to be in each county juries consisting of twelve men of the hundred and of four from each towns.h.i.+p in it to present offences--felonies, murders, and robberies--and to accuse persons on common report. They were sworn to speak the truth, so that their charges were known as verdicts (_vere dicta_). No compurgators were allowed, but the accused, after his offence had been presented, had to go to the ordeal, and even if he succeeded in this he was, if his character was notoriously bad, to abjure the realm--that is to say, to be banished, swearing never to return. If he came back he was held to be an outlaw, and might be put to death without mercy by any one.

11. =Recognitions.=--A very similar system to that which was thus adopted in criminal cases had already in the early part of Henry's reign been widely extended in civil cases. When, before the Conquest, disputes occurred amongst the English as to the possession of property, each party swore to the justice of his own case, brought compurgators, and summoned witnesses to declare in his favour. There was, however, no method of cross-examination, and if the hundred or s.h.i.+re court was still unsatisfied, it had recourse to the ordeal. The Normans introduced the system of trial by battle, under the belief that G.o.d would intervene to give victory to the litigant whose cause was just. This latter system, however, had never been popular with the English, and Henry favoured another which had been in existence in Normandy before the Conquest, and was fairly suited to English habits.

This was the system of recognitions. Any freeholder who had been dispossessed of his land might apply to the _Curia Regis_, and the _Curia Regis_ ordered the sheriff of the county in which was the land in dispute to select four knights of that county, by whom twelve knights were chosen to serve as Recognitors. It was the business of these Recognitors to find out either by their own knowledge or by private inquiry the truth of the matter. If they were unanimous their verdict was accepted as final. If not, other knights were added to them, and when at last twelve were found agreeing, their agreement was held to settle the question.

12. =The Germ of the Jury.=--Thus, whilst in criminal cases the local knowledge of sworn accusers was treated as satisfactory evidence of guilt, in civil cases a system was growing up in which is to be traced the germ of the modern jury. The Recognitors did not indeed hear evidence in public or become judges of the fact, like the modern jury; they were rather sworn witnesses, allowed to form an opinion not merely, like modern witnesses, on what they had actually seen or heard, but also on what they could gather by private inquiry.

13. =The Itinerant Justices Revived.=--To carry out this system Henry renewed his grandfather's experiment of sending members of the _Curia Regis_ as itinerant justices visiting the counties. They held what were called the pleas of the crown--that is to say, trials which were brought before the king's judges instead of being tried either in the county courts or the manorial courts. Both these judges and the king had every interest in getting as much business before their courts as possible. Offenders were fined and suitors had to pay fees, and the best chance of increasing these profits was to attract suitors by administering justice better than the local courts. The more thronged were the king's courts, the more rich and powerful he became. The consequent growth of the influence of the itinerant justices was no doubt offensive to the lords of the manor, and especially to the greater landowners, as diminis.h.i.+ng their importance, and calling them to account whenever they attempted to encroach on their less powerful neighbours.

14. =The Inquisition of the Sheriffs. 1170.=--It was not long before Henry discovered another way of diminis.h.i.+ng the power of the barons.

In the early part of his reign the sheriffs of the counties were still selected from the great landowners, and the sheriff was not merely the collector of the king's revenue in his county, but had, since the Conquest, a.s.sumed a new importance in the county court, over which in the older times the ealdorman or earl and the bishop had presided.

Since the Conquest the bishop, having a court of his own for ecclesiastical matters, had ceased to take part in its proceedings, and the earl's authority, which had been much lessened after the Conquest, had now disappeared. The sheriff, therefore, was left alone at the head of the county court, and when the new system of trial grew up he as well as the itinerant justices was allowed to receive the presentments of juries. When, in the spring of =1170=, the king returned to England after an absence of four years, he held a strict inquiry into the conduct of them all, and deposed twenty of them. In many cases, no doubt, the sheriffs had done things to displease Henry, but there can be no doubt that the blow thus struck at the sheriffs was, in the main, aimed at the great n.o.bility. The successors of those turned out were of lower rank, and therefore more submissive. From this time it was accepted by the kings of England as a principle of government that no great n.o.ble should serve as sheriff.

15. =The n.o.bles and the Church.=--Henry knew well that the great n.o.bles were indignant, and that it was possible that they might rise against him, as at one time or another they had risen against every king since the Conquest. He knew too that his predecessors had found their strongest support against the n.o.bles in the Church, and that the Church was no longer unanimously on his side. He could indeed count upon all the bishops save one. Bishops who were or had been his officials, bishops envious of Thomas or afraid of himself, were all at his disposal, but they brought him no popular strength. Thomas alone amongst them had a hold on the imagination of the people through his austerities and his daring. Moreover, as the champion of the clergy, he was regarded as being also the champion of the people, from whose ranks the clergy were recruited.

16. =The Coronation of Young Henry. 1170.=--At the moment of Henry's return to England he had special need of the Church. He wished the kingdom of England to pa.s.s at his death to his eldest son, Henry, and since the Conquest no eldest son had ever succeeded his father on the throne. He therefore determined to adopt a plan which had succeeded with the kings of France, of having the young Henry chosen and crowned in his own lifetime, so that when he died he might be ready to step into his father's place. Young Henry was chosen, and on June 14, =1170=, he was crowned by Roger, Archbishop of York; but on the day before the coronation Roger received from Thomas a notice of his excommunication of all bishops taking part in the ceremony, on the ground that it belonged only to an Archbishop of Canterbury to crown a king, and this excommunication had been ratified by the Pope. It was therefore possible that the whole ceremony might go for nothing.

17. =The Return of Archbishop Thomas. 1170.=--To obviate this danger Henry again sought to make peace with Thomas. An agreement was come to on the vague terms that the past should be forgotten on both sides.

Henry perhaps hoped that when Thomas was once again in England he would be too wise to rake up the question of his claim to crown the king. If it was so he was soon disappointed. On December 1, =1170=, Thomas landed at Sandwich and rode to Canterbury amidst the shouts of the people. He refused to release from excommunication the bishops who had taken part in young Henry's coronation unless they would first give him satisfaction for the wrong done to the see of Canterbury, thus showing that he had forgotten nothing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Part of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral (in building from 1175-1184).]

18. =Murder of Archbishop Thomas. 1170.=--The aggrieved bishops at once crossed the sea to lay their complaint before Henry. "What a parcel of fools and dastards," cried Henry impatiently, "have I nourished in my house, that none of them can be found to avenge me on one upstart clerk!" Four of his knights took him at his word, and started in all haste for Canterbury. The Archbishop before their arrival had given fresh offence in a cause more righteous than that of his quarrel with the bishops. Ranulf de Broc and others who had had the custody of his lands in his absence refused to surrender them, robbed him of his goods, and maltreated his followers. On Christmas Day he excommunicated them and repeated the excommunication of the bishops. On December 29 the four knights sought him out. They do not seem at first to have intended to do him bodily harm. The excommunication of the king's servants before the king had been consulted was a breach of the Const.i.tutions of Clarendon, and they bade him, in the king's name, to leave the kingdom. After a hot altercation the knights retired to arm themselves. The archbishop was persuaded by his followers to take refuge in the church. In rushed the knights crying, "Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?"

"Behold me," replied Thomas, "no traitor, but a priest of G.o.d." The a.s.sailants strove to lay hands upon him. He struggled and cast forth angry words upon them. In the madness of their wrath they struck him to the ground and slew him as he lay.

19. =Popular Indignation. 1171.=--Archbishop Thomas did not die as a martyr for any high or sacred cause. He was not a martyr for the faith, like those who had been thrown to the lions by the Roman emperors. He was not a martyr for righteousness, like Archbishop aelfheah. He was a martyr for the privileges of his order and of his see. Yet if he sank below the level of the great martyrs, he did not sink to that lowest stage at which men cry out for the preservation of their own privileges, after those privileges have ceased to benefit any but themselves. The sympathy of the ma.s.s of the population shows the persistence of a widespread belief that in maintaining the privileges of the clergy Thomas was maintaining the rights of the protectors of the poor. This sentiment was only strengthened by his murder. All through Europe the news was received with a burst of indignation. Of that indignation the Pope made himself the mouthpiece.

In the summer of =1171= two Papal legates appeared in Normandy to excommunicate Henry unless he was able to convince them that he was guiltless of the murder. Henry was too cautious to abide their coming.

He crossed first to England and then to Ireland, resolved to have something to offer the Pope which might put him in a better humour.

20. =State of Ireland.=--In the domain of art, Ireland was inferior to no European nation. In metal-work, in sculpture, and in the skilful illumination of ma.n.u.scripts it surpa.s.sed them all. It had no mean school of music and song. In political development it lagged far behind. Ireland was still in the tribal stage, and had never been welded into unity by foreign conquerors, as Gaul had been welded into unity by the Romans, and as England had been welded into unity by the Normans. Tribe warred with tribe and chief with chief. The efforts of chiefs to attain supremacy over the whole island had always ended in partial or complete failure. The Danes had made settlements in Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick, but though the native Celtic population was not strong enough to expel them, neither were they strong enough to conquer the Celts. The Church was as disorganised as the State, and there was little discipline exercised outside the monasteries. For some time the Popes and the Archbishops of Canterbury had been anxious to establish a better regulated Church system, and in =1154= Adrian IV.--the only Englishman who was ever Pope--hoping that Henry would bring the Irish Church under Papal order, had made him a present of Ireland, on the ground that all islands belonged to the Pope.

21. =Partial Conquest of Ireland. 1166--1172.=--Henry, however, had too much to do during the earlier years of his reign to think of conquering Ireland. In =1166= Dermot, king or chief of Leinster, having been driven out of his dominions, appealed to Henry for aid.

Henry gave him leave to carry over to Ireland any English knights whom he could persuade to help him. On this a number of knights from South Wales, of whom the most important was Richard de Clare, afterwards known as Strongbow, flocked across the Irish Sea (=1169--1170=). They fought and conquered, and Strongbow, who married Dermot's daughter, gave himself the t.i.tle of Earl of Leinster. The rule of these knights was a rule of cruelty and violence, and, what was more, it might well become dangerous to Henry himself. If feudal n.o.bles established themselves in Ireland, they might soon be holding out a hand to help the feudal n.o.bles who were Henry's worst enemies in England. When Henry landed in Ireland in =1171= he set himself to restore order. The Irish welcomed him because he alone could bridle the invaders, and the invaders submitted to him because they dared not resist him. He gathered a synod of the clergy at Cashel, and arranged for the future discipline of the Church. Unhappily he could not remain long in Ireland, and when he left it the old anarchy and violence blazed up again. Though Henry had not served Ireland, he had gained his own personal ends. He had frightened Strongbow and his followers, and had shown the Pope, by his proceedings at Cashel, that his friends.h.i.+p was worth having.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mitre of Archbishop Thomas of Canterbury preserved at Sens.]