Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  Moreover, there was a widespread confederation among the gentry against these Italians, and rioters arose and plundered their barns, distributing the corn to the poor.

  Walter do Cantilupe, the young Norman Bishop of Worcester, was thought to be among those in the secret, and the outrages grew more serious when an Italian canon of St. Paul's was seized and impressed by five men in masks. Des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, who had returned home, and was very jealous of Hubert de Burgh, thought this a fit time for overthrowing him, and publicly accused him of being in the plot. A young knight, Sir Robert Twenge, came forward and confessed that he had been the leader of the rioters under the name of Will Wither, and that the good old justiciary had nothing to do with them. He was sent to do penance at Rome, and Hubert's enemies continued their machinations.

  Henry and his Queen were tired of the sage counsels of the brave knight, and open to all Des Roches' insinuations, forgetting the wise though punning warning of the wonderful Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, who told Henry there was nothing so dangerous in a voyage as "_les Pierres et les Roches_." At Christmas, the Bishop invited them to Winchester, and there his sumptuous banquets and splendid amusements won the King's frivolous heart, and obtained his consent to dismiss Hubert from all his offices, even from the government of Dover, which he had saved. Soon after orders were sent forth for his arrest, that he might be tried for the disturbances against the Italians, and likewise for having seduced the King's affections by sorcery and witchcraft.

  Hubert placed his wealth in the care of the Templars, and took sanctuary in the church of Merton, in Surrey; but the Mayor of London was ordered to dislodge him, and the whole rabble of the city were setting forth, when the Archbishop and Earl of Chester represented the scandal to the King, and obtained letters of protection for him until the time for his trial, January, 1233. Trusting to these letters, he set out to visit his wife at Bury, but at Brentwood was waylaid by a set of ruffians called the Black Band, and sent by the Bishop of Winchester. He retreated into the church, but they dragged him from the very steps of the altar, and called a blacksmith to chain his feet together.

  "No, indeed," said the brave peasant, "never will I forge fetters for the deliverer of my country."

  However, he was led into London with his feet chained under his horse. There the Bishop of London, threatening excommunication for the sacrilege, forced his enemies to return him to Brentwood church, which, however, they closely blockaded till hunger forced him to deliver himself up to them.

  He bought his life by giving up his treasures, and was imprisoned at Devizes. Shortly this castle was given to Des Roches; and De Burgh, who knew by experience how the change of castellane often brought death to the captive, sought to escape. He gained over two of his guards, who carried him to the parish church, for he was too heavily ironed to walk, and there laid him down before the altar. They could take him no further, and the warden of the castle cruelly beat him, and brought him back; but, as before, the Bishop maintained the privileges of the sanctuary, and forced the persecutors to restore him, and though he was again hemmed in there by the sheriff, before he was starved out a party of his friends came to his rescue, and he was carried off to the Welsh hills, there remaining till recalled by the influence of the Archbishop. He was restored to his honors, and though he once again had to suffer from Henry's fickleness and the rapacity of his court, his old age was peaceful and honored, as befitted his unsullied fame.

  This Archbishop was Edmund Rich, who had been elected in 1232, after two short-lived primates had succeeded Langton. He was of a wealthy family at Abingdon, and had been brought up entirely by an excellent mother, his father having retired into a monastery. His whole childhood had been a preparation for holy orders, and when he went to study at Oxford, he led a life of the strictest self-denial, inflicting on himself all the rigorous discipline which he hoped would conduce to a saintly life. When he had become a teacher in his turn, such was his contempt for money, that, when his pupils paid him, he would sprinkle it with dust, and say, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and would let it lie in the window, without heeding whether any was stolen. When, shortly after, made treasurer of Salisbury, he kept an empty dish by his side at meals, and put into it what he denied himself, sending it afterward by his almoner to the sick poor. He was a constant reader of the Scriptures day and night, always kissing the holy volume before commencing, and thus he derived the judgment and firmness which enabled him to battle with the evils of his day.

  Gifts were especially held in scorn and contempt by him. He was wont to say, that between _prendre_ and _pendre_ there was but one letter's difference; and in a court so full of corrupt and grasping clergy, this gave him untold power.

  Peter des Roches was the head of these, representing King John's former policy, and uniting himself with the young Gascon relations of the King, who were wont to say, "What are English laws to us?"

  The family of Pembroke, Earls Marshal of England, were especially obnoxious to this party, as resolute supporters of Magna Charta, and of much power and influence. William, the eldest son of the late Protector, was married to Eleanor, the King's sister. He died early, and this party tried to deprive his brother Richard of his inheritance; then, when this did not succeed, Des Roches wrote letters in the King's name to some of the Norman-Irish nobles, offering them all his lands in that island, provided they would murder him, ratifying these promises with the great seal.

  The assassins stirred up the Irish to attack Pembroke's castles, so as to bring him to Ireland; they then pretended to join with him in putting down the rebellion, and, in the midst, waylaid him, and attacked him while riding with a few attendants. Some of these he ordered at once to convey his young brother to a place of safety, and gallantly defended himself, but his horse was killed, and he was stabbed in the back; his servants, returning, carried him home to his castle, but there the letter purporting to be from the King was shown him, and his grief was so great that he would not permit his wounds to be dressed, and died in a few hours.

  Archbishop Edmund procured letters exposing this black treachery, and read them before the whole court. Henry and all present burst into tears, and the poor careless King confessed with bitter grief that he had often allowed Des Roches to attach his seal to letters without knowing their contents, and that this must have been one of them. Des Roches was dismissed, and sent to his own diocese, where he soon after died at his castle of Farnham. He was the founder of many convents, several in Palestine, and others in his own diocese, among which was Netley, or Letley (_Laeto Loco_), near Southampton, a beautiful specimen of the pointed style.

  Edmund could not prevent the King from intruding on the see of Winchester the giddy young Aymar de Valence, already Bishop-designate of Durham. "If my brother is too young, I will hold the see myself," said the King.

  Every attempt Edmund made to repress the grievous evils that prevailed was frustrated by the authority of Rome.

  The imperial family of Hohenstaufen were held in the utmost hatred by the Popes; and Frederick II., being likewise King of Naples and Sicily, was an object of great dread and defiance. Fierce passions on either side were raging, and Innocent IV. regarded his spiritual powers rather as weapons to be used against his foe the Emperor, than as given him for the salvation of men's souls.

  As a warrior, he needed money: it was raised by exactions on the clergy, going sometimes as far as demanding half their year's income; as head of a party, he needed rewards for his friends, and bestowed benefices without regard to the age, the character, or the fitness of the nominee; moreover, he trusted to the religious orders, especially those called Mendicant, for spreading his influence, and he did not dare to restrain or reform their disorders.

  Archbishop Edmund, with his two friends, Robert Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln, and Richard Wych, Chancellor of Canterbury, did their best. Robert's history is striking. He was a nameless peasant of Suffolk, of the meanest parentage, and only called Grosteste from the size of his h
ead, needing plenty of stowage (says Fuller) for his store of brains. How he obtained education is not known, but he worked upward until he became a noted teacher at Oxford, and afterward at Paris, where he lectured on all the chief authors then known in Greek and Latin. He wrote two hundred books, many on sacred subjects, and several poems in Latin and French; for he was a great lover of minstrelsy, and his contemporary translator tells us that

  "Next his chamber, besyde hys study

  Hys harper's chamber was thereby."

  This poet and scholar was a most active, thorough-going, practical man, and, when chosen as Bishop of Lincoln, showed his gratitude for the benefits of his education by maintaining a number of poor students at the University. He set himself earnestly to reform abuses in his diocese, forcing the monasteries which held the tithes of parishes to provide properly for their spiritual care, and making a strict inquiry into the condition of the religious houses. They, however, appealed to Rome; and Innocent, who had at first sanctioned his proceedings, was afraid of losing their support, and ordered Grosteste to desist. The resolute Bishop set off to Rome, and laid the Pope's own letters before his face.

  "Well," said Innocent, "be content; you have delivered your own soul. If I choose to show grace to these persons, what is that to you?"

  Robert was anything but content, but he went home, and manfully struggled with the evils that were rife, sometimes prevailing, sometimes disappointed, always honest and steadfast. The more gentle Archbishop gave up the contest, worn out by the vain attempt to preserve purity and order between the fickle King, the oppressive Pope, the turbulent nobles, and the avaricious clergy. Orders to him, to Robert, and to the Bishop of Salisbury, to appoint no one to a benefice till three hundred Italians were provided for, seemed finally to overpower him; he, with Richard Wych, secretly left London, and arrived at Pontigny, where, three years after, he died, in 1142, and has been revered as a saint.

  Canterbury remained vacant for several years, the revenues being absorbed by the King, and the refractory chapter tailing upon them to quarrel with Grosteste, and going so for as to excommunicate him; whereupon the sturdy Bishop trod the letter under foot, saying, "Such curses are the only prayers I ask of such as you."

  After three years the King appointed to Canterbury the Queen's uncle, Boniface of Savoy, a man of no clerical habits; but the Queen wrote a persuasive letter, by which she obtained the consent of Innocent.

  So many monstrous demands had been made by the Pope, that, in 1245, the nobles sent orders to the wardens of the seaports to seize every despatch coming from Rome, and they soon made prize of a great number of orders to intrude Italians into Church patronage. Martin, the legate, complained to the King, who ordered the letters to be produced, but the barons took the opportunity of laying before the King a statement of the grievances of the Church of England, 60,000 marks a year being in the hands of foreigners, while the whole of the royal revenue was but 20,000. Henry could only make helpless lamentations, and, under pretext of a tournament, the Barons met at Dunstable, and sent a knight to expostulate with the legate. This envoy threatened him, that if he remained three days longer in England, his life would not be safe-an intimation which drove him speedily from the country.

  The barons, hearing that the Pope was holding a council at Lyons, sent deputies thither, with a letter drawn up by the Bishop of Lincoln, so powerfully enforced by William de Powerie, their spokesman, that the exposure of the enormities permitted in England called up a deep blush on the face of Innocent, and he allowed that he had been wrong in thrusting in these incompetent Italians. There was one good effected at this council, namely, the appointment of Richard Wych to the see of Chichester.

  Richard was the son of a Worcestershire yeoman, and was early, with his elder brother, left an orphan. He was a studious, holy, clerkly boy, looked on as fit for the cloister: but when his brother came of age, it was found that the guardians had so wasted their goods, that their inheritance lay desolate. The brother was in despair, but young Richard comforted him, bade him trust in God, and himself laying aside the studies he delighted in, look up the spade and axe, and worked unceasingly till the affairs of the homestead were in a flourishing state. Then, when prosperity dawned on the elder brother, the younger obtained his wish, and went to study at Oxford, where he was so poor that he and two other scholars had but one gown between them, lived hard, and allowed themselves few pleasures; but this he was wont to call the happiest time in his life.

  Afterward he went to Bologna, and, after seven years there, returned, and was made Chancellor, first of Oxford, and afterward of Canterbury. There was a most earnest attachment between him and St. Edmund, whom he followed into his exile. The Bishop whom the King had appointed to Chichester was examined by Grosteste, and found deficient in theology, and the chapter and Pope agreed in choosing Richard Wych, who was consecrated by Innocent himself. Henry, in displeasure, took all the temporalities of the see into his hands, and for a year Richard lived at the expense of a poor parish priest named Simon, whom he strove to requite by working in his garden, budding, grafting, and digging, as he had once done for his brother.

  He went about his diocese visiting each parish, and doing his work like the early bishops of poorer days, and all the time making his suit to the King to do him justice; but whenever he went to Westminster, meeting only with jests and gibes from the courtiers.

  The Pope was too busy to attend to him. That council at Lyons had ended in sentence of deposition upon Frederick, and the combat raged in Italy till his death, when Innocent, claiming Sicily as a fief of the Church, offered it, if he could get it, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who had too much sense to accept such a crown.

  It then was offered to Henry for his son Edmund, whom he arrayed in the robes of a Sicilian prince, and presented to the barons of England, asking for men and money to win the kingdom. Not a man of them, however, would march, or give a penny in aid of the cause, and therefore Innocent raised money from the Lombard merchants in the name of the King of England.

  No wonder Henry could not pay. His own household had neither wages, clothes, nor food, except what they obtained by purveying-in their case only a license to rob, since no payment was ever given for the goods they carried off. His pages were gay banditti, and the merchants, farmers, and fishers fled as from an enemy when the court approached; yet, at each little transient gleam of prosperity, the King squandered all that came into his hands in feasting and splendor, then grasped at Church revenues, tormented the Jews, laid unjust fines on the Londoners, or took bribes for administering justice, and all that he did was imitated with exaggeration by his half-brothers, uncles, and favorites.

  His chancellor, Mansel, held seven hundred benefices at once, and so corrupted the laws, that one of the judges pronounced the source poisoned from the fountain. Another chancellor was expelled from the court for refusing to set the great seal to a grant to one of the Queen's uncles of four-pence on every sack of wool, and at one time Eleanor herself actually had the keeping of the seal, and when the Londoners resisted one of her unjust demands, she summarily sent the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs to the Tower.

  Isabel Warenne, the King's cousin, and widow of the Earl of Arundel, an excellent and charitable lady, still young, came to the King's court to seek justice respecting a wardship of which she had been deprived. She spoke boldly to Henry: "My Lord, why do you turn your face from justice? Nobody can obtain right. You are placed between God and us, but you govern neither yourself nor us. Are you not ashamed thus to trample on the Church, and disquiet your nobles?"

  "What do you mean, lady?" said the King. "Have the great men of England chosen you for their advocate?"

  "No, sir," said the spirited lady; "they have given me no such charter, though you have broken that which you and your father have granted and sworn to observe. Where are the liberties of England, so often granted? We appeal from you to the Judge in heaven!"

  All Henry could say, was, "Did you not ask me a favor because you
were my cousin?"

  "You deny my right; I expect no favor," and, so saying, Isabel left him.

  After two years, Richard of Chichester was permitted to assume the temporalities of his see, and most admirably he used them, doing every kindness to the poor in his diocese, and always maintaining the right, though more gently than his friend at Lincoln. Those were evil days, and men's sense of obedience and sense of right were often sorely divided. Richard died in the year 1253, after a short illness, in which he was attended by his friend Simon, leaving the memory of his peaceful, charitable life, much beloved in his diocese, and was shortly after canonized. "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," were among his last words.

  The champion Robert Grosteste had one more battle to fight ere following his two saintly brethren.

  He was wont always to compare each bull which he received with the Gospels and the canon law, and if he found anything in it that would not stand this test, he tore it in pieces. In 1254, one of these letters commanded him to institute to a benefice a nephew of the Pope, a mere child, besides containing what was called the clause "_non obstante_" (namely, in spite of), by which the Pope claimed, as having power to bind and loose, to set aside and dispense with existing statutes and oaths, at his pleasure.