Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/124

110 The Norman adherents of Robert then passed out of the gates with ensigns lowered, and amidst the sounds of exultation from the king's troops. At the sight of Odo, a great clamour arose among the English soldiers. They remembered the thousand crimes of the soldier-bishop, and cried out that he was unfit to live. "Ropes! bring ropes!" they shouted; "hang the traitor bishop and his friends! Why is he allowed to go away in safety? The perjured murderer does not deserve his life!" Such sounds as these from every side thundered in the ears of the prelate, and thus, pursued by curses, he left the country for ever.

Meanwhile the conspirators in another part of the kingdom had met with ill success. The Earl of Shrewsbury, and with him other Norman nobles, had collected an army, which was occupied in laying waste the surrounding country. The earl with his troops set out from Shrewsbury, plundering and burning towns and villages, and putting many of the inhabitants to the sword.

The progress of this marauding force was stopped on its arrival before Worcester. The citizens, excited by a deep hatred of their Norman oppressors, closed the gates, and, conveying their wives and children into the castle, prepared for a desperate resistance. Headed by their bishop, who refused to go into the castle, but took the post of danger on the walls, they gave battle to the besiegers, and having watched their opportunity when part of the Norman forces were absent on one of their plundering expeditions, the citizens sallied forth upon the remainder, and cut great numbers of them to pieces.

These reverses proved fatal to the success of the conspiracy, and Rufus found little difficulty in dealing with the rest of the insurgent chiefs. Some he won to his side by promises; others, who still defied him, were quickly subdued, and were visited with various degrees of punishment, or made their escape into Normandy, with the loss of their estates.

As soon as the insurrection was quelled, and all danger from that source was at an end, Rufus revoked the concessions he had made to his English subjects, and before long the Anglo-Saxon population were reduced to their previous condition of servitude and misery.

The ancient monastery of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, was venerated by the people as one of the few remaining monuments of their old independence. The Normans exerted themselves to subdue the national spirit of the conquered race by repeated humiliations. Many of the time-honoured privileges of the monks of St. Augustine were remitted, and the abbot of Canterbury, though a Norman, was included in these restrictions. This man, however, hated the Saxons, and submitted willingly to the commands of the primate, which inflicted hardships on his monks. When they entreated him to prefer their complaint to the Pope, he answered by imprisoning them in their cells, and by other punishments.

In 1088 this abbot died, and Lanfranc, the primate, then proceeded to Canterbury, for the purpose of installing in the vacant dignity a Norman monk, who was in high favour with Rufus. The Saxon monks of St. Augustine, one and all, refused to acknowledge or receive the new abbot, and Lanfranc ordered them to quit the convent. A few hours later, when the disconsolate friars were seated on the ground below Canterbury Castle, they received a message from the primate, permitting them to return, provided they did so at once, but with the notice that those who remained absent would be treated as vagabonds. Hunger induced several of them to accept the terms offered, and to swear obedience on the relics of St. Augustine. Those who refused to take the oath were imprisoned until they gave in their submission. A plot was nevertheless formed against the life of the abbot, and one of the conspirators, named Columban, who was taken in attempting to make his escape, confessed that he would have killed the Norman if the opportunity had offered. The primate ordered him to be bound before the gates of the monastery, and publicly flogged.

In the following year (1089) Lanfranc, Archbishop of Cantsrbury, died, at the age of nearly 100 years. If we compare the acts of his life with those of his contemporaries, and judge of his character with a due regard to the times in which he lived, we shall find his memory entitled to our respect. It is said of him that he was "a wise, politic, and learned prelate, who, whilst he lived, mollified the furious and cruel nature of King William Rufus, instructing to forbear such wild and outrageous behaviour as his youth was inclined unto." The archbishop built various hospitals and almshouses, and recovered twenty-five manors which had been wrested from the see of Canterbury. One of these was a large estate which had been seized by Odo, and which that rapacious bishop was compelled to restore.

Removed from the influence of Lanfranc, the king gave the rein to his debaucheries, and showed himself "very cruel and inconstant in all his doings, so that he became a heavy burden unto his people." He appointed no successor to the primacy, but kept the see of Canterbury vacant four years, seizing the revenues, and applying them to his own vicious purposes.

Rufus elevated to the offices of royal chaplain and chief minister of state a Norman priest, named Renouf, or Ralph, who had received the surname of Le Flambard, or the Firebrand. This man, who once had been a footman in the service of the dukes of Normandy, was of bad character, ambitious, ready-witted, and a willing pander to the vices of the king. To raise money for his royal master's pleasures, he increased the burdens of the people; inflicted heavy fines in punishment of trifling offences; and caused a second survey of the kingdom to be made, raising the estimated value of estates, and increasing the royal revenues, at the expense of great suffering throughout the country.

Contentions were continually occurring between the Saxons and their oppressors. Everywhere the Normans showed themselves cruel and avaricious, trampling down the conquered race, and treating them as inferior beings. Ralph Flambard, who was Bishop of Lincoln, ruled his diocese with such tyranny that, as we read in an old chronicle, the inhabitants wished rather to die than live under his authority. The Norman bishops introduced a disorder of manners, which appears to have been unknown among the Saxon clergy. They marched to the altar between lines of halberdiers, and passed their days in drinking and playing at dice. "In those days," says Holinshed, "it (the clergy) was far out of order, not only in covetous practices, but in worldly pomp and vanity; for they had bush and braided perukes, long side garments, very