Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/612

Rh 576 WILLIAM I [ENGLAND. tion. Returning to keep Christmas at York, he set out again in January 1070 to oppose Malcolm, who had crossed the border in aid of the insurgents. He forced Waltheof to submit, and drove the Scottish king back into his own country; then, marching over pathless fells in the depth of winter, he reached Chester, took the town, and founded another castle. Northumbria, exhausted and ruined, gave up the struggle, and the omission of the northern counties from the Domesday survey throws a grim light on the com pleteness of the Conquest. In one district only, the fens of Cambridgeshire, where Hereward still held out, the spirit of resistance survived. In April 1071 William arrived at Cambridge and commenced a regular blockade. Advancing cautiously by means of a causeway through the fens, he entered Ely in October, and therewith the last nicker of independence died out. The conquest of England was completed. To guard against any fresh incitements to rebellion from Scotland, William in 1072 invaded that country and forced Malcolm to do him homage, an event Avhich had an important effect on the subsequent relations of the two countries. Henceforward such trouble as William met with came, not from the English, but from his Norman vassals or his own family. In 1073 the citizens of Le Mans took advan tage of his absence to set up a &quot;commune,&quot; and invited Fulk of Anjou to protect them. William was soon in the field, this time assisted by English troops. He harried the country, recovered Le Mans, and made an advantageous peace with the count. By a skilful compromise he recog nized Fulk as overlord of Maine, but kept actual posses sion of the district, for which his son Robert did homage. A year later a formidable revolt broke out in England. Two of William s great vassals, Ralph, earl of Norfolk, and Roger, earl of Hereford, rebelled, and a Danish fleet, prob ably in alliance with them, appeared in the Humber. William returned at once to England and put down the insurrection. A great meeting of the witan was summoned to try Roger and Waltheof, for the latter, though he took no part in the rebellion, had undoubtedly been privy to it. Roger was imprisoned for life and Waltheof was condemned to death. This was the last instance of opposition to William in England ; but the remaining ten years of his life were occupied with almost continuous troubles on the Continent. In 1076 he was engaged in a war with Brittany, which the interference of Philip of France forced him to bring to an unsuccessful conclusion. Next year he quarrelled with his son Robert. Matilda took the young man s side against her husband, and Philip lent him his assistance. In 1080 William was at open war with his son. While besieging him at G-erberoi he received a wound and was forced to raise the siege. A temporary reconcilia tion followed, soon to give way to another and a final quarrel. Three years later Matilda died, and troubles thickened upon William. A rebellious vassal, Hubert of Beaumont, seems to have held him at bay for nearly three years. Rival claims to Vexin, a district on the eastern frontier of Normandy, involved him in another war with France. He was growing old and weary, and, as he lay sick at Rouen in the summer of 1087, the French army harried his territories with impunity. When he had reco vered sufficiently to take the field, he invaded Vexin and burned the town of Mantes. But his horse, plunging in the burning cinders, inflicted on him an internal injury which proved his death-wound. He was carried to St Gervais, where, on 9th September 1087, he died. His body was conveyed to Caen and buried in the great minster which he had built. The career of William as a warrior and conqueror occupies of necessity the largest space in his life ; but his fame as a statesman and administrator is not less than that which he won on the battle field. This is not the place to discuss the results of the Conquest, but the policy of the Conqueror in regard to church and state cannot be overlooked. An orthodox churchman, a supporter of union under the successor of Peter against the schismatic tendencies of the English Church, he nevertheless repelled any claim on the part of Rome to interference with his political sovereignty. He allowed Peter s pence to be collected, but refused to pay tribute to the pope. While recognizing him as head of the church, he declined to hold his kingdom as his vassal, nor would he permit papal bulls to enter England or excommunications to be issued against any of his subjects without his leave. He controlled all appointments to important ecclesiastical dignities ; he made laws for the church ; he dealt justice to ecclesiastics, high and low, in his own courts. At the same time he had no desire to humiliate the church ; on the contrary, he sought to elevate it to a higher position in the state, to make it a more potent agent of civilization. A weaker states man might have seen his own advantage in encouraging the rivalry between Canterbury and York ; William strengthened the church by forcing the younger to give way to the elder see. With the same object, that of increasing the efficiency of ecclesiastical organi zation, he severed the temporal and spiritual jurisdictions and furthered the enforcement of clerical celibacy. Finally, the trust which he reposed in Lanfranc from the time of his appointment to the see of Canterbury in 1070 shows not only his insight into character but his respect for the head of the English Church. In regard to temporal affairs William was rather an adminis trator than a lawgiver. His reign is not marked by a series of legislative acts like those of Henry II. or Edward I. ; but liis work was the indispensable preliminary to theirs, for a strong monarchy was the first requisite of the state. To establish the power of the crown was William s principal care. The disintegrating tendencies of feudalism had already been visible under the Anglo-Saxon kings. William, while he established fully developed feudalism as a social, territorial, and military system in his new dominions, took measures to prevent it from undermining his own authority. He scattered the estates of his great vassals, so as to hinder them from building up provincial principalities ; he maintained the higher popular courts against the encroachments of manorial jurisdictions ; he prevented the claims of feudal lordship from standing between himself and the mass of his subjects by exacting an oath from every landholder at the meeting on Salisbury plain ; finally, by the great survey which resulted in Domesday Book he not only asserted his right to make a general inquisition into property, but laid the firm basis of knowledge which was indispensable to centralized govern ment and taxation. The care which he took to maintain English laws and institutions is part of the same policy. .He balanced the two nationalities over which he ruled, and obliged each to depend upon him as its leader or protector against the other. He ruled as an English king ; his feudal council was the witenagemot with a new qualification ; but at the same time he was lord of the land as no king had been before him, and he enjoyed not only all the in come of his predecessors but in addition all the dues which came to him as feudal sovereign. He was thus perhaps the strongest and most absolute monarch that has ever sat upon the English throne. In character William was stern, self-reliant, and imperious in a high degree. He was not naturally cruel ; but he was ruthless if it served his purpose, and could take pitiless vengeance for an insult or a wrong. He was too strong to prefer deceit when force would serve as well, but his diplomacy was subtle and guileful, and no scruple turned him aside from his aim. His temper, originally forgiving, was soured by opposition towards the end of his life, and his tyrannical tendencies were strengthened by the long exercise of uncontrolled power. His passionate devotion to the chase is only too clearly shown in the harshness of his forest laws. In private life he displayed domestic virtues, and his fidelity to his wife was exceptional in the annals of his house and time. Authorities. William of Jumicges, Hist. Norman., and William of Poitiers, Gesta Willelmi (both in Duchesno s hist. Norm. Script.) ; Wace, Roman de Rou ; Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Eccl. ; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ; the Bayeux tapestry ; Freeman, Hist, of Norman Conqitest. (G. W. P.) GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF NORMAN KINGS OF ENGLAND. WILLIAM I. = Matilda. Robert, duke Richard. WILLIAM II. HENRY I. = Matilda, Adela = Stephen, of Normandy. daughter count of of Mai- Blois. colm and STEPHEN. Margaret. i i William. Matilda = Geoffrey, count HENRY II. WILLIAM II. (1056-1100), king of England, surnamed RUFUS, third son of William I. and Matilda, was born in 1056. Little is known of his youth, except that in the quarrel between the Conqueror and Robert he remained loyal to his father. When the Conqueror was on his death-
 * of Anj ou.