Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/322

Rh 304 ENGLAND [HISTORY. Growth of eccle siastical claims. The Cis tercian order, The uni versities. Eola tions with Scotland. The controversy is a memorable one, not the least so because Henry and Anselm are an almost solitary example of a king and a bishop who could each maintain claims which he held to be right without loss of temper or breach of personal friendship. Anselm was a true saint. He was no mere stickler for ecclesiastical privileges, but a denouncer of moral evil. One of his canons again denounces the slave-trade, and indeed denounces slavery itself. Yet it is plain that through Anselm the power of the Roman see in England greatly advanced, and he laboured hard to forbid the English use which allowed marriage to the clergy. Under his successors the claims of Rome grew yet faster, and a succession of canons were passed against the married clergy. Under the anarchy it is not wonderful if the ecclesiastical power grew : it was the only thing in the realm which kept any likeness of law. Ecclesiastical synods took upon themselves to judge the king ; and the right of succession to the English crown was argued in a solemn pleading before the court of Rome. The doctrine of clerical exemptions grew ; it was held that no clerk might be tried in a temporal court for any crime whatsoever. Nothing did greater damage to Stephen than his imprisoning two bishops, the famous Roger of Salisbury and his nephew Alexander of Lincoln. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical courts continued to draw to themselves a large class of causes which concerned laymen. Nor was this in those days altogether without a good side. The bishops courts had a bad name for corruption, that is, for letting off offenders for money. But at least they were not bloody. As they could not inflict death, so neither could they inflict the horrible mutilations which were common, even in the case of very trifling offences, in the courts of the king. This period was also marked by the introduction of the Cistercian order into England. Houses of this order, a reform of the older Benedictine rule, never reached the wealth and importance of the Benedictine houses ; but they have added a special feature to English scenery. The monks of this order habitually sought wild and lonely spots ; the ruined abbey is most commonly Cistercian. At the same time, we see the first beginnings of the university system in England. Oxford, a flourishing borough, a strong military post, a favourite seat of national assemblies, and an occasional royal residence, now became for the first time a seat of learning. The teaching of divinity began under Robert Pullein in the days of Henry; that of law began under Vacarius in the days of Stephen. This is really all that we know of the beginnings of that great university ; but its growth must have been steady during the whole of this century ; for at the beginning of the next the scholars of Oxford were a numerous and important body. The relations of England to the rest of Britain are of considerable importance during this time. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret had most important results on both countries. The Scottish kings became in truth English kings, more truly English than the Normans and Angevins who reigned in England. Their culture was English ; they dwelled mainly in the English or Anglicized parts of their dominions; strangers from England of both races were wel come at their court. This English influence began under Malcolm ; after a period of struggle, it became fully established under David. Malcolm invaded England more than once, both in the days of the Conqueror and in those of Rufus, and his last invasion saw also his death at Alnwick (November 14, 1093). This invasion was perhaps caused by an act of the king of the English which may well have been dangerous to Scotland. Rufus was the one king of his race who enlarged the actual kingdom of England. He made Cumberland, meaning by that name the old diocese of Carlisle, an integral part of England ; he peopled it with colonists from southern England, and he rebuilt or repaired the local capital, which became a strong fortress against Scotland. After Malcolm came a time of struggles between the Scottish and the new English party in Scotland, which was ended by Eadgar, the son of Malcolm and Margaret, being placed on the throne by English help. Under his reign and those of Alexander and David (1097-1153) the relations between England and Scotland were close, and, as long as Henry of England lived, perfectly peaceful. In Stephen s day David asserted the rights of his niece the empress; he twice invaded England ; he suffered a great defeat in the battle of the Standard ; but he obtained the cession of the newly won land of Cumberland, and also of the earldom of Northumberland. Like Lothian at a former time, these lands were to be held as English earldoms. Their possession by the Scottish kings was short ; but it doubtless tended, along with other things, to make Lothian become more directly a part of the Scottish realm. Along the Welsh frontier the power of England greatly Affair advanced under the two Williams and under Henry. We Wale may say, roughly speaking, that South Wales was conquered at this time. But the conquest amounted to little mo than the settlement of Norman lords with a following of all nations, who kept up from their castles an endless warfare against the Welsh in their mountains. But one part of the land was settled in another way. The southern peninsula of Pembrokeshire, and seemingly the peninsula of Gower in Glamorgan, were under Henry (1111) planted with a Flemish colony, which may be fairly called the last of the Teutonic settlements in Britain. In the Flemish district of Pembrokeshire the Britons and their tongue vanished as utterly as they had done from Kent. Two of the chief to^vns, Pembroke and Tenby, keep Welsh names in a corrupt form ; the rest of the local nomenclature preserves the names of the Flemish leaders. With the accession of Henry of Anjou a new period begins. The purely English period has ended. The Henr: Norman period has ended also ; England and Normandy are alike under the rule of the cosmopolitan prince from Le Mans. Englishmen tried to see a native king in the man who sprang through three generations of females from the son of Eadmund Ironside. 1 And Henry was too wise to refuse to listen. Whatever he was, he was not Norman, and under him the last traces of distinction between men of English and of Norman birth in England altogether died out. Of all the kings between the Conqueror and Edward the First, he has the best right to the name of lawgiver. He is not the author of any formal code ; but he is the author of a greater number of actual enactments than any king before him. His reign falls naturally into three parts. The first is taken up with the restoration of order after the anarchy. To this work the young prince of twenty-one, who had already won a name beyond the sea, gave himself with a good will. He was helped in the work by one of the clerical statesmen of the age, Thomas the son of Gilbert T^ 0111 Becket of London, archdeacon of Canterbury and the king s chancellor. Thomas is one of the great examples of the fusion of Normans and English. Born in London of Norman parents, he appears throughout his career as a passionate lover of his native land and his native city. He was a favourite with the English people, nor is there a word to show that he deemed himself, or was deemed by them, to be other than their countryman in the fullest sense. King Henry and Chancellor Themas worked hard for eight years to restore the rule of law. One great difficulty in 1 See especially the dedication of the Gencalogia Regum by ^Ethclred of Rievaux to Henry II. The king s pedigree is there traced up to Adam, without any reference to his Angevin father or to his Norman grandfather.