Page images
PDF
EPUB

gressions, and reduced both the French King and his own rebellious barous to the necessity of peace and submission. Edward the Confessor, at this time king of England, being closely connected with the Norman family, was instigated by the archbishop of Canterbury, a Norman, to allow William to be given to understand that the king designed him for his successor. The irresolute character of Edward, however, induced him to keep the secret in his own breast, which enabled Harold to ascend the throne on his death, in 1066, without opposition. Harold had previously been carried a captive into Normandy, where he was treated with great distinction by William, who informed him of the intentions of the Confessor, and took from him an oath to do his utmost to carry them into effect. His occupation of the throne led to immediate war, and the Norman invasion followed, which was rendered successful by the battle of lastings, fought on the fourth of October, 1066, terminating in the defeat and death of Harold and two of his brothers. On the Christmas-day of the same year, William was crowned, after a sort of tumultuary election on the part of the English nobles, and took the customary coronation oath. His first measures were nild: he sought to ingratiate himself with his new subjects, preserved his army in strict discipline, confirmed the liberties of London and other cities, and administered justice impartially. On his return to Normandy, however, the English, being treated by the Norman leaders like a conquered people, broke out into revolt, and a conspiracy was planned for the massacre of all the Normans in the country. On this intelligence, William returned, and began with a show of justice, by repressing the encroachment of his followers; but, reviving the tax of Danegelt, which had been abolished by Edward the Confessor, the discontents were renewed. These he repressed with his usual vigor, and a temporary calm succeeded. The resistance of two powerful Saxon nobles, Edwin and Morcar, who had formed an alliance with the kings of Scotland and Denmark, and with the prince of North Wales, soon after drew William to the north, where he obliged Malcolm, king of Scotland, to do omage for Cumberland. From this time, he treated the English like a conquered people, multiplied confiscations in very quarter, and forced the native noJility to desert the country in great numIn 1069, another formidable insur

ers.

rection broke out in the north, and, at the same time, the English resumed armis in the eastern and southern counties. William first opposed the storm in the north, and executed such merciless vengeance in his progress, that the whole country between York and Durham was turned into a desert; and above 100,000 of both sexes, and all ages, are said to have perished. There being now scarcely a landed proprietor who had not incurred the forfeiture of rebellion, he put into execution his plan of introducing a total alteration of the state of English law and property, by dividing all the lands into baronies, and adopting the feudal constitution of Normandy in regard to tenure and services. He also reduced the ecclesiastical property to a similar system, and, in order to prevent resistance from the clergy, expelled all the English church dignitaries, and placed Normans or other foreigners in their stead. Still further to subjugate the minds of the English, he sought to abolish even their language, causing the French to be spoken at court and used in courts of justice and in law proceedings, and ordering it to form a leading part of instruction in all the schools throughout the realm. In 1071, the earls Edwin and Morcar produced a new insurrection in the north, which terminated in the death of the former, and capture of the latter; and the Scottish king having again aided them, William marched au army into Scotland, which soon led to a peace; on which occasion, he allowed the return of the weak but rightfu! Saxon heir, Edgar Atheling, who had taken refuge in Scotland, and promised him an honorable establishment. In 1073, he returned to Normandy, whence he was recalled by a revolt among his Norman barons, which was, however, quelled by the regent Odo, his half brother. 1076, he received a letter from pope Gregory VII, requiring him to do homage for his kingdom, and to pay the accustomed tribute from England to the holy see. William denied the homage; not would he allow the English prelates to attend a general council summoned by Gregory, but consented to the levy of Peter's pence. About the year 1081, he instituted that general survey of the land ed property of the kingdom, the recor of which still exists under the title of Domesday Book, being a minute retur of the estates in the different counties their extent, proprietors, tenure, condi tion and value. The manner in whic he laid waste the New Forest in Hamp

In

shire, where he demolished villages, churches, and convents, and expelled the inhabitants for thirty miles round, merely to form a forest for hunting, exhibits his cruelty and love of sporting, which he further protected by a most severe code of game laws. In 1087, he went to war with France, whose king had encouraged a rebellion of Norman nobles. He entered the French territory, and committed great ravages, but, by the starting of his horse, received an injury which hastened his death, at the abbey of St. Gervais, near Rouen (1087), in the sixty-third year of his age. He left three sons-Robert, to whom he bequeathed Normandy; William, who inherited England; and Henry, who received nothing but his mother's property. He also left five daughters. William the Conqueror was the most powerful sovereign of his time. He possessed superior talents, both political and martial, and employed them with remarkable vigor and industry. His passions were, however, strong; his ambition severe and merciless; and his love of sway often led him to disregard all restraints of justice and humanity.—See Thierry's Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre par les Normands (Paris, 1825,3 vols.). WILLIAM II, surnamed Rufus, from his red hair, second son of the preceding, was born in 1060. Being nominated king of England by his father, on the death of the latter he hastened over from Normandy, took possession of the royal treasury at Winchester, and was crowned at Westminster in September, 1087. The division of England and Normandy did not, however, please the great barons, who possessed territories in both; and a conspiracy was formed for effecting the deposition of William in favor of his brother Robert. As the conspirators were chiefly Normans, the king, who possessed a considerable share of his father's vigor and activity, immediately turned his attention to the English, and, by promising a restoration of their ancient laws, and liberty to hunt in the royal forest, he was enabled to levy a force, by means of which he successively reduced the castles of the confederates, whom he sent to Normandy, after confiscating all their English possessions. Being now firmly seated on his throne, he forgot his promises to the English; and the death of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, freeing him from an authority which he respected, he extended his rapacity to the church, and seized the temporalities of vacant bishoprics and abbeys, to which he delayed

appointing successors. In 1090, he made an incursion into Normandy, to retaliate on his brother Robert; but a reconciliation was effected between them, and Robert accompanied him back to England, and led an army for him against the king of Scotland, whom he compelled to do homage to William. The two brothers did not, however, long continue friends, and, in 1095, William was in France plotting against Robert, when he was recalled to England by a conspiracy of his barons in the north, which he quickly repressed. The following year, Robert mortgaged his dukedom to William for the sum of ten thousand marks, to enable him to fit out an expedition and join the crusaders in the Holy Land. William accordingly took possession of Normandy and Maine, and soon after, being seized with a dangerous illness, appointed Anselm, a Norman abbot, distinguished for learning and piety, to the archbishopric of Canterbury, which had remained vacant since the death of Lanfranc. Contrary to his expectation, he found in Anselm a strenuous defender of the claims of the church, and strove to depose him by means of a synod, but could not succeed. At length Anselm obtained permission to visit Rome; and in his absence the king immediately seized on all the temporalities of his see. He soon after was obliged to visit France, to resist the progress of the lord of La Fleche. In 1100, the duke of Guienne, following the example of the duke of Normandy, applied to William to advance him money on his province, to which the latter readily agreed, and was about to pay the money and acquire possession of the territories, when an accident terminated his life. He was hunting in the New Forest, and had alighted from his horse after a chase, when, a stag suddenly starting up near him, a French gentleman, named Walter Tyrrel, let fly an arrow at the animal, which, glancing from a tree, entered the king's breast, and pierced him to the heart. Tyrrel immediately gallopped to the coast, and embarked for France, where he joined the crusaders. The king's body was found by the coun try people, and interred, without ceremo ny, at Winchester. This event too place August 2, 1100, when William wus in the fortieth year of his age, and thirteenth of his reign. This prince possessed vigor, decision and policy, but was violent, perfidious and rapacious.

WILLIAM III, hereditary stadtholder of Holland and king of England, the greatest enemy of Louis XIV and the

founder of the system of the balance of power in Europe, became prince of Orange by the death of his father, William II of Nassau. He was born in 1650. His mother was Henrietta Mary Stuart, daughter of the unfortunate Charles I. Possessing superior talents, and educated in an excellent manner by the celebrated De Witt, he gained the love of the people, who appointed him captain-general of the union in 1672, when Louis XIV invaded the republic, and conferred on him the office of stadtholder, which had been discontinued four years before. He caused the dikes to be broken down, deceived the French generals by a skilful manœuvre, formed a junction with the imperial army, and forced the French to retreat. The party of the house of Orange now prevailed; and the states of Holland, together with four provinces, declared, Feb. 2, 1674, the stadtholdership hereditary in the house of Orange. William lost, indeed, the battle of Senef, in 1674, and that of St. Omer, in 1677; but he was, nevertheless, able to keep the enemy in check, and, by his policy, engaged the empire, Spain and Brandenburg to take part with Holland, so that a peace was brought about at Nimeguen, in 1678. He could not, however, prevent the conclusion of separate treaties. William's whole policy was directed against Louis XIV, for whom he entertained a personal hatred. To curb the ambition of the French monarch, he instituted the league of Augsburg, July 29, 1686, between the emperor, Spain, Sweden and Holland, to which Denmark, and some German princes, also acceded. Perhaps he may have had the further object of giving effect to his plans with respect to England. His wife, Mary (married in 1677), was the daughter of James II, and presumptive heiress to the throne. Unexpectedly, James's second wife gave birth to a son, June 10, 1688. The greater part of the parliament and of the nation now feared that the bigoted James would introduce the Catholic religion, and subvert the constitution. Rumor also asserted that the prince was supposititious. The Episcopalians and Presbyterians in England, under these circumstances, united, in order, by the aid of Holland, to give Mary the succession to the throne. William foresaw that England, by the policy of his father-in-law, would become more and more closely connected with France: he therefore joined with the great majority of the British nation; and the pensionary Fagel persuaded the states gene

ral to support him with ships and troops for the preservation of British freedoin and the Protestant religion. William arrived suddenly at Torbay, Nov. 5, 1688, with a fleet of 500 sail, ostensibly equipped against France, and with 14,000 troops. Upon his landing, a great part of the nobility immediately declared for him; and James's soldiers, by degrees, went over to him; so, too, did Churchill, afterwards Marlborough, who was followed even by the second daughter of James, Anne, with her husband prince George of Denmark. The overtures of the king were rejected: he therefore fled with his family to France, in December, after which William made his entry into London. The two houses of parliament, in convention, now declared that James II had broken the fundamental compact between the king and the people, and had consequently forfeited the throne. After this (Feb. 13, 1689), Mary was proclaimed queen, and William, her husband, who had, meanwhile, gone over to the English church, was proclaimed king, and was alone to conduct the administration. At the same time, the declaration or bill of rights (see Bill of Rights) settled the Hmits of the royal power, and the order of succession. This is called the revolution of 1688. Scotland followed England's example; but in Ireland, whither Louis XIV sent James with an army, the majority of the Catholics maintained the cause of the deposed king. But the victory gained by William over the army of James on the Boyne, July 1, 1690, and by his general Ginkel at Aghrim, July 13, 1691, assisted by the clemency with which he treated the vanquished party, made him master of Ireland. William was wounded in the former battle; but he caused the wound to be dressed at the head of his troops, and fought on horseback till the battle was won. In the war on the continent he was less successful. At Steinkirk he was defeated by marshal Luxembourg, in 1692, and at Neerwinden by the same general, in 1693; but he always succeeded in wresting from the French the fruits of their victories by skilful retreats and marches. He even took Namur, in 1693, in the sight of a superior hostile army. Louis was finally compelled to acknowledge him as king of England, at the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. The parliament insisted, at that time, on the disbanding of nearly the whole ariny, because it deemed a standing army incompatible with the security of the constitution. Soon after, the will of Charles

II of Spain, who had made the grandson of Louis XIV his heir, induced William to arm all Europe against Louis in the great alliance of the Hague, Sept. 7, 1701. For the benefit of Austria, and to preserve the balance of power, but more especially because he could not brook that Belgium should be dependent on the policy of France, he wished the Spanish monarchy to be divided, and for this purpose repaired to Holland, at the end of June, 1701. Though his lungs, at this time,were so weak that he could not speak loud, and he felt that his end was approach ing, he made all preparations, with his usual sagacity, for the opening of the campaign. After the death of James II, Louis XIV having caused his son, James III, to be proclaimed king of England, William found it easy to induce England to accede to an alliance with Holland, the emperor, Denmark and Sweden, and to consent to the equipment of 40,000 soldiers and 4000 sailors. But in the midst of these projects, he broke his collar-bone by a fall from his horse, between Kensington and Hampton court, March 8, 1702, and died, in consequence of the accident, March 16, aged fifty-two years. His wife, Mary, had already died childless, in 1695.) With him the hereditary stadtholdership of the five provinces became extinct, and the Orange possessions vere divided between Prussia and Willam's nearest cousin and testamentary heir, John Will. Friso, the prince of Nassau-Dietz, hereditary stadtholder of Friesland and stadtholder of Gröningen, from whom the present king of Holland is descended. William's manners were too cold and ungracious to allow him to be popular with the British. Under a reserved exterior he concealed a strong love of renown and power. His chagrin, when he was compelled to disband his Dutch guards, and the regiments of French fugitives in his pay, was so great, that he was on the point of resigning the government, and was prevented with difficulty by his friends and ministers. The British continental policy, a consequence of jealousy towards France, was founded by William; but he founded, at the same time, the subsidy, or loan system, and the national debt. To obtain the majority of votes in parliament, he made use of bribery. Otherwise he reigned in the spirit of freedom and tolerant Protestantism, and agreeably to the true interest of the nation, which had been wholly disregarded by the Stuarts. The whigs were, therefore, now the ministerial party, and

the house of commons from this time acquired new political importance. In the Netherlands, William founded a school of great statesmen, like Fagel and Heinsius. Immersed in politics and war, he had neither leisure nor inclination for literature and art. In conversation, he was grave and repulsive; but in business, penetrating, quick and decided; in danger, undaunted; in difficulties, unshaken; in war, bold without ostentation. Though of a weak constitution, he feared no hardships. Much as he loved fame, he hated flattery and pomp. (See James II, Marlborough, and Great Britain.)

WILLIAM IV, king of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, third son of George III, born August 21, 1765, ascended the throne on the death of his brother, George IV, June 26, 1830. Previous to his elevation to the royal dignity, he was known by the title of the duke of Clarence. (q. v.) Being appointed lord high admiral, during the short administration of Canning, who, deserted by a large part of the tory party, had been obliged to cast about for support in every quarter, the duke of Clarence was censured for expenditures made without waiting for parliamentary appropriations, and had found it advisable to resign his office during the Wellington administration (1828). On his accession to the throne, he retained the ministers who were in office at the decease of his predecessor (the Wellington cabinet), with assurances of his confidence in their zeal and ability. Opposition, disappointed in their expectations of a change of ministry, founded on the whig family connexions formed by several of the Fitzclarences (natural children of the duke of Clarence by Mrs. Jordan), and partly on the character and previous political course of the king, now renewed their attacks on the ministry with additional vigor. In the new parliament, which met in November, the ministry being left in a minority on a motion of sir H. Parnell for referring the civil list to a select committee (15), immediately sent in their resignation; and a whig administration was formed on the twenty-second, with earl Grey at its head. The great event which will render the reign of William IV memorable, is the passage of the reform act. (See Parliamentary Reform, in the Appendix to this volume.) William IV is described as affable in his manners, cordial in his deportment, with somewhat of the rude heartiness of the deck, on which he had passed some of his early

years. In the navy he had, of course, been under the command of plebeians, and the messmate and companion of simple commoners. This had given him more knowledge of the common classes than his brother and predecessor had had an opportunity of acquiring, and, although he had never distinguished himself in the navy, something of popular manners, and a command of sca-phrases. His unkind treatment of Mrs. Jordan (q. v.), and the license of his private life at Bushy park, are stains upon his character. The eldest son of the king, George Fitzclarence, was created earl of Munster in 1831; a second, lord Adolphus Fitzclarence is captain in the royal navy; a third, lord Frederic Fitzclarence, colonel in the army and aid-de-camp to the king; and a fourth is one of the king's chaplains. The earl of Munster is author of an Account of the British Campaign of 1809 in Spain and Portugal (London, 1831, 2d vol. of Memoirs of the Late War). The five daughters of Mrs. Jordan are married to the earl of Errol, the honorable J. E. Kennedy (son of earl Cassilis), Mr. Sidney, colonel Fox (son of lord Holland), and lord Falkland. As the king has no children by the queen, the princess Victoria is heiress presumptive of the crown of the British empire.

WILLIAM I THE YOUNGER, Count of Nassau, prince of Orange, the founder of Dutch freedom, was the eldest son of William the Elder, count of Nassau, and Juliana, countess of Stolberg, and was born April 16, 1533, at the castle of Dillenburg, in the county of Nassau. He was educated in the Roman Catholic faith, by Maria, queen of Hungary, sister of Charles V, and spent nine years in attendance on the person of the emperor, who had so high an esteem for the spirit, the prudence and intelligence of the prince, that he asked his opinion respecting the most important matters, and, when he was but twenty-two years old, intrusted him with the chief command of the army in the Netherlands, in the absence of Philibert, duke of Savoy. He also recommended him to his successor, Philip II, who, however, deceived by the calumnies of the Spaniards, regarded him as the cause of the resistance of the Netherlands, and, therefore, would not confer on him the office of stadtholder. As cardinal Granvella had now the entire confidence of the king, and Margaret of Parma, who was charged with the government of the Netherlands, was obliged to do whatever this proud and ambitious

prelate suggested, especially with respec to the introduction of the detested Span ish inquisition, and the erection of new bishoprics, the count of Egmont, the prince of Orange, and the count of Horn, therefore, represented to the king, in writing, that, unless the cardinal was speedily recalled, his violence would drive the country to rebellion. Philip looked on this step as treason; but he concealed his anger, and recalled the cardinal, but, on the other hand, sent the duke of Alva, with Spanish and Italian soldiers, to the Netherlands. After the remonstrance, offered, in 1566, by three hundred noblemen, with count Louis of Nassau, the brother of William, at their head, against the introduction of the inquisition and the establishment of new bishoprics, had been rejected with coutempt (the petitioners were styled beggars-Gueux), William had a meeting with Egmont, Horn, his brother Louis, and others, at Dendermond, te deliberate on the means of averting the threatening danger. The majority advised an armed resistance. Count Egmont alone, governor of Flanders and Artois, was of opinion that they should trust to the grace and clemency of the king. "This grace," replied the sagacious Orange, "will be our destruction, and Egmont the bridge by which the Spaniards will pass into the Netherlands, and which they will then destroy." When they separated, Egmont and Orange, in presentiment of the future, embraced, and took leave of each other with tears. The prince, with his wife and his children, excepting the cldest, who was studying at Louvain, repaired to Breda, whence, however, he returned to his castle at Dillenburg. Meanwhile, Alva advanced into the Netherlands. Many men of consequence, including Egmont and Horn, were immediately arrested, and executed at Brussels, June 5, 1568. When cardinal Granvella was apprized of this at Rome, he inquired whether Alva had taken Secrecy (so he termed the prince of Orange). "If this fish is not caught, the duke's fishing is good for nothing." Alva caused the prince, the counts of Hoogstraten, of Kuilenburg, and others, who had retired from the country, to be summoned before the council of twelve. The prince did not appear, but sent in an appeal to the states of Brabant, as his natural judges, and to the king in person, because, as a knight of the Golden Fleece, he could be judged only by the king in person, and by the knights of the order. He applied

« PreviousContinue »