The Difficulties Involved 493 must be something wrong in the story" as actually preserved in the Gesta, but Mr. Howlett, unwilling to admit the possibility of error in his chronicle, boldly asserts that the "romantic account" of Henry's adventures which it contains does not refer to his visit in 1149, but to a hitherto unknown invasion in 1147. He appears to imagine that the only objection in accepting this story is found in the fact that Henry was but just fourteen at the time. But this is not so. Putting aside this objection, as also the silence of other chroniclers, there remains the chronological difficulty. How is the alleged visit to be fitted in? Its inventor, who suggests "about April, 1147," for its date, must first take Henry back to Normandy (why or when he does not even suggest) and then bring him back to England as an invader, neither his alleged going or coming being recorded by any chronicler. Then he assigns to his second return to Normandy (after the alleged invasion) the only passages in Gervase and Robert which speak of his returning at all. Surely nothing could be more improbable than that Henry should rush back to England just after he had left it, and had returned to his victorious father, and this at a time when his cause seemed as hopeless there as it was prosperous over the sea. The evidence of the Gesta Stephani would have, indeed, to be beyond question if we are to accept, on its sole authority, so improbable a story. But what does that evidence amount to? The Gesta, unlike other chronicles, not being arranged chronologically under years, the only definite note of time here afforded in its text is found in the passage, "Consuluit [Henricus] et avunculum (sic) Glaorniæ comitem, sed ipse suis sacculis avide incumbens, rebus tantum sibi necessariis occurrere maluit." 116 England under the Angevin Kings, i. 377. • Ibid. "The invasion of England by Henry in 1147, when he was but a boy of fourteen, a piece of history which has hitherto been rejected solely on the ground of improbability."-Preface (ut supra), p. xxi. 6 Gesta (ed. Howlett), p. 131. As Earl Robert is known to have died in the autumn of 1147, the word avunculus does, undoubtedly, fix these events as prior to that date. But is not avunculus a slip of the writer for cognatus? Is not the reference to Earl William rather than to his father, Earl Robert?7 Such a slip is no mere conjecture; the statement that Earl Robert was too avaricious to assist his beloved nephew in his hour of need is not only absolutely contrary to all that we know of his character, but is virtually discredited by the Gesta itself when its author tells us, further on Comes deinde Glaorniæ ut erat regis adversariorum strenuissimus et ad magna quevis struenda paratissimus, iterum atque iterum exercitum comparare, jugi hortaminis et admonitionis stimulo complices suos incitavit ; illos minis, istos promissis sibi et præmiis conjugare; quatinus omnes in unam concordiam, in unum animum conspirati, exercitum e diverso ad idem velle repararent, et collectis undecumque agminibus, vive et constanter in regem insurgerent. How can such language as this be reconciled with the statement as to Earl Robert's apathy at the very time when Henry's efforts offered him a unique opportunity of pursuing his war against the king? Mr. Howlett does not attempt to meet, or even notice, this objection. Moreover, when the Gesta proceeds to describe Earl William of Gloucester as devoted to his own pleasures rather than to war, we see that the conduct so incredible in his father would in him be what we might expect. I will not follow Mr. Howlett in his lengthy argument There is a precisely similar slip, by John of Salisbury, in the Historia Pontificalis (Pertz, xx. 532), where the "Duke" of Normandy is referred to in 1148 as "qui modo rex est" (i.e. Henry). Mr. Howlett himself has pointed out (Academy, 12th Nov., 1887) that the author "slipped in the words 'qui modo rex est,' and thus transferred to Henry a narrative which assuredly relates to his father." The slip in question, as he observed, had sadly misled Miss Norgate. 8 Gesta (Ed. Howlett), p. 134. 9 "Successit in comitatum suum Willelmus filius suus, senior quidem ætate, sed vir mollis, et thalamorum magis quam militiæ appetitor" (Gesta, Ed. Howlett, p. 134). A Story Based on an Error 495 relative to the knighting of Eustace and Henry, because he himself admits that it is based only on conjecture.10 It is sufficient to observe that if the "romantic" narrative in the Gesta refers to the events of 1149,11 then the knighting of Eustace, which is a pendant to that narrative, belongs, as the other chroniclers assert, to 1149. The statement, I may add, that Henry applied for help to his mother, by no means involves, as Mr. Howlett assumes, her presence in England at the time. I would suggest, then, that the whole hypothesis of this invasion in 1147 is based on nothing more than a confusion in the Gesta. Mr. Howlett, indeed, claims that "medieval history would simply disappear if the evidence of chroniclers were to be treated in this way,12 and detects "among some modern writers a tendency to incautious rejection," etc.13 But he himself goes out of his way to denounce, in this connexion, as a "blundering interpolation" a passage in John of Hexham, which he assigns to notes being "carelessly misplaced" and "ignorantly miscopied." 14 The Gesta, to my knowledge, is by no means immaculate; its unbroken narrative and vagueness as to dates render its chronology a matter of difficulty; and the circumstance that the passage in dispute occurs towards its close renders 10 Mr. Howlett incidentally claims that knighthood was a necessary preliminary to comital rank, and appeals to the fact that the younger Henry was even carefully knighted before his coronation (Gesta, p. xxii.). But what has he to say to the knighting of Earl Richard of Clare by Henry VI., and more especially to the knighting of Malcolm, already Earl of Huntingdon and king of Scots, by Henry II., in 1159? (Robert of Torigni, p. 203). "Mr. Howlett asserts (Gesta, p. 130, note) that "when Henry made his better known visit in 1149 his acts were quite different" from those recorded in the Gesta. But if, as he himself admits, in 1149 Henry visited Devizes on his way to Carlisle, what more natural than that he should pass by Cricklade and Bourton (the two places mentioned in the Gesta), which lay directly on his road? 12 Preface to Gesta, p. xx. 13 Preface to Robert of Torigni, p. xxii. 14 Preface to Gesta (ut supra), p. xvi. it impossible to test it as we could wish by comparison with later portions. The weakness of Mr. Howlett's case is shown by his desperate appeal to "the exact precedent" set by Fulk Nerra, and no talk about the contrast presented by "physical science" and that "fragmentary tale of human inconsistencies which we term history" can justify the inclusion of this alleged invasion as a fact beyond dispute in so formal and authoritative a quarter as the preface to a Rolls volume. Opposition of Becket 497 THE ALLEGED DEBATE ON DANE- HE great importance attached by historians to the financial dispute at the council of Woodstock in 1163 renders it desirable that the point at issue should be clearly stated and understood. As I venture to believe that the accepted view on the matter in dispute is erroneous, I here submit the reasons which have led me to that conclusion. "Two most important points," writes Dr. Stubbs, “stand out" on this occasion: (1) "this is the first case of any express opposition being made to the king's financial dealings since the Conquest"; (2) "the first fruit of the first constitutional opposition is the abolition of the most ancient property-tax [danegeld] imposed as a bribe for the Danes." It is with the second of these points that I propose specially to deal. The passage which forms our best evidence is found in Grim's Life of St. Thomas, and its relative portion is as follows: 1 1 Early Plantagenets, pp. 69, 70. So, too, Miss Norgate: "It seems, therefore, that for the first time in English history since the Norman Conquest the right of the nation's representatives to oppose the financial demands of the crown was asserted in the Council of Woodstock, and asserted with such success that the king was obliged not merely to abandon his project, but to obliterate the last trace of the tradition on which it was founded" (Angevin Kings, ii. 16). B. H. K K |