446

SHIPWRECK OF WILLIAM ÆTHELING.

chorus of scoffing laughter. It was evening before they left the shore, and there was no moon; a few of the more prudent quitted the ship, but there remained nearly three hundred-a dangerous freight for a small vessel. However, fifty rowers flushed with wine made good way in the waters; but the helmsman was less fit for his work, and the vessel struck suddenly on a sunk rock, the Raz de Catteville. The water rushed in, but there was time to lower a boat, which put off with the prince. When in safety, he heard the cries of his sister, the countess of Perche, and returned to save her. A crowd of desperate men leaped into the boat; it was swamped, and all perished. As the ship settled down, all but three of those on board were washed away. One of these, Fitz-Stephen, drowned himself when he learned that the prince was lost; one perished from cold; the third, a common sailor, was kept warm by his thick sheep-skin dress, and survived to tell the tale. It was a fresh horror of this tragedy that scarcely any bodies were found to receive Christian burial. For more than a day no man dared to tell the king of his loss; at last a page was sent weeping to his feet. Three of Henry's children, but above all the heir of all his hopes, for whom he had plotted and shed blood, were taken from him at a blow. It is said that from that hour he was never known to smile. The loss to his subjects might seem small, as the prince was a worthless young man, noted for insane arrogance and disgraceful vices. Yet there were some who watched the signs of the times,

1 Orderic gives a poetical description of the moon shedding its light on the waters. But M. le Prevost states that Nov. 25, A. D. 1120, was "jour très voisin de la nouvelle lune

et dans le quel elle resta par conséquent invisible pendant presque toute la nuit." Orderic, vol. iv. p.

414.

SETTLEMENT OF THE SUCCESSION.

447

and foresaw even then the troubles of a disputed succession.'

Thenceforward a second marriage with Adelais of Louvain, having proved sterile, the king's statecraft had the one object of securing England to his daughter Matilda. She had been married, in A. D. 1114, to the emperor Henry V. of Germany, but returned, in a. D. 1126, to her father's court, a widow and childless. Henry held a council of his barons, and invited them to do homage to the descendant of Cerdic and William the Conqueror as presumptive-heir to England. The barons unanimously acquiesced, and Henry's nephew Stephen, earl of Boulogne, was among the first to swear. It was afterwards said that Henry let it be understood he would not give his daughter again in marriage without the advice and consent of his lords. That engagement was violated by her union next year with Geoffrey of Anjou. Geoffrey's family and personal character were unpopular; he had no higher claim than many Normans to marry into a royal house; and there was a strong provincial feeling against Frenchmen, which was heightened by the fact that the English kings had begun to adopt the policy of advancing foreigners to state offices. and bishoprics. A doubtful account states that the barons in A. D. 1132 did homage to the eldest son by Matilda's marriage, prince Henry. But this second

'Eadmer, Hist. Nov., p. 517. Bromton (X Scriptores, c. 1013) gives a story, on the authority of Malmesbury, of William's boasting that he would yoke the English to their ploughs. No such story is to be found in the extant works of Malmesbury.

2 Malmesbury, Hist. Nov., lib. i.

p. 693.

3

The only authority for it is Roger of Wendover (vol. ii. p. 213), and the reasons which Malmesbury assigns to justify the nobles in breaking their oath to Matilda, would not apply if there had been a second oath to her son.

oath, if it was ever imposed, can only have been taken by a few. Three years after the birth of his heir, (December 1st, A. D. 1135), Henry died of an acute fever, brought on by a surfeit of lampreys. On his death-bed, in the presence of his lords, he renewed the bequest of England and Normandy to his daughter, omitting all mention of her husband, with whom he had quarrelled. The devotion of his last moments edified the bystanders.' He directed that the enormous sums in his treasury, accumulated from heavy taxes and the confiscated property of intestates and rich bishops," should be spent in the payment of his debts and in alms to the poor. The men who broke their solemn oath of allegiance had little scruple about setting aside the unprincipled profusion of a dead king who hoped to redeem his soul with the plunder of his people.

1 See the archbishop of Rouen's letter, Malmesbury, Hist. Nov., lib. p. 702.

i.

2 His seizure of the king of Norway's property has been described. When Gilbert, bishop of London,

died, his wealth was seized; and his boots, filled with gold and silver, were carried to the exchequer. Ang. Sac., vol. ii. p. 698. There are doubtless other instances which have not come down to us.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE QUESTION OF INVESTITURES.

ANSELM'S EARLY LIFE AND CHARACTER. HIS ELECTION TO THE PRIMACY. DISPUTES WITH WILLIAM RUFUS. THE COUNCIL OF ROCKINGHAM. ANSELM'S FIRST EXILE. THE PRIMATE AND HENRY L NEW QUESTION OF INVESTITURES. ANSELM'S SECOND EXILE. FINAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE QUARREL. NATURE OF ANSELM'S SUCCESS.

DUR

URING the reigns of William Rufus and his brother, a great battle was fought between Church and State, which powerfully influenced their relations in after time. The hero of this struggle was Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury. Born A. D. 1033, the son of a Lombard father who had settled near Aosta in Piedmont, Anselm showed his devotional tendencies from a boy; his dreams were of heaven, which hung, as he thought, on his native mountain tops, and he prayed to be stricken by illness that his father might allow him to enter a monastery. As he grew in years, the fervour of his first zeal was exchanged for a natural love of knightly exercises, and the memory of his dead mother's piety was the one restraining influence of his life. But the harshness of his father, who had taken a strong dislike to him, determined him to renounce his inheritance, and seek his fortunes abroad. After nearly three years' stay in France, during which his old love of study had revived, he determined to visit Bec and put himself

G G

450

ANSELM'S CONVENTUAL Life.

under Lanfranc's teaching. The austere ascetic life which he led as a student was so little removed from the conventual, that he soon determined to put on the habit, and give his life a higher purpose than the mere occupation of the mind. For a time, indeed, he had doubted if it would not be better to return to Piedmont and live quietly as a country gentleman, promoting the good of his tenantry. Lanfranc and the archbishop of Rouen persuaded him to become a monk, and he entered the monastery of Bec (A. D. 1060), against his first intentions, for he dreaded to be obscured by Lanfranc's eminence. The fear was not unnatural. At this day it would be absurd to contrast the blunt, broad common sense of Lanfranc with the profound and subtle philosophical power of Anselm; great as a statesman, Lanfranc was as a child in abstract thought beside his pupil. But Lanfranc had a more vigorous style, and imposed, so to speak, on the world by his splendid personality; till nearly the end of his life, Anselm's first ambition was still ungratified: he was only the third European teacher, while his old master, and the now forgotten Guitmund, were the first.' But Anselm's reputation as a saint was unequalled. A man of infinite tenderness, who astonished his rough followers by sheltering the hare from pursuit, or having pity on the snared bird, it was perhaps through this womanly fibre that he had something of the power, which Loyola afterwards displayed, of winning over men who were on their guard against his ascendancy. Fifteen years prior, and fifteen years abbot of the convent, "he gained the love of

Anselm, Epist., lib. i. 16. "Quod vero quæritis, cur fama Lanfranci atque Guitmundi plus meâ per or

bem volet, utique quia non quilibet flos pari rosæ flagrat odore, etiamsi non dispari fallat rubore."