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.At an important meeting of the great council at Salisbury,in March, I I 16, the king forced upon Thurstan the alterna-tive of submission to Canterbury or resignation.The baronsand prelates of the realm had been brought together to makeformal recognition of the right to the succession of Henry sson William, now fourteen years of age.Already in theprevious summer this had been done in Normandy, the baronsdoing homage and swearing fealty to the prince.Now the FOREIGNCHAP.barons followed the example, and, by the samethe strongest tie known to the feudal world, boundthemselves to accept the son as their lord on the death of hisThe prelates, for their part, took oath that if theyfather.should survive Henry, they would recognize William as king,and then do homage to him in good faith.The incident isinteresting less as an example of this characteristic feudalmethod of securing the succession, for this had been employedsince the Conquest both in Normandy and in England, thanbecause we are told that on this occasion the oath was de-manded, not merely of all tenants in chief, but of all inferiorvassals.If this statement may be accepted, and there is noreason to doubt it, we may conclude that the practice estab-lished by the Conqueror at an earlier Salisbury assembly hadbeen continued by his sons.This was a moment whenHenry was justified in expressing his will, even on a matterof Church government, in peremptory command, and when noone was likely to offer resistance.Thurstan chose to sur-render the archbishopric, and promised to make no attemptto recover it; but apparently the renunciation was not longregarded as final on either side.He was soon after this withthe king in Normandy, but he was refused the desired per-mission to go to Rome, a journey which Archbishop Ralphsoon undertook, that he might try the influence of his pres-ence there in favour of the cause of Canterbury and againstother pretensions of the pope.From the date of this visit to Normandy, in the spring ofI I 16, Henry s continental interests mix themselves with thoseof the absolute ruler of the English Church, and he wasmore than once forced to choose upon which side he wouldmake some slight concession or waive some right for the mo-ment.Slowly the sides were forming themselves and theopposing interests growing clear, of a great conflict for thedominion of northern France, a conflict forced upon the Eng-lish king by the necessity of defending the position he hadgained, rather than sought by him in the spirit of conquest,even when he seemed the aggressor; a conflict in which hewas to gain the victory in the field and in diplomacy, but tobe overcome by the might of events directed by no humanhand and not to be resisted by any. WAR RENEWEDThe peace between Henry and Louis, made in the spring CHAP.of I I 13, was broken by Henry s coming to the aid of hisnephew, of Blois.had seized the Countof Nevers on his return from assisting Louis in a campaignin the duchy of France in I I 15.The cause was bad, butHenry could not afford to see so important an ally as hisnephew crushed by his enemies, especially as his dominionswere of peculiar strategical value in any war with the kingof France.To Louis s side gathered, as the war developed,those who had reason from their position to fear what lookedlike the policy of expansion of this new English power innorth-western France, especially the Counts of Flanders andof Anjou.The marriage of Henry s son William withFulk s daughter had not yet taken place, and the Count ofAnjou might well believe -particularly from the close alli-ance of Henry with the rival power of Blois -that he hadmore to fear than to hope for from the spread of the Normaninfluence.At the same time the division began to show itselfamong the Norman barons, of those who were faithful toHenry and those who preferred the succession of Robert sson William; and it grew more pronounced as the war wenton, for Louis took up the cause of William as the rightfulheir of Normandy.In doing this he began the policy whichthe French kings followed for so many years, and on thewhole with so little advantage, of fomenting the quarrels inthe English royal house and of separating if possible thecontinental possessions from the English.On Henry s side were a majority of the Norman baronsand the of Britanny and of Blois.For the first time,also, appeared upon the stage of history in this war Henry sother nephew, Stephen, who was destined to do so much evilto England and to Henry s plans before his death.Hisuncle had already made him Count of Mortain.The lord-ship of which Henry had given to Theobald, hadbeen by him transferred to Stephen in the division of theirinheritance.It was probably not long after this that Henryprocured for him the hand of Matilda, heiress of the countyof Boulogne, and thus extended his own influence over thatimportant territory on the borders of Flanders.France,Flanders, and Anjou certainly had abundant reason to fear 166 THE KING S FOREIGN INTERESTSCHAP.combination into one power of Normandy,Maine, and Boulogne, and that a power which,however pacific in disposition, showed so much tendency toFor France, at least, the cause of this war wasexpansion.not the disobedience of a vassal, nor was it to be settled bythe siege and capture of border castles.The war which followed was once more not a war ofbattles.Armies, large for the time, were collected, but theydid little more than make threatening marches into the en-emy s country.In I the revolt of the Norman barons,headed by Amaury of Montfort, who now claimed the countyof Evreux, assumed proportions which occasioned the kingmany difficulties.This was a year of misfortunes for him.The Count of Anjou, the king of France, the Count ofFlanders, each in turn invaded some part of Normandy, andgained advantages which Henry could not prevent.Baldwinof Flanders, however, returned home with a wound from anarrow, of which he shortly died.In the spring of this yearQueen Matilda died, praised by the monastic chroniclers tothe last for her good deeds.A month later Henry s wisestRobert of died also, after a long lifespent in the service of the Conqueror and of his sons.Theclose of the year saw no turn of the tide in favour of Henry.Evreux was captured in October by Amaury of Montfort,and afterwards by the Count of Anjou.The year 1119, which was destined to close in triumph forHenry, opened no more favourably.The important castle ofLes commanding the Norman was seizedby Louis, aided by treachery.But before the middle of theyear, Henry had gained his first great success.He inducedthe Count of Anjou, by what means we do not know, bymoney it was thought by some at the time, to make peacewith him, and to carry out the agreement for the marriage ofhis daughter with the king s son.The county of Maine wassettled on the young pair, virtually its transfer to Henry.At the same time, Henry granted to William perhapsas one of the conditions of the treaty, the Norman possessionswhich had belonged to his father, Robert of Bell&me.In thesame month, June, I 119, Baldwin of Flanders died of thewound which he had received in Normandy, and was Aby his nephew, Charles the Good, who reversed CHAP.win s policy and renewed the older relations with England [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]